 In this episode, you're going to learn how you can create meaningful impact inside an organization that doesn't have a strong design heritage, and most of all, do it without wearing yourself down. Here's the guest for this episode. Let the show begin. Hi, I'm Borja Arsoy. This is the Service Design Show, episode 148. Hi, my name is Marc von Dein, and welcome back to the Service Design Show. On this show, we explore what's beneath the surface of service design, what are those hidden things that make a difference between success and failure, all to help you design great services that have a positive impact on people, business, and our planet. Our guest in this episode is Borja Arsoy. Borja started out in the graphic design field and slowly but surely found her home in service design. Over the years, Borja has had many different roles, both on the agency side as well as in-house. Today, Borja is a design lead at a well-known global brand and manufacturer of home appliances. I feel that the conversation in this episode is a really important one because we're going to talk about how to make sure that you don't wear yourself out as a service design professional, something that I unfortunately have seen way too often. I feel that this is especially relevant if you're inside an organization that is going through a large-scale transformation where the supporting structures to do great service design work aren't yet in place or at best are suboptimal. So in this episode, you're going to hear perspectives on questions like what can you do to set the right expectations for yourself and the people around you? How do you measure progress when you don't have full control over the outcome? Where and when you should draw the line and decide to move on to a different challenge? And finally, what all this has to do with frozen lasagna? And I promise you, once you know, you won't be able to forget. If you enjoy conversations like this and want to continue growing as a service design professional, make sure to subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon because we bring a new video like this every week or so. So that about wraps it up for the introduction. Now it's time to sit back, relax and enjoy the conversation with Borchu Asoy. Welcome to the show, Borchu. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Good to have you on the show. We're going to talk about the topic, which is super important. It has to do with health and well-being of people. So that's always something worth discussing, hasn't been on the show that often. So I hope this sort of also inspires more people to come forward and maybe talk more about this topic. But as always, before we do that, I'd love to know a little bit more about who you are and what you do these days. Could you please give a brief introduction? Sure. My name is Borchu and I'm a multidisciplinary designer. For the last four years, I have been working in the big organizations and currently I'm working at Electronics as the digital product design lead. And previously I worked at design consultancies agencies, but also in big corporations in-house. And I do have a background in graphic design as masters and I actually studied engineering as bachelor's, which makes it very interesting, especially when I get to talk to engineers in my day-to-day work. Super interesting. I also have an engineering background so that also makes interesting conversations with non-designers. Borchu, the 60-second question rapid fire round. I have five questions for you. Your goal is to answer them as quickly as possible, just the first thing that comes to your mind. Are you ready? Okay, I'll give it a try. All right, let's do this. Borchu, what's always in your fridge? You can always find yogurt and cheese in my fridge. Yogurt and cheese. All right, if you could recommend one book to somebody, which book would you recommend? Maybe the book that I'm currently reading, I have just started, but it's called The High House. It's about not so far future, but it's about the climate change and the day, the most feared day comes. Everybody and every place is now flooded and there's a huge crisis in the world. It's in the beginning, it feels a bit dystopian, but maybe it's going to change towards the end. It's a fiction book, but I think it's really nice to read about these kind of things. Hmm, we'll add a link in the show notes to that. Borchu, I'm really curious, what was your first job? My first job was actually during my master's degree. I worked in the university as a web designer slash graphic designer in a small institution that was about entrepreneurship. Hmm, okay, cool, thanks. My next question is, if you could work from anywhere in the world, which place would you pick? Somewhere that's always warm and sunny, that also has a long daylight, I would say. Hmm, any specific place are you looking in Asia, America, Europe? It doesn't really matter as long as the sun is shining. All right, cool. Now, the final question we have traditionally here on the show is, do you remember your first encounter with service design? Yes, I do. It was many years ago, 2012, I guess. I was working as a freelancer and I was doing the UX UI design of several different mobile apps. And the way that I was introduced into service design was through an agency, which then became my employer. And it was really fascinating to see the world of the service design and explore it and learn from the very best. And I still feel like I actually owe a lot to those people because it felt like a great introduction to service design. Hmm, cool. Interesting journey that you've been on, like exploring different career paths, different disciplines and then eventually stumbling upon service design, I guess many people have a similar experience. Thank you for this 60-second question rapid fire round which was probably a bit longer than 60 seconds, but now we know a little bit more about you and what you do, which you let's transition into today's topic. And sometimes I like to start an episode by talking about the end. And let's try to do this today as well. What do you hope that somebody will get out of our conversation if they stick around till the end of the episode? That's a very good question. I think it could be different depending on the person that's made the episode. Maybe some people are going to relate to the things that we are going to talk about. And some people might feel a bit more optimistic about the future of service design. And for some people might feel a bit more pessimistic. I think it really depends, you'll see. Okay, let's dive into this. So when we were preparing our conversation, one of the topics that came up is the challenges and struggles that service designers face when entering traditional organizations that don't have a design heritage that are maybe going through a large-scale transformation, a digital transformation, and how do you not just survive as a service designer in those circumstances, but how do you actually thrive and do that in a way where you don't burn yourself out? Did I summarize that sort of correctly? Yes, you did. Okay, now let's go back to the beginning. And I'm curious, when I invited you for the show and you came up with this topic, why did you feel that this is something that would be important to address with the community? I think first and foremost, that's a topic that I can relate to. And I can only speak from my own personal experience because I'm not an expert in healthcare or well-being. But for the last couple of years, I have read a lot about it and I have reflected a lot on my several different positions in different places. And when I talk to other designers in general, I think that we do share a lot in common when it comes to our job and the places that we work. So I think it is really interesting for also young designers to know that what they're getting into because when they get educated in schools or institutions, they might feel like this environment is all glamorous and it's always fun and workshops and whatnot. But the reality is that it is also very challenging and probably it requires many more skills than the ones that are told in school. Yeah, there is, that tends to be a quite romantic view of service design and our work from the outside looks a lot of fun. People are engaged, people are doing creative stuff like who wouldn't wanna be doing that? But what you don't see is all the hard work and struggles, objections, rejections that you sort of have to overcome to actually get to doing the fun stuff. And that's like you mentioned, it's not something which you read about in service design books. That's correct and it's never also mentioned during the process of service design. When we talk about service design process, the double diamond, we always go through it in a linear manner as if everything falls into place in order without any obstacles or resistance or anything like that. It might be true to one project, but when we talk about the big organization and a service designer role as in-house, that is rarely the case. One might start from the beginning and then they might have to pose in the middle of the process when they finish the first diamond or they might need to go back, start all over again. It is really not that easy to start and finish when we talk about the big initiatives and especially the transformation context of the large organizations. I would dare to go as far as to say that the double diamond is misleading and it's setting the wrong expectations. It's actually setting people up for failure and disappointment. I know that this might be controversial but like you said, in reality it doesn't play out that way. I think it would be much better if we had an honest representation of how the design process looks and what you can expect when you actually engage in doing design rather than expecting to go through it in a neatly fashion. So you mentioned some of these challenges that people run into. I'm curious, like let's dive into that a little bit more. Like what are some of those expectations that you see people are having of going in-house and doing service design that might not necessarily be true? What are some maybe, I don't know, misconceptions or things that we would be good if you would set them straight in schools and textbooks? Many people, when they're asked why they want to make the transition into in-house from agencies, I think they would give the same answer because they want to create more impact, right? They don't want to finish off one project and do the handover, but they want to breed the organization. They want to do multiple projects. They want to see the long-term influence and impact of the things they do. The keyword is really long-term in this case because they would never ever get the gratification they would do from a small project that they do in an agency or a consultancy setup. And when they find themselves in a situation which gets a bit longer and longer and longer-term and more challenging in terms of the different networks of the organization and the different initiatives that are actually depending on one another, that is actually not true. Of course, the impact is always there, but maybe we cannot really say that I want to create more impact. I want to be able to see it. It's a different kind of environment. And I think it depends on what kind of life-stage one is going through in their private lives. What are their priorities and how do they want to contribute to the organization? That's the most important thing. Sounds interesting. Could you explain a bit more what you mean with the life-stage and how that relates to where somebody might, the kind of challenges they might be taking off? I think it's safe to say that agencies and consultancies are really, really high-pace organizations, right? And people usually take on one project and they run with it until the deadline and then they finish it off, they jump onto the next project. It might be a bit more exciting and different and higher-paced than in-house organizations because also when we talk about the companies hiring these consultancies, of course they also want to finish the project of real quick. So it doesn't really represent the real picture of how they actually work. But in the in-house context, the pace can be lower, it can be a bit slower. And in that case, I think embracing this long-term mentality and maybe lowering our own expectations in a way is really the key. And maybe for some people who are in the beginning of their career, they might have very high expectations of themselves. Maybe they want to just improve their skills and advance in their careers faster. In that case, if they come across with a slower-paced in-house position, it might not be the right opportunity for them. Or it might be totally different. Maybe they want to spend more time with the family. They want to spend more time with their personal hobbies or projects or maybe they have another idea they want to work on. It really depends on the context and type of the organization. And I think also depends a bit on the industry as well. Interesting. Yeah, I don't think we talk a lot about that. Like what do you want from your job? Like, do you want excitement or do you want to, do you have the patience? What is it that you want to get out of this? One thing I found interesting is you've been on both sides, like the agency side now in-house. I'm curious how your expectations have evolved. Like, what have you learned about being on the, within an organization that you maybe didn't, that you maybe would have liked to go before you started? You're right, because I do have experience in both sides. And I can definitely say that one feels more creative than the other, but it also depends on the type of project that they focus on. Working in-house in large corporations, they also bring a lot because first and foremost, you learn more about the business. You learn more about the organization and organizational challenges. So the type of problems that you start to solve actually begins to evolve from just a very well-defined brief to something that's a bit more fuzzy. And in most cases, the problem is not clearly stated. There might be a solution in place. You might have to start from the solution that some other people came up with and then guide them or convince them to take a few steps back. And maybe if needed, you might also guide them to pee with that project. I think it really depends on the type of projects that one wants to work on and also in which areas that they would like to develop more selves in. From the consultancy side, I see that ideation and the brainstorming and concepting is really strong. But when it comes to in-house positions, I think execution gains more importance in a way because everybody can come up with great ideas and the road maps and whatnot. But so far, one thing that I've learned is that coming up with the ideas is the easy bit, but trying to execute those ideas and be successful is a totally different story. Yeah, and that is a topic that we do often address, like everything that happens after you've done the initial research and the co-creation and sort of how do you get, how do you do the backstage part of the service? How do you actually get it into the world? That's a whole different game. Now, I'm curious also again to your personal experience, if you look at what you do today, how has that evolved in terms of like some activities that you might not have expected to be doing as a designer five years ago that you sort of had to pick up and do to be successful? Like I'm curious, like what are some of these activities that are new to you, but you think could be valuable to a lot of designers? Maybe we can also mention about the transition from being an individual contributor as a designer into stepping into the leadership models because for the last three years, I stepped into leadership roles and more than the designer roles. And again, this depends on the type of the organization and the culture. So I would say that I was not going to, maybe I wasn't imagining that I was going to be in meetings as much as I do now, which is bittersweet in a way because this is the way to go. This is how we transform the organizations. This is how we can contribute and lead. But also on the other hand, one part of me misses the times that I was doing hands-on design and actively contributing to the delivery. I think one part of me still wants to do the craft work of design and collaborate with other people, other designers and work with them. But it is a really, really hard balance, I think. Another thing is that right now I'm managing a small team of designers. And obviously this responsibility comes with a lot of, like first of all, I'm the person responsible for their professional development and careers, right? This is a very, very important topic. Even though the organizations support with their frameworks, some different routines and tools, it is still, I would say, it's not for everyone. Maybe not everyone would enjoy doing this kind of work. And last but not least, I would say that being a manager also comes with a lot of admin work, which is not related to design at all, but it is something that needs to be done. If there isn't any other person that we can delegate that work and be done for us, then we have to deal with it too. And when we talk about the admin work, of course, we have to touch upon the very old systems and processes that we have to use internally, which is super frustrating for a service designer because every single day, we know that how that service could be improved and why it hasn't improved so far. It is super, super challenging to keep calm and still do our work than going into a complaining mood all the time. Yeah, so let's thank you for sharing this. And again, I'd love to dive a little bit deeper into this because there's a reason why these are sort of big organizations, traditional non-design heritage, and then you come in as somebody with a design perspective on things and it's going to take a very long time to even take a very small step with the organization. If you look at your own personal situation, how do you keep the spirit up? Where do you find the motivation and sort of maybe signs that you're moving in the right direction to continue working at it? Yeah, that's the question. I think the signs can be very, very small and we might need to put extra efforts to see those signs sometimes. And one day it can be really frustrating whereas the next day it could be a bit more promising and helpful. One thing I remember from my personal story, I was working on a project once and I was doing some customer research and we had the big presentation with one of the senior leaders which I was presenting the insights that we have found. And there was a reaction from that senior manager in the beginning even to the extent that we were kind of accused that we had misunderstood what the customer said because they knew for sure it wasn't like that. So they were relying on their assumptions and biases and polls and then reacting our insights in a way that they were not true. I mean, they're not facts. We cannot of course talk about true or false in this case but they're the insights and that's what the customer said, right? So that's really not a good sign I would say but then within the same person I have seen how that situation evolved within time. From that point of resistance, six months later the very same person was inviting me to other big presentations to talk about the project, to present the same insights that he was reacting in the beginning in front of a large audience. So I think that's a really good sign that something was shifting and that was visible in that instance. So, and I ended up remembering that scene not like a bad thing but now it has become almost like a nice story for my career in a way that I have learned quite a lot from it. It's all about these small signs and improvements that we can see then the big jumps or the big leaves that the business can make. Yeah, so this story sort of has a happy ending which is great and it took six months maybe to get there but like what piece of advice would you give to other in-house service designers who are maybe just starting out their journey like and they get into this meeting they recognize the story, they get so super frustrated nobody you hear understands me like what am I doing here? This has never gone through change and then sort of what advice would you give to them so that they do manage to stick around for the next six or 12 months and then hopefully see that like the seeds have been planted and the flowers start to grow? I think they can try to talk to other people who were in that meeting because we all have different perspectives and especially if they managed to talk to a non-designer and ask feedback for them to express how the meeting went from their point of view I think it's really important for us to put things in a different perspective by listening others and their own reflections. It also depends on the personality type whether we like to look from a pessimistic side or more from an optimistic side and if they believe that they have a more pessimistic personality I would advise to talk to always more optimistic people and ask their point of view. Get a stranger's opinion try to see what went well even in that worst scenario or the situation that really disturbs you there are always some positives that we choose not to see when we're in that negative mood. And I'm really curious when you shared this story like the idea of presenting to someone is almost creates us versus them situation while in our design philosophy mindset approach we advocate for co-creation. I'm curious if you've experienced something similar like let's say that even though you're presenting that it would be done from a co-creation perspective like then you're trying to together get to the next step. Does this make sense? Have you seen this happen? Does this change anything? It does, it really does because after that meeting it was actually some kind of co-creation session that we diverged into and of course it changed the dynamic of the room, the setup but it also depends on the culture of the organization. Some organizations are not that comfortable in contributing especially if they have a very strict hierarchy of the different roles. It can even become a challenge to invite someone to stand up and walk over to the wall, grab a postage, write something, put it up because many times even when I was working as a consultant there were people in the room who were just saying things and then they were really, really reluctant on writing something on the postage by themselves and we were writing for them. So it really depends on first of all who we are working with as individuals and then the culture of the organization and how they are structured. So that makes sense and if we try to figure out again these things like I'm trying to find pointers and tips like how do you make sure that you stick around that you don't give up and I think it again has to do with these signs of success like what were some of these signs of success? You mentioned that you see small signs but when you're within an agency you sort of finish a project and then you can say we finish a project, that's a success but when you're in-house and things are moving slowly how do you know that you're moving in the right direction? There might be cases that you wouldn't know if you're moving in the right direction but you're moving, that's something, right? And things might not always move in the right direction and that's okay too. Sometimes they diverge a little bit or they can go off track and these are the things that usually happens and it is really challenging in a way to think that they would actually get back on their course and everything will go according to the plan. And I would say that of course it's important to stick and get things done and contribute to the organizations but also it's okay to leave if they feel like it's not the right place for them to work. Yeah, this is an amazing piece of advice like when you mentioned that I was like, yeah, obviously like just keep moving and don't be too concerned with if it's the right direction like if you put smart people in a room and you follow the right process it's the trust the process kind of approach just do the right things and eventually you'll end up where you need to be without having to worry if every step is actually very linearly in a linear fashion contributing to the next milestone. Like it's taken more organic approach that's what I'm hearing you say at least. Exactly, and I can also give some other examples from the agency world because 90% of the project that I worked on, we ended up somewhere different than we started it. And it did look very different what the brief was asking. This is very natural for the design process things evolve, priorities change and we learn along the way about the organization their backend systems and the customer insights and everything around it. And then we realized that the brief is actually not really asking for us to solve the right problem but it was pointing at something different. And in this case, it's okay to actually end up somewhere different that we have not imagined. That could also be the case in the large organizations while we're working as in-house designers. Maybe the way that things started might not be really right and it is very natural to actually go in a different direction from that point. Maybe it's going to go back and find its path and then this time it's going to start in the right place. Then trying to start in the wrong place and end up with the correct solution is really difficult. Maybe it needs to be a lesson for everybody because we also learn from our failures. Maybe we need to let people fail instead of trying to pull them into the right direction. And it's going to be valuable for everybody too. And of course there's gonna be loss of time there's gonna be loss of money maybe they're going to lose some people along the way but it's going to be valuable in the long term. As you are also coaching, mentoring, leading some other designers, I'm curious how important is reflection for you? Standing still and seeing sort of what has happened? What can we learn from this? And again, how can we define progress? And also from your personal experience how important is reflection in this whole thing? I would say it's very important and maybe another important thing is also to encourage other people to reflect encourage other designs to reflect on how things went in a particular meeting or at the end of a project or even within a week. I started this ritual within our group that we are posting a reflection question every week on Friday in our communication channel and it is totally up to the individuals if they want to share their reflection in that channel they are free to write it. If they want to keep it to themselves they're free to keep it to themselves but it's more about the process and thinking not really about the sharing in that case. Yeah, I can imagine that you sort of reflection helps you to ground and appreciate any progress that you've made even if like you said, you've lost time you've lost money but you still manage to change something else or change some minds or get somebody involved in a project and like standing still and being grateful for any kind of progress that seems to be I can imagine that that's really helpful if you're on a journey that's going to take months or maybe years inside an organization. Yeah, indeed. Or maybe you have built a connection with another person even though the project is not going according to direction that you envision or maybe you've learned something really important that's going to benefit you next month, next year or the next five years these are really the things that we cannot really think when we are always here and now but I think that we need to also come up with tools for our own sake that we can think about these kinds of situations in a long term and what could be the gains what could be the pains not everything is resolved here and now there are so many effects that they're going to continue maybe there is another individual who is going to take what you have taught them and apply it in their own day-to-day work or in their own project you might not be aware of these things and it might go unnoticed which is fine but this is also a very, very important step. Do you think people who are early in their career are able to sort of put this in perspective like you've been doing this for quite a while you've been through this journey a few times you know that things will eventually turn out all right if somebody is just starting out we can tell them that things will turn out all right but like that's, does it have do you feel it, is it does it have to be a lived experience or are there ways that we can sort of help young designers to build this confidence as well? I think we can also try to be a bit more empathetic with them when they feel this frustration because I can relate to that feeling from early on in my career when I was told that everything was going to be fine in the end I was getting more furious it's like you don't understand me you don't listen to what I'm saying and those kind of things so I think it's really important because we have been through this path like you said we had a lot of experience and learnings and failures along the way which they lack in the beginning of their career so I would say that it is important but also it's their own journey and they have to go through this on their own no matter what we say and no matter how we try to get our experience across they have to leave themselves I totally agree you can sort of prepare them it's like with doing math in school like at the moment you're doing it you're like what's the case and at some point in life maybe you run into a situation where you think oh okay now I understand why I was learning all these other things and like sharing these stories here on the show is hopefully also a way to prepare people for things that might come which might not be relevant today but when they come they at least be more they'll be able to put it more into perspective now I'm going to ask you a question which will come as a surprise to somebody who's listening right now but I know you have a very interesting story about Lausanne and you have to share it with us what's the story with Lausanne? Yes we talked about this previously right? it was an analogy I think that's a perfect analogy to represent some organizations and why things don't progress so basically some organizations are organized in a way that is almost like a frozen lasagna and when you try to reheat the frozen lasagna it's really important to reheat it gradually and slowly otherwise you're gonna risk to burn the top and the bottom layers whereas the middle part is still going to stay frozen so it's really not hard to guess the lower part represents the lower hierarchy in the organization and the top part is the upper management and the middle frozen part of the lasagna is the middle management and sometimes the lasagna can be really thick the middle management layers can be really, really high and sometimes it can be thin this is an important analogy because the way that it was expressed in one of my previous jobs was that this was some kind of acceptance but the rebel in me was objecting to that because I mean why do we have to eat lasagna then? Can it be another pasta dish? Can it be a bit less layers than this many layers? If we know that this is a problem and we cannot reheat the middle layers do we have to stick to that? So that was the kind of reflection that I had. Yeah, and this is, I love the metaphor and I don't recall hearing it before and I think it very well reflects on like the people on the ground often very well understand the purpose of service design the people who are working with customers the day to day interactions often the top level management, the board level they get it like customer experience or customer centricity they know why it's important for the long-term success of the business but like you said the middle layer is it's not that they don't get it but it's often that the structures aren't in place to support this way of working or better said the supporting structures support a different kind of way of working and keep that in place. So it's yeah, this is a very at least for me a very good analogy. And I would even add something else to that because you said that yes the upper management buys in the value of service design there is no obstacles working with the people who are working as individual contributors in an organization but also I think we need to challenge upper management when you feel like they have to buy in in the value of design we need to ask them the question okay what are you willing to give up in order to bring this competence in house what are the things that you are going to give up in order to make service design be nourished and nurtured in the organization so that it can survive. This is really important because there might be some elements from the culture of the organization that they might need to give up there might be some old processes that they need to change or they might need to do some reorganization because that was the thing that I think I heard from someone if they try to bring another engineering discipline since we mentioned about engineering in the beginning I'm giving an example from that. Let's say that it's an organization that decides to bring mechanical engineers right and in that case I'm sure that they would go some sort of restructuring the organization but when it comes to embedding design no one actually thinks that this is necessary they think that just sprinkling some designers here and there without thinking it through is okay and it's gonna work out no that's not the case I mean if we have to think about changing an organization when we bring some people from other disciplines it's the same for design we have to maybe change the organization we have to think how this is going to evolve in the next year how this is going to evolve in the next five or 10 years I think for many people it is still really hard to accept that design is a discipline like any other discipline in businesses that could be one of the main challenges still Yeah, I agree and I'm also curious how well advanced we are as a community, as a field to articulate what we actually want to ask from top level management then right, we talked about services and textbooks and schools this isn't also a topic that I see being discussed a lot there like so when you do get that conversation with the CEO what is that you ask for like what are the supporting structures that would allow you to be more impactful and more valuable to the organization It is really important and this is the case that we talk about when you get the job and you start working in an organization and even before joining an organization we can ask these difficult questions to the hiring managers, right? So yeah, it's funny that you say that these are difficult questions maybe they are important questions so what would be some of these things you would ask the next time you have a job interview? I think first and foremost I would ask them to clearly define how they imagine this role to change in the next six months, one year, five years and I would ask them to describe with their own words what would be the contribution to the organization within these different milestones in the timeline because it's really easy to start with something with the role description and that short term vision and but I think that people at least have some kind of thinking even though it's not fully fleshed out there might be some kind of thinking about these kind of roles in the organization do they think about having a design organization in place at some point? Are they thinking about hiring a chief design officer at some point or do they only want to stay at an operational level not at a strategic level when it comes to design? These are really important questions and this might feel a bit uncomfortable to ask in the job interviews and especially for younger designers and I totally get that but this is one of the most important factors for them to understand whether they would be happy with their job or not. Yeah, this helps you to understand if you're going to be doing the operations part running workshops or doing user interviews and that can be totally fine but if you're coming in as a service designer and hoping to have influence on important business decisions and helping to set out the strategy which I think a lot of service designers have that expectation or that hope and that desire and you sort of hear that that's not the role the organization is imagining for you like you'd better know that up front then and confront that up front then getting into this job and six months down the line being frustrated that you don't get invited to the right conversations. Exactly, another important question could be about the reporting lines especially in organizations which don't have the central design organization it's really important for the designer to ask who is going to be my manager who am I going to report to? It could be the business side which is fine but in that case they should actually manage their own expectations in a way that they're not going to grow as fast in their careers in terms of gaining more design skills or design experience but they would learn more from the business side or it could be the other way around it could be the reporting line could be designed but they might still lack the skills of the business skills which can be super crucial in that particular organization. I'm also reading a book currently that talks about these different reporting lines operational reporting lines whereas functional reporting lines there are pros and cons for both approaches but I think this is really important for people to understand. It is really crucial maybe it's more important than the description of the job itself. It's so interesting and I'd love to one day I don't know maybe do a course or webinar or training or whatever like what are the questions a designer should be asking during a job interview because I think it will surprise a lot of people and it works both ways I think for hiring managers understanding what's important for designers in order to fully operate and contribute the most value that they can inside the organization we need to have different conversations there. Was there anything else another question that you had in mind? No. So there's one more thing I'd like to go back to and maybe this will nicely wrap up the conversation that we're having. I would formulate this question like where do you draw the line? So let's imagine that you are in-house that you did get in with hopefully the right expectations and then still things maybe don't go according to plan. Have you seen examples where you thought, well, okay this in office enough? I think apart from our personal experiences in this case we can try to look into what other people are experiencing to really understand if there is any kind of hope for that organization to change in the short term or not. And I can actually give a couple of more examples about that even though in the project that I was not actively contributing but coaching other people non-designers working on those projects I was hearing the same kind of signs that are not so positive about the organization and how they are not changing or embracing change in a way because there was a group of people who worked in this kind of innovation hub and came up with an idea they went through the process really well their solution was really good the problem they were solving was really good it was the right problem. They prototype the solution they had a very solid business case behind it they verified the concept and then when it comes to going out in different markets and testing the real customers they got a huge resistance huge resistance and it is getting resistance is normal but I think the problem was that they couldn't get the support that they needed from the upper management in this case to make it work. So in a way that they were left alone and this is a really important sign because no matter how hard we try and no matter how good we work in terms of the projects the solutions we come up with and even though on paper we feel that they had to buy in they need to show it with actions not only with words so I think this is really important when you feel stuck in a difficult situation who is helping you and who is showing that support with their actions not only with their words this could be another important thing to observe what other people are experiencing and who are supporting them who are advocating what they're doing in the organization if we cannot find anyone if there is no name that comes to our mind then okay maybe you have learned what you had to learn in this organization maybe it's time to move on or you might give it another try. Yeah, it's really hard to stick it out totally on your own like if you don't have a lot of allies or no allies that can support you on this journey then the burden becomes really hard and maybe the conclusion is that it's not the right time or the right place right now and maybe in a year, two or three the seeds that you've planted will sort of have grown and into a different into a culture which is more open and more ready to do this approach. Exactly. Maybe the whole organization is not going to change that easily and quickly but smaller parts, smaller teams maybe they have already changed, who knows. But I'm curious if you had to look back on your career and let's not go back to the beginning but maybe five years ago if you have to pick one thing what is the thing you wish somebody had told you about where you are today some piece of advice that you had gotten five years ago? I think I mentioned about this in our conversation earlier letting people fail and letting them learn from their own mistakes is one piece of advice that I still remember it really sticks with me because as designers we always try to come up with the perfect solutions with the best processes and when it doesn't go according to our plan and how we imagine things we can get easily frustrated but sometimes we need to let people do stuff in their own way and learn from those mistakes if they're in a mistake and it can also turn out in a different way in an opposite way it might be only us thinking that oh it's not going to work out it might be totally different maybe it's going to work out we need to be more willing and open to let things go. Yeah, and not pulling not trying to force things in a specific direction because that leads to frustration anyway we can guide things hopefully in a direction that we sort of envision but if things go in a different direction like that's we have to be open for that as well because they do go like that's just nothing goes according to plan Sure, that's life Yeah, that's life at the start you mentioned somebody who listens to this and makes it all the way to the end might be more optimistic or pessimistic about service design what are you? Are you more optimistic or pessimistic? In general Yes I think I used to be more pessimistic in the past but even you can say that I'm getting wiser or I'm getting older maybe it's both I try to be a bit more optimistic or maybe more realistic and realistic means that we also have to be honest to say when something is going well or if there are anything that's more on the optimistic side we choose to see that too and sometimes it's okay to admit that we have been a bit pessimistic I think being aware of who we are and how we see things is really important but I would still say that I'm more on the pessimistic side of the spectrum and I think I'm in peace with that because I really like my critical side Sure, that's awesome and that's the thing we sort of implicitly I think talk about in this episode that being okay with who you are that's maybe the secret to success like accept this situation and be at peace with it and that leads to less frustration and probably more enjoyment of life in general Absolutely On that note, I really want to thank you for addressing this topic again, I hope that we'll be able to cover it more often here on the show we need more people helping us to design data services not less, so again, thank you for sharing Thank you, Marc, it was a pleasure Awesome that you're one of those people who makes it all the way till the end of the episode I really hope that you enjoyed it and got something useful out of it If you did, make sure to leave a short comment down below I'd really appreciate it Thanks a lot for watching and I'll see you in the next video