 As service exam professionals, we try when we can work on things that are bigger than the sum of its parts. But that's often quite challenging when you're in an organization where the primary focus is on short term goals. Well, in this video, you're going to learn how you can create that space even if no one is asking you. Here's the guest for this episode. Let the show begin. Hi, I'm Tom and this is the server design show episode 153. Hi, my name is Mark Fontijn and welcome back to a brand new episode of the service design show. On this show, we explore what's beneath the surface of service design. What are those hidden and invisible things that make all the 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 Tom Foster. Tom has had service design leadership roles at JP Morgan IBM and now at Goldman Sachs. I'm really excited to have Tom on the show because we're going to discuss one of the often heard critiques about design these days, and that's that it's being pushed into solely the pursuit of short term business objectives. And according to Tom, that's not where a real added value of design lies. We have the ability to think bigger and work on things that are more than just a sum of their parts. But as reality shows it and you may be experienced yourself, that's easier said than done. When you're part of an organization that focuses on operation, execution and efficiency, where do you find the space to work on those bigger goals? Well, Tom has been part of many larger organizations where he faced this challenge. And in this episode, he's going to share his lessons with you. I promise you if you stick around till the end of this episode, you'll walk away with some very practical tips on how you can make sure that you don't get stuck in those small day to day activities and carve out the space to work on more meaningful challenges. If you enjoy exploring topics like this that help you to grow as a service design professional, make sure you subscribe to the channel and click that bell icon because we bring a new video like this every week or so. That about wraps it up for the intro. Now it's time to sit back, relax and enjoy the conversation with Tom Vaster. Welcome to the show, Tom. Thank you very much, Mark. Thanks for having me. Happy to have you on. We're going to discuss a topic that is, how shall I describe it? It's bigger than most of the topics that we've covered in the recent episodes, which is good. Sometimes good to zoom out and reflect a bit on our practice. That's definitely going to happen today. But as always, for their regular listeners, they know what's coming. And that is, I would love to know, what do you do these days? Who are you? And how did you get into the position that you are in right now? Three questions to start with. I know. Well, so, I mean, my name's Tom Foster. So currently, I've just taken a new role working for a bank up in London. So I'm back into the commute. But kind of over my career, I guess I started in design right at the end of the 90s. I did about 10 years in different areas of UX. And then around 2008 was my serve design epiphany. I'm courtesy of some friends, LiveWork have now become really good friends. And ever since then, it's, I think it just resonated with me as more of the kind of meeting the core values, the way that I'm made. So I've loved working as serve design, building serve design practices, often from scratch, the big organizations. So yeah, that's a brief introduction. Interesting that you're back in the financial industry. That's a scoop for me. I wasn't aware. Look at that. Tom, we always have a lightning fire question round to get to know you a little bit better. Beyond the professional, Tom, we like to get to know the person, Tom, a little bit. I've got five questions for you. The goal is to answer them as quickly as possible. Are you ready? I'm ready. All right. First question is, if you could work from anywhere in the world, where would that be? Well, so either Rome, I just, having visited Rome, I just fell in love with it. Or I think from the Highlands in Scotland, where we were on a vacation sort of about three years ago, and it was just utterly, utterly stunning. So one of those two. What was your very, very first job? My very, very first job, probably like many people was delivering papers, newspapers. My first job when I graduated was I got into an IT grad scheme, because I didn't want to be a teacher and I needed to earn a salary and I was terrible at it. So I quickly, I did it for about nine months and then found, I was asking a lot of questions about how people were using these programs and the rest of history I got into design from there. That's a story I can definitely relate to. Now, on a different note, if you could be an animal, which animal would you like to be? I'm obsessed with birds of prey. So I would, I would probably be a golden eagle. A golden eagle. Look at that. I know you're an avid reader. Now, this is going to be a hard question for you, or is it, if you could recommend one book to somebody, which book would it be? What does it must read? Oh, there are so many must read books. Oh, I don't know how to answer that. So I'll give the book I'm reading at the moment. So I'm reading a book called, I think, I think it's called This Great Civilization, but it's by a journalist who spent his entire life of the kind of the front of conflicts in the Middle East. And it's very long, but it's also incredible. It's really opening my eyes and trying to understand more about how that era of the world has sort of evolved and worked and some of the challenges that are there. And I realized I was watching Tehran, the new Netflix program, which I really liked. But then I realized I'm utterly ignorant about this space. So that's what I'm in at the moment. And I tend to work by merchants. So I was watching on Netflix last night, another documentary about about that part of the world. So I think for designers, you know, I think reading history being in depth in humanities, for me, it's kind of a core part of how I'm made. But I think it gives us perspective and it helps us look back if we're going to look forward. Super interesting. And we've heard that more often that the best designers often don't read books about design, but about everything else. And I tend to agree with that. Final question. You mentioned live work already, but I'm really curious. What was your very first encounter with service design? Yeah, I know. I remember very, very clearly. So I was working at Orange in 2008. I worked at Orange 2000 to 2004. And then I went back as a freelancer. And it was incredibly formative place for me. I met some of the best designers I know. And I think as an organization that was really aligned to its values that gave designers a lot of freedom. It was an amazing place. I was walking the floor in 2008 in the London office. And I walked past, there was a map on the wall. And there were some people stood around it, pointing at this kind of customer experience thing across the top. And there was all this other stuff below. And as someone who had done a lot of UX design working on parts of the puzzle, I suddenly saw something that I thought made so much sense to me. And I saw the relationships between different products and different teams and different capabilities. And so I joined them. And I started asking questions. And that I mean, this just speaks up the place that Orange was. I just brought me to life. So I went to the head of design and said, look, this is, this is amazing stuff. Like I've got an idea about how I would love to use this. And then they found me some budget. And within three months I was doing a project with LiveWork, which was, you know, it was amazing and a huge learning opportunity for me. But that was my moment 2008 in London. Hmm. The map. Do you still have a photo of the map somewhere? You need to hang it on your wall like a, like a relic or something. Relic. Well, I think these things, some of these things was relevant now as they were then. I, I, yeah, look, I'll confess, I still, I don't have the, the print of that, but I've still got a lot of the work I did with them on that project. And I mean, yeah, it says a lot that if I could recreate that kind of work in some of the places I'm in at the moment, I think it would be incredibly powerful. I've gone on to do other work with LiveWork since then. I do have posters behind me from some of the projects I've worked on different places that I should put on my wall. Hmm, cool. Thank you for this background, a bit of context to who Tom is. This helps a lot. Now, while I was reading your notes and we were doing the preparation for this conversation, I was like trying to find patterns and some of the things that I wrote down. And I'm curious if you sort of recognize this, is we'll be talking about leadership, about hope, about maybe even a call to arms. Those were some of the things I recognized, lighthearted topics. Would you agree? Yeah, I don't remember writing any of those things down directly, but I feel seen mark. I'm a bit scared now. I've given away more than I intended to. So I want to jump in straight into a big topic. And that is that I feel that you feel that you feel that there is a big problem with how design is perceived, how design is practiced these days. Is that so? Yeah, I mean, that's such a big question, isn't it? I mean, I would say it's got to be a yes and no. I don't think it's quite that black and white, but I think that I mean, two things that immediately jumped to mind. I think I'm not a formally trained designer. I studied history. I went back to uni in the late 90s. I went back and studied social science with the Open University 10 years later. I've never had formal formal training. So that leaves me with a sense of imposter syndrome, I think at times. But in answer to your question, I think there's almost a kind of a professionalization of design that's always looking at the immediate business value you get from something. And I think that the time lends itself to quite a superficial view of just what you can produce on a screen at that moment to make someone happy. So I think the depth of craft and the knowledge behind why design, some design is great, is sometimes not as appreciated as it should be. And I know that because I've worked, I know enough to know what I don't know at times. And I've worked with some, you know, amazing designers. I've got a friend called Luke Watson who, you know, came and worked with me at Schraders and he came work with me at JP Morgan. You know, he's in some sense, he's kind of old school. He might laugh at me saying that, but you know, background and print originally. But when I look at the craft and the exactness and the thought process behind his designs, I know he's asked the same or more 100 questions that I would ask to get to that point just before he showed me something. So I think that depth and commitment to learning your craft is, I just think we need to encourage it. I don't know if it's gone, but I think we need to really encourage it and make space for you, you know, designers who are new to the field to get in there. So that's one piece. And I think the other piece is that, you know, there's been articles, you know, even some of the team will share with me this morning from the critiquing design thinking and everything that that's become. So I think one of the heads of design at Google commented recently about where design thinking is taking us. But if I could sum it up, I think it's the fragmentation of where designers are working and where we're less inclined and less encouraged to see the whole. And so you could say, you know, the experience or the things that we ultimately are after are the sum of the parts, but you can't get to the sum by just looking at the parts. There's got to be something bigger that you're looking at. And I think that's where designers have a really something quite unique at times to bring working alongside others. And I think we don't spend as much time there as I would love us to. Interesting. The depth of our craft and spending the time to do that. Maybe in a lot of situations, design has now become superficial, as you mentioned. And we're for the sake of the conversation, we're generalizing a lot. We're not saying that everybody is doing this, but this is maybe some of the patterns that we're recognizing. If you if you had to make some sense, you're a historian. So this is a great question for you. If you had to make some assumptions about how did we get here? Because apparently there are still some old school people out there who practice design in a different way or wish to practice it in a different different way. How did we get to the point where we are today where apparently there isn't the depth that you maybe wish for? Okay, at this point, I'm feeling like I'm over generalizing and I'm feeling really old. I've got problems on both those fronts. How did we get here? I mean, I think there's the so I'm sure I've always been incredibly grateful to be able to be paid to do design, you know, and businesses pay me and they need results from that. And because it makes a difference to their the efficiency or the how their businesses are succeeding. And I think so we have to tune into that kind of stuff. But I think at times we might do that we're encouraged to do that in what can you get done in the shortest amount of time. So I think that's one of the drivers for it. But I think it is a problem, because I think it's a sort of at least a cycle of superficiality is what I would feel. So and you know, designers by nature are often curious, we want to learn, we want to go deep on understand things. And we have to create environments where we make space for that we have to fight for design practices to have the space for that. So you know, just jumping to my mind, when I was at Schroder's, we wanted to work on a design pattern library, you know, and it was the same beginning of that, got 15 different ways of doing buttons and tables, etc. And you know, so the business case is fairly clear. And for doing it. So I knew we needed to do it, but I wanted to learn. And fortunately, I was working with there were two people called martian benedict, I think I've mentioned to you, who are, you know, awesome designers, and they're very, very intelligent people. And one of them just said, Oh, you should read Christopher Alexander, like he's Christian, I've never had a Christopher Alexander. So, you know, who's Christopher Alexander. So I find his books, and then I start to read them. He's, and then I find that this is one of the forefathers of, of patterns, but not digital. I mean, he came from designing, he's an architect, he came from designing public spaces and looking at the relationship between patterns of verandas out to, you know, the greens and community spaces and how so. But when you get into that, you get into someone who's thought very, very deeply about the relationships between different sized things and how they fit together and how you can't just change one part without rethinking the relationship of all the parts around it. You lock that into your head. And then you apply that the way that you begin to design a pattern library, the way you run governance, the way you understand maturity, it breathes life. And I think for the designers, it then gives them permission to say, just to think in the same way and to take the same care and the same stewardship over it. So, and I think that we, I just want more of that, I want more of that kind of depth and thought into the way that we go about what we do. This is going to be an interesting conversation. So, that broader thinking, that broader picture, seeing the context, understanding the context, taking a step back. That is definitely something that is an added value of design. But if we look at where design is positioned these days, or maybe where we've sort of self positioned, it is a lot in the operation space. And I think we've been saying that design needs to be an operation to actually see the impact and see it materialize. Otherwise, we just have big ideas and they never come to fruition. Like, I feel that as a community, we've been pushing design into operation away from the bigger picture thinking, how do you see this? You're pushing all my buttons and I must, I must get my answers brief. I am, so I think that so taking a step back as you were doing, I think broadly businesses are brilliant at operationalizing what they do and then executing incremental change. I think that's what we're good at. And that's what usually we've set models of the delivery of the services, the definition, and the delivery of a service was thought through some time ago. And then we get, we're all focused on how to get this thing delivered and evolve it. And maybe there's a tiny feedback loop from users to take that on. But what that does is lock us in with a mindset to what are the services. And I think that, so, but that's naturally there for where design goes because that's where the rest of the business is. That's where the majority of the business. And so what departments, where is the space in businesses to rethink, to look at the sun rather than the past to rethink what we're doing. And I think often businesses don't have that so much. And so I think for me, that's where that's some of I've explored in a few different roles, what would it look like for design to step more into that space. And some of those experiences have been really interesting. Okay, can you share a few? Yeah. So, so I worked on a so when I was a JP Morgan, I loved being a JP Morgan, there are some amazing people there. When I first set up the service design practice in the private bank, as you would expect, we, we looked at what are the services that need the most focus. And at the time you were looking at onboarding, there was another one. And then we did what you would expect a normal service line group to do. You know, we, we mapped the end to end, we did a collaborative with as many people as we could. We highlighted the pain points, exclude the opportunity areas. We selected the practice once, then we prototype some of the concepts that arose from that. And it worked, you know, it was great. It did what's ever done can do it. We had lots of people coming saying, Oh, we've never seen the whole picture tech was saying, I get what they're everyone's doing. This is amazing. Like, I knew what my platform did, I knew a few bits. But now I feel like we can see the whole, so everyone begins to own the whole, which is great. But as we were doing the project, and the number of the people we knew to the team, we knew people kept talking about other teams or other services or an integration to this thing over here. And we knew we didn't know what they're talking about. So secretly, what we started to do was to create our map of all the services we thought the bank provided. And we didn't really show it to anyone. And I was close to, and then, you know, people were asking us to do more and more works, things were going well. And I was close to kind of saying, we need to stop spend so much time, it's more a 10% so mapping all of those services in our own for ourselves. And we need to get the other work done. But I didn't. And two things meant I didn't. One was the team said to me, we can't do that. We're started to use that map in some of the interviews we're doing the senior leaders. And they love it. They're saying it's the first time they've been able to point at things on and say that's where I am or that's where so and so is. And I've never worked at how we integrate with them better. And the second thing that happened, and I can say more about it if you're interested, was that that found its way into the appendix of an onboarding deck that my manager is presenting to our CEO. And really by accident, the CEO noticed it and said, what's that? That that looks like my business. And my manager said, well, they call it level zero. That's the team. That's not what I'm here to talk to you about. And she said, I need to know more about that because I need to find ways to help us become think about what we do less in a less silent way and thinking more about the services. And that really grew into a big project that helped us work with the senior leaders to reframe in some way some of the big programs going on and how they were going to improve the services we offered. So that stepped I think out of that operation execution place to combat what you're saying earlier. And we found ourselves in what I think people would say was more strategic space to us. It's the same space, but just trying to understand the some and the parts and what we're here to do. So the way I'm sort of trying to summarize this is what happened in this scenario is you started on the operational side of people who maybe had a concrete challenge, like you said, the pain points. And then just through your work, like you said, we did just what service design does, you needed to have the bigger picture in order to do your work. And almost as a byproduct, this bigger picture, visualizing it, making it tangible, led to people becoming aware that there is something else out there. And then start asking questions about that. So it started from the tactical side. But yeah, okay. Yeah, you want to respond? So I mean, yeah, you're absolutely right. Why did we pick onboarding? Honestly, because there's massive tech investment already in it. There were some initiatives that they thought technology was saying, we think these things could be a bit better integrated, a bit more aligned. And so, you know, service design becomes a vehicle to do that. But I think service designers and great leaders, they tend to be people, people who acknowledge the world is not especially the Schumer world is not a closed system. So you can map one bit, but you always know, I'm not living in a closed system, I'm living in an open system. And this again, it's why we need to read and study things properly. So it gives you that permission to say in an open system, so people are talking to other teams and other groups and stuff comes before and stuff comes after. And, and how do we decide, you know, the 60 odd projects we're doing to improve all of this, how do we get to there? And so that inclination to kind of, you know, design can use visualization to communicate stuff in a way that I think others sometimes struggle to do. We have to work with them because we don't have all the knowledge. But when you can do that, when you have that skill to map something bigger, you know, one of the senior leaders when I was working with one of the departments said to me, and I wasn't sure she was amazing, but it made me a bit nervous when she said it. She said, you given us a structured way to rethink our business. And before we were always scared to ask these questions, because we weren't sure whether we'd go or what we would do with them, whether at all unravel, and how we'd bring it back together again. But what you do each step of the way, you keep bringing things back together, we can keep reflecting and thinking. And so I think it's it provides that kind of safe space for people to ask those big questions. Have you found in other scenarios that it often starts with the sort of the tangible challenge or have you found that you encounter leaders that ask you to map the bigger picture and start from there? I may get into trouble. That's good. Yeah, okay. No one's ever asked me to map the bigger picture. So when we were doing level zero in our own time, no one ever asked us to do it. We were doing it for six months without we we genuinely showed nobody. And then the team started to use interviews because they were trying to communicate what we were up the way we were thinking. So no one ever asked us to do it. I know I was in a workshop yesterday with the team in London. And we were, you know, we were exploring an idea about experience architecture. And, you know, without going to all the details, you know, what you know, you instinctively know two things. And this may sound arrogant. But I think it's true. No one is going to ask us to do this work. So we have to be smart about how we did if we do it at all. If we do it right, this will make a huge impact on the way technology work, the way product work and the way business prioritise what we should be focusing on to improve our services. So we have to create that space to do things, I think at times that no one has asked for, because we instinctively know there's going to be value. It won't all be great. It's not a golden bullet, but we have something to bring at times that we want to do because not selfishly because we care about the bigger picture. And others may not ask us to do, but we should do it. We should do it anyway, just be smart about how you go about it. I think that's a key lesson. And maybe a lot of people are waiting to get this question or to get permission or to get time. But what I'm hearing from you is don't wait. It's not going to happen. You have to, and we mentioned leadership a few times, this is about leadership. Like, don't wait. Yeah. So there's a guy called on the topic of leadership. There's an American guy called John W Gardner, who he spoke and worked on leadership for about 40, 50 years in the US. I think at one point he was Secretary of State for Education or something like that. But he wrote a book called Self-Renewal, and you were asking me about books earlier. I was trying not to recommend this one, but I can't help it. But he looked at what is it about organizations that help them renew themselves, genuinely renew themselves. And in that book, he talks about asking some of these questions and giving people permission to make connections that they may not otherwise make. And there's one quote in the book where he talks about maybe what every organization needs as a department of continuous renewal, because otherwise you just optimize, you just execute what you've already got. And I think that, you know, I think why it's a bit kind of chicken and egg, like there's a part of me that at times thinks server design exists because there is this implicit need in organizations to renew themselves. And that and server design is a collection of activities and artifacts and ways of working in values that respond to that need. That's why we're there. We've just brought those things together to respond to that opportunity to look at renewal and what's the what's the opportunity to do something greater. So yeah, I think that but it's about it is your right. It is about a time's leadership. And so we need to be smart about leadership. We need to know what it means to lead you and what can alienate people? What can leave people disillusioned? How do you take people with you? That's incredibly important. And I've learned from mistakes, you know, especially over the last even six years, if I'm honest, where I've got things wrong, but some things right, you know, and you live and learn. We'll get into those mistakes in a minute. No, let's not. But first, I want to sort of unpack this one layer deeper, because if if you are a service design professional on the operational side, and you sort of embrace this idea of seeing the bigger picture, challenging people, asking the tough questions. What I have found is that people on the operational side, they get it. People on the leadership side, they tend to get it. But like 90% of an organization is like this middle layer, which is there to keep things running as they are. What have you found to be good ways, successful ways to, I don't know, skip this middle layer or work with them because I've written an article some time ago. No, I think it was a video where I said design dies in the middle. What have you found? Were you just lucky that a leader picked up on your bigger picture thinking, or was that something that you actually could do to increase the likelihood that that would happen? Well, I find it difficult to answer that, because I'm so much on the inside of it. I think at times I've been lucky to work for, you know, so at JP Morgan, I was asked by a leader who had worked with me on the UX stuff, but had seen some of the other way I was approaching things, invited me to go and be a part of a new transformation group, she was setting up, and she got me. And so, you know, that's just amazing when that happens. And so that kind of gives you permission to do that. In terms of the middle layer, you know, I get senior leaders, probably, you know, real top of the house leaders, I think sometimes get this stuff, you have to like package it up really clearly in about 90 seconds because they've got something else they need to do next. And then at junior level, I mean, my mind goes to, I remember running a workshop in Delaware, when I was at JP Morgan, and we were looking at, we were running a project to look at what happens when a client passes away, what happens to their family, their partners, you know, and so it was a really funny project, you know, it was quite emotional, it was quite tricky. And what we managed to do in that room is to bring departments together who operationally were connecting with each other, sharing information with each other, but almost at a process level, but had not so much had the opportunity to actually converse with each other, have a conversation, like a human conversation about what is this like. And so I remember being in this sort of room, there were too many people in there, and we have people from operations and technology, there are some product people. And we had some of the bankers join us on a video call because they were out visiting clients. And the banker told this really, really human story, or he told a couple of what happened when that happens with a client. And he was saying how difficult it is, you know, because they've known some of these clients for a long time, those, you know, decades often with working with families. And the atmosphere in the room changed, it totally changed from how do we operate, how do we execute, to who are we serving. And there's a guy called, an Australian guy called Mark Strong, who made a really big impression on me when he constantly talked about on behalf of, on behalf of, who are you acting on behalf of. And as this banker told the story, everyone changed the way that we're approaching something to think, who are we serving. This, this is a, this is a person. And I think at that level, maybe that middle's place, the way we haven't, we left those two days knowing we're making decisions with a slightly different mentality that we weren't into it. This is not just the numbers on a page prioritization type of thing or wireframes. This is a human service where we're trying to serve people well. And so how, where have we succeeded at times? I think it's in fostering real dialogue, real conversation that just lifts everyone up a little bit beyond what I'm doing, you know, for the next four hours to a bigger picture. Now, I'm curious, how has this evolved for you personally? And I'll sort of preface this question with, apparently, something is driving you to do something bigger, to ask bigger questions. Like, apparently, you're not satisfied with, okay, let's just map this service or let's just prototype a new idea. Apparently, something within you is, is itching you to say, okay, this isn't good enough, we need to level up. Have you always been like this? Like this? Has this evolved? Yes, well, I think it's got worse as I've got older. So I think there's always been something in me, which is a bit wide like this. I mean, I think we said, you know, we were chatting before this. There's always been something in me that very, I suppose, deep thing in me that resonates with what I would call kind of corporate identity, or the bigger picture or sense of purpose, you know, and at times it comes out in incredibly embarrassing moments. I remember going to a, there was, oh, it was terrible. I was invited a long time ago, and like a corporate hospitality thing to go to a an FA Cup final in Wales in the UK. And, you know, we had this box and the doors are all shut from, you know, and you're inside, everyone's having a drink and some food, and it's all good fun. And, and, you know, but there's no atmosphere because you're inside this box. And suddenly we pulled the doors back because we had been at the stadium for a while. And you realise there are now the stadium is full, and there are tens of thousands of people all singing, two sides just singing in raptures with their team, their purpose, their history, we're here to win the celebrating players. It's so, and I went and stood outside and I just cried next to my work colleagues because I just found it overwhelming, the sense of purpose collectively, the corporate sense of purpose. You know, and I've had it at gigs, you know, I think some bands and musicians for me capture something in a human experience. So, you know, I went to, I think I've seen Mumford and Sons a couple of times, but for me there's something about the songs they write, the kind of honesty in them about, you know, just life, loss, love, all those sorts of things. When you see 30,000 people in stadium genuinely resonate with something, it brings people together. And perhaps that, those moments are so in contrast to what feels like a fractious, divided kind of public narrative that we seem to have at the moment. And as designers and the evolution of digital is my worry that we're feeding that. So, that, I think I've always had it in me. And I suppose in September, I'm just very, very lucky to have found a place where there's an opportunity for us to express that. That definitely sounds like you're lucky to have the opportunity to express that because the question that was on my mind is, if that's the thing you're sort of seeking deep down inside, where do you find the sort of the spirit to go in on Monday to a corporate office? And like almost have the exact opposite. And apparently you're in a lucky position to find a place within such a corporate environment to be able to seek these things. But I'm curious, like if somebody isn't in that position, or they are struggling to find like-minded people inside an organization, what would be a step in the right direction? How do you move from, no, let's keep that at. What is a step in the right direction for somebody who also wants this? Wow. Yeah. Well, I think you've asked two questions there, but I'll answer the second first. I think how do you sustain it? Where does it come from? I can comment on that in a moment if you like. But in terms of how do you move towards it? I think for me, I suppose I naturally try and gravitate towards people that at least don't shut that down in me. So I think that's one you need connections. I need to be part of groups that have a similar set of values. I need a tribe. I need a sense of belonging. That's a very deep need, I think we've all got. And if you feel like I don't belong anywhere, I mean, that might feel like a very artistic, kind of prophetic kind of space to occupy in society, but it's terrible for you. We're not made that way. And I've been there at times and I've suffered properly because of it. So I think find people that you can be with. But I also think at times just reflect on it, think on it, feed it. I mean, I said to you recently, I'd read a book on trust. It was a book that caught my eye about seven years ago, and it was written in the context of a loss of trust in UK politics. But to me, again, the core of that was fracture and divide and a need for a bigger thing. So I read it and then I just make notes. I write reflectively and awful lot to make sense of what's in my head. And then I begin to rethink, how do I think this might work? What would a better future look like? And you have to make sense of that. And if you begin to make sense of it, I think whether you can act in it or not, you sit more peacefully with it yourself, because the world makes a bit more sense, or at least you know how to make sense of it. And then if you ever get into a conversation with somebody, probably unlike the one I'm doing today, you can actually come across as coherent and you can articulate some things and then you can spark a conversation. And then maybe other people will join you in talking about that. And hey, suddenly, you're a means of change or being an agent of change, rather than just having a time to things done to you. So I think those are some of the things that I've tried to do. I think that's a very good advice, a very practical advice like taking a pause, reflecting on what you're doing, what you will want to do, what your values are, why you're doing the things you're doing. Big questions. But if you take the time to work on them, the other thing that you mentioned, and I think that's also key, is that you're able to communicate them and share them. I think what I've been getting from the last, I don't know, 30 minutes from you is you have to be able to express some of these ideas. If that's your desire to work on bigger goals, sort of have a deeper sense of the craft, you have to express that. Like either you tell people, you visualize that. If you keep it for yourself, you'll probably, it's going to be very hard to move forward with it. And that's what I've been getting from you as well. Like, express it, talk about it, make people curious as well to investigate this. Yeah. I mean, when you keep it yourself, the image that forms in my mind is kind of a, it's not a very nice one. But if you keep it yourself, it becomes like a petrid pool of, that's not connected to any flowing river or aeration or anything. And so I, you know, again, I think there is some truth in that, that things need to flow, stuff that inspires you need, you need to express, you need to connect with other people. You know, we're not islands, we're not, you know, we need tributaries coming in and out. And I think, so I think that's incredibly important. I struggle to express things. I struggle to articulate things clearly. And what I've found at times is I'll find people really good at it, and then I just copy them. So when I was at JP Morgan, I read Sarah Drummond's full stack serve design, which just thought was awesome. I mean, for me, it summarized like years of what I felt I'd been internalizing. But after that, I could say to people, if you want to transform your organization to become more service minded, more customer minded, you only need to do four things. You need to be able to say what the services you provide, how are you going to measure them? How are you going to prioritize what you're doing towards improving them? And how do you have the governance in place to stop things and start the right things? It's very simple. If that interests you, I can unpack some of those things. So I didn't come up with that. I think I'm sure that's from Sarah Drummond's thing. So, you know, if you struggle, read, read, read, read, read, find people who have graded it and then recycle what they've given you. And this makes me think of the book drawing on a napkin from, I think it's then Rome where he mentioned people who hold a different color of the pen, like people who initiate some ideas, people who organize it. And then at the end, somebody with a red pen comes in and sort of says, okay, this is the key message. All three roles are super important. But also, like, if your ideas aren't coherent, but you sort of have ideas or see room for improvement or aren't satisfied with the status quo, like, don't hold it to yourself. You're sort of owe it to the people around you to express that and keep pushing forward and find the people that resonate with this. And I think the hope is that they are there. Like, it might be very hard to find them in like a huge organization that is built to sustain the status quo. But even in that environment, there are people who are seeking this. Totally. I think there are people, I mean, for me, there are two things in there. One is if you feel, if something bugs you, if you develop that ache about something, for me, it's always to do with the sum and the parts in the bigger picture. But if you get that, just because you can't come up with a really nice, clear way of explaining that, you mustn't let that stop you. You must engage with other people. Others are brilliant and stuff like that. But mate, you will always be bringing something to the table. So speak it and find people who are great at that stuff and then they'll help you to do it. The other thing is don't let it run dry. So over time, I've probably asked people who I feel like I've got no right to ask, can I get half an hour with you? Because I just want some time with you. I just want to chat. Because of things I've read that they've written or things that they said that I've listened to. I remember Steve Jobs, there's that video where he's saying the difference, I can't remember what it was really. He talks about the difference between people who kind of go on to make a difference who don't. They ask for help. They pick up the phone. They say, please can you help me? He talks about calling the guy from Hewlett Packard. I've done that with people. I've mentioned a guy called Mark Strom in Australia. I spent some time with Jake Morgan. He was just an amazing leader, a very different kind of leader. He wrote a book called Leading with Wisdom. I just connected with him. I remember getting half an hour for a coffee with him when he was at the office. About three times since, last month ago, I just had an hour with him on Zoom just talking through stuff. And it's just sort of affirming and challenging. And so we need stuff like that. And if you're a designer, you know, don't be ashamed or afraid of connecting with those people. At times, I don't know specifically what I need to speak about, what I talked to you about. I just want some time with you. I love the way you see the world. I love the way you think about things. I love the way that you challenge things. Can I just, can I get some time? And it's, for me, it keeps me going. It's, again, this is, what I like about this is that it's so practical. Some of the things that we discuss here feel like very abstract and very conceptual. But eventually it boils down to this, like having a conversation with somebody who might be able to not join the right direction. And even, even if that isn't the person who is like the perfect person you need in that situation, they're going to help you to find the next person. And while you were explaining this, I was thinking like, just make a list of three people inside your organization who you feel you should have a conversation with, whether that's the CEO or somebody who's like doing the on, on the ground work, and just have those conversations. And even if you're, if you don't feel you are in the position right now to, to do that, like still, still, still do it. Or if you flip it around, like if you were able to have a conversation, a 30 minute conversation with the board of directors, what would you talk about with them? What would the conversation be? I think that's a great mental exercise. Yeah, I agree. I totally agree. I would add, add two names to it from people outside your organization. Because at times we kind of, we feel hemmed in. So I remember being in a job where I was, I was four months in, nothing made sense. Or as afraid it was beginning to make sense and not in the way that I hoped it would. And I had, I had 30 minutes with a friend, or a guy called Daniel Lutz. Again, I met at LiveWork. I met so many good people there. And honestly, 30 minutes chatting to him, I left it and I felt affirmed in some of the things I'd observed. I had some new ideas about ways I might tackle things. I was challenged a little bit, but in some areas, I, it just did me the world of good. So knowing who are those people that I can go to. Some inside. Yeah, great. I think that's a brilliant idea. But at times, others outside of it, who can encourage and feed you so important. And that is also like, probably the answer to one of the questions I had written down here, like, how do you prevent that you don't get trapped into the status quo? Because I can imagine that it's maybe battle isn't the right word, but you're sort of fighting all the time against every 98% of the people around you who are trying to, yeah. And this is probably a very good strategy to keep your motivation up and make sure that you don't get dragged into the status quo. Yeah, I think it is. One other thing I'll comment on that, and this may make anyone who ever listens to this not want to come and work for me or work with me, I should say. But I also think if you're living with a slightly different value system at times to the organizations you're in, there is nowhere around it, you're going to have to make sacrifices. And because you're counter cultural. So one of those things, and I remember someone from a team once asking me, how are you going to, and there's all kinds of, I probably got lots wrong on this, but they said, how are you going to help me get promoted in the next round of promotions? And I was looking at what we were doing as a team thinking, what I actually said was, I'm not. Honestly, if you're in the service design group, we've got 18 months ahead of really hard graft to embed what we do. And it's going to take a little while and people really start to see the real power of this. We've got some work to do. So I don't think anyone's going to suddenly start really shining above the parapet. Hey, two to three years, I think it's going to be a piece of cake. But right now, I think you're going to need to sort of make some sacrifices. You're going to need to lay yourself down a little bit for us to get there. And I do think there is something in that that the outcomes we're working to, if they're a bit different, it's going to take a little bit of time to get there. But it's a tunnel reflection thing. What do you want to play? This is where I'm wired maybe a bit differently. You can either play the game a little bit at times in business and do the design in a way that everyone gets immediately and it's easy to do your metrics and all of the rest of it. Or you can say, no, I think there's something else that I want to birth a little bit. I want to grow. It's like a seed that we're planting. No, there's not a tree there. But it could be powerful. It could be really great. But you're going to need to let it grow, but it's going to take some hard work. So at times, just acknowledging that, I think, again, for me, it gives me a sense of peace. Just acknowledging it, not thinking, oh, it's all going to suddenly change overnight. And one question about this is taking that stance, that it's going to take time, that you're not going to play, quote, unquote, by the rules and try to focus on your quarterly targets, but maybe on your three-year targets, that does take some courage. Because you're almost sacrificing maybe your promotions or bonuses or for something that is giving you a sense of purpose or a sense of accomplishment, that needs to be a very strong driver. It has to be a strong driver. It's an awful lot to ask. And so I think one thing is design leaders are listening to this. I think we have to carry that to a degree for our teams. And we need to try and make spaces where that stuff can be rewarded. Maybe I'm flipping on its head a little bit. But one of my goals, I guess, is if once I've been in an organization two years, three years, I need to change it enough to be able to hire in some of the amazing people who are out there who can work in the way that I really want them to work and be rewarded for it. So there is a challenge there, but I think especially at the beginning, doing a new thing, yeah, hey, it's going to be tough, but there are people with you. And if this is what you're about, this is going to be a joy. And this is what I find fascinating. Apparently, there's something within designers that allows them to go through this hard day, to go through this tough period, to sacrifice themselves for a bigger cause. And the most frustrating part is that you know you're doing important work. And like you said, maybe aren't getting the respect or the rewards that you sort of feel should come with it. It's like the ultimate form of not instant gratification, but what is the opposite of instant gratification? Thank you, delayed gratification. And in a sense, I don't know if it's sad, but it doesn't feel really honest or I don't know. So I mean I, so one comment on that, I think what I found is when you start to do that work, and you behave in that way, and you bring those questions to meetings, and you bring those ideas, sometimes the business won't quite know what to do with it. And so in terms of your, you know, are my metrics going to shine bright in the quarterly or annual review or whatever? Maybe not, because they don't, at times they don't quite know what to do with it. But I've had, it's about, you know, just when I was at Jake Morgan, I had peers coming to be saying, and I would say the same to them, and honestly, but they were coming to be saying, we love being in meetings with you. We love, we're so glad you're at this workshop, we're so glad that you're helping Planet that you're going to run it. And that meant, a huge amount, because these weren't, these were real people, they weren't disingenuous, so that meant an awful lot to me. So I think, you know, you should expect that. Yeah, and one thing I want to highlight here is, don't always measure yourself or your success by the metrics that are set by the organization. Have your own set of metrics, and that will help you to recognize success and recognize wins and probably keep your spirit up. Because often, the metrics that are important to you aren't part of the things that are measured by the organization right now. Yeah, so change the way the organization measures things. Start with yourself. Yeah. Tom, I'm really curious, like, if you had to pick one or two things that you wish you knew about this whole endeavor, whole journey, five years ago, like, what advice do you wish you would have gotten? So, I mean, two stick out to me. One is, it's going to be really hard. But the way you deal with that is not just thinking, oh, it's really hard, but I'm being sacrificial, and no one understands me. That's not how you do it. I mean, it's just self-indulgent, and it's not good. So, for me, one of the things I've learned is you have to think long-term, and you have to have a really clear strategy to get where you want to get to over a bigger period of time. There will be highs, and you will enjoy them. I always feel nervous on a high, because I think that's the next low coming. There will be highs, but there will be real lows. There will be real moments, like, in a quarter where things have been really hard, a project would have been really tough, certain relationships would have felt a bit more strained. But if you have that bigger picture, and that longer-term plan, it really helps sustain you. So, I think, for me, that's one thing. And the other one is, I've talked about writing. I've always written, I suppose, because I love the humanities, but I think reflective writing, the discipline of writing that stuff down, I don't know if I wish I'd done more of it. I'm so glad I'm doing it now. It really does help me to make sense of what I'm seeing, what I'm thinking, why stuff bothers me, what shouldn't bother me really, where I'm just becoming too hung up on something. It really does help me make sense of the world. And so, that has been something probably more in the last three or four years. When I was at JPMorgan, someone said to me, like, just 10 minutes, a couple of times each week, just record yourself talking and ping it to me. And just that discipline of having to articulate what's going on, so you find it. So, I was doing that, and then I started writing, and I found it really, really helpful. And again, I'm going to enjoy editing this episode, because it will give me an opportunity to re-listen to the entire conversation again. But it's sort of, I find it fascinating that it moves between very high-level abstract things and super practical things that actually help you to get there. So, thank you for sharing that. And I definitely resonate with reflecting and writing. And also, go for walks. People, go for, take a walk. Like, and don't take your phone with you. That's like another thing you could try. I'm really curious, we're sort of heading towards the end of this conversation. If somebody remembers one thing from this conversation, what do you hope it is? Oh, well, I hope it's something different for everybody. I think the thing, you know, I was walking to work yesterday and I was thinking about this, feeling really, really nervous about it. But thinking what matters most to me. And I think when we say the sum is greater than the parts, that's great. But what's the sum? If it's not the parts, what is it? Someone hasn't drawn it yet. Someone hasn't said it yet. And I think we need that creativity, that intuition, that depth, maybe that ache, that there's a better way. But what does that look like? And how are we going to get there? I think that is the place I would love people just to have a think. What does that mean for you in your context? And it doesn't need to be business. It can be your family. It can be a relationship. It can be volunteering in a local organization. It doesn't matter. But how do we use who we are and what we're good at to help work out what's the sum and not just think about the parts? I hope you will make a t-shirt out of that. That's a great question. Like, what is the sum? I love it. Make a t-shirt out of that or post. Or postcard. If somebody wants to learn more about your work, what's the best way to do so? I'm on LinkedIn. You can read. I've got the same boring profile as most designers out there. I'm on Twitter. I don't use it as much as I should. I'm trying to use it a bit more at the moment. There's a video recording I did a year or so ago. I wrote an article in a latest server design network magazine. So if you pay the subscription fee for that, you can get and read it if you want to. So far, only one person is proactively contacting me and said, oh, I read your article in SDN. And that was probably because she saw my name on it. So if you want to know a bit more about me, you can do that. Or honestly, just reach out to me. Just say hi on LinkedIn. Direct message me and connect. And I'd love to chat with people who are interested in this stuff. I really would. And if there are enough people who want to answer the question, what is the sum? I would be thrilled to set up a monthly 45 minutes to knock that idea around with a few people genuinely. So please just let me know. Love it. And that's going to be the question. We're going to invite people to comment on this episode. What is your sum? We need to make a hashtag out of this or something like that. I'll leave that up to you. I think you're probably the person who's good at this stuff. Well, we'll think about it. Tom, thanks so much for coming on. Sharon, what's on your mind these days? And I definitely thought that this was a definitely a coherent conversation. So thanks and hopefully we'll be in touch in the near future as well. Brilliant. Thanks so much for having me, Mark. I really hope that you enjoyed the conversation with Tom and learned something new. Of course, we're super curious to hear from you. What is the sum? Leave a comment down below and let's continue the conversation over there. If you enjoy videos like this, make sure you subscribe to this channel because we bring a new video like this every week or so. Thanks a lot for watching and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.