Asking the Right Questions: Life, Hope and Moving Forward During the Pandemic
Summary
Details to come.
Key Insights
-
•
Starting meetings or classes with a simple warm-up increases attentiveness and presence.
-
•
Remote teaching often results in students keeping cameras off, impacting engagement, but this can be navigated with inclusive strategies.
-
•
Peloton taught the speaker practical leadership lessons including compassion, collaboration, and community support.
-
•
Consistency is critical in leadership and personal growth, exemplified by the speaker's 73-week exercise streak.
-
•
Inclusive leadership requires acknowledging where people are physically and emotionally, offering alternatives accordingly.
-
•
Organizations must consistently provide education and enforce policies addressing discrimination, considering intersectional identities.
-
•
Leadership must listen actively and avoid placing the burden of diversity work solely on marginalized groups.
-
•
Recognizing external stressors such as global events is essential to empathetic leadership and inclusive workplaces.
-
•
Language matters; everyday expressions can unintentionally exclude or offend marginalized communities.
-
•
Inclusion and accessibility should be embedded into every designer's responsibilities, not isolated to specialists.
Notable Quotes
"I had you all do a warm-up before we started to help everyone be present and calm."
"Sometimes working with a bunch of boxes and letters on Zoom was the reality of remote classes."
"Be compassionate with yourself and others. Not everyone likes high fives, and that's okay."
"Collaboration is key. I'm never alone in a Peloton class, even at 4:30 in the morning."
"Consistency is key. I'm on a 73-week streak right now, and that's pretty badass."
"Identity is not monolithic; policies should address layered experiences."
"It is not the responsibility of marginalized groups to do all the educating about their experiences."
"Listen is a skill that is not emphasized enough in leadership."
"Watch your language; terms like 'that's so lame' can be exclusionary or offensive."
"Inclusion and accessibility need to be part of every designer's role, even if today it is one person's job."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Conflict actually strengthens relationships if we choose to engage with it."
Laura WeissTurn Down the Heat: 3 Ways to Handle Conflict in the Moment
November 20, 2024
"We have to balance crisis management with long-term strategic exploration to not lose sight of growth."
Ted NewardTheme 4: Enterprise Organizational Journey
June 4, 2019
"Apple solved the problem of making touchscreens accessible by inventing VoiceOver and providing rich APIs for developers."
Sam ProulxTo Boldly Go: The New Frontiers of Accessibility
September 9, 2022
"Junior roles represent only one percent of design ops roles, raising the question if we are missing opportunities to cultivate new talent."
Laine Riley Prokay Lisa GordonCarving a Path for Early Career DesignOps Practitioners
September 9, 2022
"Slowing down is hard in a capitalist economy that values speed, but patience and self-care are necessary."
Rachael Greene Alison DavisBuilding a Design Ops Practice that Really Works (Most of the Time)
October 2, 2025
"Assessing feedback urgency means understanding if the issue blocks critical work or if there are workarounds."
Deanna SmithLeading Change with Confidence: Strategies for Optimizing Your Process
September 23, 2024
"When you put in that effort, you’re going to get the advocacy not only from your team but within the organization."
Frank DuranPartnership Playbook: Lessons Learned in Effective Partnership
January 8, 2024
"We started with almost nothing and didn’t really know what goal we were trying to achieve."
Ruzanna RozmanGetting in Flow with Your Team
January 8, 2024
"There’s no one-size-fits-all approach; budgets and needs vary widely across researchers and organizations."
JP Allen Carrie Boyd Malcolm EvansNavigating the UX Tool Landscape
March 11, 2021
