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
"Experience vision is the north star describing what the customer’s world will be like after success."
Sean McKayWhole Product Thinking: Expanding beyond problem and solution space thinking
March 14, 2024
"Showing a clickable prototype beats still wireframes and style guides where people have to copy hex codes."
Allan LowsonRehashing the Double Diamond: Collaborating across functions with AI-assisted prototyping
June 9, 2026
"You have to go from being able to deliver a message in three bullets and then turn around in the next moment and deliver a massive service blueprint or customer journey."
John CutlerOxbows, Rivers, and Estuaries: How to navigate the currents of change (without burning out)
December 3, 2024
"Diagrams allow us to emotionally hit pause and come back ready to dig further."
Abby CovertStuck? Diagrams Help
October 27, 2022
"If we put traffic into the street, we'll get traffic; if we put gardeners, we'll get gardens."
Dan HillStrategic design, slowdown, and the infrastructures of everyday life
April 21, 2022
"Feedback isn’t about liking. Helpful feedback needs to be, is this solving your problem or not."
Dorelle RabinowitzThe Magic Word is Trust
June 15, 2018
"Flexible and staggered schedules help people not get burned out."
Lavy Kumar Kat Temple Tara Jensen Jenn ChouFuture of Work
June 9, 2021
"The most important step we often forget is moving on to the next problem."
Cassandra PiesterDeveloping and Deploying Your Design Operations Strategy
September 24, 2024
"Not a week has gone by in my four years at Uber that something slightly shocking or jarring did not happen."
Maggie DieringerCreating Consistency Through Constant Change
January 8, 2024
