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
"All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability and pliability. The truth lies outside of fixed patterns."
Mark BoultonOps without Designers
November 7, 2018
"An elite athlete doesn’t turn up at the Olympics and do their thing without coaches, physios, nutritionists."
Dr. Karl JeffriesThe Science of Creativity for DesignOps
January 8, 2024
"Behavior change doesn’t happen after two days of training; it takes ongoing support, coaching, and modeling."
Julie Gitlin Esther RaiceDesign as an Agent of Digital Transformation at JPMC
June 9, 2021
"Minimum lovable product is a better focus than minimum viable product in design ops to deliver meaningful impact early."
Dave Malouf Adrienne Allnutt Jon Fukuda Dominique WardThe Future of DesignOps
January 8, 2024
"We ask our AI assistants to explicitly avoid leading and double-barreled questions to ensure unbiased research."
Mike OrenImproving Democratized Research with CustomGPTs and Gems
February 25, 2026
"Asking for help and engaging is actually a sign of growing confidence among teams."
Elizabeth Sklar Jessica ShengCo-creating research enablement with your tech org: a case study
March 10, 2026
"Being a manager is really hard, and just because you’re a great individual contributor doesn’t mean you’ll enjoy it."
Kayla Farrell Chelsey Glasson Sean Fitzell Jared LeClercWhat It's Like To Be a User Researcher at Compass
March 12, 2021
"High-performing cross-functional teams self-organize around shared goals even with ambiguous roles."
Matt LeMayYou Don’t “Get” Anyone to Do Anything
December 6, 2022
"Automation frees us up to do more for the organization, but if overdone, it can strip away the human aspect critical to culture."
Bria Alexander Meredith Black Tim GilliganState of DesignOps Panel
October 1, 2021
