Steven Wakabayashi - Design Thinking for Building Equitable Teams

UX Australia 2021 DAY 2

Establishing equity with our creative teams starts with reevaluating our everyday design processes. In this talk, you will learn some of the pitfalls of diversity hiring, why they haven't worked, and ways to create a more equitable design culture that leads to more diverse thinking, innovation, and hires. We'll share some of our QTBIPOC Design organization principles and methods that have guided us in building a thriving and diverse creative team.

Goals for this session:

Encourage designers and design leaders to re-examine their ways of approaching diversity in the creative workplace and inspire them to make a radical shift in how they approach their everyday work.
Learn tactical solutions designers and design leaders can apply in their internal reviews, meetings, design critiques, and design delivery that shifts away from perfectionism and metric-driven processes to a more mindful, equitable, and innovative model.
Feel re-energized to hold safe space for one another that is less judgemental and defensive, and where challenging issues can be discussed without fear of conflict.

Transcript

1. DESIGN THINKING FOR
   BUILDING EQUITABLE TEAMS
   ❤
   

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2. Hi, I’m Steven!
   FOUNDER & PRESIDENT
   

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3. QTBIPOC Design
   Empowering LGBTQ+ designers of
   color with free & accessible
   education, mentorship, and
   networking opportunities.
   

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4. My Journey
   

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10. Stop working so hard. LOL
    LESSON 1
    Sustainability and rest are core components
    of activism and change.
    

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12. Your journey and discovery of identity is the
    key towards your individual activism.
    LESSON 2
    

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13. Creating Equitable Design Teams
    

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14. Diversity
    Inclusion
    ≠
    Equity
    ≠
    

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15. Diversity Inclusion Equity
    

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16. McKinsey (2020): Companies in the top
    quartile for both gender and ethnic
    diversity are 12 percent more likely to
    outperform all other companies in the
    data set.
    Diverse teams perform better
    

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17. International Labour Organization (2019):
    
    
    - 59.1% increase in creativity, innovation,
    and openness.
    
    
    - 37.9% better assessment of consumer
    interest and demand.
    Inclusive cultures led to increased creativity
    

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18. Junior Associate Senior Manager Director / VP C-Suite Board
    Intention: “We want to hire more diverse teams”
    Diversity
    Diversity
    Diversity
    Diversity
    Diversity
    Diversity
    Diversity
    Microaggressions Unequal pay No voice No other representation
    

    (tokenization)
    No promotion No future
    D/E/I starts with improving our existing culture
    

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19. No matter the DEI quota or intent,
    
    
    inequitable culture leads to poor retention.
    LESSON 3
    Our focus should first address
    systemic cultural patterns.
    

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20. Designer
    
    
    “Me”
    
    
    Top-down
    Community
    
    
    “Us”
    
    
    Bottom-up
    How are we
    understanding
    
    
    each other?
    How are we iterating on solutions together?
    How are we
    reinforcing
    practices
    together?
    1
    2
    3
    4
    

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21. Reinforce
    4
    Iterate
    3
    Understand
    2
    Ground
    1
    Creating an equitable team
    

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22. 1. Center in community-first approach
    Reinforce
    4
    Iterate
    3
    Understand
    2
    Ground
    1
    1. 1:1 meetings to assess individual needs
    

    How have people shown up for you in the
    past? How have people not shown up for
    you in the past?
    
    
    2. Identify gaps within teams
    

    Cultural, racial, economic, cognitive,
    physical, or even aesthetic di
    ff
    erences
    
    
    3. Establish guiding principles & goals
    

    Codify mission statement documentation
    with regular reminders / check-ins to
    evaluate against goals
    

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23. 2. Create safe spaces for dialogue
    Reinforce
    4
    Iterate
    3
    Understand
    2
    Ground
    1
    1. Establish safe spaces
    

    Set the intention with words & language
    
    
    2. Seek to understand
    

    Shi
    ft
    narrative to understand others
    before understanding the work
    
    
    3. Create emptiness
    

    Open container physically/digitally/
    mentally for feedback and thoughts with
    silence, time, and space; slowing down
    
    
    4. Invite healthy banter & braveness
    

    Ask questions, assign devil’s advocate
    

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24. 3. Build solutions that extend
    Reinforce
    4
    Iterate
    3
    Understand
    2
    Ground
    1
    1. Honor the past
    

    Avoid tearing down to create; build upon
    insights and lessons from previous
    framework; seek to understand
    
    
    2. Build on top
    

    Plus-up the work of others instead of
    creating a separate track; unite e
    ff
    orts
    
    
    3. Aim for consistency
    

    Regular e
    ff
    ort (even smallest amount)
    creates a larger movement
    

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25. 4. Reward with positive encouragement
    Reinforce
    4
    Iterate
    3
    Understand
    2
    Ground
    1
    1. Leverage positive feedback
    

    Shi
    ft
    away from immediate short-term wins
    to establishing long-term impact
    
    
    2. Amplify & echo actions
    

    A
    ff
    irm wanted/positive behaviors
    
    
    3. Lead by example
    

    Exemplify the behaviors you want to see
    more of and lead by example; show not tell
    

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26. Increasing pipeline of diverse candidates
    1. Build long-term relationships with local community & orgs
    

    Connect with marginalized communities and their
    leaders, engage with projects, questions, consulting, or
    un-tethered support, “how can I support you?”
    
    
    2. Co-create with educational institutions
    

    Universities, bootcamps, and non-profits run initiatives to
    provide education to marginalized communities, o
    ft
    en
    lacking funds and visibility to their projects
    
    
    3. Connect with recruiters focused on recruitment &
    placement of diverse talent
    

    Look for more than just buzzwords, diverse placement
    into the right environments
    

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27. Creating equity and dismantling the
    system of inequity is a lifelong process.
    LESSON 4
    If we all took small deliberate actions today,
    tomorrow would be a whole new world.
    

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28. Why should I care?
    

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29. Our job is to design. Not make art.
    
    
    Design is about solving problems for
    myriad of communities.
    

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30. 30
    Shi
    ft
    toward community-centered design practices
    Creative Reaction Lab
    creativereactionlab.com
    National Equity Project
    nationalequityproject.org
    

    Project Inkblot
    projectinkblot.com
    

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31. “Empathy is a pretty word for
    exclusion. I’ve seen all-male all-white
    teams taking ‘empathy workshops’
    to see how women think. If you want
    to know how women would use
    something you’re designing, get a
    woman on your design team. They’re
    not extinct. We don’t need to study
    them. We can hire them!”
    
    
    

    - Mike Monteiro, Ruined by Design: How Designers Destroyed
    the World, and What We Can Do to Fix It
    

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32. To design for our communities, we must
    design with and include our communities
    within the process.
    LESSON 5
    

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33. DEI is not a resource issue, nor is it
    for an individual or ERG to solve for
    an entire company.
    

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35. DEI is a group e
    ff
    ort that requires
    consistent actions from every one of us.
    LESSON 6
    Our liberation is intertwined - we cannot
    be liberated without one another.
    

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36. To exist in today’s world, means to live &
    experience both privilege and inequity
    that has been passed down upon us
    

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37. In the system of inequity, we are all losing.
    LESSON 7
    

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38. “Don’t show up for me because
    you want to protect me, or you
    want to help me…
    
    
    I would rephrase your question to
    be, ‘Can you help me get free?’
    not, ‘Can you help me help you.’”
    
    
    

    - Alok Vaid-Menon (@alokvmenon) x Man Enough Podcast
    

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39. Am I ready to design?
    Am I ready to be liberated?
    Am I ready to diversify my team?
    

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40. Thank you UX Australia!
    FOUNDER & PRESIDENT
    URL: QTBIPOC.DESIGN
    
    
    COME JOIN US OR BE A PARTNER!
    
    
    TWITTER: @WAKUU
    
    
    LINKEDIN: @STEVENWAKABAYASHI
    
    
    INSTAGRAM: @STEVENWAKABAYASHI
    

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