Skilled by Design

Dr. Susie Wise is a designer and educator based at the d.school at Stanford. She wrote a book called Design for Belonging (released April 19, 2022) where she explores the concepts of feeling, seeing, and shaping belonging.

In this episode, Dr. Wise talks to us about how she got involved in the d.school at Stanford and how that journey led her to write Design for Belonging. We explore the difference between belonging and “othering” and other concepts like Impostor syndrome or stereotype threat.

Tip for how to improve this skill

• Make a map of the places and spaces that you’re in (in your life)
• Identify where you feel strong belonging and a lack of belonging
• Explore why those spaces make you feel that way
• Apply your learnings to the spaces you are creating

Links

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susie-wise-33b4a0/
• Stanford d.school: https://dschool.stanford.edu/
• Book: https://designforbelonging.com
• Twitter: @susiewise
• Instagram: @susiebwise

Sharon Steed is the founder of Communilogue, a consultancy focused on teaching empathy and inclusion. As a person who stutters, Sharon felt uncomfortable talking to others, especially groups. Her fears and discomfort sidelined her from making progress toward many of life’s milestones. She eventually figured out how to be okay with her insecurity and those courageous efforts have opened a lot of doors, many of which allow her to help others.

In this episode, Sharon helps us look at the skills of feeling and showing empathy. She breaks down an ‘empathy mindset’ consisting of perspective, patience, and connection.We touch on the roles of vulnerability and curiosity in the journey toward empathy, and we look at some differences between sympathy and empathy.

List of skills discussed

• Empathy
• Vulnerability
• Curiosity
• Sympathy
• Courage
• Overcoming difficulty

Tip for communicating with empathy

• Approach conversations from a place of openness
• Remind yourself to leave judgment behind
• Prepare yourself to be curious before entering a conversation

Links

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharon-steed/
• Communilogue: https://www.communilogue.co/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/sharonsteed

LinkedIn Course: Driving Inclusion with Empathy

Steve Arntz is the co-founder and CEO of Campfire, an immersive leadership development program that builds better managers by blending authentic peer connection, actionable content, and scalable technology. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Steve was a product director at Instructure. 

In this episode, we talk with Steve about listening. Throughout a career as a product manager, and now for the last two years building a company, Steve has honed and now teaches about the skill of deliberate listening. As you deliberately listen in on this interview, you’ll hear us discuss how listening helped Campfire make a huge pivot that fundamentally changed the company’s direction. We also discuss listening one-on-one as well as listening at scale to help us really understand the shape of the problems we tackle everyday.

Tip for how to improve this skill

• As you listen, consider mind, body, and space
• Pair one-on-one listening with broader at-scale listening
• Develop your listening skills by practicing on the people who matter most in your life

Notes

• The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhou: The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You: Zhuo, Julie: 9780735219564: Amazon.com: Books
• Simon Lamb - Purposeful Change https://youtu.be/aX7aVIg4ifA
• The Dark Knight Watch The Dark Knight | Prime Video (amazon.com)
• Campfire: https://getcampfire.com
• Steve Arntz | LinkedIn

Jared Spool is a prolific writer and speaker on the subject of usability and experience design. He co-founded a UX school located in Chattanooga called Center Centre that focuses on teaching UX skills.

In this episode, Jared talks a bit about Center Centre and the structure of the skills they teach there. We talk about the frequently overlooked skill of “facilitated leadership” which you can think of as the skill of effectively facilitating meetings or workshops.

Quick tips for how to improve facilitated leadership

• Watch one, do one, teach one
• Watch a meeting or workshop and deconstruct it. Identify the different parts and participants. Develop a vocabulary.
• Run a meeting or workshop to experience it for yourself. Discover what is easy and what is hard. Figure out what you can improve and then try again.
• Teach someone else to run a meeting. As you try to explain, you will have to consider things in different ways allowing you to learn even more.
• Read Kevin Hoffman’s book, “Meeting Design” 

Notes

• Find Jared Spool
• On Twitter @jmspool
• Center Centre: https://www.uie.com/
• Linked in: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmspool/
• Meeting Design: For Managers, Makers, and Everyone: Hoffman, Kevin M., Sutter, Matt, Gothelf, Jeff: 9781933820385: Amazon.com: Books

https://skilledbydesign.com

Music by Weero & Mitte