Workplace

Guy Welcome to Service Design Principles. I'm Guy Martin, joined by the author of the Service Design Principles series of Books, founder of the Swiss Innovation Academy and service design practicioner, the employee of the month, Daniele Catalanotto. Hi, Daniele.

Daniele Employee of the month! So it's the first time I get the employee of the month. So I feel very privileged of being your your employee of the month, this month. Thanks so much for the invitation and I'm excited for a great conversation.

Guy Yeah, me too. I'm always excited to talk to you about service design or any other philosophical matters that may come up during the course of our conversation. So thanks for being here. Now, every episode we look at some of the principles from your book Service Design Principles 1 to 100. And this time we're talking about the workplace. So the practice of service design is often conflated with the idea of user experience, which is quite focused on how to make the user or the customer experience as good as possible. But service design is a little more holistic than that, and it also includes employee experience and even supplier experience in the scope of designing services. So why should we be concerned about the employee experience, Daniele?

Daniele So that's this is a very this is a thing that is very dear to me. I feel what makes the difference between service design and other fields is really this - in a technical way, we often say front stage and back stage. So, yes, we look at what needs to happen. what what we want to create for people like the experience that we want users to go through and have with our organisation. But in service design, what I love is that we always ask the question, okay, to make this happen, what's all the shitty work that we have to do? What are all the processes? Who are the partners that we need? Who are the decision makers that we need to convince? it's a kind of like a much more realistic way of thinking about customer experience. And and therefore it shows that, there is not one without the other. You don't have a great experience if you don't have employees making it happen. And if you have no users, you don't have the money to pay for employees it's kind of like there's this yin yang thing where where you need both and you need to take care of both. Or it's this chicken and egg thing where where you can't you don't really know what came first. Was it the client who said, we need something and then you created a or was it the the service provider who said, "oh, we can do this. ". And then they find the client. But but it really shows one thing which is important. And I think the the best example I might have for that is hospitals. And what it shows is, the staff is important. If your nurses, your doctors, are are burned out, too stressed. Hate the admin. Hate all of that. what will happen is when the patient arrives, he will be treated they treat. He will have a moment of he will arrive there at the hospital and feel treated so badly that then it really then has, a psychological effect on the health, too, and then it's it's really a disservice to the person, but then also to the organisation because it will take more time, because these people will have complaints, they will ask to see a second doctor, who will be again pissed off and, and then we will need you will need to see a third doctor and maybe it has then to go up to the lawyers. If managed better, if the employee experience is managed better, all of that doesn't happen because clients are happier. And and so I think this is just understanding that if we take good care of our employees, there is a reciprocity that happens. it's like when you treat well, your kids, and when you are polite with your kids, when you ask them something, you say, please, there is more chance that they are polite back with you, because they mimic they mimic behavior and they think employees not saying that they are children, but saying that they are humans. We humans, we mimic each other's we do what others do to us. If we do good stuff to each other, there is a bigger chance that employees do good stuff to the clients. if we are stressed, put our our staff under pressure. What might happen is just that they pass also clients under pressure. And so this is really the magic I find in the in the in the in the in service design, which is this this kind of double view, and understanding that you treat if you want to treat your customers well, you have to treat your employees well.

Guy If you treat your employees like crap, then you're saying that it's acceptable to treat people like crap. And then, you have to expect that that maybe your customers will be treated like crap as well. So, it all goes back to like the culture and, the standards that are set and the expectations that are set within the culture of the of the workplace as well. Treating your employees well doesn't just stop at, being nice to them. Right. There's, there's other things around just being a pleasant person or a pleasant manager or boss to employees. There are other more tangible things as well

Daniele Yeah, absolutely. And principal, uh, 37, says "To improve your service, start by paying your employees well. ". we often say, people don't stay in a job because of the money, you know, but I think many studies show, that money is correlated to a certain level of happiness up to a certain point. And then once you get to the kind of basic needs met, money doesn't make such a big difference anymore. And I think the with salaries basically the same, up to a certain point, salary makes a big difference in the lives of people and in the way that they, are involved in the service or are involved within the organization, And then beyond that, if you add one K or two K more, it doesn't make that big of a difference. But in the service industry, we are often below that tipping points. we are often below the point where, uh, people say, if you would add one K more in my, uh, in my salary, the difference wouldn't be as big. You know, I think a lot of the frontline stuff, is, is definitely paid in a very shitty way and they are very there are a lot of examples, of companies that have taken that seriously and have understood that if they pay well, their employees who are on the front lines because these are the people who create the experiences, then the customer satisfaction goes up, then revenue goes up. And, and so there are these examples and and they exist. You can move them. And so therefore the the kind of view where we where we say, these are the people that the frontline workers are people that are replaceable and therefore we can pay them low wages, is a bad calculation in the end of the day. we have very good examples of that. in certain industries and countries, and as I have a habit of, uh, always naming when it's great and never naming and when it's bad. So I will continue with that because I think it's a good practice, but, uh, I've seen places where really, uh, people then tell you, Oh, I will not help you more because I'm not paid to do this shit, that's kind of like the reaction that I got once from a service worker when they had a few questions, and I was like, Hey, no, I don't understand that. And the guy just said, You know, I'm not paid enough to do that. I was like, okay, at least this is very honest. it's a very honest feedback. But like what view of the service does that give to me? like, okay, now I'm seeing that this doesn't matter so much, but instead, imagine if someone said to you, Oh, go on. I'm paid for that.

Guy Yeah.

Daniele That's what we'd love to hear. someone who tells you when you say yourself as a customer or I'm so sorry to ask another question, that maybe this is a very Swiss thing to say, but we as a Swiss guy, I would say if I'm asking if you a few too many questions, I will say, Oh, I'm so sorry to ask you so many questions or to make you work more. And then the person should say, Oh, this is my job. I am paid to do that. Go on. Imagine this is a very different experience.

Guy I think like I've worked in service industry and my wife has worked in service industry and we've talk about this before as well when we've encountered, bad service or bad conditions in workplaces. And I think that a lot of people that choose to be in the service industry put up with a lot more crap from their employers because they get a they get a reward, an intrinsic reward from providing a service, from being a service provider. And saying, you know, I've helped someone today. And so they sort of undervalue themselves when it comes to the financial aspect. And they say, oh, well, you know, I don't get paid that well, but I get to, help people or I get to, make someone's day better. And I think that may be some employers may take advantage of that and say, yeah, but you're doing what you love. You're doing what you enjoy. Why are you asking about the money side of it? Is it just about money? And, you know, the way that conversation goes. So, that, that as you say, that that baseline almost hygiene level of financial security to say, okay, I don't feel that I'm underpaid. I feel that I'm paid fairly for the work that I do is essential. And once you get that, then those employees will give back, even more value than what you're giving them.

Daniele Absolutely. And especially if you then go beyond because I think salaries, obviously, as we said, is maybe just one of the first of the aspects. It's a very important aspect. Let's not let's not lie to ourselves. It's kind of the baseline stuff. This is essential. I've seen stuff where trainees said laughing to each other you know the chair I'm sitting on costs more than my monthly salary. And then you hear that kind of talk, this is bad stuff. this this is like if you feel someone valued as much as the place they put their butt on, and that it this is not great stuff. But once you you are beyond that where when you have done the the you have a fair salaries then there are other things that you can make that creates really a great workplace. And I think one of of the the good examples is this notion of "work can wait", putting boundaries to the work as an employer. T is also kind of a great example, I think, of of setting a workplace that is calm where people say, oh, I am excited to get back to work, you know, But for that as an employer, we need to set up the boundaries so that people at ease can say, I'm excited to get back to work because they have stopped to come to come at work at one time.

Guy Yeah. So, you know, we during COVID especially, we had a lot about, work life balance. And then then the key word was work life integration. And, I've been working remotely for over ten years. And so there's always been aspects of that in my career. But it's right that it's very important that there's an example from, the people that are in charge from the decision makers, fr your bosses and managers to say, okay, well, human first and then work next in a way.

Daniele Yeah, absolutely. And and remembering people. That's at the end of the day, it's just a job, And a job is basically a transaction where we say, I'm, I'm giving you that many hours of my time or I'm okay to do these activities in exchange for money and a few other benefits. But it has boundaries, and being very clear on that, I think is very healthy. Sometimes we we forget that. And I think even sometimes, people as employees, we get very motivated about our jobs. And it's it's sometimes good to say, hey, uh, it's okay to now stop tomorrow. We can work again. it's like with my kid when I have to say him, I now we going to stop to play Lego, but tomorrow we can play Lego again. it creates value to play in Lego. if we wouldn't stop to play Lego, then it wouldn't be fun again. And and I think work is the same, even if we love it, we have to put a few boundaries to it. And sometimes it's not the one who's playing who has the distance to put the boundaries. Sometimes it is, but especially in the workplace, kind of the authority, the pressure can feel very strong and then having someone setting the example and say it's okay that now we use we stop working is a very good example.

Guy I see on LinkedIn occasionally these hustle culture posts where people are saying, I worked 20 hours a day and I only had a small bowl of cereal for breakfast. That's all I ate all day. But you have to do this in order to succeed. And I think that's actually pretty toxic. it feels like it's sending the wrong message to people that are either an employee or they're starting up a business or something that, you don't have to hustle so hard to to be a success. And in fact, you're moving so fast and not taking time for things that are outside the work realm actually can reduce your worldview and make it narrower. And and you burn out a lot quicker. I mean, that's that's part of this, right? It's it's it's as you say, it's setting boundaries for for for yourself and for your people.

Daniele Absolutely. And I think it goes with this idea that often in service design, we're not in this perspective of trying, just to sell. often, hustle culture from what I see comes often from people who are more on the selling side than on the service side, because on the selling side, you can say, Oh, I've sold now it's done. it's kind of product mindset. I, I've sold 200 bits of that and now it's done. And so if I push more, I can sell more, But in the service mindset, you want to serve people in a sustainable way for years. And so it doesn't bring anything, t hustle because what's the hustle, in the marriage? how can you hustle a marriage? it's it's a relationship. It's something that that you could do for fucking a long time, so you can't really hustle a marriage, you invest time. Y also have to set boundaries. you have to do a lot of that work. And I think it's the same with services where what we're trying to do is not selling, it's not having one night stands with clients. What we're trying to have is marriages. And obviously there are some marriages. that's where that have a type where it's for a few weeks, a few months, a few years and there are lifetime marriages even with clients, and and that's okay. But the difference is really that is that we if we see it long term, then the speed is not so much important anymore. But the break starts to be much more important because we going to have to do that for a long, long, long, long time. And therefore we have to manage our energy level in the right way. And and maybe that's a bit of a shift from especially if you coming a bit from a marketing background or something like that where it's the numbers of stuff that you get out that matters. And here is like how many people you keep in that matters, which is a very different mindset.

Guy I think work has been sort of based on this industrial workplace mentality for so long where you can measure productivity with, you know, the amount of widgets, the amount of things that get produced. But when we're talking about knowledge work, and I think many, many people now aren't producing widgets directly, they're part of a bigger ecosystem that is, you know, a part of the administration or they're doing back end support or there's so many other things, but they're they're based in knowledge. So productivity can't be measured with number of widgets produced or number of widgets sold. So that whole idea of the industrial manufacturing idea of productivity, it persists in some workplaces today, even though that's not how we are productive in today's society, in our in today's workplaces. So changing that and shifting that and saying, okay, well, it's not just about, you know, producing produce and producing. There's this balance. And it makes me think of of David Marquet's book "Leadership is Language", where he talks about the difference between red work and blue work and red work is. when you're executing stuff and you're doing things, but then you need to balance that with blue work, which is the the thinking and the consideration and and that sort of stuff. Because if you just keep on doing, then there's no space for learning or reflection or, you know, thinking about what's to come. So it's always about this balance. So by forcing yourself to, to stop responding to emails after 5:00 or whatever, it's still means that, okay, it doesn't mean that you have to stop thinking about stuff. You can still think about it, but it's in a different sort of way that you do it. It's a more relaxed and different perspective way that things can happen. And it may be that you have those shower moments - you're in the shower at 10:00 at night and go, Oh, I've just thought of something that would solve my problem for tomorrow. So if you're always hustling and you're always working and it doesn't stop, there's no room for that sort of reflection.

Daniele Abso. And, you know, often I try I like to explain it in that way. I say, would you like to have drunk people at work? And then people say, no, I wouldn't like to have a drunk employee at work then. And then I cite the research that is. And that is done on sleep where it has been shown. From what I remember that, you know, someone who is not sleeping right, has kind of like the same issues as someone who's drunk when they drive, Which tells me that if you want people to be overworked, if you want to use them in that way. Basically what you're going to get at the end is drunk people and drunk people. They don't answer great emails. You know, they create more problems with their peers. So I would prefer to say let's make people stop at a at a fair moment so that they can get a fair amount of rest and a fair amount of family time and personal time so that the next day I get not the drunk guy, but they get the well rested guy who when he sees his email list and the problems that arrive from stakeholders, decision makers and people like that, that he isn't like in panic mode, but rather like, okay, I can manage and manages in a good way.

Guy If I'm going in for surgery with a doctor that's been on for 9 hours already, I'd rather wait for the next day. Right. Don't put me in in with someone that's at the end of their shift and is tired and they've been working for 9 hours. Okay? And now they've got to make medical decisions that could impact my life. I would rather then see the doctor first thing at the start of the shift. it just feels weird that in the hospitals and medical industry and some other industries that they have these such long shifts when it's been shown that it's not it's not conducive to good decision making to to work when you're tired.

Daniele And if in the end of the day, you believe that customer satisfaction, quality of service are important and there are a number of studies that tend to show that all of these things, have an impact on revenue. If you believe that, then the next logical thing to do is to consider rest and positive boundaries as something important. it can be about emails, it can be about work hours, it can be telling people very clearly, we don't expect you to have your messaging work app on your phone, you know, all of these things. Then if people for one reason or the other, you know, want it, then that's another level. But at least the expectation of "sustainable", "long-term" "rested", should be clearly set and obviously if I would look back at my own life, I would say there are still moments and phases in life. You know, in my twenties, I might have been a little bit less mindful and rested then than now. And maybe that was not such a bad thing either in a way that that, you have the energy you want to to learn, etc. and that's a good thing. But the workplace should be still the place where we remind the younger generation who has that energy to say, hey, we're here for the long term, you don't have to burn out tomorrow. If you want to go the extra mile, you're welcome to do it, but we don't expect it. And you will not get a better pay more respect from us. If you do it. You might get more knowledge out of it, but you will not get more respect.

Guy A lesson Hard learned for some people, I think.

Daniele Because I've seen many friends, burnout way too early, you know, where

Guy Yeah.

Daniele You know, sometimes we we put the responsibility on on the organizations and then maybe that's not it's not the responsibility of the organization to not let people burn themselves. It's a philosophical question, but I would say it's a smart decision for an organization to do it, not from an ethical question, but from a business point of view. It's much better to not let people burn themselves just because of the turnover, and it's a mess to handle and so from a business perspective, it's way more interesting to to think long term think rested and sometimes put a little bit of a break on people who want to go the extra mile and say hey, we don't maybe we don't expect it and sometimes even say we don't want it. I think that's that's something that sometimes we we we have to do.

Guy So this ties into principle 42. Employees should check their emails less often.

Daniele Absolutely. Absolutely. And so this is a very kind of down to earth way to to show how can you put these boundaries. And this is something that I've learned studying this kind of behavior in big organizations, when you ask an employee what is the expectation that your boss has about how many times you should check your email and then you ask the same question to the boss. The answers are so funny. So

Guy Hmm.

Daniele in the case I have studied and I've done research on employees said, oh, two, three, four times a day. And when I asked the boss, they said once a day maximum, because I want them to do the work. And if I have something urgent, I'm going to call them. And you know that the expectation is because it's not said. Because nowhere it's written. Nowhere. it's said. People create an expectation. It's oh, yes, my boss wants that. But the boss doesn't want it. And for good reasons, you know, and obviously then because employees are good employees, you know, they want to overperform. And how do you overperform on emails? You check them eight times a day.

Guy Yeah.

Daniele And then in all the research, where we know that each time you switch context, you know, there is a cost and there is time lost. And and therefore we know that if you do that eight times a day, you can do a little bit of math and you quickly see that there are days of work that get lost in the year for nothing.

Guy Yeah. I mean, one of the things I got used to when I started in a new position or got a new computer, basically, is I'd go into the notification settings and turn them all off for email. I don't want that pop up. I don't want anything to to come up and and take my attention from me to say, Oh, you've got an email because that email might be spam, it could be something that's completely unimportant. But just that notification, just a blip, that's enough to pull you out of whatever context you in or whatever flow that you are in and derail you in some way. So, you know, it can take it may not take 20 minutes to get back, but it may take 5 minutes to get back. And every time that comes up, if you've got it notifying you on every new mail, that's a lot of little blips throughout the day. So, yeah, I always turn it off. And then I reduced the amount of times that the email client would check for new mail to be, you know, as, as wide as I can make. And I think some clients only allow every 30 minutes or something like this and then I would close the email client when I wasn't working with it so that I wouldn't just be switching between applications and then come across an email and see an unread email. And then I kind of I was going to do something that now I'm going to deal with this email because it will, it will take your attention. And attention is one of the most valuable things that we have now. You know, even more than time. It's how we use that time. It's it's what gets our attention. So reducing the the noise and the the notifications and all of those things that can pull you out of your context is super important. So yeah, if it's once a day, y say, okay, I'm going to check my email at 10:00 in the morning and then that's it. Obviously, I think there's some jobs which may require you to check it more often if you're doing support based on email, But for most people they can probably get away with just doing it once a day or at least talking to their boss or their manager to find out what their expectations are.

Daniele Yeah. it's setting, the expectation about the different channels that we have at work. what's the frequency that we expect for each channel. And then also reflect on what channels do we use for what. Just to share a note. I think we talked about it in the last episode, but there is a great book, so Cal Newport for people who are interested in this kind of stuff, deep work and all of that. He's really he has really good content about all of that. the thing that you said about notifications, there are studies about that, if I remember well, I think IBM did a study and it was kind of 8 minutes lost. Each time you hear a notification just from to get back at the same stage of focus. And if you need some convincing with your boss, I did. Uh, this is something that I did back in the days I, I created a little Excel spreadsheets, where I counted the number of times the person wanted to check their emails, and added to 8 minutes thing from IBM. And then you multiply that over the number of days you work in a year, you know, or in the months.

Guy Hmm.

Daniele And then you do the math, you know, And once you do that, you know, the number is crazy, you know, And then you can have this conversation of, is this cost okay for us? And as you said, there are always caveats with this kind of stuff is if you're a customer service guy, your job is email. You know that that's that's your job. if you're a manager, depending on what type of manager you are, your job is email because is answering, stuff from your employees to help them get to do their work, And basically you are an answering machine. For the problems of of your peers, you know, then it's another job. But for many knowledge workers, email is your source of information, but it's not your work. Your work is something else. And and then definitely such a principle can work. And and this is just one example of of a very simple, practical thing we can do to make the workplace just a bit nicer. But there are even some simpler and more stupid things, like putting some plants in at work. There are again, research that has been done that shows that, if you put some plants in, in in an office, it reduces fatigue. You know, one study says that it seems to be able to just reduce fatigue by 30%,

Guy No.

Daniele Others have measured that just having a few plants in the office, increases productivity by 15%. And what this shows again, is this notion that if we want to have services that work well, we need to have employees that work well and for employees to work well, we need to think kind of in a sustainable way, which means sleep, boundaries and nature.

Guy I think I think everyone's been in that in that office where there's a fluorescent light that just hasn't been fixed and it's flickering and you just can't get any work done with that light still as it is. So this is taking it to another degrees. And if you're in an office like that, get that light fixed, because that's a that's a very important environmental consideration there in terms of people's wellbeing, because it will drive people insane. But aside from plants, the picture that comes to my mind when I was thinking about that fluorescent light is this cubicle farm, this open office where everyone can see everyone and everyone can interact with everyone and and I've heard some stories that this sort of plan, this layout is not optimal for actually getting things done. What do you know about that?

Daniele Yeah, I have personal experiences, obviously, with this kind of stuff that, where I, I kind of both hated it and loved it. And I think it can work well, obviously. But, some research again shows that it's not always that great. So for example, there is a research that shows that, open spaces create that 32% drop in workers well-being, a 15% reduction of productivity, an 86 minutes per day employees, lost due to distractions, And so these are just examples like and again, you know, some places you can decide to not set up a big open space. Some places you just have the open space and you can't to do all the things. But it doesn't mean that that you can't make it in a different way. So often, you know, uh, when working in open spaces, people tell me a but I'm in an open space, I can't do anything about it because we don't have the space or, or I'm not the one who's deciding. And then you can say, Yeah, but you still can create a culture where distraction, you know, is welcome that moments and not welcome that other moments.

Guy Hmm.

Daniele And for that, you know, you can have little, little cultural signals that can help. You know for example, one very simple signals is if I have my headphones on, I'm in a deep work mode. In the words of Cal Newport, meaning I'm working in an Excel spreadsheet, I don't need to be disturbed or this will break my spreadsheets, you know, And then might lose a million just because of you asking me a question. So then headphones on. Good thing to do. You know, it's a signal. Don't disturb me. But there are other moments where we say, Hey, i good to be in the in the in the space where people can just come in and say, hey, I might have a little question. Is now the right time, you know? And then having another signal that says I'm open to full conversations. I'm not in this in this deep work mode is something that can be used. In places where you don't have an open space, what happens is the door is open or the door is closed. You know, that's the signal. But you don't have that. So you have to find other ways to have that signal. And again, it's not that open spaces are pure hell or pure paradise, but often when by default, they generate a lot of of issues. But if you designed them in a smart way and you don't you don't need much, Headphones or maybe some noise canceling headphones. Maybe just some five minute meeting saying, Hey, guys, new rule. I someone has a little sticky note with a bad face on it, don't disturb them. We're going to try that for one week. It doesn't cost anything, You didn't have to spend money on putting walls. But still you get the benefits of having a system to avoid the distractions.

Guy a lot of this has become difficult to work through for office managers and people that are designing these offices, especially when after COVID and a lot of more people moved to remote or hybrid working. And so, you would have people that had half empty offices. And then how do we utilise the space? Better start hot desking and and hoteling and things like this where you didn't have an assigned desk, you just take the open desk, but then you don't, then you feel less of a of a human if you don't have an assigned place or if you don't, you can't personalize your space at work. So there's a lot of moving parts with this. And I don't envy the people that are designing offices now for, the workplace of tomorrow.

Daniele Yeah, absolutely. I'm also more on the remote side of work these days, and it comes with a lot of tiny benefits on that part for the focus but I think one type of exercise that I would highly recommend for people who are, having to make those decisions, even if you're just a team leader or something like that is, tak your people in and ask those questions. how do we ensure that, you can get the focus that you need? Yeah. What do you need to do that? What can we change? And there is always like three perspectives. There is an environment perspective where it's what can we change in an environment? There is a technological perspective. what technology can we use to change the things? And then there is a behavior perspective where we can say, what can we change in our way of behaving? So that we signal to each others elements that then make the workplace better? and this again, is a one hour meeting once every year. That you can do and then people can work and at at a better efficiency. And also, removing a few disturbances that everybody hates, but nobody acknowledges because they don't feel that it's so important. But, something that is not so important that happens 20 times a day is important, even if it's just taking 1 minutes. But it's taking one minute of 20 people 20 times a day. That's a lot of minutes for something not very important. And I'm not advocating, for a monk based. Workplace where there is absolute no distraction and no communication between each other, but instead having a bit more intentionality. When is the right time to do what? Again, I often take these examples because that's what I'm living a lot these days with my kids. You know, say now is the playtime, And now as a calm time, now is the time of of learning. Now is the time of eating. And when we eat, we don't play. When we play, we don't eat at the same time. It's, setting to the rhythms. But obviously in one day there is play, there is each, there is education, there is calm. There is all of it. But trying to have all of it at the same time, that's at least to me, feels like a bit of a recipe for chaos or in in Switzerland we will call that bircher muesli. Which is, a recipe where we put all of the rests in there in some yoghurt and we mix it and sometimes it's delicious, but sometimes it's just crap.

Guy Yeah, well, when you find these, these places where things aren't going optimally, when you realize, oh, I've made a mistake here, then it can be helpful, to share the mistake and share the learnings from that and say, okay, well this is how I came to this decision. And at the time it might have been the right decision, but the outcome wasn't great. How do we avoid making that mistake again? I guess give it some value and share it, which, which I'm trying to segue into principle number 41 of mistakes are worthy only if you share them.

Daniele So it depends on depending on the culture again. I think if every culture is a bit different, but many in many cultures or work cultures, you we speak mostly about windows and not much about mistakes and we don't celebrate like, Oh, I failed at this and this is what I learned. This is not something that you say. You just say, Oh, we have a new client,We finish this great, great, great. And if it's the case that in their cultures, there is no space given to speak about mistakes. That's a dangerous thing because there is no time to to to improve in some way. You we can just improve by seeing only the great stuff. But there is also a lot of learning from all of what didn't work well, and especially, not just having obviously kind of like the the classical end of project with you is a great learning thing, where it's good for the team, but how can you go beyond that, in a way that it's not just what the mistakes of one team helps that team, but that the mistakes of one team helps kind of like the whole organization. And again, it's not big things here that are needed, but tiny little things where, you could have like a learning wall or if it's remote, a learning channel where you say, hey, this, this week, this or this is a mistake I made and this is what I learned from it. these are very simple practices. where where people can just have a place to share. This is something that broke that didn't work, where I made a mistake. And this is something that I learned out of it. And and if we do that, not again, just each of us for ourselves, but also as an organization, then we can greatly improve also the workplace. And that can be pretty inspiring.

Guy You have to feel safe in the environment, that you can share the mistake and that you're not going to be thrown under the bus or it's not going to come back in some negative way and that it gets celebrated in a way to say, okay, you made a mistake, we discovered it and here's what we can learn from it. But without that psychological safety, it can be risky and people would be less inclined to to share their mistakes. So I guess it's it's incumbent on the on the people that are creating that workplace environment and that culture to also encourage that culture of mistakes are okay. It's okay to make a mistake, and then others will be willing to share them.

Daniele A. And here again, you know, the role of the of the authority figure, be it a team leader, be it to the CEO or whoever else is. setting the tone. You know, imagine the CEO coming in and saying, okay, guys, this is how I made a mistake that cost us over 1 million. And this is what I learned from it. And this was that this is what I'm changing.

Guy Right.

Daniele I am going to feel much more eager to share my mistake that just cost one angry email from one customer. Because, 1 million versus one angry customer feels like it's not that terrible. And I'm not the CEO. And so I think therefore, choosing to be clear that it's also our jobs for people who are in these jobs of of being leaders to to showcase that, yes, we do mistakes. And we speak about them and we expect people to do the same. But you can't expect people to do it if you don't do it yourself. And yeah that's that's always this perspective that these are all very dumb lessons you know people sometimes might think but what this is so, so clear so logical, But why don't we do it? You know, that's often a feedback that they get from students, when, when, when they read these books, they are like, but this is so, so clear. Why do people buy your books? I say, beca in the workplace people don't do this stuff that is clear. You know, they focus on the more complex stuff and forget about the simple stuff

Guy There's an idea that by admitting a mistake or showing vulnerability can actually weaken you. But it's kind of the opposite. If you if you're confident enough to say, you know what, I screwed up something here and here was the consequences, and I'm happy to admit it and say that I'm you know, I'm not an oracle. I don't know everything. That that actually goes a long way to helping people trust you and and have people look up to you. Would you agree with that?

Daniele Absolutely. And thinking out loud, the one thing that often, uh, inhibits us of doing it, at least one of the things is that, we have a lot of processes, but we don't have processes for this kind of stuff. for example, I have a, a personal process that I do with my boss, which is, every 1 to 3 months I kind of make a summary of the work I've done during that time. And it always includes one thing that usually is not in any report, but which I love, which is, people that you should congratulate. And I always add two or three names of people where I say, This guy did an awesome job and he's part of our little universe of work, you know, and you should know about it, and you should tell him he did a great work about this. Why am I doing this? Because I want to set the example. that it's okay to celebrate the great work of others, and now making the turn back to our topic. You know, I've made the process. Having that line, you know, in a report. What if, in your own reports that you made to your boss, you would add a line which says, this is how I fucked up this months and this is what I learned from it. This is a very powerful thing. You know, this is a very powerful thing to do. And because I was thinking while we were discussing, you know, that will put a lot of of of importance on leadership and that people are listening to us. And I think, yeah, but I'm not in the leadership, so fuck you guys.

Guy Yeah.

Daniele What can I do? And you know, you can, you can be the example to, you know, this kind of stuff. Your boss will love to receive a report from you every two or three months about the ways you fucked up and you learn something. obviously I had a few other successes in that, to to also make him happy. That would be great, But this is stuff that you can do. It doesn't cost you anything. It just costs you to have a. Word document for the the Office lovers or a Google doc or whatever, a document as a favourite in your browser. And whenever you make a mistake, write it down there, and what you learned because it's it has a lot of value. It has the self-reflection value of noticing I've made a mistake and then writing down what I've learned out of it. And the fact of writing it is already kind of like a memorizing exercise. And then the fact that you're sharing it, creates a lot of visibility. And someone someone else learns out of it. And then finally, if it's your boss who sees that, it might create in the end, the willingness to say, hey, oh, what Guy is sharing with me? This is something that we all should do. So now a new process guys. We all are going to share once a month, all our fuck-up moments, and that's going to be awesome. But just because Guy thought my boss is not asking it, but I think it's valuable, so I'm just going to share it.

Guy Yeah, I would. I would also put on this that not all bosses will be as generous and and open and altruistic maybe as as our hypothetical boss here. Some could use this against you. If they're wanting to get rid of you, if you have a bad relationship, you have to pick your moments, I guess you have to understand the the dynamic between you and your your managers. And maybe don't give more fuel for people to use if the relationship isn't that good. But I think that the general principle of being willing to admit your mistakes even if it's not in a written report, but at least in a in a discussion or retrospective or something like this, or when you're talking about a new project and said, you know what, we went down this path in something that I was involved with before and we made the mistake of doing this or I made the mistake of making this decision. So maybe as we go forward into this new project to keep that in mind. Yeah, I think context plays a part here and, and, and you can get some toxic people at all levels of the organization,

Daniele Yeah.

Guy so.

Daniele And that's maybe that's maybe a big advice which is, in toxic environments don't play with the good place rules because it will fire back hard lesson learnt. In toxic environments. You have to be careful to not be the altruistic guy, etc., etc., because it can fire back very deeply. And obviously this this means that you you always have to be very mindful of that, saying if you're in a toxic environment, usually it will not get un-toxic. So that's one thing that I have learned over the years is to make a place un-toxic. I have learned that it's not really possible. So if you have to stay in it because of monetary reasons, you know, just do what you can to survive and but try to leave as soon as possible. That's kind of like my peak advice for those places. There are plenty of places where people, are nice to each other. They exist. There is hope. it's like with people I know I always relate that to women beaten by their husbands, who believe that this is normal. This is not normal. toxic environments are not a normal thing. Jus know that it's not normal. And if you have to go through it because you have no other solution, because there is kind of like a fear or something, a good reason to stay, stay as little as you needs, because there is other places that exist where you can find less toxic places. There are a lot of great places to work. And and and and you can find them.

Guy Yeah, for sure. Now, if we are in one of those good places and we do want to do do something to to change the environment or to change our processes. Does it happen overnight?

Daniele Absolutely no. Obviously, it's it all takes a shitload of time. You know, there is one thing to know or two things to know. The first is when you will come with the change the first reaction will always be no. This is a very interesting thing that I've learned over the years. Again, is whenever you come with a big with a new idea, it's normal that in all the organizations that people just react with no first, and it's okay. It's just take your time and and come back.And we propose with a bit of a new light with a few changes, you know, and then people will say, uh, let's talk about it another time. And then the third time they will say maybe. And then the fourth time they will say, okay, let's try, you know? So that's kind of like the first thing to know. It's that it takes a bit of time to just convince people that something could be tested. And then once you put something in place, there is one of the studies and we always have to take those with a bit of a grain of salt. But there is one of those studies which says that to do that you need to repeat a behaviour for 66 days to create a new habit. And this obviously works for personal habits, but also for work habits. You know, that repetition is really key to put in place something. So if we're speaking of, you know, sharing failures and learnings, you know, doing it once will not be enough to say now it's a process. Now it's something that happens automatically and you're going to need a few weeks, a few months so that it's really ingrained in your culture. And knowing that is interesting, not in the sense that it makes us think, Oh shit, it's going to be hard, but rather to have a bit of patience and to think about the ways we can support people while they are slowly creating the habits because they are not. The habit isn't there yet. So what are the reminders that we can put in the, uh, 13 first weeks of a new process? You know, what can we do to help people transition to this new habit? And I think that's a very interesting thing to know. So. People will say, no, that's normal.

Guy Right.

Daniele And once they said maybe you're going to need a little bit of time to to get them used to it and therefore, think about how you can on board them, remind them about it and then make it easier for them.

Guy Mm hmm. So do you think that a lot of these change efforts fail, or because they they lack that patience, they say, okay, here's the new process. Go for it. And then they're kind of people are abandoned to it just to make of it what they will. And they don't get that support through that that change phase, that transition phase.

Daniele Yeah, I would say I would say there is two reasons. The first one is like making change and stopping there. the other one is making change and educating and stopping there. And when I feel it works is when you make the change. You make the education,and you set up the routines. It's not just the process, but the work, which is that it's embedded in the way we work. and then it works. Well, I think a pretty great book about this is Atomic Habits. obviously it's a book which is more for personal productivity, but a lot of the ideas behind it you can reuse also for work, So there are ideas like habit stacking,which is the idea that in order to create a new habit, instead of creating a new habit, stack it or bundle it with something that people do.A simple example. I know Guy you are already fit and very muscular, but maybe I'm not as fit. Clear as you are. And to get there, I might say every time I brush my teeth, I am going to do 20 push ups, you know, And so I don't even have to do that much work because brushing teeth means push ups. And then maybe on my toothbrush, I add a sticky note or something or a where photo of me being extra fit with a little bubble that says Now is your time to do your pushups, then yeah, you know, and, and it automatically happens that I will be fit as guy in the next few years. And so this is just showing that obviously this is a very personal life thing, but. Again in in work. We also have habits and things that happen and like how can we bundle these things? So this is just one example. But the that book Atomic Habit has a few of those elements that you can kind of steal for for that phase.But I'm curious. Guy. What's your take on on how to create workplaces that are more sustainable and where people, you know, are doing great work more easily?

Guy There's a lot. We talked about leadership a bit and the idea of the leader being the one that's in authority. And that's one sort of idea that I've come to have my mind changed about, because I think that a leader doesn't have to have authority to lead that, that anyone in a workplace or in an organization of any type can be a leader and they can lead through their behavior and their actions and their attitude and their their integrity and and how they present themselves without having any authority, without having a formal position of authority. So if you have that in mind, you don't have to be a manager to make a change that can make a difference to you. So if you want to make a positive impact on your workplace, then then you can lead yourself in that direction. You don't have to wait for someone else to give you permission to do that as long as it's not affecting other people. You can you can do as many changes to yourself as you want, as long as it doesn't affect other people negatively. And then as you start to show these changes, other people may become interested and say, Oh, how are you doing this? Or what's happening here? And then the conversation starts. So there's this type of leadership that comes from the ground up as opposed to having positional authority. So that's one one thing I would say about creating a better workplace for yourself if if those that are in authority are unwilling or unable to. And then having that that ability to like, as we said before, to to share your mistakes and admit your mistakes. And I, I mean, even in those scenarios where it's possibly not a great idea because of the people that are involved, I still want to do it. I still want to say, you know what, I screwed this up or I made a mistake here, because then it comes to my own integrity. And I think it's very difficult to sort of say, okay, well, if something's been gone very well and then you've exposed some mistakes that happened in the process. But the the end outcome was fine. It's a lot harder to to put a negative slant on that and say, oh, well, you failed and you should be punished or you should be fired or something like this, because overall the outcome was was positive and an outcome can be positive as well even if the project fails because there's learnings from that and things like this. Listening I think is also very important, like to listen to your colleagues, to listen to your managers. I mean, they expect you to listen, but actually listen between the lines sometimes because there may be other things going on and they're being able to, as the Japanese say, they they read the air. Right. Breathe the air in the room, understands the the unspoken context of things. That can be very useful, but you need to kind of tune in. You need to achieve your senses to be able to do that. I think that can be very important as well. But just demonstrating an active listening and intentional listening to people can make a huge difference as well, because then that encourages other people that that puts you into a more thoughtful sort of position and and you learn a lot. I mean, the less that you're talking, the more you're listening, I think the more that you actually learn. So that's where I'll stop talking. . .

Daniele Yeah, it's It's impressive, you know, how we can kind of bring all of this back to Just one idea that, uh, which again, sounds a bit cheesy. Sounds very simple, but it's often forget, which is do what you would like people to do for you. Be that example, you know. Do you think we should listen more? Listen more? You know. Do you think it will be great that we share more compliments about each other's work? Share compliments. People will do the same, you know. And you think it's important that we learn from mistakes. Share your mistakes. And I think this is one thing that is extremely important at work, which is instead of waiting that the change happens at work, make it happen at your own level and show it so that it can be an example and then others can copy it, adapt it more fit, and then suddenly it becomes something that that's that gets shared and it gets more important. And if we do that, it saves the organisation, obviously. And if we come back to our services and in view of things, it then also serves better to the people.

Guy Absolutely. This has been a really good conversation and maybe we'll revisit it in the future in some other areas. So I'm sure that it will come up again at some point. But for today, thanks for the great in-depth conversation. I think we covered quite a lot. And yeah, it's a it's just a joy to have these conversations with you, Danielle.

Daniele It's always a great moment to share these these reflections with you. Hearing your your point of view is always something that is fascinating to me and you always add a level of contextualization, which I love, you know, especially, you know, like, oh, be careful about that. You know, just like not follow, which is by the letter, you know, the there is a bit more context to it, which, which is something that I feel I feel is very important and, a yeah I think if we can just give one call to action is you know that people, you know, it's in the word service design, you know, we design services, but to make these services we also decide how work is happening. So, you know, design your workplace, design how work happens.

Guy Very insightful. Thank you very much, Daniel. And we'll look forward to the next one.

Daniele Absolutely. See you guys.

Guy VO Thanks for listening. We hope this podcast is valuable to you. And if you want to help contribute to our production costs, we embrace the idea of value for value. Where you can return value to us in the form of time, talent or treasure by using a modern podcast player app. You can support us with Boostagrams or streaming value or make a donation at the link in the show notes. The Service Design Principles podcast is is hosted by me, Guy Martin with Daniele Catalanotto. Music by Mikael Smusev. This is a production of Neolux Consulting.