Two design strategists in Gensler’s Dallas office ask questions that challenge tradition and find answers suggesting a new method of beginning projects to assure that the clients’ workers are enabled to do their best work when the project is finished.
Their questions? Can data, hard numbers and c-suite input provide everything needed for a people-oriented workplace design? Should projects be started with the mindset of a novice, leaving out the biases and assumptions that come from experience?
Answers to those and other questions inform the work of Christina Donaldson, Design Strategist, and Mike McKeown, Strategy Director, who are promulgating a new best practice.
Their method engages service design with a healthy dose of empathy as a means of revealing micro-relevancies that, in single strands or interwoven systems, can individualize workplace designs.
Who holds such information and how is it obtained? What processes change? How does a designer identify the needed information? Where can the work done by Ms. Donaldson and Mr. McKeown lead?
Their work could go far considering this duo’s wide-ranging subject knowledge. Ms. Donaldson is a Registered Interior Designer in the State of Texas, an IIDA member, holds an Evidence-based Design Accreditation and Certification (EDAC) and is a
LEED AP. She has an MFA in interior design and teaching and currently pursues a Master’s degree in Psychology.
Mr. McKeown brings an MBA as well as a Prosci Change Management Certificate to the team, plus strategy and consulting work in addition to product design and interior design. He serves on the Board of Directors for CoreNet North Texas Chapter.
The multiple degrees and certification of these two designers represent the widening range of issues influencing workplace design.
“I think that design is becoming more interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, said Ms. Donaldson. “This means asking those questions that span disciplines.” She offers neuroscience as an example, discovering how design affects the brain.
“People are more informed in general about issues we deal with than they used to be,” said Mr. McKeown. The internet makes information accessible to all, and design in its many forms makes good content these days. “Even in early talks with clients, we find they have done their homework,” he said.
Mr. McKeown offers further perspective on ways clients’ understanding of Gensler’s role, and the role of design, is changing. “Clients see us coming in with more than the sizes and shapes of what something should be – we’re helping them think about their success not only in workplace changes but in other things that need to change and evolve with it.”
Those things clients mention go beyond interior design. Says Mr. McKeown, “If we are talking about design and workplace strategy, often clients go into discussions of HR policies, tech services, printing, computers.”
Lines once clear have become hazy.
“If we’re engaging an end user, where do we draw the distinction that says we’re only going to talk about this side of the conversation,” said Mr. McKeown. “As soon as we feel that’s not our territory, I start thinking, ‘In a way, it is.’”
“People don’t make the connection that designers have to factor in so many different facets of the workplace and the client’s business,” said Ms. Donaldson. “They say ‘You do that?’ or ‘You think about that?’”
Those conversations may not directly relate to the design of a space, the furniture plan or the square footage involved. But, says Mr. McKeown, “These issues do relate to people’s experiences and how users experience the workplace, either positively or negatively.”
If those issues remain unexplored, the resulting design may not become all it could be. It’s what Ms. Donaldson and Mr. McKeown call a “gap” that happens when programming does not tap into people working in the trenches.
“Imagine having five people from a company, all executives, in a room describing what they think ought to be done,” said Mr. McKeown. “Do they have their finger on the pulse of the everyday employee?”
That is the workforce coming in five days a week, using the workspace, using the tools and the technology. “We want to understand what their experiences are and the challenges they might face.”
As Mr. McKeown has identified the gap, Ms. Donaldson defines the means to close it.
“Design thinking,” said Ms. Donaldson, “is more than a buzzword.” She defines design thinking as “understanding the systems of things within the workplace and how related systems play into one another.”
There is an alluring trap to avoid. “As designers, we see patterns we’ve seen before, we go to thoughts of previous work, and we should avoid that trap,” said Ms. Donaldson. “We have to check ourselves.”
What replaces those impulses that need curbing? “I believe we return to listening like we haven’t heard it before, just so we can hear something new,” said Ms. Donaldson. She underscored the point saying that “how we listen determines what we hear.”
The upfront work on a project is where it happens. “This is when we tie in service design,” said Mr. McKeown. “Here is the start of how you better understand the workers.”
To a degree, it both challenges and complements the traditional process.
“A traditional process begins with a kick-off meeting, then some programming with the client to find out how much space they need,” said Mr. McKeown. “Tally that all up and somebody will do a test fit and schematic design.”
Seeing how nearly every interior designer or A&D firm uses this process, the work underway by Ms. Donaldson and Mr. McKeown asks if that is the most relevant method.
“We’re arguing that sometimes it is not,” said Mr. McKeown. “Sometimes you need a deeper dive, to talk with different people.” As to how that melds with tradition, he suggests “maybe it complements an existing process, or maybe it replaces an existing process – we’re determining that answer.”
As that answer emerges, Ms. Donaldson and Mr. McKeown say a model exists for how designers can listen and involve empathy. It calls on designers to develop an excellent “bedside manner” along the lines of what doctors employ.
In an online article from July 2016 for the David Geffen School of Medicine UCLA, Patricia Chaney wrote that “bedside manner among all medical professionals is a crucial part of their patient’s recovery…This important element encompasses every aspect of one’s interaction with a patient and his or her family member – not only what is said, but how it’s expressed.”
Ms. Chaney’s comments reinforce UCLA Health’s standard practices for interactions with patients, families and colleagues.
The article quoted the director of pediatric nursing at Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA: “It’s important for us as providers to put ourselves in the parents’ and children’s shoes.”
Her suggestions to staff included using words the patient can understand, not medical jargon; making eye contact when talking; introducing themselves every time due to the number of UCLA staff patients see; using body language that is honest but does not demonstrate haste.
To illustrate, Mr. McKeown offers a hypothetical scenario of a doctor’s appointment for a patient with stomach pain. The physician can listen to what the patient says, ask questions, and work to understand the specific ailment before considering treatment. Or, the physician can stop the patient short, replying “I’ve seen this before, and I know what it is.”
“At that point, the appointment becomes a transaction,” he said, adding that “design can be only the prescription, or it can be the prescription based on a sound bedside manner.
This softer side of design, as Ms. Donaldson terms it, leavened with empathy, incorporates the possibility of finding relevant information that eludes the data and numbers.
“Clients are interested in research and the hard numbers it produces,” said Ms. Donaldson. “They want to know the statistics and what we will do so their people are best able to help the business succeed.”
The challenge lies in keeping true to the qualitative aspects, the softer side. “The importance of listening, of understanding their needs, of knowing how they really feel,” said Ms. Donaldson. “We look at so many statistics and numbers that we can lose sight of the people.” And, make assumptions.
Empathy overcomes blanket assumptions. Mr. McKeown believes that understanding and listening voids comparisons between similar projects. From immersion in the client’s “side of the world, their culture, their firm and its business is how we get to know who they really are.”
Awaiting within that culture are the micro-relevancies, the invisible and intangible factors unique within the ecosystem of the client’s organization. Finding them comes from connecting with people.
“One-on-one interaction,” said Ms. Donaldson, “is how we connect, where we see each other’s expressions and get a much better idea of what people are thinking and feeling.” She said that asking questions through a survey generates answers, but one-on-one interaction opens doors to conversations that might not happen otherwise.
Stated differently, touchpoints are opportunities for learning about people, how they work and toward what ends they are working. In their NeoCon 2017 presentation, Ms. Donaldson and Mr. McKeown identified five touchpoints: people, place, props, partners, and processes.
“The more we can layer in those touchpoints, the richer the story becomes,” said Mr. McKeown.
Mr. McKeown provided some examples: “Spend some time in their space; talk to their people and different types of people; have somebody show you what they do for a living; visit their website; learn about them from the material they publish; look at how they do what they do.”
Spending time like this is not always possible, as schedules may leave design firms with less time from start to finish. “This is one of the realities we face, not only at our firm or here in Dallas, but in the industry,” said Mr. McKeown. “Tight timelines and competitive budgets are commonplace.”
Mr. McKeown and Ms. Donaldson understand this, knowing that what they advocate need not be rushed into practice before its value diminishes.
“We’re sounding a call to action for designers,” said Ms. Donaldson. She and Mr. McKeown champion the culture of service design and empathy internally at Gensler and through talks to design professionals at industry events such as they did at NeoCon 2017.
Empathy, touchpoints, listening, bedside manner, one-on-one interactions, finding the invisible nuances, design thinking and service design: these close the gap when designing workplaces where people do the best possible work.
What Christina Donaldson and Mike McKeown work toward is the method design professionals can use to accomplish that with each project.