Social Impact Heroes Helping Our Planet: Why and How April Durrett EMBA Graduate from Trinity Business School Is Helping To Change Our World
“Hold on. Bad moments pass. Challenging moments happen all of the time in businesses. Temperatures rise and people snap. I find it most important to listen to their frustrations, acknowledge their concern, and take immediate action (if needed). At the same time, don’t feel like this moment is going to last forever. I always make sure to tell myself that so that I can persevere through difficult moments.”
As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing April Durrett, she has spent 23+ years leading, researching, experimenting, designing, building, and launching innovative products for global clients. April completed her Executive MBA at Trinity Business School, and has worked both in-house as well as agency/consultancy and she loves quick and scrappy environments just as much as she loves refining established teams. She is currently Head of Experience Design at Verizon Connect.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I’ve always had an interest in art — when I started my undergraduate program at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, I really thought that I wanted to be a painter. My first year of college was amazing. I learned about light, colour, shape, relationships, perception, perspective, so many things. I felt so much energy, but then I got a little bit scared. I wondered how I would take care of myself, and so I started to explore product design. I felt like I could apply my painting skills and still make a living which was great.
In my first job after college, I found out that what I was really good at was seeing people — identifying their needs, listening to their problems, how they were solving them, what frustrated them and what energised them. After a time, I realized I needed to learn the proper skills to become a leader in my professional career. So, I decided to complete my Executive MBA at Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin in 2018 to learn the ideas, methods and approaches needed to foster productive relationships with customers and coworkers alike. For example, I took a course on negotiation skills and was immediately able to try out some of the tactics in negotiating a new project with a customer that was mutually beneficial and built a lot of trust with them. I still use the learnings from this program today.
Looking back, I could have been a painter, or a scientist, or a banker, and I would have been able to make a living because I could collaborate well with others. In the end, I stayed with design and found a way to combine my love of art and painting with a professional career.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you joined?
In the first few weeks of my current position, my boss resigned. He left on really good terms and there was no hard feelings at all. I was disappointed as he was one of the key reasons that I decided I wanted to join the company, so I had to have a bit of a reset. As this was a new opportunity, I knew I had to remain open to change, and I’m finding that my new boss is really energizing to work with — I am accomplishing more than I thought I would be at this point.
The moral of this story is that disruptive and disappointing things frequently occur in business. Instead of dropping my head, I needed to look around and see where the new opportunities were. What could this disruption unlock?
Can you describe how you or your organization is making a significant social impact?
Our business is just like any other — it needs to make a profit and give a return for shareholders. However, I believe we do make a difference in the lives of the people who use our product and partner with us. For example, we have a product that helps businesses with remote workforces to anticipate safety issues with vehicles, therefore protecting their drivers while also fixing a problem before it becomes dangerous and expensive. While we may operate like a viable business, we are also releasing products that make lives better.
Can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
We’ve had a couple of users that were in vehicle accidents which ultimately ended in lawsuits for the companies. In many of the cases, the companies and drivers were able to use our tools to be able to defend their workers behaviours in the field, not only protecting their workers, but also their businesses.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
Our company’s goal is to help businesses with remote workforces manage their operations. The root of our problem is that businesses with remote workforces have both drivers and assets distributed all over the areas in which they operate. They can’t see them, they can’t contain them, and they can’t protect them at all times — at least, not in the same way that businesses can use certain tools to protect people within a designated office or workplace.
There are plenty of opportunities for society to assist businesses and their workers by investing in better roads that will help individuals get around safely and providing sustainability grants and incentives for businesses with remote workforces such as investing in electronic vehicle charging networks to make it more feasible for remote workers to join the energy transition.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
There are many different aspects to leadership besides leading your own team. For instance, since completing my EMBA at Trinity Business School, I feel confident building collaborative relationships with other departments within the business, like legal, operations & finance. I’m often finding opportunities for us to work together that I never spotted before.
When I think about the leader that I aspire to be, it is one that knows how to hire really great people, prioritize their needs and enable their growth. I do this so that my teams can be healthier, more autonomous, and make better decisions that are ultimately better for the business. Everyone is treated like a team member that will ultimately win the game together.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
• People want to do good work — In my experience, most people appreciate the satisfaction of doing good work as well as being recognized for their good work. That being said, sometimes this can show up in different ways for people in terms of their behavior, responses, etc. If you approach people with this frame of mind, you can often find common ground faster.
• You are not always the expert, nor is your boss. You do not know everything. Through my career, I’ve learned that even if I have an expert level of knowledge of a topic, there may be someone else that knows just as much, if not more, than I do. This isn’t always necessarily my boss either — it can be someone in a different department, someone below you. You should always take a moment to listen to what they have to say as it might just make your understanding better.
• Hold on. Bad moments pass. Challenging moments happen all of the time in businesses. Temperatures rise and people snap. I find it most important to listen to their frustrations, acknowledge their concern, and take immediate action (if needed). At the same time, don’t feel like this moment is going to last forever. I always make sure to tell myself that so that I can persevere through difficult moments.
• Most of the time, it is not you. You may get a harsh Slack message from a colleague or a snappy response in a video call from a team member. While the reaction might be a response to something you or your team has done, often times there is something else going on that has nothing to do with you. I try to stay compassionate and respectful and not mirror the behaviour. Often, but not always, it calms down pretty quickly and the person appreciates your compassion.
• Power always affects behavior and not necessarily in a good way. People crave being around power, achieving power, and gaining more power. And it makes them behave in ways that are sometimes counter-productive. For me, it’s helpful to understand the different motivations involved in a project, so that I can meet them while still keeping in mind what my team needs to achieve. Again, it’s always important to remain compassionate in the workplace.
Can you please give us your favourite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Compassionate leaders honor the complexity of human relationships, nurture authenticity and create common grounds for blooming great ideas of individuals.”
My favorite part of this quote is the idea of creating common ground. Leading a team is a delicate process that requires patience, compassion and working together in a really intentional way. Our work is fragile at moments, and robust at others.
I like to talk to my teams about having “seasons” to their work (like farmers or gardeners). We spend part of the year planning our garden, then we prepare the soil, we plant the seeds, we tend to the garden, water it, weed it, and then at last we can harvest. If we are lucky, we get a good harvest. Sometimes, even after hard work, research and diligence, we still fail. We have to be mindful to what we put in the soil, and how we disrupt it, so that we can have great harvest after harvest.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why?
I would love to have breakfast with the Dalai Lama. I’ve always admired his commitment to compassion and respect for those that we love as well as those we have just met. I would want to know how he remains consistent with his mindset — how does he resist getting frustrated or discouraged? If he does, what does he do about it? How does he find compassion even in the darkest moments, and with folks that are less open to receiving it?
How can our readers further follow your work online?
I am engaged on LinkedIn, so people can follow my work there: https://ie.linkedin.com/in/aprildurrett.
They can also find out when I am speaking at design and leadership events around Dublin.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
