“Culture needs to be lived”
Marianne Aerni talks about how to support designers becoming founders, what makes a good collaboration and becoming a better leader and team member through reflection.
Hello Marianne. Thank you so much for meeting up. You just left your job as co-director of the 30 Weeks program. What is that and could you also tell me a bit more about your background?
It’s great to meet! Well, I’ve studied journalism, PR and communication and gone from a very traditional way of working with clients to doing more of assessment type of work and facilitation where I help people find their solutions as opposed to give them one. I came across Hyper Island during my work and that kind of defined where I am right now.
The 30 Weeks program is an incubator/educational program for designers that wants to start their own startup. It’s based on the premise that Google discovered that whenever they had a designer on the team from day one the projects came out way better and much more targeted to what people need. So this whole design thinking approach is applied to how to start a startup.
What’s the program like?
We always have the methodology at the core and that is that you’re there to learn by doing. We’re not there to just give you things. It’s a lot about self- and group-leadership and I gathered them every week or so where we did one or two hours of either giving each other feedback or just trying to figure out what we knew about each other to broaden that black spot of the Johari window. We also do a lot of trust exercises and want to empower them to own what they’re doing, but also doing it in a good way.
I think you can have the most brilliant idea but if you’re not connected to the people around you it’s going to be hard to bring them on board. And you always need a team.
What’s the feedback you get from the designers on the feedback sessions?
The immediate feedback is that they don’t see the value in doing it. But it doesn’t take too long until they see it. Sometimes the reaction is that they think it’s too touchy-feely and that it’s not for them. Also, I don’t think it’s part of the American culture to be that way. So some people would miss it. I can’t force anyone to do any of it so I’m not mad at them if they decide to not show up. What I do get mad about is if they show up late because that’s not fair to the group.
Could you tell me more about what the process looks like for building and iterating the program?
It’s really about bringing people together around a round table and crowdsource what should be part of this process and the program. So we’re talking to people who’ve started startups and people who have guided startups and done internal innovation. And what I think is the most difficult part in that is that you have a diverse group. Because we always tend to go in our networks and then you have a bunch of white men around the table. That’s just not what the world looks like anymore, so we try to be really conscious about that.
After that crowdsourcing process we kind of know what should go where, so we have the modules and more or less the content. Then we find a resident that overlooks each module and they bring people in who they know are best at that specific topic. It’s several levels so it gets very complex because you have so many stakeholders in the end. Then, when the program is running, you look at how people are developing. Did they get the prototyping part? Maybe we think they didn’t get it based on the feedback and the output so we plug in another prototyping session.
What do you feel is most important about your role as co-director?
I kind of see myself as holding the thing together in the every day. So many things happen at the same time and it’s kind of chaotic in that way so you want people to feel that someone is holding it together and making that part a smooth experience for them. I also think my role is about being really aware of what’s happening in the room and being able to react to that.
What’s a challenge when it comes to culture in the program?
In the beginning we build a culture together for how we want to work with each other during these weeks. And it’s usually very “Let’s challenge each other! Let’s help each other out” and very positive and optimistic. But five weeks into the program everyone is just focusing on their own project and product and they even forget to ask each other how they are. So then you have to prompt them and be like “Hey guys, I think it’s time to revisit our culture. What’s happening here?”. And we look back at the culture and reflect on how we behave and usually they realize themselves that they’re not collaborating. So it’s about challenging them and ask them to solve it. And if someone has an idea for a solution then I don’t go in and fix it. That person should do it. It comes back to being really aware of what’s happening and then finding the best way to address it without solving the problems myself.
So culture is all about behaviors?
Yeah, it needs to be lived. I mean, culture to me is something that… you can have the most beautiful words for it but if your actions doesn’t reflect them then the culture is useless. So I’d rather have small words for our culture. It could just be three words but if you live by them and create value for the team based on them it’s going to be very powerful. Also, if you have a million words it’s very difficult to reflect.
Do you think startups in general think about culture?
I don’t think so, because everything is about the product and people often feel like that’s what they have to work on first and then, then they can start building the culture. And I totally understand that focus, but I still believe that devoting a little bit of time, maybe even 30 minutes, would tremendously benefit the team and the work overall. I know it’s a trade-off and that you never have enough hours in the day. But maybe you have to change the way you work to get somewhere better and that means that at the moment you’re not producing. Maybe just take one day to focus on how you work, maybe change that and then what comes after will be better. It’s difficult to take that time off, but you lose so much and start being angry at each other if you don’t stop and check in with each other. And it’s also so easy to get stuck in that wheel of just producing and doing things and it might not even be relevant to what you’re trying to achieve with your startup. Creating that space of reflection so you can focus on the important thing is important.
How could you support people to get to that point of pausing their work to think about how they work?
If they don’t want to work on it, you can’t just put it on them. They have to figure it out on their own. But it just takes enough people, maybe even one person, to say “Whoa, what’s going on here?” to start that process.
You mentioned self-leadership before. What does that concept mean to you?
To me it means you’re in touch with yourself and you realize what it is that drives you, what it is that makes you trip and who you are in a team. If you know how to communicate your weak points or how to check in with yourself when those weak points are being addressed and don’t take that personal you have the characteristics of being a good leader.
But you start being a leader by leading yourself.
So how can you help people in that process?
I think starting from a perspective that you’re honest with your environment of who you are and speaking about it is a good thing. We who have gone through Hyper Island have that almost encapsulated within us and might expect the rest of the world to be that as well. But I don’t think people in general are necessarily there when it comes to that. So you could start with an exercise where you prompt people to tell them about three things that shaped them. It’s about creating that awareness of who you are and creating that awareness around others. And then I think that coaching them in giving each other feedback pretty early on. That’s hard since they usually want to be so nice and get nice things back so they don’t get that deep immediately. So challenging them in seeing the value of feedback and support them in going deeper with it.
Being self-aware seems to be a running theme in my interviews. How do you think you can become more self-aware as a leader?
Reflection. It sounds so simple, but it’s really hard. I’ve been trying to do that, but it takes a lot of discipline. But if you at the end of the day go through the conversations that you’ve had and ask yourself:
- What happened?
- How did it make me feel?
- What’s the insight?
- What’s the action?
So just analyzing what happened and learning from it. I think that it’s a good way to start when you’re in counter conflict in the relationships with your peers, colleagues or a potential collaborator and try to figure out why you reacted in a certain way and start drawing conclusions from that.
What is a good leader?
I think it’s someone who either provides the vision or has a team that creates the vision together and create safety to do things. So if you’re working in a team and you know feedback is a strong part of what we do, the leader needs to take responsibility for that and not post-pone it. Because if you don’t live by that culture as a leader, then why should the team? No one in the team is going to say “Now I’d like to do feedback” if everyone else wants to go home. And if the leader says that we’ll take that time and it’s a part of the daily or weekly routine then you have the justification for everyone to immerse in that activity. So I think someone who creates trust, a transparent space and lives by the culture is a good leader.
Speaking of trust and creating a safe space — what do you think about the article on Google and psychological safety?
I actually talked to someone who was part of that study. And they were very clear about that it’s not applicable for the entire world just because it worked for their teams. I really like that approach because it’s so true. But what I liked about that study is that it really pointed out that teams work best together when they have security, when they know they can take risks and that they’re not going to be thrown under the bus if something doesn’t work out. That speaks to me and the experiences I’ve had.
On a different note, I think the longer I’m in the workforce the more I think it’s really difficult to be a good leader but also see how important it is to be a good leader. You have to put people first.
Why do you think it’s difficult to be a good leader?
Well, you always have to show numbers to your own leader, right? So as a leader often times you’re extremely challenged and thinking about how you get your team to deliver qualitative work but stay healthy. You have to give some independence but you want to be in control because you have to justify everything your team does in the end. It’s very challenging.
That’s really interesting and seems to be a big problem in today’s organizations. I know some organizations are taking a more facilitative approach when it comes to leadership. What’s your thoughts on the role of being a facilitator versus being a leader?
A facilitator to me is to challenge people to find their own solutions, not to give guidance. And as a leader I think you still want to be someone that people follow and as a facilitator you want the be very clear on that the team is producing the results and that you don’t have any answers. I was working with Rise New York and Barclay’s young talents for a project, which was really interesting because they’re not used to facilitation. They’re used to someone telling them what to do. “Do this and rock”. And me and my colleague were more like “Okay guys, this is the challenge — go!”. It took them such a long time to get started and they went straight to solution. So we challenged them and asked them what their user problem was and to go back and define that in one sentence. They were simply not used to being asked about the problem so I think as a facilitator in that situation my task was to make them struggle and think differently.
So you have to ask yourself what the purpose of the session before the beginning of a scenario or session. Maybe the purpose is that people come up with solutions and then you have to think about how you can guide them through a process where on they work. You don’t work, they do. But maybe the purpose of the day is opening their eyes to a new approach to problems. As a facilitator you help people do what they need to do but you have to be very clear of what they need to do.
On that note, what makes a good learning experience?
Oh, I love the question! I think again it’s about defining in the beginning what the learning experience should be. What should be the learning? For me that experience should empower people to think on their own and help them find a way to make sense of what they’ve learned themselves. If you look at the traditional learning experience it’s more of a “I’m telling you the truth” perspective. You’re learning and then you repeat it back to me. I think it’s more about providing a prompt for people to think about.
I truly believe in the empowerment of people and that always being the first thing. You want people to feel like they can own it. That doesn’t always mean that they’re being supported. Sometimes you need to challenge them for it to be a good learning experience. So you need to question what other people do for their own sake. And I think it’s important that we have disagreement in the conversations we’re having. That’s uncomfortable in the moment but that is actually what challenges you to think about different solutions.
So that has a lot to do with the process of learning. What are your thoughts on process versus outcome when it comes to learning experiences?
Oh, there can be such a smooth process for a mediocre outcome and there can be a really bumpy road to an amazing outcome. So you need to think about what you want people to take away and how you want them go through it.
It’s not about having them enjoy the ride in a smooth process but you want them to benefit the most. So in that sense, a good learning experience is one that really challenges you to think differently, explore yourself, the topic and the team, and to walk away smart, empowered and, hopefully, with some new friends.
What’s a trap you think you can fall into as a facilitator in this realm?
I think you have to be comfortable with the possible uncomfortableness of the group. It’s easy to go “Oh, no, no, no they’re not liking it” and “Ah, they’re not finding any solutions!”. But that’s part of the process and that comes from us humans wanting to be liked. And if you think about it — who are the leaders that shaped you the most? It might not always be the ones that you liked, right? So going away from being likable towards being impactful.
That’s such a powerful shift in mindset, going from being likable to impactful.
Yeah, and that is really uncomfortable. So, what you’re giving the group you’re giving yourself in the process.
I know you and Mathias Jakobsen have a mini podcast called Collaborati. What does collaboration mean to you?
Well, if you look at what the word collaborare means it comes from Latin and means working together. And I think often times you work together but you don’t really work together. Instead you work against each other and everyone has their own agenda or you don’t work towards the same goal. So to me working together means open communication and knowing what it is that you want to get out of the collaboration at the end of the day. Because if you have an understanding of what the other person needs or wants, but also how they’re going to go about it, it’s easier to work together in a meaningful way.
I agree that open communication is important. So how does feedback play into collaboration?
I really believe in it, but it’s challenging. So you have to establish a feedback culture so that the feedback doesn’t become my way of telling you what I don’t like about you but my way of telling you how you can grow. It’s about creating awareness of how we can grow from each other’s feedback but also on how to give constructive feedback. I really like the approach I learned at this Zenergy course I took a few years back, where you give feedback based on one thing you did well and one thing you could do differently. Because that strengthens what you’re good at but also points out where you have your weaknesses. And it’s not about balancing it out and that person receiving the feedback just takes the nice part, it’s about really paying attention to what someone does good. That’s also a challenge.
In short, I think collaboration is working towards the same goal, knowing what the other person wants to get out of the collaboration and then being transparent in giving feedback on the way. Not just at the end of the project but during it so you’re able to tweak things. And I think you need a good leader because those things don’t just happen.
Thank you so much Marianne! It’s been lovely chatting with you. How can people get in touch with you?
Likewise! If people want to chat the best way to reach out is on Twitter.
I’m researching culture building in startups for my MA in Digital Media Management at Hyper Island. For more info: http://bit.ly/building-startup-culture
