The Art of Different: Design, Creativity and the Power of We
“Creativity is also definitely a superpower in one way or another, and sometimes you can control it, sometimes you can’t.”
Sarah Mote
In this episode you’ll hear about
- The role of design in the workplace: Why designers are essential to a functional and thriving team
- Protecting creativity while ageing: How to maintain child-like creativity as you age and your career develops and prioritise approaching work and life through a creative lens
- Inviting & navigating feedback: Knowing when is the right time to invite input and how to receive and respond to both positive and negative feedback
- Organisational transparency: The value of open-door cultures and how to cultivate transparency and collaboration in a historically individual minded organisation
- Innovative problem resolution: How to develop an agile, problem-solving mindset that allows you to unearth objective, creative solutions
Key links
Sarah’s White Night 2015 piece
About our guest
Sarah Mote is a Senior Product Designer at Bendigo Bank and Lead Product Designer for InstantScripts, as well as a Mentor through Monash University, Melbourne University, Academy XI and more.
She is a detail-oriented, award-winning designer, maker and ‘put-it-togetherer’, having worked internationally and within organisations such as NAB, MYOB and Oral-B Braun.
Sarah is motivated by meaningful and emotive problems that create better futures, and ultimately works to shape and contribute to the design world and craft exceptional experiences through the pushing of creative boundaries.
About our host
Our host, Chris Hudson, is a Teacher, Experience Designer and Founder of business transformation coaching and consultancy Company Road.
Company Road was founded by Chris Hudson, who saw over-niching and specialisation within corporates as a significant barrier to change.
Every team approaches transformation in their own way, also bringing in their own partners to help. And while they’re working towards the same organisational goal, it’s this over-fragmentation that stunts rapid progress at a company-wide level.
Having worked as a marketer, transformation leader, teacher and practitioner of design thinking for over 20 years, both here in Australia and internationally, Chris brings a unique, deep and ‘blended’ skillset that will cohere and enable your teams to deliver ambitious and complex change programs.
Transcript
Chris Hudson: Hello everyone. And welcome to this next episode of the Company Road podcast. It gives me great pleasure to announce our next guest, Sarah Mote. You’re a senior product designer at Bendigo Bank and lead product designer for InstantScripts.
And you’ve given me a bit of background, so I’m just going to explain what you’ve shared with me. So your childhood dreams in the realm of art and design and they led you to study fine art and industrial design. You’ve been on many adventures around the world, a bit of travel in and around Italy, England, where I’m from, and around the Oral B Braun design team in Cronenberg, which looks like a lovely place.
I was just looking at it on Wikipedia. Looks very cool. Looks very German but the birthplace of industrial design. And yeah, looking at Dieter Rams philosophy of less, but better, which became a bit of a guiding principle for you. And it really felt like from your description, it was influencing your design approach, helping you to prioritise simplicity and effectiveness.
As well as the other work that we’ve mentioned, you do mentoring work at Monash University, Melbourne Uni, Academy XI and ADP list and you share your expertise with other people. You like cooking a little bit you’ve talked a bit about your, passion for culinary experimentation.
I don’t know what, what to describe it as, but it’s something to do with the microwaved egg and finding perfection in that way. So not sure whether that worked out or not but maybe we’ll come back to it. And ultimately your goal is to continue shaping and contributing to the design world and crafting exceptional experiences pushing boundaries of creativity in one way or another so it’s really lovely to have you on board.
[00:01:29] Sarah Mote: Oh, thanks Chris for inviting me. It’s great to be able to speak on a podcast and quite excitingly, this is my first podcast. So
[00:01:36] Chris Hudson: Oh, is it? Okay All right so
[00:01:38] Sarah Mote: Yeah this is really exciting. This is where it all starts for me, the Company Road.
[00:01:41] Chris Hudson: Thank you. Let’s figure out where to begin so maybe we could start with… We talked a bit about the boundaries of creativity and you’re obviously educated in a creative area, if you think about fine art and industrial design, I’d love to just hear about any stories relating to your creativity and how it all began for you.
Maybe we just start there.
[00:01:59] Sarah Mote: So, well, there’s this gorgeous video that happened when I was about in year one or year two at school. I’ve always been out of my brother and I, the one that’s been painting and drawing and stuff. And then at school, this video, they went around asking people, what do you want to be when you grow up?
And there’s people like, oh I want to be a family lawyer, marine biologist, and then there’s little Sarah with her, little fringe and a legionnaire’s cap on going, oh I want to be an artist. I think when my parents watched that it was oh no, what sort of career has she got ahead of herself?
How’s she going to support herself? But yeah that’s really where I think my story always starts is, it’s been with me since little, and I know a lot of people say that, but I actually have proof that I wanted to pursue that career as an artist. And I always say like, I got through to middle school, high school and sort of learned about this thing called design.
And I was like, ooh what’s the difference between design and art really? And the line always, I think is always blurred, but when I found out about architecture, like that was a job. I heard about interior architecture. I was like, oh that’s amazing. And it was not until my mom dragged me to university open days in Year Nine, that I actually found about out about industrial design and realised, oh creating products is actually a job done by designers, not just engineers.
And I fell in love with the whole concept then. Maybe it was the lecturers there, Mark Richardson and Selby Coxon who were there that were just amazing. Seeing a female who was interested in designing physical products and human interaction. And so it all started there really.
And then I just sort of continued. So I got to study at the Victorian College of the Arts, Fine Art Photography, because I have this passion for photography. Haven’t had much time for it over the last long time, because I’ve just been embedding myself completely into this design world. Additionally it just came to mind my mum’s got at home, this drawing that I did at art class of a Goosebumps story, like a reaction sort of piece of like a house and a cat and stuff.
And I remember her telling me that, this was the piece where the teacher that was saying, giving feedback, he went to my mum and said, oh, Sarah’s got some real talent and you really need to embrace this and continue it. And that piece, she actually got framed, and it’s a piece that I need to bring over here to my plain white walls.
But yeah, it really started at a young age and just being off with the fairies and creative.
[00:04:17] Chris Hudson: That’s obviously the beginning of it and it followed you through to the world of business, I’m sure as well. If you think about creativity and maybe including your childhood time, as you were describing it, a lot of people say that children are very much more open minded than adults when it comes to experiencing things, they’ll give it a go essentially.
And sometimes, when you get older, obviously, judgment kicks in. You’re a bit more cautious. You’re a bit worried about what other people think. If you’re not considered an expert in something, you’re less likely to try something out. I’m curious to know whether that was something that you experienced, or whether you’ve been able to continue with your creativity. What do you feel was the most creative part of your career so far?
Or maybe your life.
[00:04:55] Sarah Mote: I feel really accomplished by having created a piece for White Night, in 2015 and showcasing that to the City of Melbourne. Being recognised by the Age Paper as being like one of the top 10 things that you must go see at White Night and just the influx of Instagram and social media posts that people were taking and the delight of people coming in and interacting with my, with the work.
It was an extension of my Industrial design thesis of interactive hydroponic plants, which sounds really funky, but it’s based off research from Disney. I grabbed some friends to try and help me make this bigger and we put it on in the Rotunda at the Botanical Gardens and had a bunch of plants that people were able to come up and touch and interact with and that changed the lights and the soundscape and things like that. But to your point of how do you keep that creativity, going and not losing that scariness sort of being presented with a white page, it’s certainly happened. Industrial design, for me, I suddenly, you’re around people, other extremely talented people when I was in industrial design and people above you and below you, you suddenly get emerged into this world with other really great creative people, and talented people. And so there are some people that are really great at drawing automotive stuff, some really great at drawing products, but some people are really great at 3D modelling or actually physically making the models.
And so everyone had their strengths and I always had hesitancy to do things because of that imposter syndrome of I’m not good enough. At school I was really confident with what I was making and creating because you sort of get recognised as being, Sarah’s the art kid.
But then when you’re around everyone else, you’re like, oh gosh yeah, maybe I’m not as creative. Maybe I’m not as good anymore. I feel like the ways that I begin to overcome that indefinitely in the workforce is, just having fun and having play. It was something I’ve been thinking about more and more as I was really fortunate to go to my old high school and hear from some great women.
And one of those people was Kathy Kiss and she, has contributed a lot to playground design and development and childhood development and things like that. And she spoke about how important it is to have that play because of, we stimulate creativity and thoughts and problem solving and things like that.
And so culturally, when going into a job and looking for things what’s their team dynamics like, what are, what’s the workplace like, they’ve got to be having fun because that’s part of my practice. That’s how you problem solve. And that’s how you create. Certainly for me, the best results out of me is having a good old chuckle and going on tangents as well.
[00:07:29] Chris Hudson: Yeah. Can we talk about, I guess the way in which that was received in some of the places that you’ve been, obviously imposter syndrome is a real thing, particularly in the creative industries where, I don’t know if it’s that somebody’s doing something different. It feels like any kind of tangential thought because it’s being presented in a different way and people have got different ideas and then you get into this weird space of, well, I don’t know, is my idea better than their idea?
And then ultimately it’s just an idea. It’s a precious arena sometimes. So I’m just wondering how you navigate that for yourself based on your experience really.
[00:08:00] Sarah Mote: When going into a workplace, it can be challenging depending on the dynamics, and sometimes I’ve been known to come in as a ball of chaos coming in of fun, to disrupt and maybe that’s possibly why people have hired me because they got wind of that. Certainly at NYB I found I’ve quickly found some people because, when you’re that person and working remotely as well, it can be tricky to connect, and through COVID times as well, starting different jobs was really tricky, but going into Slack groups into the channels and, there was a design one, of course. And I just started talking and sharing things that I’d found being like, does anyone want to talk to me? And no one really was talking. And I was like, geez, this is a tough crowd but then a couple of the designers, they were like, no, we really like it.
We just don’t know what to say sort of thing, or we’ve got nothing else to share, but they said, oh hey, go check out like the dog’s channel and the cat’s channel, but more importantly, NYB had this great channel called the yelling channel and you had to do caps lock all the time. No, if you got lowercase, you got kicked out, which is amazing.
And you, yeah, no context was the best way of doing it. Quite often when I start talking, I sometimes forget to give the context of what I’m talking about. And so I just start saying stuff, that’s where sort of one of my friends directed me to this yelling channel and was just like, go talk there, but do it all in caps.
I made some great friends there who embraced that so much so that they even created a no context Sarah channel, which was all the highlights because it wasn’t just in Slack. It was also in person. They’d be like, but what? Because I’d just call people and I’ll be like, oh, hey, so I’ve got a quick question, just got a quick question.
So, culturally, some places it’s well received, really fortunate at NAB in home lending. I landed with an incredible team of people where they embraced my chaos and. joking around and collaboration and everything else like that. It’s certainly been difficult being more of a single designer at Bendigo Bank where it’s myself and my manager, we did have another designer, but he’s moved on to a different project and doesn’t work with us directly anymore, so that’s been much harder.
Excitingly though, they’re at the moment there’s a design practice in the works of being created because Bendigo Bank doesn’t have one. And so that opportunity presented itself to be able to go, hey we can create our own cool culture and fun times and do good things and help the business as well.
And that’s always been the cool thing for me is culturally of like finding people who aren’t even in design that also want to be part of the banter during the day and problem solving on projects. And that’s design really for me as well, like bringing people together, to solve these cool problems.
And it’s quite amazing the people that you attract as well.
[00:10:47] Chris Hudson: I’m really fascinated by that journey and also the transition of the company and the companies that you’re describing because what you’re saying about your background and the play and the creativity and all the things that you’ve mentioned. It’s fantastic. And then you kind of bring it back to reality where you’re talking about MYOB does counting software, NAB and now Bendigo Bank.
As a creative person, how do you get attracted to what are quite traditional conventional institutions in some people’s books?
[00:11:13] Sarah Mote: Gosh, well, partly because I don’t understand them and my inquisitive nature to be able to understand it. Like I dropped science, geography, history, language, you name it. I dropped it at school. I was really fortunate to go to a school where they could cater for that. It was probably also the only way that they got me to finish school, to be honest, yeah, so it’s the inquisitive side of like, what’s a home loan? What- how can I be better at my own banking? What is accounting software? Like I was really fortunate. I grew up in a family business. That sold toilet paper and cleaning chemicals. This was my dad’s business. And so my holidays were filing invoices and answering telephones, picking stock. So I understood the basics of things, but I really haven’t understood all the other bits and pieces and I’ve always felt like the complexity around these things if I didn’t understand it.
How else are other people, there are surely other Sarah’s out there, that don’t know these things and how can I make it more accessible to people like myself, people with, other disabilities or learning, whatever it be, how can this be easier for you and how can we present this in a better way and that stems like, from designing products, you’ve got to understand the human body. So it’s the same as like understanding the human body, understanding the human mind. And that we’ve all got different ways of learning. I’m a visual spatial sort of learner. If you, give me an instruction list of to follow something and it’s not written down.
It’s certainly in one ear, out the other. Like I’m just like nodding my head for days. Going into banking again, though, straight after NAB was also something that I questioned to go to Bendigo. I was like, Oh, should I do this? Should I not do this again? Am I really challenging myself? Am I growing enough?
And it was, and it’s certainly a different type of banking that I’ve gone into. It’s not home lending, which I actually really am quite passionate about home lending, because, of the complexities around it and I think that everyone should have access, get a home, have a roof over their head. Everyone should be able to live safely and comfortably. And, I know it’s as much of an Australian home dream to be able to do that.
So that’s what interests me about home lending and continues to interest me. The complexities around that process as well. It’s wild depending on which state you’re in and what’s. all these different terms and how do you understand it? You don’t get taught those things at school. That’s home lending, but the part at Bendigo Bank is, I’m doing things with term deposits, customer onboarding to be able to get an account open.
What’s a term deposit? What does this mean for me? And, financial freedom runs on money. Even artists, they need to pay for art supplies and other things like that. So, how can they be able to afford to do the things, that they want to do.
And the other attraction to me about Bendigo Bank was, obviously the, Up Bank was acquired by Bendigo a little while ago and. the incredible work that’s going there, that they’re doing at Up. That’s their whole ethos as well of, helping young people have financial freedom and be able to have, be able to save and be able to afford and know where their money’s going.
And so that’s amazing as well to be able to part of, and it aligns really well with Bendigo’s community banks. I don’t know how many people actually realise how Bendigo works with their community branches and and how, what that means, but the money that goes into the community branches, you get assigned sort of a branch when you sign up typically, and that money feeds back into the local community to build sports centres, to build theatres, to whatever it be needed for the community to support a sports club to be able to give the kids, soccer t shirts or whatever it be, you know, things like that. There’s decisions that are made and so, giving back to the community. And I know big banks do their own ways of different things, but there’s a whole model, I guess, around Bendigo Bank, which is, again, still far too complex for me.
I’d probably say go speak to someone else there, who understands all the ins and outs of it but base of it, really sits well with me and where I think, I can continue to add value and thinking about the future of banking and what that looks like, there’s obviously the phase of cryptocurrency and all that sort of jazz, which I’m not going to get into, but, how can I go do my banking and not be having to go to a branch?
How can I get advice from people from the bank, sitting at home on my couch here and, at the time that works for me because I have a young family or, depending on what my lifestyle was like, having that accessible to be able to do my banking and understand my finances when I’m ready to so look I have interests as well of, in the medical world as well, like Instant Scripts is sort of the other balance that I have that I’m very fortunate to. Instant Scripts is a Telehealth, online script consultation website app, started by a dear friend of mine Asher Freilich, and he’s done very well out of it, he sold it recently to WesFarmers for a large sum of money which is amazing.
And it’s been incredible to be part of that journey from the very beginning, I remember sitting with him, having a drink and he was just telling me about this idea that he wants to get going. And I was like, you’re going to need some design help. And he was like, yeah, I know, I know. It’s one of these things.
And it’s sort of been amazing to be able to do that, so I do my nine to five, Bendigo Bank and everyday job. And then, in the evenings, a couple of nights a week myself and now another couple of designers I’ve got on board we chip away at uplifting and building Instant Scripts more, which is great and it’s been an amazing journey, or adventure, I’d say, or, as I prefer to say, it’s been an adventure to go from the very beginning of really not like knowing, some medical stuff, but really understanding more about who the customer is. Everyone should have access to healthcare. So how can you do that? Through a digital platform.
[00:16:50] Chris Hudson: That was some great stories there. I love the way you’re describing and the passion with which you’re describing it as well, because I think that your curiosity has led you to, the solution. I’m sure it’s not always easy to get to that solution. And there have probably been many things that you’ve had to go through to get to those points.
But actually, it’s about possibility. And if you can see possibility the situation in which you live and work, then you follow your nose and your intuition a little bit and ultimately you can get to something that’s really amazing, which is really cool to hear about. Just interesting to me that, this show is all about intrapreneurs and how we, the listeners are often within corporates and they’re in big organisations and they’re trying to make change possible.
And, it can be quite difficult. We’re often quite focused in these conversations around what happens inside that organisation and what they do to achieve certain results and so on. But it’s great to hear from you that you’re actually, you’re doing things outside of that. That probably not only achieve other things outside of work, but also enrich what you’re doing within work.
Is that something that you’ve always kept as a bit of a balance?
[00:17:46] Sarah Mote: Yeah, I think so. I think it’s just inherent in my nature to be able to do that. To have that balance. My mum’s always saying like, Sarah, do you really need to take on more? And I go, oh well, they could just, I could just help a little bit here and maybe add a, a little bit of guidance here.
I think I can add something and that sort of, balance between things.
[00:18:05] Chris Hudson: On the topic of completing things, a lot of people have got tons and tons of ideas but they never get to see anything through do you feel like you pick the ones that you want to do and you see it through or do you?
Do you feel like you always just got loads of ideas?
[00:18:16] Sarah Mote: I hope my manager’s not listening at the moment because he’d be chuckling real hard at me. Well, any of my managers, I think that I’ve had over the time and anyone really that knows me, any dear friend that knows me, I start things and then half do them and then, they get parked for a second because I get distracted by the next shiny thing.
So it’s quite an accomplishment for me to stay in jobs for the stints that I do and finish these projects and get through things. It’s a real satisfaction. Certainly when I do get that and deadlines are really helpful, I think.
Like there’s work at the moment that I’m doing internally at Bendigo, and, I just need to just focus on it, but I’m like, oh, but I could. I could help there as well, and I could do a bit of this and a bit of that.
And I think that’s where I always come back to, to get the best. Like, I say this in interviews, is that to get the best out of me is to put me with some other people who probably can keep a straight line. I’m trying to get better constantly at it.
But yes it’s like, oh well this could lead to here and so, culturally it’s finding those people and working collaboratively to be able to get the best out of me because that’s what they also people go, oh your brain works real good. That’s exactly what they say. They obviously like me enough to get me onto these videos.
place to work and solve some juicy problems. It does help when I’ve got some friends around me to be like, hang on, let’s stay on task here. And not get distracted by all the pretty things that you think that, oh this could be done and that could be done.
[00:19:37] Chris Hudson: This thing, it comes up a lot particularly within the creative field and people that work within creative industries as well, or just in a creative role, if creativity is part of your role that, you’ve got to come up against distraction, procrastination, you just got ideas all the time.
So going back to the uni times when you’re a student and the only thing to focus you was really a deadline and you were having to do it by yourself. Now you’re in the world of work. It’s actually quite helpful in a way that you can assemble a team knowing that other people have got different working preferences. You can say okay well, you know, just match me with these three other people that are just like, I’ve got one PM, I’ve got one BA, I’ve got this and that. And all of a sudden you’ve got the perfect formula of diversion converging practices, basically where stuff gets done. So
[00:20:21] Sarah Mote: exactly.
[00:20:23] Chris Hudson: Yeah. So that must be helpful.
And obviously reassuring that you can still bring your creativity through, but also be safe in the knowledge that something’s actually going to be made of it because that’s where everything’s going.
[00:20:34] Sarah Mote: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
[00:20:36] Chris Hudson: So we’ve talked a bit about boundaries, maybe but where do creativity boundaries sort of start and finish for you in a work context, because for you, it must be like we were just saying, it must be harder to maybe focus on certain things and just really dedicate your mental energy to that. Do you find yourself having to make boundaries in your head or where do the boundaries lie?
[00:20:55] Sarah Mote: It’s an ongoing challenge for me. And I’m very grateful for some amazing friends that know how to pull me away from work and get me to pause because I think otherwise I’d be stuck at the computer all the time investigating and trying things and reading things and whatever else. For me, going to the gym, honestly has been, the best sort of way for me to step away and create some of those boundaries and having goals there and to obviously move my body because otherwise I’m sitting down all day and that’s just basically as bad as smoking a packet of cigarettes every day I think is what they say or something like that.
Don’t smoke, which is great, but do sit so
[00:21:35] Chris Hudson: Yeah.
[00:21:36] Sarah Mote: Yeah the gym has been great. I have a balance between doing weights and doing some cardio. And that cardio is even just going jumping on the treadmill for me. Downloading a Netflix show, because honestly, I think that’s probably the only way that I really do watch TV other than scrolling TikTok and Instagram, but it’s that sort of balance of what information said fed to you, but to be able to switch off, it’s going and walking and watching something there, but there’s also on those rough days when things maybe aren’t going, you’re not getting through the problem or you just, you’re not having that clarity as well.
For me going to the gym is, you know, you can pick something up and you can pop it back down as simple as it is, but that’s also something of great achievement from your body and to be thankful for. So, and then having gratitude for that as well, that I can do those things. That’s one boundary and, big long walks with friends, being outside, going along the Yarra, lockdown was an amazing start actually for that for me.
Lots of us, I think, started to do that, but I try and continue that through a friend of mine. We’ll message each other and be like, hey, let’s go for a walk. Let’s get out and have a chat and we talk about whatever’s happening in her life, and I chat about what’s happening in mine.
We chat all the time, but it just gives us that space to, to step away from things, and vent if we need to, or go down random tangents. Often there’s a coffee pick up and an apple danish, maybe, from the local cafe that we like to do. I’m really lucky. I’m very close with my family. I think I’ve mentioned my mum many times in this chat already. She’s a great way of taking time out and spending time with family as well. So mum and dad and of course the family dog Bronte our mini schnauzer who’s 12 now.
And so, having her around is amazing as well to, she’s not probably not as much up for big long walks anymore, but belly rubs and giving her some kibble and whatever else to keep her entertained and annoying her is also what I’m pretty good at. There’s some ways that I sort of keep some boundaries.
But it’s hard, I certainly go through moments and probably towards the end of the year, we’re fast approaching. I’m sort of starting to feel that burnout and needing to go, hang on, need to take a break and take a holiday, which is often very difficult for me to do because you think, oh, well, if I’m away and I’m not working on these projects, then I’m not helping people. It’s all gonna fall to pieces and that’s part of the learning as well for me too, because I am so passionate about what I do and be able to contribute and, not wanting to hold other people up with their work, or delivery of anything. It’s that balance of accepting that, okay, taking a week off is going to be okay.
Even if you take two, like, woah. That’s a learning process for me.
[00:24:11] Chris Hudson: That’s really interesting. I think the time that you take off is obviously turbocharged is what you do when you go back as well. So, it’s obviously, it’s important to do that. Are there any other sort of principles or, rules that you live by within your work that help you?
Help you with the boundaries of creativity within your work?
[00:24:25] Sarah Mote: I’m always saying like when creating work, like work smarter, not harder. The time that I do spend investigating and learning and talking to other people that how do you do things? How do you do that? Oh, where did you get that resource from? That all helps and so I’ve become far better. I think in terms of boundaries before starting something. Thinking through what’s the task? And a) Have I done something before? Have I seen something else before? Can I leverage a tool or how can I quickly mock something up to be able to get me further along?
Using those sorts of things as tools and resources to basically push it along. And I think that’s where I love talking to people. Because you hear different stories, of things that they’ve worked on, that then influence and you can call upon those ideas for work that you’re doing.
And in terms of boundaries for, like, pushing back even on work. There’s been some work when I was at NAB and I was really, like, myself, my team, my, my lead that I was working with and even the junior at the time that we were working with the BA, we were all saying like, we need to do it this way instead.
And there’s no point doing all this work because the rules are going to change and it just doesn’t make sense, to do it. And asking the question of how many people is this actually going to affect, can someone please just get us that data? Can someone find it for us? Almost dragging your knuckles a bit on some of the work to create that friction and slow things down a bit until someone can actually get you the answer. And despite, other stakeholders that you might be working with saying, oh no, we have to do this week. This is imperative that we do it this way. This is the way that we’ve said that we’re going to do it.
We have to deliver this thing and it’s like, yeah, but it’s not gonna work the way that you thought it was. Those are sorts of, you know, drag your knuckles a little bit, when appropriate, when you’re really gun ho and 100 percent sure on this is, you’ve got all the understanding of, the effects and impacts that a project will have.
So, in fact, finally asking that question of actually how many people this affect, each month. When I was at NAB it, turned out to be something like two people. And I was like, so, we can’t pick up the phone and just talk to those two people rather than spending however many hundreds of thousands of dollars on this process that you want to build, is it really worth it? Just trying to save some money here, just trying to use some logic. We still need humans for some stuff, so drag your knuckles a little bit. That’ll be my new, new tagline.
[00:26:47] Chris Hudson: It’s interesting, isn’t it? Because, like, as a designer, you’re always reading that you’re in an organisation and then, sometimes there’s a direction that’s given. And the team’s assembled, you’re in that space. You’re trying to figure out where it’s going, but it’s almost been decided.
And sometimes you do need to make a point of it and actually ask some of the more obvious questions it feels like because like you say, it’s not always making sense. Particularly when you go into it, you do a bit of research. You’re getting into the process of design and if it’s not working, it’s not working.
And somebody’s got to call it. So I’m interested in hearing about your point of view, obviously, because you work within the banks. And NYB as well and other places as well. How you go about bringing people on board with, I guess your thinking, your train of thought.
How do you position your point of view when, you come from a creative background, other people don’t, how do those two worlds blend and mix, how do you get through that?
[00:27:33] Sarah Mote: It would be show, don’t tell. Transparency and good communication are two things that, I wear my heart on my sleeve. What you see is what you get. I call a spade a spade. Maybe a spa de. I don’t know. Sorry, but you know, I call it how I say it. And having that transparency and openness and I’m always saying like, this is the way, what I’ve found and, let me walk you through it.
This is where we’re at today. At this point, things may change in the future. We may have missed something and having that openness to say, we’re not always right. Maybe they’ve seen something or experienced something else. There are some people that have been at particular jobs 10, 15, 20, 30 years.
But people have different experiences. But I think it’s always like, taking them on board to say, hey this might have been what you’ve seen in the past and you might be very hesitant to say no because of what we present, but I want you to have an open mind and be like very, let’s say, let me take you through this and see how we see it based on people that we’ve spoken to, what we know already. And so having that transparency and also visually, everyone I think can relate to visuals. We’re in a visual world very much. So taking them on the journey of how did you get to where you are today? And your thinking behind it. And I haven’t yet anyone’s met anyone that doesn’t love zooming around a Figma file or a Sketch file if you are, being part of it and being seeing the evolution as well.
They’re really key parts of how I find people, I get them on board and always having that open door policy of you got a question, come back and ask me like, no questions a dumb question.
[00:29:04] Chris Hudson: And tell me about feedback and how you handle it because sometimes it’s invited. Sometimes it’s not right
[00:29:10] Sarah Mote: What do you mean, Chris? I never take feedback. No,
[00:29:12] Chris Hudson: No, no, you don’t you don’t do it you just got to stop the question right now
[00:29:16] Sarah Mote: Yeah.
[00:29:17] Chris Hudson: But if you’re creating all this wonderful work. You come from come from fine art and industrial design background You’re going to have pride in the thing that you make and so more often than not, you’re going to have people coming in with absolutely no idea about what it takes to make something and to put that level of thought and effort into creating something to the extent that you have.
So how do you maybe this was different throughout different parts of your career as well, but how did you learn the process of working with feedback?
[00:29:42] Sarah Mote: Ah, so one of my first critiques is ingrained in my mind, was at art school. So I did fine art first and then I did industrial design. And we had to put up a piece of work that we’d had, it was within one of the first few weeks of first year. We had to put the work up that we’d done previously outside or what a piece that maybe helped us get into the course and I put it up and I got roasted and I was, I just turned 18.
so proud of the work that I did. The school loved it. I got a great grade. I thought, that was everything. And I got roasted. I ended up in tears. I was so heartbroken and that was like the real cutting point for me of like feedback and how to take it and how to grow from it. And learn from it as well.
That was like the biggest learning part for me of taking feedback. So today, now when I get feedback, nothing’s as worse as someone critiquing your work like that. But I’ve also learned, I think that storytelling side, and being able to check yourself as well to say.
Leave your ego at the door. Leave whatever you think that, you might think, oh, this is the world’s best design. Maybe that’s where the imposter syndrome stems from or, it’s just being chill about it now of like, well, yeah, cool. I don’t, I’m not going to lose sleep over this.
I think the benefit as well, like of now being in this digital world, I was very fortunate when I was at Stacks, which is, all in one cloud platform. Was that you can change things really quickly in code and push it out really quickly and make the change. So it’s not the end of the world.
Certainly in industrial design, when you’re creating tooling, you want to get that stuff, right? You don’t want to stuff that up, because that’s a very expensive thing and you do it. That’s why, it’s fantastic now they’ve got 3D printers and prototyping and everything else like that. But, there’s always a way of a conversation to say, cool, like let’s try it your way, or let’s try it this way or our way, or whatever it be, first and learn and see, AB test, like, I don’t know, like
I’m not so upset about things anymore. What I do value though is when you if someone’s giving feedback it’s doing it in a way to not poo on someone’s work. It’s how can they evolve and develop from it. And, make changes and see those changes, as well.
I think that’s really important. Through mentoring as well people ask me all the time for portfolio feedback and their website and things like that. And I say, look, this is, I always preface it of saying, this is just how I say things. This is not the be all and end all of things. Someone may have a different view of it.
It’s your job in trying to gather all those things and make a decision of what path forward you’re going to take? I apply, that same mentality to my own work as well. Like, at the end of the day, like I have to make a decision, but I’ve got to align with product owners and BAs and whoever else in the business.
But we all have to be aligned on the path forward and be able to check yourself with particular things. Am I going to lose sleep over it? No. Is something going to end up in a customer’s hand in a better state? Amazing. One of the current
product owners
I work with, he’ll probably laugh at me for saying this, but we can’t leave it any worse than it already is. I think that’s the thing is like, whatever we’re doing we’re shifting it, you know, even moving the needle slightly of just improving it, from where something is. I haven’t heard of many stories of like, it was completely a disaster and we had to roll the whole thing back.
That’s usually because of some bug or something like that. So whatever we are investing our time, designing in and creating and researching in, we’re moving something forward for the better.
[00:33:10] Chris Hudson: The feedback is always there if you look for it as well, you can find ways to justify, the work that you’re doing. Obviously, you can use it to evidence the work that you’re doing and really support the case for changing it if you need to change it as well.
So I think that’s in our tool set as designers, but it’s often, overlooked that it is interpretative in one way or another, and the feedback is always going to be there. But I think it’s also interesting to think about how we can set the stage for the right type of feedback to come in at the right time and how you can set expectations within stakeholder groups that you work within leadership.
How do you invite the right input at the right time? Do you work with some of those things? Do you have thoughts in your head, techniques, anything like that, that you think are useful?
[00:33:47] Sarah Mote: I think Figma’s great for that as well. Just, It’s an open thing. I don’t like closed teams. I think it’s, what have you got to hide? Everyone works for the same, for the same company, you know? Set top secret projects, really?
Are they? There’s always whispers, people always talk. So, I think that’s the transparency side of things. It’s just an open door for me. That’s the culture that I really like to be in and the culture that I always advocate for of just be open.
[00:34:12] Chris Hudson: Did you ever work in a culture where it was known that it was somebody’s idea and it was attributed to one person, and has that changed for you now that you’re working within teams and it’s more about what you can do together? How has that changed for
you?
[00:34:25] Sarah Mote: Certainly like industrial design is like that, right? It’s like, oh I’m the designer of this product.
I did this packaging, but I feel like I’ve been very fortunate, like with the places that I’ve worked, it’s always been a team. One part that stands out to me is working at Braun/Braun, depending on where you’re in the world, but they initially used to have, for each product a list of who the designers were that worked on it.
It might be two or three people. And they changed that completely to be, I don’t, I can’t remember the exact time. But when Oliver, I forget his surname and I’m going to probably butcher it. It starts with G. When he joined and we started running the studio there and everything, he said like, we’re a design team.
Everyone contributes to it, to the product, whether it be through a conversation or through being passing, it’s like, Ooh, look at this part or what do you think about that? There is always some contribution from everywhere else. And I’ve been really fortunate even when I was working in packaging design at Amcor Aurora.
You were sitting together amongst other designers and it was the same thing. I’ve been very fortunate where I work that you always get collaboration and it’s not just like, oh Sarah did this. That’s one thing I particularly really love and was attracted to by the digital UX, UI, create this digital world of community as well is that it’s not me that did this, it’s we as a team, because there are so many moving parts.
There’s engineers, there’s product owners, product developers, designers and design research, content writers, marketing people. It’s a collaborative effort. Yeah, you may have someone who shines through sort of leading or charging this, but I’ve been really fortunate to work in bigger teams
if there was someone that says oh, I did this. I’d probably be like, dude, check yourself. Did you really, you’re going to say you did all of it?
[00:36:09] Chris Hudson: Yeah, that’s on the resume, but maybe not said out loud. I’m not sure
[00:36:12] Sarah Mote: Well, yeah. I think it’s important to highlight like the parts that you greatly contributed to. I always say that when I’m mentoring people is like, cool, great that you say that you did this amazing project and it’s a two week project or something, whatever it may, but I really want to know the part that you really contributed to.
Was it the design system? Was it the research? Was it, a particular flow? I think there’s ways that we can. We can get better at communicating that and that’s often, you know, when you’re presenting it workplace and providing that for, you know, presenting, calling that out, you it was great that, Chris was able to do this part, he really, stepped us up with, understanding customer journey path or something like that and Sarah’s contribution to the UI or the chaos was fantastic.
We really needed that.
[00:36:57] Chris Hudson: Absolutely right. And as you’re talking, I think, thinking about what drives people is also at the heart of it. What motivations are there? What acknowledgement are they looking to receive in the same way? Can you tune into that? Do you know what kind of feedback you could give to them that would really help lift somebody up, lift them up on one day?
Particularly in a low moment, it’s being aware of your environment a little bit as well. What sort of things, from your personal perspective, what really drives you now inside, through some of those tougher times, what do you feel keeps you going?
[00:37:25] Sarah Mote: Not just coffee and apple danishes.
[00:37:27] Chris Hudson: Yeah.
[00:37:28] Sarah Mote: That’s one part. And patting dogs. But look, yeah, there have been some really tough times. Do I stay, do I go in a job? Why am I doing this project? This is not fun anymore. More typically it’s the people that I’m around that get me to stay. It’s them sort of taking on the leading light and holding that torch, forward.
And maybe driving things a little bit harder and I step off the gas and become a passenger, which is good. More recently I’ve been reflecting on, what is it that I want to learn? How can I push through some of these challenges that are in front of me? Do I need to actually pull away from work a little bit in terms of, cause I’m typically so in.
How do I, actually put more into some of those boundaries and be a bit tighter with it? Being like, look, I’m going to jump off, and go for a walk. I need to do this for my mental health. Talk about it through, those sorts of things. They’re some of the ways that I’ve more recently been really a bit firmer about and then finding other people to who, at the moment it’s my manager and I as designers working on the Bendigo Banking app.
There are other designers in the space, but we’re not really connected so much, so it’s trying to reach out to them as well and build those connections, maybe I’m not looking in every corner, I describe things as an adventure, design and art is an adventure.
It’s not a journey for me is going from A to B, but an adventure is, the way I describe it is like a, if you’ve played Pokemon, it’s, exploring a map and you’ve got to go, down one way and you sort of see what’s out there and then you come back to go to explore another way and acquire some Pokemon.
I’m a real gamer, I’m not. But this is the sort of like the best analogy that I’ve been able to gather. It’s sometimes like, I’m actually checking yourself and going like, oh maybe I’ve just gone too far down this hole of, down this pathway and need to pull myself out and start to look elsewhere to be able to, how can I solve or beat that, main character or something like that that I mean, it’s not main character.
It’s a project. How can I get through this? I’ve started calling it the lawyer way of looking at things.
so the lawyer way for me is almost take taking your emotion out of things and parking that and going cool. Okay, you’re very emotional about this. Let’s look at it from the other perspective of, how the business sees it, how another customer, I don’t know, whatever sees it, and parking those emotions and looking for something, looking at it basically a different way and trying to assess it.
So any idea that you may have thought, that the way to solve it was like, you have to go like an immediate no, no, you’ve got to argue almost against yourself. These are some of the ways at the moment that I’ve sort of been working through challenges that have been in front of me.
And I guess it’s a maturity of that and experience as well of talking to people, experiencing life in different environments, different workplaces, all of that, that you sort of. If you asked me that question when I was, just finished university or something like that, I wouldn’t have these skills and I wouldn’t know how to answer those questions and it’s that time and working and being around other people that you sort of learn these things, but you also learn about yourself.
[00:40:23] Chris Hudson: Creativity is also definitely a superpower in one way or another, and sometimes you can control it, sometimes you can’t. And it feels like in a work context, that can be put under pressure a lot of the time too. So how do you manage that if you’re in a really kind of low period?
What do you, what can you do to kind of spark it? Or do you just accept that it’s not going to fly today and that’s it?
[00:40:44] Sarah Mote: I kind of just accept it’s not going to fly today,
because, the next day it might be up again and, you know, I needed to, I need to accept that’s how I was feeling. It is what it is and accept those feelings and emotions and, just start the new day again and go.
I know there’s some people that would say, like, why wait for a new day? Why start the diet tomorrow? Start it today. That’s that sort of thing. And look, maybe, you don’t have the time to, to wait till tomorrow to, to sort of find that motivation. Go to the fridge, go get a slice of cheese if you’re not lactose intolerant and a couple of biscuits and a, go for a walk and call a friend, call your mum, call your dad, call someone that you care for and have a chat, taking 20 minutes, half an hour out of your time is not going to be the end of the world, I’ve learned to the outcome that you’re going to deliver, just venting can be really healthy and helpful, to get you going again.
Probably need to often take some of my own advice.
[00:41:38] Chris Hudson: I was thinking, as you get older, you always feel like, you have to become more self sufficient in a way and less reliant on other people, but actually, that conversation is really important still, and you’ve got to remind yourself that’s an option sometimes because when you’re experienced and you’ve done all these things, you think you can take it on yourself, but it might not lead you to any, better place necessarily.
It’s sometimes that other perspective that really helps just nudge it back into shape.
[00:42:01] Sarah Mote: I’m very grateful for some of my friends who aren’t designers because they ask questions and you kind of go, oh, okay, yeah, good point, didn’t think about that or, oh, why did you think like that and yeah, discover things different and that can give that a new light of when you sit back down to go work through something, a project, or a problem that you’re working on.
It’s like, oh yeah, it didn’t, let’s try that avenue. Or what about that, try this way of building it.
[00:42:26] Chris Hudson: You’ll be pleased to know that’s it for the deeper questions but before we go, I’ve got to ask you about the microwaveable egg. You’ve, you’ve got, you’ve, you’ve dropped some, uh, culinary references into the chat and yeah, let’s talk a bit about that. Just to finish this off because like, I don’t know what you’ve tried, but let’s hear about it.
[00:42:44] Sarah Mote: So those that know me know that I’m not a very good cook. I do own a pan but I do also own a microwave. And so because I’m not the world’s best cook and often because I’m time poor and because I’m working on projects and things like that. I just don’t, haven’t really got that desire to cook.
Making eggs in the microwave, great way of getting some of the source of protein, but you have to be careful. Otherwise you can have exploding eggs and that’s not fun to, to do. So for all those people wanting to. microwave some eggs. I think the secret is if you’re wanting to do like poached ones, add some water to the bowl, do it in small incremental 20 second sessions.
Open the door to let out some of that steam that builds and yeah, you’ll be on your way to having some good eggs. Those that want to do scrambled eggs, having a bit more. egg whites in does reduce the explosion and again, look it’s not the same as doing it in a pan, but it’s a one bowl, couple of seconds real easy cleanup for if you’re on the go,
[00:43:39] Chris Hudson: If it goes right.
[00:43:40] Sarah Mote: Yeah, if it goes right if it explodes which has happened many times over the years Uh, yeah, you’re going to need to clean up on aisle 12, whatever it is for all the microwaves. But, uh, yeah, if it microwaves, it’s great for me.
[00:43:54] Chris Hudson: There we go. That’s good. That’s an adventure in itself. You’re talking about adventure before you can equate Pokemon to experimentation for sure. It’s just one of those things, but I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much, Sarah. Just before we go, maybe tell people a bit about how they might be able to reach you.
If they’ve got a question, if you’re happy to come, have people, reach out just to say hello, ask a question. What’s the best way to reach you?
[00:44:14] Sarah Mote: Please do please reach out. I love a good chat. Find me on LinkedIn. Just search for my name, Sarah Mote. There’s only a couple of us. I’m usually the one that’s got a black outfit on. I wear black, otherwise on Instagram. Send me a message @s_mote. That’s where I am. I’d love to hear from people and have a good chat and talk design and hear all the things and learn from you guys as well.
[00:44:36] Chris Hudson: Sounds good. All right. Well, thank you so much, Sarah. I really appreciate your time today. And yeah it’s just kind of sent my mind racing about all the things that I can be doing now. So I think it’s brought a sense of creativity, a sense of possibility to my day and my morning, but I know it will do the same for the listeners as well.
So thank you very much.
[00:44:51] Sarah Mote: Thank you so much, Chris, for having me on as well. It’s been great.
[00:44:55] Chris Hudson: Okay, so that’s it for this episode. If you’re hearing this message, you’ve listened all the way to the end. So thank you very much. We hope you enjoyed the show. We’d love to hear your feedback. So please leave us a review and share this episode with your friends, team members, leaders if you think it’ll make a difference.
After all, we’re trying to help you, the intrapreneurs kick more goals within your organisations. If you have any questions about the things we covered in the show, please email me directly at chris@companyroad.co. I answer all messages so please don’t hesitate to reach out and to hear about the latest episodes and updates.
Please head to companyroad.co to subscribe. Tune in next Wednesday for another new episode.
0 Comments