Computer voice
UX podcast episode 281.

[Music]

James Royal-Lawson
Hello, everybody, and welcome to UX Podcast coming to you from Stockholm, Sweden. We are your hosts, James Royal-Lawson

Per Axbom
and Per Axbom.

James Royal-Lawson
And we’re balancing business technology people and society with listeners in 201 countries and territories in the world from Ukraine to Uruguay.

Per Axbom
Viviane Castillo is a founder of Humanity Centred, and one of the design industries important voices advocating for and supporting professionals who want to help the UX industry and big tech live up to its ideals of empathy and inclusion. Viviane has experience from human services and counselling, tackling issues like shame, empathy, vulnerability and compassion.

James Royal-Lawson
Today, we talked to Viviane about a research project on the topic of organisational trauma that Humanity Centred conducted in collaboration with Discout… do you say, Discout or D-Scout

Per Axbom
Dscouts, I’d say

James Royal-Lawson
Dscouts, okay. We learn more about how organisations are tackling workplace trauma, how that is backfiring, and what should be going on instead.

[Music]

Per Axbom
So Vivianne, I’ve just been reading through this hugely comprehensive report. And I just want to hear some of the background story on, how did you come about deciding to do this study? And how did you go about really implementing this study as well?

Vivianne Castillo
Yeah, absolutely. So I’m the founder of a professional growth community called Humanity Centred. And over the, over the past year, we’ve just been having some real and honest conversations about the context around the work of design within the companies that we work with. And we were realizing and recognizing that, you know, many of us are drawn to this industry because of the ideals around empathy and inclusion and being more human centred. But we’re often tasked with advocating for that work and advancing that work in environments that are often inherently hostile towards being human centred, and more empathic. And so we were hearing about a lot of different experiences around burnout around, you know, this idea of institutional betrayal. We were hearing a lot of conversations about, hey, you know, I’m coming into this organization, and they’re talking about these values. And I feel like I have those values too. But now that I’m working within these systems, it feels like there’s a disconnect. And so we ended up partnering with Dscout, in order to do this incredible labour of love and research, to better understand the ways that organizational trauma is impacting and playing itself out within design organizations. And, you know, it’s applicable too, to other companies, industries, professions, you know, especially if extending empathy is a key aspect of your responsibilities. But, that is how this came to be and how it is.

James Royal-Lawson
It was, you surveyed, or you interviewed 29 individuals, kind of a, quite a diverse group of individuals, as I understand from the report. Where they in depth interviews you did? What was, the what was the method you used?

Vivianne Castillo
So this research was like, largely lifted and led by Alba and Karen. Alba is a partner and a facilitator within Humanity Centred, and Karen is doing incredible research at Dscout. And so it was a mix of surveys, it was a mix of diary studies, and really just leveraging the Dscout tool in order to capture and gather that information.

James Royal-Lawson
The report itself, before we jump into some of the details of the report itself, I was wondering, do you think you could help us understand what you mean by the phrase, organisational trauma?

Vivianne Castillo
Yeah, yeah. So I think a lot of times when we think about trauma, you know, a lot of people, their mind goes to… in many ways, what TV and TV shows that kind of educated us on what trauma is, they’re thinking, big T trauma, so they’re thinking, natural disasters, you know, something horrific that maybe happened in your childhood, but you know, there’s a spectrum with trauma and even on the other side of trauma, you know, you have, you know, things like a sudden move, or maybe you had a really tough breakup. But even within that mindset, a lot of times we think about trauma, we tend to silo it to an individual. Organizational trauma is getting more at the ways that incredibly difficult or painful circumstances, so we would just describe trauma as really any event or experience that leads to distress or impairment or emotional, physical, spiritual or psychological harm.

Organizational trauma is getting at how those experiences play out at an org level. You know, you have it happening at an individual level, but then how does it also impact teams, how those teams impact the way that organizations think about caring for their employees, think about how they deliver tough and difficult news. You think about workplace trauma in terms of maybe you had a really toxic manager, who was very demeaning, and very unkind or, you know, very shaming in terms of how they treated you. Those are things related to trauma, that impact ultimately, the work that we do, how we interpret people’s behaviour, how we trust others and collaborate with other people.

Per Axbom
One thing I really appreciated that you highlighted in the report is one of the reasons you chose designers as one of your target groups, is because we work within this intersection of being human centred in profit driven environments.

Vivianne Castillo
Yes.

Per Axbom
Would you say that we’re especially sensitive then, to these types of organizational trauma?

Vivianne Castillo
That’s a good question. I don’t know if it’s, that we’re sensitive to it. I think many designers weren’t necessarily prepared for the ways that trauma and difficulty within corporate settings will play out. I think a lot of us again, drawn to this field, this profession, because many of us want to help people, many of us care deeply about people. And so then we enter into capitalistic systems, into design orgs, who also profess that but a lot of us weren’t necessarily prepared with the tools and the awareness of how to navigate those capitalistic systems, which, if I’m being honest, I think at the end of the day, a lot of these systems are kind of depending on you not fully acknowledging your own humanity. Because there’s a need, especially within large organizations, for people to assimilate, for people to align around how to drive profit. And within design, you know, a lot of us have these struggles of being people centred, human centred and profit driven conversations.

And so what we’re noticing, and we’re noticing a lot in conversations within Humanity Centred is people are wanting more tools on okay, how do I navigate corporate? How do I politic through corporate without losing myself? How do I deal with a manager who is also in design, you know, professes to value being human centred, caring about people, and yet they’re gaslighting my experiences, or they keep, you know, really, you know, trying to embarrass me in these meetings, and I kind of have to suck it up, because I need to put myself on the backburner for the sake of users and our customers, which isn’t necessarily healthy. But I think a lot of us kind of carry this burden of being the advocate, of being the champion. And more times than not, we neglect ourselves, and we don’t deal with the trauma, we don’t deal with the workplace hardships that we’ve been experiencing, all in the name of being human centred to other people versus ourselves.

James Royal-Lawson
What I find really fascinating about this is how, I mean, we’ve, we’ve grounded the podcast, back 10 years ago, in the whole thing by breaking down silos, and back then, UX was really fighting, struggling with being heard, being seen and kind of like, wanting to be part of organisations

Vivianne Castillo
Right

James Royal-Lawson
…you know, a seat on the board was all that kind of stuff we used to hear. And, you know, thinking back and looking back, I don’t think we ever discussed or even mentioned, the trauma of that, of that journey, and that work, and the way you’re saying now is that we’ve, we’ve moved to a state where we probably haven’t fixed that silo aspect of what we do, but we’re suffering because of the fight.

Vivianne Castillo
Yeah. And, you know, my, my theory behind this is, and I’m going to generalise a little bit, when I think about the first wave of UXers, you know, and I think about a lot of well known, recognized UX leaders, a lot of them kind of fall into two buckets, they were responsible, and leading the charge on proving the relevance of UX. But also too, a lot of these leaders tend to be white, tend to have a lot of privilege. And so when you mix those two together, you have this, this group of leaders who were advocating for, who were trying to push the relevance of UX, but within that there was a missed opportunity for it to be more holistic in terms of understanding what it means to be human centred, more equitable, and more inclusive. So now what I’m noticing within the UX community and just in general in the workforce, what I’m not hearing a lot of people talk about is you have four generations, and you’re seeing this within UX. So, within the four generations, generalising a little bit now, you know, you have Gen X and baby boomers who, a lot of them too make up that first wave of UX leaders, you know, advocating for the importance of UX. You know, a lot of folks within this room made a lot of their money off of, you know, a certain methodology that they evangelised, and this kind of one to many approach to advancing the practice.

Now you have Gen Z/millennials, we’re more diverse generations, we have also had the privilege of being able to talk more openly about mental health, about racism, about injustice in the workplace, we also have more expertise, and maybe I would say, a high level of competency of being able to talk about some of these things within the workplace. Whereas we think about Gen X and baby boomers typically within the relationship to work, you know, you just you kind of you do what you can, you try not to agitate too many people in the process, and you keep it moving. And so now what I’m noticing is, that it’s like kind of tension where you have that like, kind of first wave of UXers who again, kind of built their career on relevance. And now you’re seeing more of this desire for okay, let’s talk about accessibility, let’s talk about what does it mean to be equitable, and inclusive, and that first wave of UX leaders doesn’t have the expertise, and, you know, the ability to really push us towards maturity in that, it’s the younger generations.

And I think, too, I mean, again, I’m generalising a little bit because obviously, you have some, you know, Gen Xers who are pushing boundaries within that work. But I do think what it brings up is, within that there’s also this tension, this desire to like, let’s talk a little bit more about the emotional well being of the UX person. Let’s talk a little bit more about the role of shame within UX research, let’s talk about the role of trauma, about compassion fatigue, this thing where, you know, I’m giving so much of myself that, you know, some days I wake up wondering if I even like people. And so I think we’re, you know, I frame it as we’re in this period of time, where we’re shifting from this advancement of relevancy of the practice, to really, a desire for maturity within the practice.

James Royal-Lawson
I know that we’ve, we’ve mentioned before, I’ve touched upon before about the, perhaps the, the need for us as designers to even go for, or have regular counselling. I mean, in many nations where I mean, you’ve got like counsellors themselves, a psychologist and so on, it’s part of their… it’s a requirement in some of these industries as part of being a licenced practitioner, that you do actually get counselling, because they acknowledge the difficulty and the trauma and the burden that it puts on you as an individual doing some of these jobs.

Vivianne Castillo
Oh, absolutely.

Per Axbom
The report you bring up, how people express that they are exposed to trauma in research, on and on.

Vivianne Castillo
Exactly. I mean, you know, my background is in counselling in Human Services, specifically within trauma and addiction counselling, you know, I made my career switch out of counselling into UX and big tech. And, you know, what was interesting to me, especially switching into UX was initially again, super excited about how people talked about empathy and inclusion, and I remember going to my first design conference, it was the O’Reilly design conference, super excited to see a lot of heads of, you know, that design. Some well known UX leaders. And I remember after that conference, just kind of sitting in my hotel room and being like, wow, this is bullshit. In terms of just like, how we talk about being human centred, and like caring about people, because from a counselling background, you know, even things like ethics, right? This is literally day one, every quarter, every semester, you’re talking about ethics.

And now I enter into UX where, now you ask, you know, now, this idea of ethics is kind of like a hot topi, and it wasn’t something that was already being championed by that first wave of UX leaders. And like, that’s weird. You know, within counselling programmes, a lot of programmes, counselling, social work, will mandate that the students take X amount of sessions, counselling sessions, because they recognize that because you are interacting so closely with the messiness and the complexity of being human, that it’s going to stir up some of the messiness and things that you maybe need to work through and heal through in order to do that work well. It’s viewed as an ethical responsibility to go to counselling, so that you limit the possibility of you causing harm to other people, because you haven’t done your own work. And so I mean, I think everyone within UX design, especially folks who are in like, civic tech, or who are working with, you know, minoritized or marginalised communities, or refugees or whatever it may be, like, absolutely, I think everyone should spend some time in counselling and doing some personal work so that they can limit some of the harm that they might cause to other people in the process.

Per Axbom
and in the reports in one of the playbooks, and I think we should start getting to the playbooks, there are four playbooks that you, I think you use the term playbook to make… have a metaphor for how organizations actually address these things, and they think it’s like, they have to do with strategy in the same way that they address different types of problems as organisations in other areas. And the one I was thinking of just now, when you were, were saying these things was the minimizer, which, from what I gather is actually the one that most people that you interviewed and were part of the study actually referenced as the playbook where people are really discouraged to have any thoughts that might distract them from being productive. And one of the effects of that was this, this temptation to neglect your own self care in service of caring and advocating for others. And of course, that also impacting especially women, people of colour or disabled people. So, I mean, that’s, that was the one that struck me the hardest, I think, was that’s, how could… you call this a playbook but for me, it was like, this is abuse.

Vivianne Castillo
Yeah, I mean, things like, things like gaslighting, things like, you know, when an organization, when a system encourages you to minimise your human experience, it’s abusive. You know, this is things that we see in domestic violence relationships, this is things that we see within, you know, abusive relationships around power. So it is, you know, I think with the minimising too, you know, what, what worries me the most, concerns me the most about this specifically with designers, is that, by neglecting and minimising your own experience, you are also creating more distance between you and your understanding of, what does it mean to be human centred, a lot of times we talk about being human centred, it’s towards other people. But we actually have to, we have to do that for ourselves, too.

And it’s so incredibly important for us to do that because the thing about trauma is that oftentimes, you know, our minds, and our bodies will suppress symptoms of trauma, even memories until it feels like you’re safe enough to process it, but your body will still hold on to it, it will still store it. And if you don’t deal with the trauma, if you don’t deal with the hardship, it will deal with you, at some point or another. It’s why I’m seeing and talking to a lot of design professionals who are burning out and wanting to leave the field. Or they don’t recognize themselves anymore in terms of like the passion and the care that they had for people. It’s why I think you’re also noticing a lot of designers who are really struggling with having this, a sustainable career in this because they weren’t necessarily prepared for the emotional labour, not only within the work, but around the work within the systems that we work in, and how to manage it and how to deal with it.

Per Axbom
I think the numbers from the study were 93% thought about quitting their job in the last year or had already done so, and almost 60% considered leaving the design industry altogether. And I think those numbers really speak for the importance of having done the study.

Vivianne Castillo
Yeah, that’s terrifying, right of like, there’s so many people who are suffering in silence. And that should grieve the community, right? We should… this is a crisis that we actually need to start addressing, in terms of providing care and support and more of a holistic understanding about what the cost is of this work, not only doing the work, but the cost of working within these systems that really at a foundational level, are kind of hoping that you don’t fully acknowledge and own the fullness of your humanity and your needs, all in the sake of the business and driving the bottom line

James Royal-Lawson
I think as well a time now when we’re seeing more newly educated designers come into the profession than any other time before. I mean, our industry is constantly growing. It’s you know, as more and more companies adopt, supposedly user centred ways of working or UX as a concept. We’re just pumping in more and more designers and these young designers are coming out of education, without any understanding of this. They’re not prepared for dealing with personal trauma and organisational trauma.

Vivianne Castillo
Yeah. Yeah. And I think we need to, you know, there’s a time and place for learning about how to do journey maps, user personas, whatever. But I think we’re actually at a time where we really do need to prioritize this idea of not just self care, but really this idea of self care as an ethical imperative. Self care as a way for designers then to feel like they have more confidence, more freedom, more autonomy to push back in these systems and to to advocate for other people. I think with organizational trauma, like one thing that I recognize as well, this is within the study this is within talking to people inside of, outside of Humanity Centred is this; that sometimes it is more comfortable to sit in the pain of what is familiar, like a toxic workplace, or an unhealthy team, than to choose to heal, to choose the pain that comes with healing, because healing is painful.

We can teach you how to cope in toxic workplaces, but we can’t teach you how to heal, you have to remove yourself or create some distance between the toxicity and the thing that is, on you know, the thing that would be going against your healing in order for you to heal and healing’s painful because healing brings up memories, that again, your mind kind of pushed to the back so you could survive and compartmentalize and kind of be in that moment. Healing requires you to maybe, leave a team or to leave a company or to take short term leave and then to confront some of the unhelpful beliefs you have about your value, and how it’s tied to productivity and work. Healing’s painful, but healing is abundantly there and is able to be achieved.

James Royal-Lawson
I know Per, you’ve brought up playbook three in the report the minimizer, but I think it’s I think it’s valuable for us to just if, only briefly, just go through the four playbooks. So people are aware of what was the general findings of playbooks? Quickly, I’ll read the four out, maybe you can tell us more about it. One playbook was the ‘DIYer’, second playbook was the ‘Empty empathizer’, and the third one, of course, was the ‘Minimizer’. Fourth was the ‘Performer’. Just tell us briefly about those four playbooks?

Vivianne Castillo
Yeah, you know, the, the DIY playbook is, you know, this is when you see organizations talk about what resources they have available, and it’s just kind of this idea of, here are the resources go heal yourself. It’s not necessarily addressing the systems or the culture or the people that are responsible for the harm. And the trauma that’s happening within the team and organizational level, it’s more of, here’s some resources that you need, figure it out, and good luck. The empty empathizer, I think, you know, maybe more times than not can come from a good good place and good intention. I mean, I think all these can, but I think especially with empty empathizer, I think a lot about the summer of 2020, in the United States, where it was just a trash fire.

And a lot of companies too, were having to deal with racial injustice for the first time or trying to to care. And a lot of times what it was, was creating spaces to listen, to learn, to gather data, but then there wasn’t necessarily action or alignment on what’s next. It was a lot of taking, and a lot less around communicating, okay, what is actually going to be done with this information and more times than not, puts the emotional burden on the individual, in that moment. You have the minimizer, which again, is, you know, organizations who are using the minimiser playbook tend to have a company culture that values speed, competition and resilience. But this is the one where we talked about where they don’t necessarily want you to be distracted from, you know, the tasks at hand to driving productivity and the business. So, usually, within the minimizer playbook, there’s a tendency to prioritize optimism. This is where you see a lot of companies who lean a little bit too heavy on toxic positivity. There is, you know, a temptation to minimise panic and negativity. And, you know, employees are gently like, encouraged to be autonomous and self sufficient in terms of how they deal with those hardships.

And then, the last one that we have is the performer and, you know, the performer is you saw this a lot too, in the summer of 2020. These are public statements from a company we stand with whatever community is being, you know, terrorised at the moment. And we commit to donating some money to this charity or this nonprofit. It’s the, it’s more of a reactive response. It tends to prioritise public approval versus what the employees actually need. And more times than not, again, it falls on the burden… the burden tends to fall on employees to drive change, versus actually investing resources, time and energy within design. The way that I see this play out the most is oh my gosh, yes, we value accessibility. We value diversity, equity and inclusion. Can you volunteer an additional 30 hours on top of the 40 hours we hired you for, to do a committee to have an initiative to drive this and yet, we’re not going to pay you more. We’re not going to consider it in terms of your promotion. And, yeah, that’s how we show that we care. And that’s incredibly harmful. That’s performative. That is, instead of actually, again, caring about the people that are behind those initiatives that are driving that work.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, I mean, that’s just it’s gaslighting. Some of the stuff to do with a performer. It’s just gaslighting, in order to maintain a perceived corporate culture, I guess.

Vivianne Castillo
Yeah. And gaslighting. I mean, again, I don’t use that term lightly, especially coming from a mental health background, gaslighting is, it’s a common emotional abuse tactic. And what it does is it makes a receiver doubt their perception of reality. I mean, I think we can all think of those moments, right? Where we were talking about something that was very real, very painful and difficult. And someone was like, trying to convince you to think about the brighter side of things. Or, well, it’s not that bad, you know, no place is perfect. And try and like, minimise it, so it’s when you have that colleague or that manager who breaks down your confidence by constantly questioning your judgement or downplaying or dismissing your impact all in the name of helping you get better. And I think the other thing to talk about along with gaslighting is this idea of moral injury. And this is something that you kind of see, you see this common thread throughout this report.

And so, when we talk about moral injury, we’re referring to damage done to someone’s conscience or a moral compass within the workplace. So moral injury can come from actions that the person themselves perpetuates, situations they have witnessed, or situations in which they have failed to prevent specific activities from taking place that go against their own beliefs. So many designers can resonate, especially with that last one, right? Situations in which you know, they have failed to prevent specific design decisions, research decisions from taking place that go against their own beliefs about caring about people. And moral injury is, it’s a concept that covers the psychological, social, cultural, and spiritual aspects of trauma.

And when I talk about spirituality, I’m using Brené Brown’s definition of these are the things that ground you and give you purpose and meaning. For some people, it might be, you know, going to church or to mosque for other people it’s gardening and going hiking. And so when moral injury does occur, it can result in profound emotional guilt, and shame for the victim. And we see a lot of that within design where people struggle with shame, with guilt of, is there something wrong with me? Or did I do something wrong that could have harmed that customer, or could have harmed my colleague? And I think it’s important for us to start having more conversations and providing more language around these very real complex human experiences that we go through in this work.

James Royal-Lawson
I mean, yeah, that’s when things clash with your core values, then it triggers, it sets off a reaction, which is built, is based on your core values, and they are something that don’t just change overnight, and don’t just accidentally change to much company, company cultures and so on. They are your core values you’ve been brought up with the process of them being formed.

Vivianne Castillo
Exactly, exactly.

Per Axbom
This is the important finding from the study, isn’t it? All these playbooks that you’ve sort of helped use to categorise all of your different findings show that everything that the companies are doing, even if they’re doing it with benevolent intent, they’re just as harmful as the problems they intend to address. So they just exacerbate the problems?

Vivianne Castillo
Yeah.

Per Axbom
Which is just hugely, hugely important to understand. And if the organization’s, well they claim to be empathetic, then they should be able to actually understand the content of the study as well and how they should change.

Vivianne Castillo
Yeah, and I think what it does is it challenges companies organizations, design teams to be more innovative and thoughtful to how do you solve this problem? You know, organizational trauma isn’t an issue that can be waved away with a few employee resources or toxic positivity or press releases like if organizations really Do want to improve their employee experience, they actually need to have a deeper understanding in the cost of healing and being willing to invest in healing organizations as a whole. There’s a level of accountability that goes into this, right? You can’t necessarily treat something that’s really complex and messy, like organizational trauma in the same way you would scaling a sales initiative, or scaling a new design system that you’re implementing across the company.

There’s a level of intentionality and expertise that also has to be brought into that. It’s not always, you can’t prioritize scale, scale, scale at first, you have to actually think more about the people and the problem. You have to think about the context around that problem, too. And so yeah, I think it’s a challenge. And I think that companies are going to have to, design teams are going to have to figure this out, in light of even just the shift that we’re seeing in the workforce, you know, 2020, people started to have the scales fall off their eyes, and they were like, wait, I think I want better. I think I deserve better. And I think I’m going to go get better. And you’re seeing companies who are now having to rise to this challenge of actually caring about their employees. And they’re struggling, because they’re realizing that, you know, many of us aren’t willing to drink the Kool Aid anymore. Many of us don’t want to just survive in the workplace, we want to flourish. And so you have to be creative. You have to be more thoughtful and innovative in how you do that.

James Royal-Lawson
And the end of the four playbooks, you propose a fifth plug, I mean, I’m interpreting it as you propose a fifth playbook as a solution to this and that was the the trauma informed organisation.

Vivianne Castillo
Yeah, yeah. And you know, and we shifted it to like, you know, the fifth and final playbook. It’s, it’s really not a playbook at all. It’s about adopting mindset shifts, because with the playbooks, the playbooks are about a go-to set of tactics used to address the problem. But we recognize that, before you even get to thinking about tactics, per se, there has to be a mindset shift, you have to start thinking a little differently about trauma a little differently about the issues and a little differently about how do you actually move towards being more human centred. So some of the shifts that we talked about in the report was this shift from trauma as an individual issue, to organizational trauma is a systemic issue, not just an individual issue, you know, we talked about from, we need to prioritize communicating information in scalable, effective ways, to we need to prioritize communicating information in psychologically safe and trauma informed ways. And more times than not, it’s not necessarily about speed and like, efficiency, it’s about tone, it’s about the way that you deliver those messages.

Another mindset shift we talked about was from, we need to sponsor employee led efforts made up of volunteers to we need to hire external support from entities with expertise, not to be confused with passion or interest, in trauma informed and equity centred practices. And the last mindset shift that we proposed was, you know, from the lack of equitable and trauma informed behaviours is a personality issue, to the lack of equitable and trauma informed behaviours as a performance issue. And that’s where like that accountability piece gets into place where we need to, we need to start understanding the impact this has not only at an organizational culture level, but on the business. And so when you have a toxic manager, who, you know, Benjamin keeps getting promoted, even though he’s a terrible human being, because he’s crushing his numbers, but you keep having people leave that team, that’s impacting the bottom line because of the cost to recruit, to hire to bring more people in. And so you have to start to view that less as a personality issue more as performance one, and train and support accordingly.

Per Axbom
I love it. And I think when you’re ending on and I think you also introduced the report and the way that you… it’s healing because it allows people to understand that I’m feeling this way. And I suspect that maybe my organization has something to do with it. And yes, now that has been acknowledged, and you can feel safe in that understanding.

Vivianne Castillo
Yes.

Per Axbom
And as you say, it’s painful. Healing has to be painful. And I just have to acknowledge how fantastic I thought it was that the report itself is such a great example of how you’re paying attention to the reader. That you’re acknowledging that and saying upfront, please listen to your body and prioritize your self care while reading because just reading this, of course, can be triggering…

Vivianne Castillo
Yeah

Per Axbom
…and painful.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, which of course it would be Per, because you’ve got like, everyone’s gonna recognise some parts of their working lives in these playbooks.

Per Axbom
Exactly

James Royal-Lawson
despite that, I think even if you’re not American, like we’re Swedish or we’re working Sweden, you still recognise yourself in the thing. So yeah, you’re getting traumatised yourself by reading it.

Vivianne Castillo
Yeah.

Per Axbom
But you don’t just stop there, you actually have the breathing exercises,

Vivianne Castillo
Yes

Per Axbom
integrated into the report. And I’ve never seen that before. But it was hugely appreciated. It was fantastic. And I realised that’s something I want to do more of and see more of

Vivianne Castillo
Yeah, you know, that decision came from, I remember reading, just from top to bottom, the first draft of the report, and I felt really traumatised, as I’m like, thinking about my experiences and thinking about people or even stories I forgot about. And so I was talking to the team, and I was like, we need to have some mindfulness breaks in here, because this is heavy. And we need to care for our readers. So we don’t, we don’t put them in a place where they’re not able to ground themselves. And so what a lot of people don’t know actually is, so I wrote the breathe in breathe out mindfulness parts of this report, and I actually, these are affirmations, and exercises that I’ve walked through my own healing journey. And so being able to, like share that back with the community, these are, these are things and messages that I’ve had to embody and sit with, and really like, believing to help with my healing, and, you know, I was talking to someone the other day who read the report, and, you know, they asked me, they’re like, how do you… How do you know that you’ve been healing? And I told them, I was like, honestly, the first thing that comes to mind, is, I’m less afraid. I’m like, I’m less afraid.

And I didn’t realize when you’re in the midst of coping, when you’re in the midst of survival, when you’re in the midst of being in that comfort, or the space of the pain of the toxic situation, there’s so much fear around that. When you get presented new ideas or new opportunities, your mind immediately goes to why it won’t work, what will get in the way, or why it’s not possible. Now, as I’m, I would say, you know, 10-12 months into my own healing journey. Now, if I, you know, I’m encountering those ideas or those opportunities, I’m much more quickly to pivot to, Okay, what else can we do? How can I push back on that? And I’m not necessarily thinking about how to protect myself. Because when you’re in the midst of a traumatic situation, it’s about protection. It’s about survival. It’s why a lot of people can heavily compartmentalize because they got, they got to bring home the paycheck, they got to keep it moving. But, there is a time, there’s a time to do that.

But my encouragement to folks and to people who are listening to this podcast is to recognize the pain in terms of your current situation. And to be able to acknowledge, yes, the pain it will take to heal, but to start making moves towards that healing, and to recognize that in doing so, as well, like, I don’t think healing was really ever meant to be a solo journey. I think healing is meant to be a shared one. I think it’s about bringing together a care community, whether that is people you trust, that’s a therapist, that’s people who don’t work in design, let me tell you, you need friends who don’t work in design or big tech, and having people where you can feel safe with to talk about what you’re going through and to start that healing. Because I think a lot of people are hesitant to choose the path of healing because of it feeling lonely, or being worried that it’s more lonelier than the current path that they’re on in their current situation. But doesn’t have to be that way. And it does get better.

James Royal-Lawson
I think that’s an absolutely excellent point to finish on. Encouraging point to finish on. Thank you, Vivianne, for joining us

Per Axbom
Than you so much

James Royal-Lawson
It’s been really enlightening and really good fun.

Vivianne Castillo
Absolutely. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

James Royal-Lawson
When Viviane, shared as the article, the research, ahead of the interview, I was starting to read it. I was, I was a little bit concerned at first that oh, this is going to be really US centric. It’s gonna be dominated by US research and about US working conditions. And is that going to be relevant for the rest of the world? You know, because of course, a third of our listeners, approximately, are in the US. But we’ve got listeners in lots of different countries we say in the intro, and vastly different countries, Russia, Hong Kong, Iran, Brazil, Japan, Zambia, just to throw out six. Those countries are very different in many, many ways. But thankfully, thankfully,

Per Axbom
Yeah

James Royal-Lawson
thankfully. I mean, it’s from a Swedish perspective, I’m going to ignore the UKs perspective, because that’s just I don’t want to unpack that. But from a Swedish perspective, then I do recognise some of the playbooks from my own working experience here in Sweden.

Per Axbom
Yeah.

James Royal-Lawson
So that made me feel reassured, I guess that the research did highlight things and lift things that were beyond the boundaries of the United States of America.

Per Axbom
Yes, I think and also a testament to what a good job they did of actually naming the playbooks and describing the playbooks, I think in a way that people can take something from them and understand that yes, this is relevant to me. That playbook, yes, I’ve seen that. I’ve seen pieces of that playbook. It’s easier to talk about, it’s easier to recognize. But also I, and one of the reasons I really thought that these exercises of, of mindfulness throughout the report helped me because I was when you’re reading through this, you think of situations in your working life, that have been really bad.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah. And you start to reflect back, or you project, don’t you, when you hear the playbook is when you start reading about the minimizer, then you start thinking back and projecting yourself and situations onto that playbook. And think yeah, that was a page from that playbook that I lived through.

Per Axbom
Yeah. I think one thing I wanted to pick out that we didn’t have time for during the interview was how it was a huge realization and really important for companies to realize as well, that when they allow people to create these working groups, or, and they create safe spaces for these, what’s it called Employee Resource Groups?

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah

Per Axbom
The way it’s done today, I mean, when you and I started working, we didn’t have these digital spaces where everything like that and went on, now you have the digital spaces, which means that those spaces themselves can turn surveillance, and also of course if you become afraid of participating, because you think that can actually backfire and be used against you.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, it’s another psychological aspect to take on board, when we are dealing with remote working on these kinds of services and tools and facilities that are made available to you. I think it’s also really like, what Vivianne brought up about the generations or waves of UXers.

Per Axbom
First Wave and second wave, yeah.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, and yes, we, me and you Per are firmly rooted, I guess, in the Generation X. We’re not baby boomers but Generation X, definitely first wave of UXers, and we’re white, and we’re privileged. So so we tick an awful lot of boxes there. But it was interesting to reflect about, well, those generations but also the waves and Vivianne mentions the move from advancement, or the wave of advancement, and then the wave of maturity, so not just about the groups of people, but also whereabouts you are in your journey with UX. And I think…

Per Axbom
but also, I think there’s a generational thing where people of the younger generation actually feel a lot more comfortable talking about mental health, and I see this so much when I’m teaching as well. They call me out, they are better at seeing things sometimes than I am. And it’s, of course, that’s that’s hugely important to recognize and acknowledge and let them take over.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, I mean, we’ve, we’ve, mentioned previously about the cascading knowledge, so how it takes generations things to kind of like, filter down or for even for change to happen takes a long time. And yeah, when we started working with usability or with digital interfaces, and so on, then, you know, it was pre internet. Or the internet was on the verge of coming mainstream. So anyone that we were working with at that point, were proper old school, you know, they were baby boomers. And then as we’ve, you know, gone on at that time, 10 years ago, when 10 or more years ago when we’re pushing for UX, then yeah, we were the next wave and then there’s a new wave coming now and everything’s getting shuffled along a level and granted this will vary from country to country and from organisation to organisation. It’s not all these things are not set in stone. They’re generalisations, just like the Vivianne says in the interview.

Per Axbom
I also liked that she called out why is ethics coming now? Why wasn’t it part of it at the beginning? That to me is just such an important observation.

James Royal-Lawson
Which connects perfectly with what she says about the waves that…

Per Axbom
Exactly

James Royal-Lawson
…when the first wave of UX was, the focus was on advancement, the focus was on, as I mentioned, getting that seat on the board, getting resources to do UX at all, or whatever you want to call the thing we are doing. There was so much focus on that it was you know, stay on target, stay on target, we’ve got to a degree play the game of the organisations you were in, because back then those were the organisations and you weren’t going to go, you didn’t, you couldn’t change the organization’s before you actually then get advancement of UX. You had to play the game to an extent to get the advancement of UX, and then we got there. And then it’s about maturity, maturing the practice, because it’s now established.

Per Axbom
I honestly believe everybody needs to read this, this paper on this research. It’s so important, because it, I mean, I think it stretches out and addresses not just the workplace, but actually well-being in general.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, I think this is going to be one of the episodes Per, that we recommend people to share with their managers.

Per Axbom
Yes, good point. And we also have some recommended listening for you. I know you picked out the mental health episode, I believe

James Royal-Lawson
seemed a bit of an obvious one.

Per Axbom
Yeah.

James Royal-Lawson
But it’s a good one. And an important one.

Per Axbom
It is really

James Royal-Lawson
Episode 197 and mental health with Jennifer Achillion.

Per Axbom
And if you can spare a little bit of your time, then join our little community of volunteers. We’re always looking for help with transcripts, publishing and references for our show notes. And the easiest way to volunteer is to email hej@uxpodcast.com, that’s H E J or H EY remember to keep moving

James Royal-Lawson
See you on the other side

[Music]

Per Axbom
So, James, do you know what the buffaloes said to his son when he left for college?

James Royal-Lawson
No, I don’t know what the buffalo said to his son when he left for college.

Per Axbom
Bison

James Royal-Lawson
Oh, he did lower the bar with that one.