#7 Finding my path in UX, Icarus and vulnerability in leadership

(00:00) Danny

in. Joe, thank you for coming. It’s great to see you. We haven’t, we spoke recently, like maybe a while ago, but we met probably, I guess was it like four years ago?

(00:15) Joe

Yeah, it would have been about that. And I think we spoke, yeah, we spoke last time, it probably about two years ago now. But yeah, that first time would have been about 2021, something like that, 2022.

(00:21) Danny

Wow.

Yeah,

right in the thick of the pandemic. for people that don’t know, I kind of wrote a sort of mini design obituary about you, just to say that people could have some context of who they’re listening to. So you started out in user research, from what I can see, and you’ve worked with a range of clients like Sky and BBC. And then you’ve sort of moved into UX and service design roles, various like

big kind of like three and big private companies and you spent quite a while at Nementsa, seven years I think, as a design agency, ⁓ big design agency, what it’s Bristol, London and I think ⁓ international isn’t it? And where you sort of grew into a role of being the director of UX and then you’ve also made quite an interesting transition which is something I’d really like to talk to you about, which is moving from the sort of agency sort of land into

⁓ the NHS, sort of public sector. So is that a kind of good skim through of your design life?

(01:34) Joe

Yeah, I think it’s interesting when I look at my LinkedIn profile, when I’m admiring it, you know, on a boring day, and I see like, it’s very linear. It starts as a consultant and then it’s like, then it’s a UX architect, then it’s a senior UX architect, then it’s a principal consultant, then it’s head of, then it’s director, and then it’s a bit like Icarus and I got too close to the sun and I…

I didn’t drown in the sea or anything but I sort of landed in a different place. think I got… Yeah, I worked out that direct was probably not quite where I wanted to be.

(02:11) Danny

very interested in that and I’m very interested in Icarus because that’s something that a word in a phrase I’ve used a lot in my own journey in design when the ascent gets a little bit too hot. Could you tell me more about that? Why did you use that word Icarus or what does that mean for you?

(02:26) Joe

Yeah.

I think, so for me I meant it just, I got a bit too close to the organised, or the sort of the senior business side of things and a bit too far away from why I got into doing what I’m doing. I mean I started off before all of, before getting to research in psychology and I consider that to be sort of my primary interest.

And you know, like a lot of people, you step up through the various levels and then you get to a point, I think some people, I mean certainly I did realise, this isn’t, now all of a sudden we’re talking about things like redundancies and the bottom line. And I thought maybe that’s why I was interested in, but actually it’s really not. I’ve gone too far, I’ve gone too close to that side of things and I wanted to get back to…

being bit more hands-on, a bit more back to the research side of things and the psychology side of things and actually doing things for end users a bit more.

(03:38) Danny

Yeah, so you sort of stopped feeling like a designer ⁓ and started feeling like a business person.

(03:43) Joe

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, a manager. And certainly at that point for me as well, was, I just had my third child at last and I was just feeling, there’s a little bit lot going on, was so much going on in those few years. And I was starting to feel like I just had way too much responsibility in all walks of life. And it was really starting to tell.

(04:07) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah.

(04:18) Joe

And I mean, we had a conversation about getting a dog and I was just like, absolutely no chance because I just felt like if I had one more thing was added to me, then I collapse. And so was partly that as well. mean, at the moment, we were, you know, it was quite a big team and quite a lot going on for a lot of people. So there’s a lot of dealing with other people’s issues as well as with my own.

(04:45) Danny

Yeah, yeah, because that’s really interesting. Firstly, we had the dog conversation too, so I can relate with that. I’ve always wanted a dog and having a child, me and my wife, she was like, absolutely not. And she’s right. So yeah, I can relate with that. And I find that interesting. What I hear the theme of is like holding. You’re holding.

(05:00) Joe

Lanesen.

(05:13) Danny

holding people, holding their emotions, holding their journey. And when you, in the midst of light, I think it was like 20 odd people that you were sort of effectively holding.

(05:27) Joe

Yeah, yeah, and we tried to separate line management a little bit, especially for that team which grew quite quickly from seven or so, and yeah, it got up near 30 at one point. I was responsible pretty much for bringing all of those people in, and so I think when that happens, you feel a lot of responsibility for their careers. You wanna make sure that they’re happy and they’re getting what they need out of things. Sick.

Yeah, it’s a lot to take on and if you’re trying to do that properly and you’re really invested in people and you care, it can become overwhelming quite quickly unless you’re careful.

(06:08) Danny

really relate with that. ⁓ I had a role at a very well-known ⁓ shoe company and it was, I started the role thinking it was about design and it was, know, and I was, it was about practice and developing practice and, you know, trying to implement processes and evangelising design and then towards the end of the time that I was there it became about ⁓

like, sort of helping people navigate and orient the company as it was kind of sinking, basically. And there were redundancies and there was like, people didn’t know if they were going to turn up one day and just be told to leave. And suddenly I was in this role of like, crisis holder or something, you know, and it was so far away from design at that point. It was just people.

(07:07) Joe

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, and I don’t mind admitting that what I saw a lot was when it came to things like redundancies, people would be like, well, if it has to be done, I’ll do it. You know, like, I’m strong enough to do it. I absolutely hate that side of things. mean, especially, I don’t want to be sort of there responsible telling someone that they’ve got…

no job. Having brought them in and we go, it’s really exciting, we’ve got all these things that we can work on and go actually for reasons completely out of our control, we’ve got to let you go. And I could see that that was the way that things were going and those decisions were going to potentially have to start being made and I really didn’t want to, I didn’t want, I just didn’t want to be part of that and maybe I’m just not, I’m not cut out for that, maybe I’m too sensitive to people’s needs but I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to tell people that they…

and no longer welcome. And I also don’t want to be in an environment, and this is increasingly difficult, especially where I am now, but I don’t want to be in an environment where people are leaving because it creates so much uncertainty for everyone else. can’t have psychological, ideally what you want is a team where you’ve got good psychological safety, people can be themselves, express themselves and not worry too much. But.

you can’t have that when people are being made redundant because there’s just constant low level, maybe not even low level, but anxiety and fear about what’s going on. And obviously the way things are at the moment, there’s a lot of that generally anywhere, everywhere in…

that LinkedIn doesn’t really help with that because I think the algorithm is set so that emotional type posts seem to do really well. hear a lot of stories don’t you about people who been out of work for six months and I think a lot of that’s America but anyway…

(09:00) Danny

No, it’s

something that I it’s something that I’ve, you know, it’s a really live topic. So I agree with you, there is a sort of conflation with with the US market, but I it’s people that some people I know. I it scares me when I see people with 20 years experience saying they’re remortgaging their house like that freaks freaks me out big time.

(09:14) Joe

I really.

Yeah.

(09:27) Danny

It taps into like one of my deepest fears of something that I never had in this industry. was always, people would say, you worried about, I’d be, no, I just get a job anytime. You just jump around, you know. And it’s now, it feels like that time has ended and we’re in a different era. And there’s a sense of scarcity. And, you know, when you think about all this froth in the market, there must be loads of people in jobs that…

(09:38) Joe

Yeah.

(09:56) Danny

don’t want to be there, but they’re hanging in because it’s kind of like, don’t know if I can get another job, you know, and what the future holds. It’s a really strange time. It didn’t used to be like this. ⁓

(10:04) Joe

Yeah.

No, no, a lot of things in design and UX are really cyclical, aren’t they? You have the same conversations about titles and, you know, prototyping. All these things, just, Lorem Ipsum is another one. They just come around in cycles, but with this particular thing, it doesn’t feel like a cycle that we’re gonna just spring back out of. Before I joined the NHS, when I was starting to talk to recruiters,

(10:18) Danny

Yeah.

No.

(10:36) Joe

they were saying the new year will be when things will change and that was in 2023. They saying, you know, it will come back next year and it just hasn’t 18 months later and it’s still not looking amazing. But I will say, I do think there’s lots of people in jobs that are sort of worried and are sticking. I do think it is a bit of an iceberg where you’ve got a very vocal minority.

(10:40) Danny

Yeah. Yeah.

Hmm.

(11:04) Joe

potentially creating a lot of noise around it. It may well be based in fact, but I do think there’s an awful lot of people that are just sort of not on LinkedIn, that are just quietly getting on with their job. Whether they’re happy or not is a different question, but I do think it’s not quite as bad as perhaps we’re getting the impression of it. Yeah.

(11:17) Danny

you

It gets amplified, perhaps, you know,

there’s something that struck me in this market froth and then you talking about, you know, your time at Nementsa and, you your role you’re in now is because and for the people that don’t know, like you briefly managed me, we worked together briefly for a few weeks and something that I experienced from you and something that you’ve written about.

is like authentic leadership. like something that I’ve tried to convey and in that example I gave at the shoe company, you know, I was trying to be authentic, I was trying not to bullshit. And I wanted to be a manager that people genuinely trusted and I sort of had a kind of friendship with if you like. But I found that authentic leadership in times of massive uncertainty and change is desperately needed and fucking hard.

You

(12:23) Joe

Yeah, it’s really difficult because you’ll be in a meeting with the board and you’re talking about how things are not great, we might have to lose people. And then you go into your team meeting, you can’t just come out with that stuff. You’re forever holding on to that and you’re forever making judgements about how.

(12:37) Danny

Yeah. Yeah.

(12:45) Joe

how you best set the tone and how you best give people the truth so that when things do happen it’s not a massive shock, but at the same time don’t create lots of panic. Really, really difficult.

(12:58) Danny

Yeah, it’s

a real tightrope and something I see that you’ve written about as well, which might fit into this too. You’ve written about introversion, being an introvert. How does an introvert navigate this type of timeline? Because it seems like, yeah, tell me about that.

(13:09) Joe

Yeah.

Well I think the introversion thing, mean certainly when times are difficult I don’t think it makes a huge amount of difference necessarily, but certainly in terms of authentic leadership. I think the introversion thing’s been really interesting for me over the last 12 months being in NHS, because I’ve known, because I’m quite reflective anyway and I’ve read Quiet by Susan Cain, I’ve thought about this stuff quite a lot.

I had quite a clear picture of what I’m like and how I, the environments in which I thrive. And then I got into the NHS and it didn’t fit at all with how, with that environment. Where I work in screening is…

(14:09) Danny

Yeah.

(14:14) Joe

It’s great, it’s got loads of positive. I think everyone would admit though, it’s quite an extrovert environment. There’s lots of very big meetings and a lot of, I think, credit given to people who speak up in those meetings and people who challenge a lot. And I went through this long period of…

trying to fit in with that rather than accepting what I was like and leaning into that. So I went through this long period of being like, I’m really struggling here. Why am I struggling so much? I’m not speaking enough. I have to speak more. I have to be more visible. And that I found really draining because that just doesn’t suit my personality at all.

(15:01) Danny

Do you think value was almost measured in sort of audible presence?

(15:08) Joe

Yeah, I think it definitely can be in certain circumstances, but I do think there is another way of going about it that is accepted and is fine, but I just couldn’t find it, I couldn’t locate it. And I was getting into a really bad head space as a result of that and I was sliding down into this kind of victim space where I was feeling like there’s loads of stuff going on, it was a bit of an us and them type scenario where…

I was feeling like there’s all this stuff going on and I’m not a part of it. And everything that was happening was like a really bad thing ⁓ for me and towards me. I had to just have this massive reason. I actually had a conversation with a coach and I was just complaining about something. And he said like, who does this serve? Who does this?

attitude to serve and I was like well it doesn’t serve me and I thought about it and I was like it really doesn’t serve me like why am I doing this like I could be so much better I just need to reframe how I’m approaching things lean into the one-to-one type chance and lean into the deep thinking work

and just don’t worry about speaking on big calls. Just try not to worry about it. Actually you can follow up with things, you can write things in chat. You can influence in other ways. It took me too long really to kind of realise that.

(16:36) Danny

So you had a sort of introverts playbook that you developed for yourself about how do I influence and how do I thrive under my own terms, you know, in this environment. And it sounds like you like accepted the bits that you weren’t necessarily thriving because that’s not what your strength is. And you developed like different routes and channels to create influence. that right?

(17:02) Joe

Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to do, yeah. And I also realized I stepped away from one of my sort of core things which is around vulnerability. I wasn’t talking to anyone about how much I was struggling, really. I was just trying to deal with it and reflect and work my own way through it. It’s why it’s important to have like coaches and therapists and things. Sometimes just articulating it out loud helps, but I wasn’t doing that. I wasn’t telling anyone.

(17:10) Danny

Mmm.

(17:32) Joe

And so actually when I started going through this bit of a resale, was a couple of months ago now, I just sort of put it out there. Like I’ve been really struggling, I’ve not been doing very well, like I’ve been really struggling and I’m going to try and get better and this is how I’m going to do it.

(17:48) Danny

What happened when you started to be more vulnerable? What changed?

(17:53) Joe

people responded to it really positively, which is the most disappointing thing isn’t it in hindsight because you’re like, I should have done this before. But people responded to it really positively and actually a lot of people sort came to me and said yeah me too, like I’m really struggling too. So I think a lot of people were…

(18:08) Danny

Really?

(18:12) Joe

The NHS and the public sector of organisations, think, just be like these massive machines, and like these big systems, and it’s quite slow, and there’s so much happening, and the Prime Minister abolishes your organisation one minute in public before you even know about it, and it’s like there’s a lot going on, and you can get away from… And of course, leadership are always like…

you know, if you’ve got any problems come and talk to me or whatever but it doesn’t always feel like that that’s an option and how much do you want to be honest and vulnerable when there are so many big changes going on. It’s a bit of a fear. We’ve got this low level stuff about losing jobs, redundancies, things like that. You maybe hold onto things a bit more.

(19:01) Danny

Do you think there’s an unsaid fear of if you express vulnerability and mental health challenges, things like that, then there’s conversations, redundancies, and the people that are seemingly vulnerable in that way might be marked out? Is that what you’re implying a little bit?

(19:21) Joe

Well, the thing is that I don’t think that that’s actually true. it would be against you. And that’s the whole essence of vulnerability, isn’t it? You’ve got to put yourself, it’s putting yourself out there. It’s being vulnerable. And you, I think, perhaps feel more reluctant to be vulnerable when there’s other things going on. But that feeling is normally wrong, and it’s normally just something, it’s like a human thing that you’re holding onto.

(19:26) Danny

Not true, but it feels like it’s true.

There’s something that sort of like feels like a push and pull for me with vulnerability that it sort of I have this idea of certainly when I’m doing consultancy stuff that I have to be this like brash kind of I’ve got the answers, here we go, choo choo choo. Like I feel like there’s this expectation somehow that that’s what I need to be. And when I see other people do it,

I throw up in my mouth because I’m like, that’s horrible. Like that feels like arrogant and all this. And so I feel that that pull to do that. And then I also desperately want to bring in human connection and authenticity. And sometimes I’ve managed to do that in corporate environments and it’s been very successful. And sometimes I’ve had to make a call to go, it’s not safe to be vulnerable.

with that person. Like they don’t want to, like I don’t have that type of relationship that that’s possible, especially in remote, especially remote. And I found I’ve had to really like measure my rationale about when to do that and when not. And sometimes I get that wrong, but do you know what I mean? Like it can’t be vulnerable all the time and it has to be sort of

Considered, I guess.

(21:20) Joe

Yeah, well there has to be an element of safety, psychological safety with it. You have to feel like, you can put yourself out there, but there has to be an element of trust that it’s not gonna be abused, it’s gonna be taken in the right way. With some people, you just, it’s not welcome.

But as long as you can find people, I think, and you’ve got a culture which leans itself slightly towards that, think it’s important. Also, the other thing about vulnerability is if you’re not, if you hold onto things too much, then you can’t really expect people in your team who report to you, et cetera, to be vulnerable as well. So I think you’ve got to demonstrate a little bit of it to say it’s okay to talk about this stuff. And if you’ve got similar problems and you want to talk about them, then that’s okay and I can listen and help

where I can. If you’re closed off, you’re sending a ⁓ message that that’s the vibe.

(22:18) Danny

I… I… I’m sorry,

Yeah, I completely agree and I was remembering as you saying that an incident where I was working with someone and they were going on maternity leave and they really wanted a laptop whilst they were like a Mac and stuff and it was really important to them and it was in a kind of whole culture of like

redundancies and stress and everyone was on that high level and you know, things that might not seem that important were very important. And it, I remember it escalating with that person and it got so like tense and important to them. And then we went, we went, you know, we went for a walk together and I actually cried in front of her and I was like her manager, you know, and I cried in front of person and I, I never really checked in with her, like what she thought about that.

And it did occur to me later, I was like, God, she’s probably told quite a few people, because that’s quite a surprising thing to see. And it wasn’t a particularly safe environment. And hearing what you’re saying now is making me feel a bit more reassured that perhaps, you know, it modelled something positive, you know, I mean, it was one on one, it wasn’t in a big space, but it’s something that has always stayed with me a bit. I was like, yeah, I did that, God.

(23:48) Joe

You should ask her, I bet she’d say that she found that really reassuring that it’s okay to be yourself and to be open with how you feel. And it is really, I think that’s something to be proud of if you like, mean especially for men to kind of demonstrate some actual emotion. ⁓

(24:00) Danny

Yeah.

(24:14) Joe

is a positive thing. It’s not obviously suitable for every environment and you’re not going to do it as you’re selling in big groups and things but I think it sends such a message that no amount of you can talk to me about it. You can say you can talk to me about anything as much as you like. It doesn’t mean anything I think until you actually demonstrate that it’s okay by doing it yourself and be…

(24:22) Danny

Yeah.

This is

all going to put us on a path if we’re not talking to burnout, I would think, of having an outlet, not having a way to release it, whether that’s in work or not. But it’s something certainly that I’ve spoken about before, of experiencing burnout. And I think you’ve talked about it bit too. ⁓ And I just feel conscious of the younger generation.

(24:45) Joe

Yeah.

(25:07) Danny

and how harder things are for them and how prevalent burnout might be, you know, and then throwing, you know, long COVID and all these kinds of things. I don’t know if it like, do you think it’s there’s something about designers that make us almost more susceptible to burnout, you know, than perhaps other other practices? Or what do think there’s nothing unusual about us in that way?

(25:31) Joe

I’ll just…

I don’t think there’s anything unusual about us in that way. Would be my initial reaction. I mean, you get perfectionists and things like that in all sorts of jobs. There might be something about it that kind of lends itself to it little bit, but I don’t think so. I mean, I’ve certainly seen other people that are in the throes of burnout that have not been designers that have been in other roles, so I don’t think so.

be my initial.

(26:02) Danny

Yeah,

I just sort of wondered it. think when we do work that is more subjective and is less evidence-based and is more critiqued and stuff like that, then I feel like there’s more pressure. It was something that when I moved from web design into UX, it was a relief for me because it was just sort of like, well, my work doesn’t necessarily just get okayed by one person and that pressure felt really intense. Whereas when it was like, we’ll just use a test it.

(26:28) Joe

Yeah.

(26:32) Danny

And it was just sort of it felt a lot safer for me actually, as opposed to like a creative director kind of waving the wand of approval.

(26:43) Joe

Yeah,

yeah, I mean it can depend, can’t it, I think. You know, can be in certain roles where you’re not a designer but you’re very much at the whim of other people. You know, you’re a product person, creating decks and people are just pulling it apart all the time and going, what’s all this about? Same with developers and things like that.

Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know, it’s interesting, isn’t it? It’s interesting with burnout, think that, can you always, something I thought about is like, can you always tell when you’re experiencing it, or is it something that you look back on hindsight and go, ⁓ that was a bad time, at the time I didn’t quite, I feel like when you’re going through burnout, you’re just trying to desperately do everything you can to make yourself feel better, but you’re not thinking, I’m really burning out necessarily.

(27:32) Danny

and ⁓

(27:33) Joe

Is that what you’ve

experienced or do you think that when you’re in it you know it?

(27:36) Danny

When I, so when I burnt out, was, I was about 30 and I was in my first consultancy gig. Yeah, first proper consultancy gig. And so there was like a lot of like new things, high pressure. It was also like Wild West consultancy land. I don’t know if you brushed into that, but like there was a period in like the sort of early.

teens, you where UX were just like sort of thrown right at the client as the kind of we owned the project and we were like the God mode and all this which was like so much pressure really and totally like, you know, they weren’t account managers, we were just like doing everything. And I got thrown into that and then I had a lot of friendship groups that were shifting and I was feeling a bit like lost and not like connected to a social network.

And I also had come back from backpacking and I didn’t have a place to live so I was hopping on sofas. So loads of systems were like new and not safe and I didn’t have anything to ground me. And I think I would just feel like I had to keep going and I felt like this pressure to the agency who weren’t very nice to me at all but I had this sense of like I didn’t want to let them down somehow and I couldn’t like saying I can’t do this anymore was sort of like…

not something that wasn’t an option. And I think the words I used to say to myself was, what choice do I have? And I had created these barriers of choice. And then I think there was a moment where I said to myself, this is just about money. This is just about money, really. And I’d earned enough that I could be unemployed for at least a few months. So when I think I realized that it was about that, and then coupled with having a few nights of insomnia in a row, and I

I just, I kind of hit the buffers. It was just, can’t do this, but I didn’t know why. didn’t have a name for it. And I think I was freaking out that I had some disease or something was wrong with me. did all these tests and nothing came back, you know. And then eventually they thought it was ME and chronic fatigue. But it was quite a painful journey in really to realizing that. Does any of that resonate with your experience?

(29:56) Joe

Yeah.

Yeah, well, not quite as bad as that, but what’s interesting, I think, with burnout is that you, it’s like everything narrows and everything just sort of seems to start crowding in around you and you feel like your options just become more and more limited as you were saying. You feel like, yeah, what choices have I got? I knew very much that this is where I think I was getting to recently before I caught myself was that.

I was getting into that thing where I just felt like I had no autonomy. I had no choices. I just had to keep going. yeah, it’s horrible, isn’t it? But all this stuff, you know, it does make me think that… I think about some stuff that I’ve been through and it does make me think, like, you just don’t know. You know, when you’re managing people and you’re talking to people and they might be a bit off.

and you go, okay, wonder what’s going on. People have got so much stuff going on and you’re not just managing resource and lines and especially their people with all their different, and they go have ups and downs and all sorts of different things going on. It’s more important then I think that you’re able to create some kind of safety where they feel like they can actually talk to you about that stuff because…

(30:52) Danny

Yeah.

(31:17) Joe

Otherwise all you can judge them on is the work output and that doesn’t seem like a very good…

(31:24) Danny

Yeah, I think, I think there’s, and that comes out like, you know, the theme of the podcast really is like deeply human and it’s sort of like, who am I working for? And like, you know, why am I working here? Like what’s the real thing? And I, for me, like, I don’t know about you, but often for me, it’s actually been the relationships are the motivators for me, a sense of like, camaraderie, a sense of wanting to be recognized.

to please somebody that I respect. Like it’s those relationships that drive me. And if those relationships are toxic, my motivation just kind of, and I can’t, I just can’t move. hand doesn’t move the mouse, you know, cause I don’t care. You know, that’s, that’s how my system computes it.

(32:12) Joe

Yeah, I found that in the last couple of years I’m really, motivated by the kind of ownership of the organisation that I’m working for. So when I was at Nomenso, I loved it in many ways. And we had, it was…

privately owned, I knew who the owners were, I knew exactly who the owners were. When we had wins, like we won some sales, was like that was all of us and it was great. And it was like, yeah, know, they did well, but they took all the risk, so I was like, they can do well, they can have the money, like that’s great for them. I didn’t mind that. But then we got bored and it just shifted overnight.

(32:53) Danny

Yeah, I heard that, Did it.

(32:56) Joe

Yeah, because we

(32:57) Danny

Overnight.

(32:57) Joe

were all of sudden owned by investors. They don’t care. They don’t care about the work. You can go and win some great little project for a charity that’s worth 10K or something, and you love it, and the team loves it. It’s great. It’s a really interesting little project. They don’t care. They just see the bottom line. They’re like, not nice.

interested in and almost immediately like the winds don’t become our winds anymore they’re like they just become a line that someone’s interested in in terms of getting them you know return on investment just completely changed everything for me.

(33:31) Danny

Was that one of the, I mean, that makes a lot of sense to think that you then went to public sector. that the sort of ingredients that created the drive to making the jump that you made?

(33:36) Joe

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly that. Well, it was definitely one of them. mean, because yeah, I’m at that point I was like, well, I’ve got a lot of experience at this point I’ve got some skills expertise Where do I want to put that and I thought I really want to I don’t want to put that into some organization where there’s You know some CEO who’s on

500k who’s jetting off or whatever and throwing instructions at everyone. I just don’t I don’t want to do that or all this profiting off things that are destroying the world I just don’t I don’t I don’t think that’s what I want to contribute to and so the NHS to belong at that point it was perfect

(34:18) Danny

Yeah.

Did you feel-

Do feel like that’s a place of privilege that we can, as people that have a fair amount of stuff on our CV, can speak to? Because I’m thinking for some people, you know, who have less experience, you might just take what you get, you know?

(34:42) Joe

Yeah, and it’s important to try and withhold judgement, it? Because what works for me is not necessarily going to work for someone else. But gambling is one. So I’ve worked for betting companies in the past, like a long time ago when I was in my first agency.

(34:51) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah.

(34:58) Joe

It was really interesting from a psychology perspective. It’s a really, really interesting space. then I grew over time. I changed over time. I was like, I wouldn’t work for a gambling company now, but 15 years ago I might have not thought about it that much and might have done it. people do it. mean, you get well paid in those organizations and people have their own decisions to make, don’t they? But I do.

(35:12) Danny

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, you’ve got

you’ve got a family, you know, you’ve got whatever like everybody, everybody kind of rationalizes it. I’m smiling because my first job, I was unemployed six months when I got to London, you know, I didn’t have any work, you know, I was trying to make make it like 2002. And I got offered two jobs at the same time, got offered one at travel company, and the other one at Playboy. And, you know, I was like,

20 or something and of course all my mates are just like… Of course. And you know what the reality, and spoiler alert, I didn’t choose Playboy, but the reality like actually you you hear like you know something like Playboy and all that but the reality was like it’s kind of quite sleazy like I went into this office it was like

(35:54) Joe

Playboy.

(36:14) Danny

way out of London and you go in there and I’m getting in this lift, all these like boxes and stuff, know, it’s all just kind of like some side office and stuff. And it was like, obviously making like flash banners, know, animated flash banners, you know, it’s just kind of like, and it was actually my mom and she just said like, you don’t know what jobs you might want to get in the future. And if you have that on your CV, it might actually not be a good thing. ⁓

And I was probably, yeah, I probably that probably swayed me, but there was something icky, I think about, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it wasn’t it didn’t it wasn’t the same kind of cool feeling that maybe immediately came from it. was it was I felt something else like kind of uncomfortable and that retrospectively I’m like really glad I that choice. You know, it was more money as well. But, you know, I guess that’s what we all have to think about.

(36:47) Joe

Yeah, it’s a bit grubby. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, well there’s a thing in there as well isn’t there about identity. identity I think is like really, it’s not talked about enough but I think it plays a huge role. It’s the stories that we tell about ourselves. like eight, nine years ago I got divorced.

(37:29) Danny

Thank

(37:29) Joe

I think

that’s just the biggest identity change that you can make because if it happens quite suddenly, which it did in my case, you go from a point where you’re like a family and in your mind you’re like, this is, I’m married, this is what I’m doing for the rest of my life, this is marriage. And then it can be like two months later, it’s like, now I’m separated or whatever and I’m getting divorced.

now my future is completely different, it’s completely wide open and the labels that you’ve got, you you’re not married, you know, you’re separately divorced, whatever, it changes how you think about yourself completely. That took me so long to get used to. And I think it’s a similar thing with work that you…

your identity is wrapped up in what you do to an extent and the stories that you tell yourself and the stories that you tell other people. And there’s a big shift, I think, from agency to being per public sector. Yeah, and also from the perspective of other people and the expectations and things like that.

(38:26) Danny

an identity perspective. Really?

Can you tell me more about that? How does your identity feel different?

(38:38) Joe

I mean, I was certainly like proud. I think I was proud when I worked at the Nomensa but I was more proud at that time, which I don’t really like admitting, but more of the job title. So if anyone asked me, I’d be like, oh, this is my job title. I work at a design agency, because they never would have heard of the design agency. Whereas now it’s like, I work at the NHS. So I always pause for a round of applause at that point, which no one gives me. One person has bless-em

(38:56) Danny

Yeah.

(39:06) Joe

they deserve it. But yeah, now it’s like, now it feels like quite a big pride thing, but I do think you’re treated quite differently as a perm member of staff versus contractor and agency coming in. There’s some perceptions that are going on there that you kind of have to battle with a little bit. There’s a perception, I think, that if you go PAM public, this might be just me projecting, but if you go PAM

public sector then you’re either in it for kind of politics and the wheeling and dealing to try and you’re on the make to be as ambitious as possible or you’re there for a bit of a holiday. know, like when I said I told someone I was starting Permanent HS and they were like, oh that’s good, you’ll be able to start at 11 and finish at 3. Which of course is not the case at all. But there’s this perception that you’re just there for a bit of an easy ride. I think that…

that can then play out a little bit actually when you’re in the role itself. Like people don’t see you as very, or as dynamic.

(40:13) Danny

Do you think there’s more of sense of responsibility as you’re working? Because you think of it like where you’re working in an agency, I think there’s more glamour, like UX director Don Draper. And it’s like kind of that you go to the office and it’s quite flush. It’s probably a football table and it’s kind of funky and there’s this sort of fresh feel to it and the creatives around and where is…

(40:27) Joe

We know.

Yeah.

(40:42) Danny

I imagine it’s not quite the same in NHS office, but I kind of wonder with the private sector, there isn’t quite that sense of appreciation of long-term impact. You kind of work on a project for four months or something and you’re not really there to see what happens afterwards. And I’m thinking about your values and who you work for and identity.

Does that aspect of it feel different when you’re actually like in house for the government effectively?

(41:16) Joe

Yeah,

I think that you are more invested. I mean, it’s natural that you would be because if you’re agency, then you could be moved off it pretty quickly and you could be onto something else and you can get excited about that. Whereas I think when you go perm, you make quite a commitment and there are some sacrifices that you make as part of that.

(41:29) Danny

get rotated.

(41:41) Joe

some of the bureaucracy and things like that you have to put up with.

So yeah, there is a real investment that you’re there to, you know, in my case with screening, I have to, in my mind, say, right, I’m in this for the long haul because things aren’t gonna change really quickly. It’s really complex. We’ve gotta be really careful and, like the clinical space, you can’t afford to miss someone out of screening because it can have huge impacts for that individual. So all your edge cases are really important. You’ve gotta really think about them. Even though it might only affect two people, you’ve still gotta think about them.

So things take time and it’s not necessarily easy but I do feel like that’s what I’m committed to in a way that in an agency, when you’re never committed, that committed to a client. You might say you are but ultimately there’s a contract that might come to an end and that you’ll have to move on to something else. So it’s slightly different.

(42:41) Danny

I think about, I think about, um, it’s a conversation that’s happening a lot at the moment is, you know, metrics and outcomes and how we’re, how we’re, how our value is measured. And, know, you think about the agency, it’s kind of measured by like, did you complete the project on time, on budget? Uh, what was, was the lead client, uh, liaison person happy, you know, like,

(42:58) Joe

Yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

(43:05) Danny

And it’s usually one person and it’s like, yeah, is Jimmy, is Sally happy? Yeah, they’re happy. Then that’s kind of the measure. Whereas, you know, with public sector, like, you know, from my experience as well, you know, we’re looking at quite like, like serious impacts, you know, you know, be it people’s health lives. And as you say, especially because in self-design too, you’re really looking at that, I imagine you’re looking at like that much broader picture and

societal impacts as opposed to just kind of, you know, a sort of a website that has 2 % conversion or something.

(43:43) Joe

Yeah, it’s really big, it’s really interesting. I mean, I’ve always said with screening in particular, if you can change the dial just a little bit and you increase uptake by a percentage point, that would be an outcome that you might report on. But that would have more than that percentage point being interesting, that’s a huge impact on a huge number of people because it’s population wide.

it’s massive stuff and I find that hugely motivating to work in a space like that and then to hear of, it’s interesting, I don’t know if you saw when Keir Starmer announced that the NHS England was being abolished.

(44:15) Danny

Mm-hmm.

I saw it and I thought of you. I thought, he’s been joined.

(44:28) Joe

Well,

I thought of me as well. At that time, it was interesting because we were in this thing called Big Room Planning and it was all of products and platforms talking through all the work that they’ve been doing. And it was really interesting. wasn’t like screenings just part of that, but it was interesting hearing about how like in the triage, they’d improved the triage process so that they were sending out 11 fewer ambulance visits or something like that in this one area that have piloted this.

all UCD driven. It was amazing, I was like, that’s huge. Massive impact, saves money, great stuff. And it was just a day of hearing this really great stuff. And then there’s this ripple coming around the room. Everyone’s checking their phone going, And then we find out that the NHS England is being abolished. But you’ve got to say that it can’t affect the digital side of things.

what more we’re doing in prevention because it’s saving money. If you got rid of the teams then you’d start losing money or you wouldn’t be making the savings that you need to make.

(45:20) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah, because digital has always been, since I started, I have a slight discomfort in one aspect in that it saves money, but in some ways it’s also like going to be changing other people’s jobs and, you know, maybe even leading to redundancies. I mean, I remember, you know, when I went into retail, it was like we were effectively competing the website against the call centres and the better the website, the less call centre people you needed. And in some ways, like that is the nature of

workforce, it’s always changing, it’s always morphing, some bits contract, some bits expand, but I have always had that thought in my mind that digitalisation does have impacts to people that we don’t necessarily immediately think of in other roles, even if it’s the right thing to do.

(46:20) Joe

Yeah, well lot of our work is with clinicians and mammographers and people that are carrying out them and actually they’re doing so much on paper still. ⁓ They’re in disjointed systems where they log into one place and then they have to go and update the data in a different system using a paper form that’s been passed through. Some of the stuff is really bad. So actually…

(46:28) Danny

I see, yeah.

(46:47) Joe

I know what you mean, but in this particular case, I think by introducing better systems and services and processes, you’re actually making their lives better as well. Because it gives them, they can then worry less about making mistakes, which again can have huge consequences, and they can focus far more on the individual. so by a much…

(47:04) Danny

system.

Yeah, it’s about work,

about workflows and helping people work better. I’m curious, in relation to that type of work, it’s something that I’m still sort of feeling through, it’s GDS. you know, it’s something I’ve heard of long time ago, when I was in the private sector, and it was like, ⁓ GDS is like this cool way of working, and it’s all like, UCD and, you know, and then now I’m

(47:12) Joe

Yeah.

(47:37) Danny

doing more and more public sector projects ⁓ and I’m seeing some aspects of it that I think are really good and some aspects of it that I don’t see working as well. And yeah, I can speak more to that as well, but I’m curious what you think in terms of like how, like what is GDS good at and what’s it not good at?

(47:58) Joe

What do you mean in terms of like the, you know, the discovery alpha live, the service stand? Yeah.

(48:01) Danny

Yeah, the templated

way of setting up a UCD team because in private sector it tends to be a little bit more like I know the agencies have a bit of a model but you sort of like shape it a little bit more around you know the need whereas GDS is quite like we always have a beta, always have an alpha discovery etc.

(48:22) Joe

Yeah, well, yeah, it doesn’t work amazing. I mean, I’ve been doing quite a lot of work in our area to try and get people thinking about the service standard more. But you do need more pragmatism than that. And I think in terms of the roles and the way teams are structured, we don’t…

We’re a bit too rigid, think perhaps sometimes in a particular space what you need is a generalist, but actually in order to set the team up right we need to have a content designer, an interaction designer, a service designer. It’s like, I don’t think that quite works. We also, you know, there are teams that are making changes to products, so they’re not.

necessarily they don’t have to go through a full service assessment in the same way because it’s not an end-to-end service that needs to be assessed, it’s like product tweaks and so then people don’t think about the standards and the things that they need to actually achieve in order to make it right. Obviously accessibility plays a huge role so it’s for us it’s like an interesting tool to try and ensure that we’re doing things in the right way but we cannot.

and won’t ever apply it rigidly. Like this is the only way we can do it. We have to certainly take the design principles and the service standard, those points and go, this is how we need to be doing things. Because they make total sense. They’re probably how you’d want to do them even if you didn’t have to do it that way. But in terms of like the actual phases, it probably needs to be a little bit more flexible.

(49:42) Danny

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

It’s reassuring to hear, because I think I’ve seen, like, I’ve appreciated how I don’t have to sell UX in and people know what I’m doing and all of that. I’ve really appreciated that aspect. I’ve just seen GDS used on slightly strange projects, you know, where I’m kind of like, I don’t know if you need a GDS. Like, it’s quite a big tool, you know, it’s quite…

(50:16) Joe

Yeah.

(50:29) Danny

It’s a real big thing. If you want to do this, it’s like, OK, we’re going to have like stand ups. We’re going to have like different roles. You if you want to like throw, is this the best problem to throw GDS at? Or could it just be done with a BA, you know, and a solution architect just analysing something for, you know, a user research, just having a look at it for a month or something. I haven’t always felt that that reasoning has happened in the experiences that I’ve seen.

(50:56) Joe

Yeah, well I think what you’re basically victim to being public sector there which is that yeah sometimes it happens and you can’t quite work out who’s decided it should happen in that way. Why? And it’s not, whereas in an agency I think you’d just sit down for maybe like 20 minutes and you go it doesn’t make sense let’s not do it and you won’t do it.

(51:08) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah.

(51:18) Joe

It just doesn’t work like that. There’s been multiple meetings. It’s probably gone through approval and business case and it said, we’re going to do it this way. And might not be a designer at all involved in any of that. And then it kind of comes down. It’s like, no, no, you’ve got to do it this way because this is how it is.

(51:24) Danny

Yeah.

I know that one very well. Yeah, I’m usually the one that it lands on. I’m like, right, what’s this mess we’ve got to untangle? Yeah.

(51:35) Joe

And that’s it.

Yeah, yeah,

and that’s part of the skill of it, suppose, is… and part of it, need bit of, I think, resilience always to kind of accept the constraints that you’re working within sometimes are self-imposed by the organisation that you’re working within. And yeah.

(51:59) Danny

I think

that’s such an important point that particularly for new people in the industry, they might not expect that, you know, where they’ve got an understanding of what design thinking is and GDS and then they get in there and then there’s like, ⁓ I can’t rigidly apply the process here. I’ve got to be a bit adaptive and things like that.

(52:22) Joe

Yeah,

well that’s why it’s a bit mad to me that you’ve got so many people with so much experience that are struggling with work because those are the people that have experienced lots of different things and so therefore know how to go about things in different ways and they know when to a tool up and when to put a tool down, when to apply a methodology and when to just leave it alone, when you’ve just got to go for it, when you’ve got to follow a process, whereas if you fresh out you’re just applying

theory, you’ve got to be much more pragmatic than that in the real world.

(52:54) Danny

The just does not like generalists. I keep saying it in every conversation I’ve had, the market doesn’t like generalists anymore. And it boggles my mind because as you say, like in GDS projects, they’re really good at that. It’s a great place for a generalist to be because you end up cutting across so many roles. I really hope that even just by talking about it more, gets people thinking about that.

(53:17) Joe

Yeah,

I think it’s a real shame for individuals as well who start out their careers and they perhaps go, well I’ve got to choose one of these designs, so go down interaction design and then they might not get, if they stay in the public sector, they might not get many opportunities to experience what content design is. That’s probably the best thing about an agency is that you kind of get thrown into various different things and you learn all about them and then make a call on what works for you.

(53:44) Danny

Yeah.

(53:45) Joe

or interesting, that’s much more better for your development, I think, than just going down one quite narrow track and then having to stick to it.

(53:53) Danny

Yeah.

I think, and I would say that’s a good thing perhaps for people to think about in this uncertain time is building adaptability and resilience within your practice because we don’t know where the sector’s going with AI and all this kind of stuff. And it’s like, even though no one likes generalists.

I still think it’s a good thing to be because you’re kind of hedging your bets as opposed to kind of just going hard on one thing and then that just gets rinsed out with the next GPT.

(54:26) Joe

Yeah.

Well, I think, I agree, I think there’s so much to learn and there’s so much interesting stuff out there. Like going and learning a bit about how development works and learning a bit how product works and going, there’s so much to learn and going and actually you can spend, the thing is, is a couple of months would just fly by. If you picked up something for, what, like 15 minutes a day.

you can actually pick up a real skill in two months. It’s actually quite useful and I think people need to think broader in design generally than just overly focus on design itself. I, for example, don’t read design books because I don’t feel like I’m going to learn much from them. What I do do is try and read very broadly and what naturally happens then is I think about how that thing then applies in the design world. So if you read a book like…

The Power Broker, which was a very famous one during the pandemic. think it was in many of one’s bookshelves behind them when they were in, the pandemic. That book is great, it’s really interesting, but it’s not related to design really in any way. And there’s loads of lessons in there about…

(55:29) Danny

Yeah.

(55:39) Joe

structures and how they move that could be really beneficial to you in your career. So my advice to people who are starting out is just to think about design, keep it in the back of your mind, but read really widely and experience a lot of things and bring that to your work, your individuality and your different thinking. And that’s what creativity is, right? It’s about joining different things up and you need those different things therefore to expose yourself to.

(56:06) Danny

I think.

I think that’s a great point to end on Joe. That’s I love it. Yeah. And, and, and, and add vulnerability onto that list too. ⁓ but yeah, I think that’s, that’s a really nice point to, to, draw a line under. So yeah, thank you. ⁓ I’ve really enjoyed the conversation actually. It’s been really good to, to, know, I’m trying to model, you know, particularly men talking about feelings and bringing it into different spaces that people might not expect it. ⁓ and I think you’re one of the best people I know in the industry to do that. So thanks for.

(56:24) Joe

Thank you.

(56:39) Danny

coming on today and sharing your experiences has been great.

(56:43) Joe

time. Appreciate it.

(56:44) Danny

Thanks, Joe.