#18 Reclaiming the heart in design | Fionn Tynan O’Mahony

(00:00) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

I had come through, I think, quite a series of burnouts, ⁓ and like difficult and challenging environments. And we’ve been through a series of restructures, I think they can kind of, you know, go, this is work, this, whatever.

(00:04) Danny

Mmm.

(00:12) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

I’ll do what I need to do and I can do that to a certain extent. But I think over time that really grinds me down. And if we continually make decisions that I feel don’t have clear values other than maintaining money, then I really struggle with that.

(00:34) Danny

thank you. Thank you for coming. ⁓ Fiona, it’s really nice to reconnect with you. And I was just thinking that how doing this podcast has enabled me to sort of have an excuse to talk to people that, you know, I had some experience with and some kind of interaction with and you were one of the people that I kind of remembered and thought, yeah, you know, interesting person to talk to. So, yeah, thank you. Thanks for coming.

(01:00) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

It’s nice to, because occasionally I’ll see you pop up and it’s nice to reconnect. I’m glad to get the opportunity to connect again.

(01:07) Danny

Yeah, I mean, this podcast, like, I kind of made it in response to what felt like a kind of AIifying space and lots of sort of, you know, truth bombs on LinkedIn and this kind of stuff. And I was just sort of like, my experience of reality is that people don’t talk like that. And actually people are people. And so I wanted to bring out human conversations. That was really where it all started.

(01:17) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Hmm.

Mm.

(01:35) Danny

It’s just to bring some humanness back into this. I wanted to, I usually start this, you know, and I guess for some people that won’t know you, like, I wonder if you could perhaps give them some orientation about like, who is this chap that Danny’s talking to? ⁓ What relevance does he has to design? And perhaps you can give people a little bit of an orientation.

(01:38) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, OK, so I am a partner at a small studio called And Then. We are a design futures consultancy, really looking at, I guess, how you apply design to longer term questions and to, I guess, widening the breadth of people that are able to engage meaningfully.

in thinking about the future and influencing large decisions about the future, whether that’s policy or strategy or organizational change. So I guess at times quite an intangible space for design, like we’re not designing.

(02:38) Danny

you

(02:38) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

products, although we can, there’s kind of like bits and pieces within this that you do end up just having quite physical things. I’m just looking around my desk for some 3D printed models that we’ve been doing that feel really connected to my original design practice. But you’re at the same time exploring things that are maybe quite ethereal. ⁓ So yeah, we’re a three person studio. We’re a partner based studio. So each of us are.

(02:50) Danny

Here we go.

(03:07) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

part owners of the company, I am all.

quite experienced and capable of leading projects, managing projects and contracts and kind of leading in that way. that was the kind of ambition in this re-imagination of this studio that had existed in the past, but in a slightly different guise. But before that, I led a large consulting team or a human-centered design practice or user-centered design practice at a large consulting firm. And prior to that,

(03:37) Danny

Which is where which is where we

met, wasn’t it? That’s where our paths cross. Yeah.

(03:40) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Which is where we met exactly. exactly.

And before that, I had worked in the large bank initially as a kind of individual contributor to use that term. then in kind of establishing a creative team within an innovation department in that bank. And that’s kind of probably the… Yeah, sorry.

(04:01) Danny

And I, well, I did a bit of nosying

on your LinkedIn. And I always, have to do some homework. I saw like you started, I was interested, said artist in residence at college, Edinburgh College of Arts. And I think you were sort of exploring like ⁓ pure ⁓ creative exploration and tactile artistic practice, I think is what I, I saw something around that. I’d love to know more.

(04:17) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Mmm, yeah.

Okay. Yeah,

so like I can give you a longer history ⁓ of like entry into design and yeah. like it has, you know, my journey has been slightly meandering but always really connected to design. I think through my life I’ve always enjoyed

(04:36) Danny

Yeah!

Yeah, like how did you become a designer? how, you know, what was your journey?

(04:57) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

some of the practical elements of things. I’ve enjoyed both practical elements, but also like quite conceptual things. I just always remember my dad making me do things like, you know, paint, like do DIY. I remember I wanted a new bed, build my own bed, maybe build my own wardrobe.

that like just stood half built for so long throughout my life. So I think I had this natural inclination towards like ⁓ making and and probably a slight personality bent around independence and things like this that that pushed me into a space where creativity was actually like practical creativity was moving. I went first and I studied furniture design and manufacturing at Craft College on the west coast of Ireland.

(05:41) Danny

And.

(05:43) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

and really engaged with that kind of crafting space but felt a little bit limited in the centricity of ego in those spaces. An eventual path out of that would be to be this celebrity designer maker where you sell tables for £10,000 and you…

(06:04) Danny

So

the fact that so-and-so made it is the significance rather than the quality or creative, the brand that sells it. Yeah.

(06:14) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

the exactly 100 % yeah and

it just felt very disconnected to where I was and I wasn’t confident enough in my own design decisions as in like a purely in a purely aesthetic form like I didn’t have a conceptual frame for those design decisions at that time so it didn’t feel appealing yeah like making chairs yeah exactly but you know if you think about

(06:34) Danny

And this is fun, like making chairs, ⁓ beds or what have you.

(06:42) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

I guess a lot of that inspiration was like heavily modernist kind of inspiration. So I guess like any of those kind of classical modernist architects, know, from Mies van der Rohe to Charles and Raeim’s, like all of that kind of was very ⁓ strong influence in that space where it was very dedicated to form.

And I think I was drawn to some of the conceptual ideas, you know, in modernism of like this kind of paired back, you know, exposing the reality of what’s there, not hiding away from the materials. ⁓ But that was the real connection was in form. And so you were kind of exploring form. And then there was a huge element of craft within that as well, which is really about like.

How good are your joints? How tight can you get that dovetail joint? You know, is there a point two of a millimeter, a point one of a millimeter margin of error? And I just the level of concentration and dedication, I didn’t have at that time. But I when I was 21, I was in my.

(07:33) Danny

Yeah.

(07:55) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

No, was 20. I 21. Yeah, can’t remember. There was one point. All right. I really just had a bit of an experience separately that made me just kind of reflect on where I was going. And I stopped drinking and stopped smoking weed, stopped doing anything like that. And I was kind of refocusing my life.

And I kind of felt like, look, you know, there’s lots of opportunity outside of this. I really enjoy some of the conceptual stuff. Maybe I need to broaden my kind of scale of what design is. And so I came to Edinburgh. did the study in the College of Art. So came at a point when we had a really interesting head of design, a guy called Andy Law, who really encouraged this curiosity I felt in me about what design could be and kind of flipped it around from this kind of

I guess, space where design was a, I guess, finite thing, where you would design this thing and it would be finished to this kind of dialogue of interaction between you and someone and where you were always constantly curious about how someone would respond to this thing that you’d put out in the world. And actually where that was a lot of the excitement and passion would come in.

(09:14) Danny

And this is not making furniture per se. This is we’re talking about the form of creativity and design and its raw essence. Like the medium is we’re not even thinking about the medium at this point. Yeah. wow.

(09:25) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah, whatever. Yeah,

you’re thinking about like methods and thinking about like, I remember the first things we did was we used cultural probes quite early, which I don’t know if you’ve come across cultural probes, but like basically you design an artifact or a series of tasks that can be relatively obscure. so maybe like you often include like a disposable camera.

And you might ask people to take a picture of the spiritual center of their home or something like that, something quite abstract and kind of ambiguous. And then you take a lot of that information to help you kind of design. So you might be probing into a particular topic or area, but we’re kind of like quite.

(09:57) Danny

Well.

(10:10) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

open questions in a way that might drive a different type of reaction response and different inspiration. But even that, even to design these things and do these things, we first put all these ornaments around Edinburgh and we attached a number, a Skype number to them and people call it. We had like a question, I can’t remember what it was. was like about something about like a customer service experience you’ve had that was really meaningful. I can’t remember, like we’re really crap.

(10:16) Danny

Wow.

(10:38) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

And we got people to call this number and leave these messages. I was just like blown away by this like crazy like process of going out into the street, like putting these objects, these random objects around the street and then like getting a phone call from somebody that with no idea who they are and they just ran, they would just go on this kind of meandering. And it was just such an interesting and then that was some design material that was like, well, that’s, I was like, whoa.

(10:54) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

(11:06) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

what this is so different to like me thinking about like I don’t know like what materials I’m going to use what finishes I’m going to use what how I’m going to construct this this table or a chair

(11:19) Danny

Yeah, this is this you’re interfering

with the world. You’re disrupting people as they are, you know, in their thoughts and in their routines. And then they see this kind of this invitation to make a phone call and like you’re, you’re kind of, yeah, you’re really having an effect of throwing a stone into the pond kind of thing.

(11:24) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah.

completely. And that was a real inspiration for me to imagine design in a different space where design is not just about production, but is about engagement, it’s about facilitation, it’s about participation, it’s about all of these different elements that would come together. So that was kind of, yeah, into Edinburgh College of Art and I did my degree there and that was kind of…

you know, really core foundational skills of, guess, human centered design practice of research, prototyping, iteration and.

(12:14) Danny

Yeah. This is like a really

solid design foundation. Like I, I feel sort of slightly humbled in a sense. I didn’t I’ve never felt my practice was particularly grounded in something so rich. Like this is a really rich beginning. And know you’re talking about proper art and craft and you’re not really being consumed by

(12:32) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

You know…

(12:42) Danny

you know, the medium, but more like the actual essence of what’s possible with design. Like, I feel like I’m, I’m interviewing a proper designer.

(12:48) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah, I don’t know. I think

at that age, think, you know, in my first degree, really wasn’t. You’re straight out of school. You just you’re there for a good time. Sometimes, you know, not always there for the right reasons. And I think it was only really when I came to Edinburgh that really there was a spark. I just I saw that degree is work nearly. And I would just I mean, your first year was a bit of a shift.

(12:59) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

(13:18) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

because I had moved from a directed course to a self-directed course and having to kind of orient and be like, no, this is about, this is my stuff. You know, I need to, now I generate a passion and the curiosity around, but you know, by the end of that, I was really invested. was like, you know, I would, I would have just done that. I still would just do it for, because that’s, it’s become now so entwined with my identity that I can’t not do it.

(13:36) Danny

Yeah.

Well, yeah, because there’s a sort of spirit that I hear, like a kind of free spirit of being curious and enjoying provoking the world and being creative. I’m sort of, there’s part of me thinking, God, how does this young person then interact with kind of getting into corporate realities of like, you know, okay, so.

(13:49) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

I know. Yeah.

Yeah… Yeah…

(14:15) Danny

we’re a big organization, we need to monetize this person’s skill, you know, because you at some point you’re coming out of that university and you’re getting into sort of entrepreneurship, but then I’m noticing just looking at your LinkedIn, there’s more sort of like NatWest and kind of banking and things like that. What starts to happen to that person that have that inspiration and then they’re getting into these more controlled and

(14:20) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah, yeah

Hmm

(14:44) Danny

narrow spaces. What starts to happen at that point, do you think?

(14:50) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

I think reality hits a little bit. When I started to move out of academia, so I had done after my degree, did two degrees in now, like six years into undergrad. I did my arts residence. I was know, hustling in the side, like just working side jobs and stuff. ⁓ And then at the end, last year of my degree, I got married. ⁓

(15:04) Danny

Yeah, nice.

(15:19) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

So it was quite young, I’m around, I 24. But it gave us like a kind of stable kind of space. I needed, we were about to have a child as I finished up my masters and I needed to start working in a job that paid more than kind of the freelance stuff. I was kind of involved and as I’d done my masters, I started to get involved in like academic research projects, which was fascinating and I loved. But.

(15:21) Danny

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

(15:48) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

was really unstructured and I couldn’t see myself doing a PhD at that time. I couldn’t see myself doing another six years on the stipend. ⁓ And so, yeah, we had a relationship with an innovation department at the bank. And so I just was I was knocking on lots of doors at that time to look for an entry. And that was a huge learning curve, a massive learning curve. I often talk about going into that space is like.

You know, your currency in those previous spaces was like questions and novelty. what? I wasn’t. Oh, that’s an interesting direction. That’s an interesting question to ask. What’s an interesting perspective to have? And in the bank, it was like it was the opposite. You do not want to have questions, just answers, just have answers, all these answers. And that was a bit of a…

(16:24) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah.

Too many questions.

Yeah.

(16:46) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

a learning curve to step away from that and kind of go, all right, yeah.

(16:49) Danny

your commodity,

your value is measured in how many questions you have. And then now it’s valued at how many answers you have. And that’s not necessarily with the answers are right. It’s presumably how confidently you can express them.

(16:58) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

and how confident you are.

And yeah, it’s not how good the answers are, just how much risk does it take away from the organization or from somebody.

(17:12) Danny

Yeah.

Wow. And that was a, I think you’re like a creative lead there. So sort of.

(17:18) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah, I started in like at the time it was, it was called the Technology Solutions Center. So I kind of saw like, oh, this is kind of like Google X, but for the banking sector, maybe my reality of that was maybe a little bit less lofty like a Google X. Because at the time this was like 2015 when I joined the bank. So, you know, still quite techno optimists in our ways. We were all kind of like, oh yeah.

(17:47) Danny

We were still the good guys.

(17:47) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Data, big data,

AI. Yeah, was still the good guys. And it was still, you know, there was like those, you know, you knew that, I don’t know, what’s up. don’t know if you remember any of these projects from Google, actually, like Project Loon, which is like, can we create these weather balloons that go around the earth, that circulate the earth in low orbit and provide data, you know, and data infrastructure. Yeah, and it’s like.

(18:09) Danny

Yeah, I remember that.

We’re digitizing the world. It’s a freedom. It’s information.

Information sets people free.

(18:17) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah,

and you can kind of see through that a little bit, but you’re kind of like, but it’s still, know, I, you know, I get that there’s like a Western perspective through that, but it’s not like fully evil at that point. And so I was like, yeah, the bank man, can do this shit. The banking is like, you know, everybody has to bank. Everybody has to use money. If you can like…

(18:40) Danny

Yeah.

(18:42) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

work in this space. It’s really fascinating space, but it just became actually, you you just get so caught into delivery and you realize how, ⁓ yeah, central that was. And yeah, you’re right. I was in a space that was like, ⁓ so we were technology solution center, which was very tech centric, but employing design thinking approaches to kind of challenges and trying to use emerging technology. And we were part of a broader space that would scout for

(19:05) Danny

Mm-hmm.

(19:10) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

new startups but also look at like emerging technical technology trends. ⁓ And then we moved into a space and have real prominence in the bank. had like what was the old executive wing in Gogelburn, ⁓ huge investment into the space and we were yeah taking on like quite high

priority initiatives, although like maybe like not completely aligned to like it wasn’t it wasn’t we weren’t going to do something that was like a commercial priority, but we were going to do something that might have a commercial impact in five to 10 years. That kind of stuff. Yeah, and it was really interesting, but but you were still very much caught in the culture of the corporate.

(19:36) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah, I say you’re doing like moon shots and stuff.

corporate space.

And it was it was a different I really feel like it’s I feel like such an oldie, but it just feels like like just listening to you say about, know, you’re working in this bank, and they’re basically letting you work on stuff where they’re not expecting ROI for four or five years time. And I’m just thinking like how that that kind of cult, doesn’t feel like that’s the culture at the moment.

(20:16) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah.

(20:24) Danny

I’m thinking of like the analogy I use is like how when I was working, like it feels like there was just a lot more abundance and a lot more adversity to risk, less adversity, like how when I was back in teams in mid 2000s and it was sort of like, you know, we take three days out for a team day, you know, and they send us abroad. Yeah, I’ve been to like Cuba and went around like

(20:25) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah.

really? Yeah…

(20:53) Danny

Europe and stuff for team dues. And it’s just that sort of sense of like, I remember like working on a project and then I’m going after like three months and going, yeah, I think we’re use it actually, you know, but like, there’s no like worry about the money spent and stuff like that. And ⁓ the world that I’m in, that I’m seeing now in corporate spaces is like, that doesn’t wash. There’s no team do for three days. There’s no moonshot work, not that I’m

(20:53) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Wow.

Really?

(21:20) Danny

stream, the streams I’m in, it’s all quite like they want to see an ROI really quickly. And there’s this expectation that the design is expensive and can be kind of cut back. And, you know, there isn’t this sense of like, experimentation and, and, ⁓ you know, this dream, like, we can do anything. It’s like, no, we need to reduce costs, we need to automate, we need to, you know, kind of narrow down, it doesn’t feel like there’s that divergence.

(21:26) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

(21:48) Danny

weather balloons mapping the world. I don’t feel like we’re in that space somehow. I don’t know. that ring for you?

(21:56) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah, like, you know, it’s interesting because I think our current work is quite open and really early, but it is, you know, it’s hard to get huge buy-in to that at times. And, ⁓ you know, we end up working with very specific. Yeah, exactly. know, because the interesting thing we are, we’re getting that.

(22:10) Danny

You mean with the agency you’re with now?

(22:16) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

is very much about like, is the vision for the future? What is the thing that you really are working towards? And then, you know, let’s experiment with that. Let’s keep that quite open. Let’s do something quite playful to help us get there. But then let’s really ground it. Let’s ground it in practical action. You know, let’s not make this lofty and unachievable. But even that, you know, we often say like a

(22:21) Danny

Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

(22:45) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

A strong vision makes a thousand other decisions and I think it speeds up so many things, but people are, it’s hard to find all these the right types of, you know, that’s not, I guess what I’m trying to say, it’s not an open field for who we speak to with, you know, we’re not engaging in design delivery.

spaces. We’re just not, we’re engaging in, you know, third sector universities and policy spaces rather than that space where I guess design has really flourished in the last, you know, you think about the last 15 years in design has really been in that design delivery and bringing stronger design methods. And I know the last couple of years have been particularly hard, but yeah.

(23:09) Danny

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, okay.

Because you

did quite a pivot, like, it’s from sort of working in like banking, and then, you know, global consultancy, and then to this and then dog. I there was something that I was one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you particularly was I just noticed that he says something about how he it was quite I’m imagining it’s quite a pivot to kind of go from quite a kind of senior role, recognize consultancy, and leave that.

(23:34) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

you

(23:58) Danny

then go into something that’s a little less stable, presumably less pay, a bit more like unstable maybe and not as much certainty as a sort of steady, reliable salary and stuff. that kind of, you know, and there’s quite a lot of courage to kind of leave something like that, I think. how was that for you? Like, did you, was it an easy decision to change direction?

(24:19) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah.

it was, ⁓ you know, that, that the last role really I had come through, I think, quite a series of burnouts, ⁓ and like difficult and challenging environments. And we’ve been through a series of restructures, which, you know, I think because like, I think lots of people weather those things really well. You know, I think they can kind of, you know, go, this is work, this, whatever.

(24:33) Danny

Mmm.

Yeah.

(24:52) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

somebody else’s decision about what they do, I will do within my role, I’ll do what I need to do and I can do that to a certain extent. But I think over time that really grinds me down. And if we continually make decisions that I feel don’t have clear values other than maintaining money, then I really struggle with that. so

I guess, you know, when you say it’s cringy, I sometimes think it’s a bit selfish that I’ve gone into this space where, yeah, we are probably more precarious. It’s definitely more precarious from a salary perspective. you know, income is not. It’s a different stress. Yeah.

(25:32) Danny

different kind of stress though, isn’t it? Like, I guess there’s a stress of

that tension of your own values and your own sense of meaning versus a tension of uncertainty and, and, you know, lack of, you know, full confidence that you know what the future is going to hold. But I something that we talk about on this podcast a lot, you know, it’s like mental health and challenges that people have in this sector, because being a designer, like, it’s a bit of a head fuck.

(25:46) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

you

Yeah, yeah.

(26:01) Danny

you know, like doing it, especially in

corporate spaces. I was just curious and you know, as much as you feel that you want to share, like what did that you said you had like multiple burnouts. What did that look like? ⁓ How did that kind of manifest itself? How did you know? I can share too. know, I also have experiences like that.

(26:18) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so I guess like maybe like some of the context, remember Danny, like maybe if you talk about like when you were in, we were, you worked on a couple of different things with us. At the time we were bidding for a large piece of work around a prison service and probation, which was quite like, you know, I don’t know, sometimes think, fuck it all, this is.

(26:38) Danny

Yeah, I remember that,

(26:44) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

This is some weird stuff to be working on, you know, when you have maybe some conflicting views on how this works and conflicting views on incarceration and stuff. But then you’re like…

(26:53) Danny

Yeah. Yeah, right, yeah.

(26:57) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

⁓ this could be also like like the bank. This could be a huge opportunity. We were talking about, how do you engage and bring lived experience into these conversations where you’re discussing probationary periods and like that feels like a real opportunity. But so often I think you get kind of burned by by trying to have those strong values in the in there, trying to bring in something that will affect change and then and then it getting ripped out.

(27:06) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah.

(27:23) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

at end because somebody’s really just using it as a means of selling. Sorry, go on.

(27:23) Danny

Yeah, I can.

I can remember,

I think I can remember what you’re talking about because I can remember, you know, we can, we can keep it abstract enough, but I think it’s okay to say that it’s like, we were talking about like, making this vision. I remember writing this vision about working with the prison service and creating like a ⁓ system and where we would be able to involve prisoners and probation officers and we would all ⁓

kind of convene as an equal party to be able to understand each other in order to be able to improve the experience of not just prisoners, probation officers and judges, but kind of create this space where we were all removing the power dynamic and really listening to each other. I remember cultivating that kind of vision and getting some nods and stuff like that. But obviously I was only there for a few months and stuff. it’s that kind of

was a goodness in there, you know, and I’m imagining what probably happened is it all got gutted and, you know, it’s just sort of, we just need to kind of deliver this and forget all that nonsense.

(28:26) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, or yeah, people don’t really connect with it. And so often I’ll pass it off as like, I haven’t experienced it. But I think, realistically, people, it just wasn’t people’s priority. And people can be very, you know, astute when a lot of things come down to it. Money is such a big element to all of this.

they’ll be looking at this going, well, you know, somebody else is going to undercut this and we need to be competitive on price. And this is a nice to have another core element. And so I think that that mindset, I guess, you know, that was some of the stuff. So, you know, there was, there was a time, you know, when I take, I’d come in as an elite service designer.

But really as a kind of, had actually stepped away from management in that West, kind of being a slightly more kind of senior individual contributor type role, wanting to do that. And then we’d had multiple heads of design leave. So I was like, all right, I’ll just, you know, I’ll put my hand up. I have some thoughts about how we should go and where we should go. And yeah, was fortunate enough to be successful in that.

(29:42) Danny

Hmm.

(30:02) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

And we had like ⁓ a big contract with a large government body and that created a huge demand and we grew really quickly. We grew from like 20 to like 50 people in like the space of a year. But, know, with that growth, don’t like with anything, you don’t see immediate returns on that, you know.

(30:17) Danny

Yeah.

(30:30) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

I think the business financially was very risk averse. So I felt in a really hard position where the budget was set and the aspirational budget was set and like things like our profit margin or gross margin were set targets around that and we weren’t fulfilling them. But I had no ability to influence like our sales process hugely. you know, I could go and I could respond to bids. I could go out and do sales myself and like, you know, build relationships.

But you know, you’re part of a much wider ecosystem. It’s very hard to shift that dial solely. ⁓

(31:08) Danny

But yet

you’re sort of on the hook for it, even though you can’t massively influence it. All you can do is tuck in the sides and do a little bit here and there, but you can’t make a radical decision of we’re going to target this type of user, this type of customer, and we’re going to pivot our brand. You can’t do anything like that.

(31:12) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

You’re on the hook.

Yeah.

can’t, you know, can’t pivot, can’t, yeah, can’t change your customer type. I could do a lot of, guess what I could have done was, was really focus on things that I would have had really short term gains, but would have distracted me from longer term things. So I guess I was trying to position our practice as really robust and aligned with, we were facing into government. So how can we kind of build practice in the way that government builds practice? Government has a huge and really credible design practice.

(31:41) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah.

(31:59) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

How can we mimic that and also instil those values across the business? then we’re not a threat to government. Then we’re like a really strong collaborator and partner. you know, so I think what it would have seen me do is put my team in really difficult positions on like short-term projects where they’re probably not delivering a lot of value. They don’t have a lot of choice and a lot of agency and they’re probably not delivering very good work.

(32:04) Danny

Hmm

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

(32:29) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

And that didn’t was just not like to be honest, it’s not even a thing that comes into my mind. Not I don’t mean this in a in a like, oh, I just couldn’t even fathom doing that. No, it just wasn’t like I just don’t see that. wasn’t seeing those things as opportunities. I was looking at the other things. I said, oh, there’s an opportunity. I’ll invest time there. And not that I just didn’t really come into my focus too much and which, you know, tactically, it was maybe not always a good decision. But and.

(32:30) Danny

Not

Yeah

And does

all of that picture that you describe, like that just creates stress, I suppose, and a sense of like weight and a sense of anxiety and like maybe some identity as well. I feel that’s quite common. know, and I think, you know, for myself, like sometimes I think of my, I do think of my value.

(33:04) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah, hugely.

(33:24) Danny

It is, hard to say, but my value does get intertwined with how well I’m doing at work. You know, like if I’m doing really well at work on the weekend, I kind of feel a bit of a bounce, like, yeah, you know, I just have a really cool. And then if works like tanking, then I find it hard to necessarily always like feel good about myself. And I think for designers, especially because you kind of, even if it’s in a corporate space, you still put your like your heart into it. There’s this heart.

(33:30) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

(33:50) Danny

like it’s not this like cold corporate drum beat. There’s some heart in there of like, I’ve seen something that could be created that could throw that rock into that pond. I’m getting excited. And now it’s getting crushed. I mean, is that kind of touch some of the beats that have your experience?

(33:50) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it’s like those

memes of those pressure things crushing all sorts of different objects. There’s another idea that’s crushed into powder.

(34:16) Danny

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, given given that, like, was it was it not a hard decision to leave that corporate space then, like given that kind of environment?

(34:32) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Well, so yeah, it was was less hard and because we’ve been through quite a few stages where actually, you know, in the end I took voluntary redundancy, but I was I was delighted to take voluntary redundancy. was like, I was like, oh, I am so happy to be made or to be like had the chance to take redundancy because we just

(34:48) Danny

Really? Yeah, it’s a gift.

Yeah.

(34:58) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

For about a year I’d been really hanging on because we needed financial stability as a home. Yeah, kids and you know, like a compounding factor in all of this was that we were running ⁓ a renovation at the same time. was absolutely failing.

(35:01) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah, you got the you got you got stuff at home. It’s that you’ve got to hang in there for

(35:20) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

we’d been made homeless at one point and had to move back to Ireland. Like there was like huge complications in the background that were just, yeah, compounding it. And I think, I think it was, you know, there was, there’s a certain amount of time where you can do things and accept that the conditions are incorrect. And then when you’re out and the conditions are correct, like, you know, I think in our first year I was like, you know, the conditions aren’t correct, but…

we’re moving and next year as the budget comes in I can say that the budget needs to shift in a particular direction and I think yeah and when that didn’t when that wasn’t accepted and logic was not like you know there wasn’t another or wasn’t I guess

(35:51) Danny

Yeah, so good to hang in.

(36:06) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

It just wasn’t met with like real kind of understanding or ability to discuss. It was like, no, this is the way the system works. You’re going to you’re going to have to make it work again. It’s like this is just ridiculous. I’m just now really struggling. so I did that for a while. And yeah. And then we had some restructures that really caused some fractures in relationships that were really difficult. And where, you know, people that we were very close and who I loved.

(36:10) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah.

(36:36) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah, strong relationships where those relationships broke down and, you know, I couldn’t always see what was happening and that was quite difficult to maintain because I think sometimes we end up in the space where, you know, corporates kind of of depersonalize human relationships and they’re like, it’s just work.

(36:51) Danny

Yeah, it becomes transactional.

Yeah.

(36:54) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah,

it’s just like it’s not like there’s so much, like you say, there’s so much heart in some of these things that you’re you know, there’s there’s a lot of times when you’re putting in heart in that space and I find it very hard to to detach some of those. So I think, you know, once those things start to degrade, it was just really difficult to hang in there. And I still have really lots of great relationships with people. But.

(37:06) Danny

Yeah.

(37:15) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

⁓ Yeah, it was a difficult thing. So then this became an opportunity and it was something I was actually really disillusioned with design by the end of my time at that consultancy. And yeah, just thinking that like this is kind of repeating the same stuff. I’m still advocating for the point of engaging a user. What the hell is this?

(37:24) Danny

Yeah. Yeah.

(37:39) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

This is like basic stuff, you know, we’re talking about the bare bones of design, not even talking about the really interesting stuff.

(37:45) Danny

Yeah.

(37:48) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

get purchased for that like what you know where do we go from here so ⁓ yeah and then was a gift really rather than a

hugely creative stuff, I guess.

(38:02) Danny

And so yeah, you then from from that you then shifted into and then or which is where you’re you are now. So what like this is quite different. This is like turning design, maybe back into what you originally kind of is heart of like being much more ethereal and like, open to that we’re not just talking about digital products, you could be talking about kind of

visions, concepts, policies, maybe real world objects is quite broad, right? Is that right?

(38:36) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah, yeah, completely. And I think that’s always where I’ve tried to push design. And I think I’ve just naturally been drawn to that. And I don’t know if it’s I don’t know what it is. If it’s just a discomfort at times, I think, you know, you get maybe it’s like a I don’t know. Or a frustration with a set of constraints. But I think at times, you know, when you’re like pushed into those positions where you’ve been told to deliver this thing, you just know it’s bad. It’s like, oh, this is fucking shit.

(39:03) Danny

Yeah, JFDIs,

yeah.

(39:05) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Like,

yeah, just fucking do it. you’re like, OK, I think throughout my career, I’ve just been like, how do I get back to that conversation so I can have a conversation at that point? And then this. I think this does two things. Like, I think it does absolutely take it back to where my initial seeds were and where I was really interested, which was how how can design be exploratory and open and help people to reframe something or reimagine what something could be? ⁓

(39:32) Danny

Mmm.

(39:35) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

And how can I still use creative practice to do that? But like maybe take tackling some topics that are already strong ⁓ and also then doing and leaning on some of the things that I’ve picked up along the way around, I guess, managerial influencing, you know, being able to be clear about strategic benefits and strategic decisions and investments and kind of practical applications and actions. ⁓

(39:56) Danny

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(40:03) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

So yeah, I think it’s a really strong marriage of those two things. Like, would it be helpful to talk about like the type of stuff that we do? Like, what’s useful?

(40:12) Danny

Yeah, I’m curious. Yeah, there’s

there was a few things I was thinking is interesting. What one would be helpful, it just know what you guys do. But also, I noticed you do like pro bono work. And you’ve you’ve done some pro bono work, which really speaks to a certain like value that I was kind of, yeah, I mean, I’ve done a bit of work in that sector. And that’s the kind of stuff that I’ve seen happen in that sector. But for some people, that would be like, wait, what? So yeah, maybe maybe it’d be interesting just to share a little bit about

(40:31) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah.

(40:40) Danny

what the mission is and then, yeah, curious like the values and how different it feels to be a designer in this new culture.

(40:50) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah, so I should have done some research before, so I’m like getting myself together before, but we’ve got quite a nice distinct vision which I think is like advocating for a place or helping everybody make better long-term decisions or something like that. I can’t remember exactly the phrasing, but really about like how can you embed long-term decision making in…

(40:58) Danny

Yeah

(41:17) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

in a much broader group of people and also change the behaviors that people are not just making these quick short-term you know like the transactional kind of decision we’ve been talking about earlier where’s that ROI on that let’s say a V test that less you know which are important things in the delivery but sometimes then can be applied into a strategic space and we just kind of snowball into a direction that we don’t even know anymore.

So how can you help people step back and think longer about those decisions?

(41:49) Danny

Unhurried, I think was one of the words I picked up from looking at some of the stuff. But yeah, I guess that makes sense why you would have experience with that having been inside such a big corporate machine that has sort of probably become

quite disconnected from any kind of vision and is now probably just churning out project after project and is looking at the top line. And then that starts to make things all about quick decisions. that sort of, if you think of the nervous system of the culture, it’s a bit jaggedy and it’s a bit anxious and it’s that kind of thing when you’re stressed and someone else needs to make a decision. And it’s almost like culturally.

(42:24) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

(42:33) Danny

that’s kind of where that organization was. And it sounds like having experienced that, what not to do, you’re able to kind of view a slightly different, you know, and invite a different way of being, which I think that sense of like slow decisions, it’s something I’ve been saying to my wife about when we do renovations on the house, you know, sometimes I’m like, let’s just make a slow decision. So let’s just talk about it.

(42:41) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

(43:03) Danny

for a few weeks or months. And we don’t have to do that thing

on the house like next week. Like, let’s do a slow decision. Something that feels right about doing that. And I think we’ve probably lost that as in this age, you know, and I kind of I’m imagining that in like indigenous cultures and stuff that they ain’t doing this crazy decision making like we do. They’ll talk about something and then make it, you know, make a decision next year.

(43:09) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Right now. Yeah.

Hmm.

No.

Yeah I think there’s like a bit of, there is a sense of right like there’s there’s definitely things that you have to make decisions on every day right you have to there’s there’s still I don’t know you know that if you’ve ever seen that pace layers that diagram that has like different pace layers I can’t remember the person I think oh my god what’s his name

(43:41) Danny

Yeah.

(43:55) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

He’s a Hawaiian futurist. I’m pretty sure it’s that guy who did it. But basically there’s like different layers of change. So there’s layers of, I can send you the diagram afterwards. So you’ve got like, you know, fashion trends or, you know, super quick, like there’s change all the time, you know, nearly on daily basis. And then you’ve got like different layers underneath, like, I don’t know. ⁓

(44:01) Danny

I’ll it up later, yeah.

Yeah, fast fashion, all that.

(44:24) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

I’m know what I’m gonna bring it up because I have to think at this but basically yeah come on come on

(44:28) Danny

We’re on the internet. This is possible.

(44:33) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

So at the top, you’ve got like.

(44:34) Danny

So for those for those on

on an audio podcast, we’re looking at we’re looking at rings. It says pace layering. Yeah, like a layer, a ring of fashion, commerce, infrastructure, governance, culture, nature, and it’s sort of building inward down to nature. that how you

(44:43) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Concentric circles.

Yeah,

exactly. Yeah. And so the fashion at the top layer, the outmost outer layer of these series of concentric circles is is really fast and squiggly. And commerce is also quite fast, but less squiggly. Infrastructure is a bit slower. Governance is a bit slower again. Culture then much lower. And nature much like, you know, you know, very crawling, I guess. And. And now I’m trying to.

(45:13) Danny

birthday.

Yeah.

Well, I suppose it sounded like that’s the sort of invitation that you have with your clients and this job is to get them into that slow thinking that like nature as opposed to fast fashion. Is that right?

(45:26) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

this was in relation to.

⁓ yes, yeah, yes.

Yeah, exactly. So I guess there’s different decisions that have to happen on a different basis, right? On an everyday basis, you might need to make a decision about what you’re doing for dinner and you might not have food in the fridge. So you’ve got to go to the shop and you’ve got to make a choice and you might be feeling like you want something else other than what’s there. And so you’re making these fast decisions. But I think what happens is when…

(45:53) Danny

Yeah. Yeah.

(45:59) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

when you make those fast decisions about things that are much longer term, that’s when you start to get real disjunctures and you lose a sense of where you’re going. I think like, thinking back to those, you know, we’re speaking here, like I’m speaking without real context of any of what indigenous cultures might be about this, like where I think there’s lots of values that are encoded.

in longer cultures and one culture that we might consider indigenous and you know there’s lots of knowledge that’s encoded in those ways you know whereas the aboriginal you know have those song walks or you know these walks that kind of mimic the land and they know their paths and they know how the land works because of how the story that’s been embedded in their culture ⁓

(46:53) Danny

Well.

(46:57) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

And so those things aren’t changed. They aren’t changing those big things, right? They’re not saying like, we should shift where these trees are now because they’re thinking in this long kind of context. Yeah, it’s where’s and how?

(47:08) Danny

There’s more constants, there’s more constant, that they’re not having to change the big

pillars of their reality. There’s big pillars of reality staying constant and grounding and they’re the same. And then you’re only having to make smaller, less stressful decisions around that. That’s how I interpret that.

(47:26) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah.

And also, like, there’s also like a different relationship with those longer term things, right? the longer term thing, there is a sense of long term in that. There’s a sense of history and a sense of trajectory. There’s probably like a connection with a wider society ⁓ and a set of values that start to be encoded in those stories that…

that help you think about the long term. And I think what happens is now we just get caught in the short term and the only long term value is money. I think a lot of that, a lot of the framing around long term decision making is just like, is it a good investment decision? What will the return be now or in the future? And rarely are we thinking about like…

This is not complete. I know that we are thinking about things like ecology and climate, but we’re not thinking about that fast enough or thinking about that in a way that is central to our decision making. That’s a distant piece that we occasionally dip into, probably in a way that because we think it will help us build reputation and build money. It’s like this kind of line that comes underneath.

(48:45) Danny

Do you think, do you think you’ve, do you think, I mean, I really appreciate that perspective. And it makes me reflect. And I, I was just thinking of this younger designer that started out and do you feel like given that journey that you described and given the kind of culture and ways of thinking, ways of creating that you’re doing now, do you feel like you found

(48:45) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

And so, yeah.

(49:14) Danny

found your home for the time being? you feel like to rest with it? I mean, that must feel really different in your body compared to how you felt in previous roles.

(49:18) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

⁓ yeah, totally, Yeah, yeah.

completely. And yeah, that is a good part to end on as I realised that we were at our hour. Yeah. Yeah.

(49:32) Danny

Yeah, yeah, I was just thinking like, you know, for people that

maybe are in jobs or sectors, even questioning whether they want to stay in the sector, I just sort of think that you’ve made a kind of transformation and change. And it’s just interesting to, to kind of go on that journey with you and how and how you might be feeling having come out the other side.

(49:54) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah, it’s like I think, you know, there’s nothing wrong with making money. think money is important as an enabler and as a way of demonstrating value. I think we just have in the way that we direct our organisations, an overt obsession with it. That does means that we’re thinking short term a lot. I’m not really thinking about where we’re going as a society or as a civilization or as a global kind of community.

And so, yeah, stepping out of a space where that is, you know, we still need to make enough money to survive in the world in the context that we live, but where that’s not the overarching goal and where time can be given to rest or community or, you know, at the moment where.

just investing a bit more time into a project that we’ve already paid for because actually we want to make it really good and like want to kind of make sure that the value is delivered in what we want to do and that feels like the right thing.

(50:53) Danny

Yeah, and

there has to be more to life, doesn’t there? And yeah, I think, you know, given these times, it’s, you know, it’s a good, it’s a good night to end on and reflect on. So, you know, thank you. And thanks for, for sharing your journey. And you know, just kind of kicking the breeze a bit. And thinking about, you know, what the strange industry we’ve found ourselves in, you know, and how it works. So yeah, thank you. Thanks. Thanks for coming on. It’s been really good to talk to you. Thank you.

(51:17) Fionn Tynan-O’Mahony

Yeah.

Thanks, Danny, it’s been a lovely conversation. Okay,

(51:25) Danny

Awesome. Cheers. Thank you.