#8 Speaking louder, listening deeper and finding your voice

(00:00) Danny

Caro, it’s so nice to see you. It’s so nice to see you again. We’ve only just stopped working with each other, but it’s nice to see you again in maybe a different space in a different way. I usually start these conversations just for the people that might be listening, just to kind of give a little bit of context of who you are. So I’ve sort written something, but people always cringe when I do this.

(00:06) Caroline McElroy

you

I’m just trying

to hear what you’ve got.

(00:30) Danny

Well,

so you started out in science as sort of like, and that was with a research technician and researching with DNA extraction and genome typing and laboratory preparation. I mean, that’s such a, know, everybody has their own way in to design. And I just find that such an interesting start.

(00:36) Caroline McElroy

I did.

Yeah, not often times.

(00:58) Danny

And then you’ve moved into working for Toastmasters. And this is, I guess this is all in New Zealand, right? Yeah, yeah. And you were working, organising events, supporting people to build confidence in communication, public speaking. And that gives me my first clue at why when I work with you, I found you to be an extraordinary communicator. So it’s sort of like, there’s my first clue. And then you moved into being a facilitator with a social experiment. I’m very interested to hear about that.

(01:05) Caroline McElroy

Yeah, yeah.

(01:27) Danny

And then you moved to being working with a graduate hub. I guess that must be over. It’s still in New Zealand. And then you moved into service design with Westpac. And then now you’re a senior service designer. I’m going to say it wrong. Can you help me? Thank you. Brilliant. So that’s quite, that’s quite a journey in. I’m really interested. How did you make that transition from, from research in sort of quite a scientific background?

(01:43) Caroline McElroy

Cognizant. Yeah. Yeah.

(01:57) Danny

then how did you kind of find your way up here? Has there been a thread that’s followed you, do you think?

(02:02) Caroline McElroy

What?

I I mean I started, I’d never thought about working in IT or technology because my sister did and she did a degree in information systems and I wanted to do anything except what she did. So I went down the science path and was always interested in that and I’ve always thought I’d end back up in some form of science or healthcare even now ⁓ in my career but.

At the time, yeah, I got a degree in genetics and started working in this lab. And I also got a degree in commerce because I thought, which sounds very shallow, but there was a bit more money in commerce. So I did a degree on the side as well, which ended up being information systems. And through that, I got the graduate role at Westpac.

And there you can kind of try lots of different things. So I started with product management, then I went into change management, sort of did all sorts, worked on their website until I had a rotation in service design. And I didn’t know it was a thing. And it was one of those things where when I found it, I was like, this, that’s cool. So within a few months of being on that rotation, they offered me a role in the rest of history, really. ⁓

(03:14) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah, that because I I I share I share your ⁓ like surprise and you know adulation for service design in the sense that I equally I didn’t really know quite what it was like I I had a very different trajectory to you but I sort of heard of it over here like service design and I sort of like I still I’m I still feel like I’m figuring out what it is because I my sense is it’s like

(03:46) Caroline McElroy

I’m

(03:51) Danny

a generalist’s dream. That’s how I put it. Because it’s kind of like you can go anywhere within a certain sort of field of ⁓ a gig. I think certainly having worked with you and hearing some of that story, it’s, mean, or another word would be the T shape, you know, that seems to be where you find your happy space. Is that fair?

(03:53) Caroline McElroy

Hmm, hmm. Yeah.

Correct, yeah.

Yeah, I think so. think when I was in this rotation of service design, we were redesigning a internal employee experience and creating a new system for them or a new service. we had the prototyping work and that was all really cool. But I just felt as though there was something missing. I felt like I was missing the bigger picture.

And so I think while I thought that was really fun and creative and I love that side, ⁓ I did feel like I needed to get that kind of breadth a little bit more. So I think that’s when it did change a little bit. And yeah, I would completely agree. I love that we can sort of tap into anything in this kind of design realm and, ⁓ you know, are skilled enough in it to understand it, maybe be able to execute it to a certain extent and… ⁓

Yeah, kind of see that bigger picture.

(05:15) Danny

Yeah, because I guess it’s like something that we talked a little bit about was like the diversity of experience and how useful that can be. it’s my continuing cry at the moment is that the industry at the moment doesn’t seem to like generalists. What they want is sort of very specialized roles, people with very good AI, very good at Figma. That’s the cold one, product design, that kind of thing.

But I feel like certainly in the work that I’ve been doing, and I wonder what it is for you, but the ability to be able to have that diverse of experience and cut across different disciplines is often the most valuable thing that a project needs. That’s what I’ve found, but I don’t know if you’ve had similar experience.

(06:04) Caroline McElroy

Yeah, it’s interesting looking at roles out there at the moment and I feel like they are kind of UX design but or looking specifically at sort of interaction design but interaction slash service design or it’s UX meaning specifically like almost product design slash service design and I feel like it almost needs to be the other way around in my head. don’t know if…

(06:15) Danny

Yes.

Yeah.

(06:32) Caroline McElroy

maybe not a fair assumption, but I think product designers I’ve worked with in the past haven’t, they, of course, journey mappings in things a little bit, but I think that their work is quite focused in sort of that product specifically itself and having that kind of wider step back service design skillset isn’t, I feel like it’s very niche to service designers if you’ve actually done kind of service design. So it’s quite interesting to me that

you know, that role is almost just people kind of asking for a catch-all kind of person to fill a role that I don’t, yeah, because I would like to like, you know, say if there was a role that was product slash service today, I’m like, that’s really cool. But being able to actually do the product design to the standard that they’re expecting it, I is difficult, but yeah, so.

(07:19) Danny

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah,

I think I think I’ve often found I’ve described myself as like a 60 or 80 percenter, you know, and what I mean by that is like I enjoy the divergence see the scrappy the kind of formulation of an idea like when it’s fuzzy and then slowly sharpening it. But then I think that there’s a certainly a need even in the age of AI actually, you know, that last 20 percent is actually like

very hard and very specialist and that’s the bit I’m actually not that interested in. Buttons, rollovers, design systems, everything. I like the bit when no one quite knows what to do and everyone’s a bit confused and I kind of enjoy being in that space. I don’t know if that’s something that you’ve experienced as well.

(07:55) Caroline McElroy

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, finding clarity in the ambiguity and sitting in the ambiguity, think, as well, getting comfortable in that, because it’s an uncomfortable space when no one really knows how to make sense of something and it’s in a complex environment. So that’s quite a fun kind of thing for us to do is to come in and make sense of that.

(08:12) Danny

Yeah.

Why

do you think it’s like, I have this fascination with, with people’s discomfort of divergency and, and, this like angst to converge, like, let’s just settle on a solution. know, and this space of like, asking questions and taking a step back asking why like, I have found in some cases like that is uncomfortable for people. You just said it there that it’s not comfortable people. Do you have any sense of why that is?

(09:04) Caroline McElroy

I wonder if it feels unproductive. And I don’t, I mean, I don’t know, but I think it doesn’t feel like you’re getting somewhere. And if we’re, you know, we like to try different things, we’ll throw some like ideas around some different, like, if it’s a service like blueprint or end to end map or something, we need to, we’re trying to understand the complexity of it by visualizing it maybe in different ways. And I feel like, yeah, sometimes,

(09:06) Danny

Yeah. Yeah.

(09:34) Caroline McElroy

It’s kind of like, seems as though it’s like, why are you doing this? Like, this isn’t that helpful. Until they see it put together and it’s like, I get it now. So yeah, I wonder if it just doesn’t feel like you’re moving forward, kind of whether it’s making something tangible or not. But yeah, that would probably be my interpretation as to why people don’t like it.

(09:40) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that’s

a hard place as a consultant to hold that discomfort because you’re effectively asking the client for trust because when if they’re saying like, you know, we want you to like make this design or whatever, they can see it like every three days or whatever they can see progress, they can see the mouse feverishly moving around. But then when it comes to that divergent space, it’s like you’re kind of saying like, it’s going to look like nothing for a while, and then something’s going to happen.

(10:24) Caroline McElroy

Mm.

(10:26) Danny

And there’s

(10:26) Caroline McElroy

Yeah.

(10:27) Danny

going to be lots of conversations and ideas and post-its, but not a thing. And I think as a consultant, I have found that stresses me out sometimes, holding that discomfort for the client of like, we just need to do this workshop. Yeah, everyone, what, a whole day? And it’s hard to get that trust.

(10:32) Caroline McElroy

Hmm.

Mm.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think a little bit is just being really clear on the intentions and almost you need to paint the picture for them, right? Because for them to even agree for you to start this work, like it’s, I think being able to, as you say, of communicate and articulate the value in it. It’s like, yes, this is messy, but what this is gonna do, and you do this really well, is, you know,

This looks like this now, but where we’re heading is this. These are the next steps. This is how we’re gonna get there. And in the end, we’ll end up with this. So I think being able to shape and communicate that and be really clear, ⁓ even though it’s not what, you you might not, it doesn’t make sense right now, it will in the end. So yeah, I think that’s helpful.

(11:40) Danny

I guess it depends if you have ⁓ something like a good client versus a hard client. And some good clients, I guess when you have a good client, how does it make you feel in terms of being engaged? Does it make a difference for you in your day-to-day work? And what do we mean by a good client? What is a good client?

(11:48) Caroline McElroy

Definitely.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah, absolutely. I think for us to be able to do an effective job, we need an engaged client for one. ⁓ But we need, you know, we need them to be able to provide us with their time to make sense of things, especially as a service designer. It’s not here’s a brief. This is the tool we’re trying to create. This is what we want it to sort of look like with these things and kind of go and create it because

we need to understand the service, end to end, front to back, and coming into a new client, you can’t do that without speaking to people. And it is difficult when you’re told, okay, well, these are all the different teams, and we’re like, cool, can we go and speak to them? You go and speak to them, they’ve never heard of you before, they don’t know why you’re here, they’ve just heard that you’re redesigning a service, and they want everything in it, and they feel blindsided. So, it can be difficult in those situations, ⁓

learned a lot from those situations and how to sort of manage that, which I think is just upfront clear communication, but also working with your key stakeholders to get them to sort of help the communication and the buy-in. Yeah, but I think the good clients, what I’ve noticed has been they’re fully on board. They treat you as part of their team, as we’ve just had on our current client, or my previous client, your current client. And…

(13:27) Danny

Yeah.

(13:32) Caroline McElroy

being willing to, you know, when I say, I’m going to shape this workshop up, but it be great if we can check in every week. And being able to give you that time, give you that feedback, they get a much better outcome because they’ve contributed to it, they’ve bought into it, and it makes a world of difference in what we are able to produce.

(13:53) Danny

Yeah, I mean, something that I think that underpins a lot of that is trust, and that ability to cultivate the trust because trust is earned. It’s not right. certainly, you know, I working with you, I witnessed I was like, ⁓ she has been given trust. You know, like the way that the client related to you and talk to you, it was very clear that trust, trust had been

(14:04) Caroline McElroy

Mm. Yeah.

you

(14:18) Danny

and, you know, and I kind of in that journey to creating that trust, I, I’ve had it in other gigs as well, where I have this doubt of, like, this, and it’s something that on this podcast, I’ve talked about with some other people as well as whole like, imposter syndrome, this, this, this character that comes into the room in your head, what are you doing? No, I still have this fear that someone’s gonna say to me like,

(14:36) Caroline McElroy

Mm.

Yeah.

Mm.

(14:48) Danny

hang on, who is this guy? What? mean, do you, mean, because some people starting their career might look at you and think, you know, this is someone who’s like won an award, who’s working for a high consultancy, like she’s not going to have imposter syndrome, she’s worked for like government departments, like, it doesn’t end, it? You never get there. mean, is it something that you still experience now? Or do you think that you’ve banished that demon?

(14:49) Caroline McElroy

This is cute.

No, I don’t think it will ever go. And I mean, I was listening to another of your podcast episodes where someone was also speaking to it and saying it doesn’t go. And so that’s reassuring, but because I think of it as a good thing. I mean, it’s not a comfortable thing, but it’s all about getting comfortable being uncomfortable. But I think so. I mean, my journey with it has been

(15:28) Danny

Yeah.

day.

Yeah.

(15:46) Caroline McElroy

I always thought I had to know all the answers. And especially when you’re being brought in because maybe the team can’t do it or, you know, they might not know the answers themselves. Trying to feel like I had the answers and I felt I was being paid to know the answers. And that was really stressful. And so I’d kind of ask my questions and then feel like I’d go away and be like, okay, well, I need to know the answer now. And I…

(16:02) Danny

Yeah.

(16:14) Caroline McElroy

I didn’t and I really struggled with it. And what I’ve learned and I’m still learning is being okay to say I don’t know or I’ll have to have a think about that or you know and it sounds silly because I remember being taught this at like school and when you’re at uni and it’s okay but then I felt like as soon as I got into my career I just felt like I needed to know everything because that’s what I’d chosen. So

(16:40) Danny

Mm.

(16:43) Caroline McElroy

That’s one thing that I’m trying to get better at being like I don’t need to know this and sometimes I’ll speak to you know other people and I’ll be like I don’t know the answer to this I’m freaking out and they’re like no I don’t know either but let’s work through it and I’m like oh I didn’t need to know the answer I just had to work on it

(16:55) Danny

Yeah.

It’s something like something

drops, doesn’t it? When you declare that you don’t know. I have experienced it where I will say sometimes clients like, I don’t know the way forward, but I’d like to look at the problems that we have and work together to figure it out. Like as soon as I frame it like that, they seem more relaxed and I feel more relaxed. I’ve never had it where I’ve had someone say, absolutely not, you’re here to.

(17:05) Caroline McElroy

Mmm.

Mmm.

Mmm.

(17:27) Danny

to tell us what to do. But there’s still that nag that somehow I have to do that. it sounds like you’re navigating that quite well from what you’re saying.

(17:40) Caroline McElroy

On the outside I am But I was reflecting on this and I thought It’s actually a sort of a it’s a strength that well It’s something you can use to advantage because if you’re in a position where you’re feeling imposter syndrome it’s probably because you’re on the edge of your knowledge and You’re learning something new

(17:42) Danny

That’s the trick, right? It’s the poker face!

Yeah.

(18:06) Caroline McElroy

So I think that’s one thing, is it’s an opportunity to learn something more, as cheesy as that sounds. But I do think it’s making me a better designer because I’m not getting complacent. I’m always also sort of asking for feedback because I’m here maybe freaking out that I don’t know the answer. So I go and ask 10 different people what they would do. And then I get 10 different opinions and then I can kind of pull it all together and I learn new things from 10 different people.

So I think if I was to really put a positive spin on it, I think it does kind of push me a bit more, but it is uncomfortable. And I’m trying to just kind of learn to sit with that, realize it. And I almost just go, what are you going to do about it? And just try to do something about it.

(18:57) Danny

Yeah, I

think that’s brilliant. Yeah, I’m in awe really, because I think, yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. And I’ve only been doing this a little bit longer than you, and I still wrestle with a lot of that. So I think the fact that you have got there so quickly is great.

(19:00) Caroline McElroy

Okay.

Well,

I mean when you’re on clients, you don’t have a choice. You’re the only and I mean this is one of the things I don’t like about being a service designer maybe in the way we work is it’s so rare for us to work with another service designer to be able to learn off. Especially being quite early on in my career. That’s when I want to be working with service designers the most. So you are the only person in the room that can solve that problem. So it’s a little bit of like

you’re thrown in the deep end and you don’t have a choice. You’re built to this client whether you like it or not and you need to come up with a solution. So you better figure it out. So a bit of tough love works there as well.

(19:52) Danny

I think there’s something, and I understand you’ve done quite a lot of work in helping, working with grads and people at very beginning of their career. And something that I have seen happen is that for grads and people starting their career, what can happen is that they’ll do a boot camp or they do some training and they get told about the model of like design thinking, double diamonds, know, all these kinds of things. And then I think what happens is they’ll hit a project and suddenly like

(20:12) Caroline McElroy

Mm. Yeah.

(20:21) Danny

know, ⁓ we’re not working in sprints, no one knows what agile is, you know, like all the paradigms that they need in order to construct that methodology don’t exist. And so now we’re in freefall and chaos. How do you bring order and often they don’t tend to teach those things. But I wonder how like, if that’s the kind of conversations that you were having, you know, with some of the younger people you’ve worked with.

(20:30) Caroline McElroy

I

Yeah, I’ve gone, I’ve not worked with graduates, but younger than that. So I’ve worked with like school aged children, sort of 11 and 14. And I mean, part of what I’ve done as a Techie Can ambassador and a STEM ambassador is just sharing what’s out there for young women actually.

(20:48) Danny

You’re alright.

amazing.

(21:10) Caroline McElroy

So, I mean, this is slightly diverging from what you’re talking about, but it has made me think of when I also worked for the social network and ⁓ part of what it was was trying to sort of get young kids into the entrepreneurial space for like social entrepreneurship kind of thing and give them confidence and skill sets to be able to work, to go into the space. And one of the parts of it was systems thinking. And I always remember

(21:35) Danny

Mmm.

(21:37) Caroline McElroy

⁓ it’s the classic you’ve probably heard of it, but you know, there’s a group of people with the blindfolds on and ⁓ There’s this object and someone says okay figure out what the object is and one of them, know touches the tail I was like, it’s tough and it’s rubbery and and one of them it’s thin one of them touches the trunk, know, and you take the blindfolds off and it’s an elephant and you need to look back at the wider system so that sort of what came to mind when you thought of what are the examples that you used to kind of think of it, but

(21:52) Danny

Yeah, yeah.

(22:04) Caroline McElroy

You’re so right. Any theory, and you know, I thought about doing like a master’s in service design or things like that. And I’m like, which it might be a bit more practical, but any theory or, it’s the same as university, it’s until you get into the situation where you’re doing it that I learned the most. So that’s why consultancy has been great because every 12 weeks you’re thrown in a different problem, new set of stakeholders.

new challenge that you need to figure out and anywhere from discovery through to live. So that would be my recommendation of a way to learn is just become a consultant. ⁓

(22:41) Danny

Yeah, yeah,

yeah, because you get that diversity, don’t you? And that I think it like hardens you and weathers you to, you know, because I think we were saying like, when I when I like leave a perm job, it’s quite an emotional experience, because like my identity and all this. And when you do the contracting stuff, it’s like, you know, you go through that every like, few months, you know, it’s quite a ride, like emotionally to get attached to something and then have to let it go. That could be quite hard. I wanted to just

(22:44) Caroline McElroy

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah ⁓

(23:11) Danny

come back to this thing of the work that you’ve done. And I’m really curious, like you’ve worked, you mentioned like particularly work around supporting young women and young people and what drew you to that? what was the, how come you, cause you mentioned at the start that you were kind of drawn by money and feeling a bit guilty about that. And you have counterbalanced that with quite a lot of like tech for good and working in the social equality sector. I’m just kind of curious, like how did you get there and what was your?

(23:29) Caroline McElroy

Yeah.

Yeah, I don’t think money’s always been the drive. It felt like something I should do. You know, this is going to set you up better for life. So, admittedly, I didn’t follow the path of do what you enjoy most. Although, yeah, mean, genetics was very cool, but I didn’t really know where I could go. Whereas I also think because it’s a lot more common in you know, in tech space, it seemed a bit clearer as to what you could kind of be and become.

(23:47) Danny

about.

(24:10) Caroline McElroy

So yeah, think this sounds so cheesy and I hate saying it, but I’ve had these two goals for as long as I can remember. I think I had a third one, but I can’t remember what it is, so it’s clearly not that important. ⁓ But one was helping others and one was continuous learning. And I’ve kind of always just felt like those are things I like to do. And so I think it just naturally is why I’ve done

done like service design and design where you’re able to kind of help users. It’s, you know, I can’t stand the thought of not thinking about end users ⁓ at the end of it as, you know, some services work and it’s the same business, business needs as well, business goals. I think the, I mean, the opportunity came to me, someone asked if I wanted to do it and I absolutely said yes. I think being able to directly

impact and change people’s lives because we don’t do a lot of like even user research is you know not that common for us. It’s in the sense that we have user researchers doing the user research and speaking to the users themselves. Being able to directly speak to people and help others I think is what really what I really love about it. Yeah sorry.

(25:32) Danny

Well, yeah, I was curious, particularly around empowering communities. Because I think there’s generally doing work that’s good for people. But I’ve understood that there’s a sense that you’ve had, and we talked a bit about it, around reducing the stigma around tech being quite male-dominated and really trying to inspire and help young women come into the sector. And I was really curious what…

Did you have any personal experience or was there some kind of reason that got you into that space?

(26:05) Caroline McElroy

Yeah, I find in design, it’s mixed, maybe more women, ⁓ but not in the corporate tech space. And I have had experiences where, you know, the male is that despite like one specific experience where I’ve been on the client for a while and

someone was kind of new, just meeting a new person and having me being the one with the knowledge, started asking them the questions, even though I’d kind of been speaking and explaining and then kind of just said, what do you think? And like, not in a, no, not what do you think, but like, what’s this? What, how does this work? Yeah. And I was like, that was, he doesn’t know. I know the answer. Like, do I?

(26:49) Danny

They defaulted to the man.

Yeah.

(26:59) Caroline McElroy

jump in here? Like this is weird. So, I mean and that’s…

(27:01) Danny

Yeah. How

did you respond in that situation?

(27:05) Caroline McElroy

Well, I don’t know if it’s like my imposter syndrome or just being hard on myself. I’m like, you don’t be, you know, don’t make a thing of it. It was just something that didn’t sit right, but I didn’t really at the time say anything about it because I was like, I don’t want to be being dramatic here. I don’t want to think that, ⁓ the girl in the room like crying like, or something. Which I shouldn’t think, but so I didn’t do anything about it, but it was something that I’ve just kind of remembered in the back of my mind.

There’s been other situations where it’s like, don’t swear in front of the woman and things like that. But I’m just like…

It’s a bit weird. yeah, I don’t love that. But it’s not something that’s really impacting me day to day. And it doesn’t need to kind of take up that mental space, mental real estate. But if I can do anything to help change for future generations, anything around that, but also just the stigma of men being in tech, then.

want to take the opportunity. going and speaking, we did it with a colleague of mine teaching young women about AI. And we did at the beginning of the class of 30 ask who would consider doing technology as a job, mean, loose form technology, going down the IT path and not many put their hands up. We’re like, do you think…

it’s a job just kind of to see like who would typically have a job or like can you draw a picture of someone that would have a technology job? It’s kind of all men. And so then we do this and we talk about us and you know that this was with a colleague who’s a product designer, me doing service design, but then talking about AI and our experience with it. And we did like a fun little game and things and at the end they were like really inspired and just like, cool, I think I’d consider it now. ⁓

(28:44) Danny

I

Hmm.

(29:04) Caroline McElroy

which is so awesome to see. And I think the other thing as well for young people, young women coming through is their jobs might not exist yet. When I was at uni, I thought I was gonna become like a geneticist. I didn’t think I was gonna end up in service design, because I didn’t even know it was a thing. I went to my graduate, we had a hackathon as our interview and…

I said to them, if you’re going to make me do any coding, I’ll just leave now because I don’t want to be here if you make me coding because I hate it. They’re like, no, no, there’s so much more you can do beyond coding. So I didn’t know about service design until I was in it. So I’m trying to help share that there’s tons out there. You’re not just a coder or you’re not fitting into a box that is just male dominated. I know I’ve kind of strayed from that kind of…

(29:30) Danny

Hahaha.

(29:54) Caroline McElroy

stigma conversation a little bit, but anything I can be doing to sort of inspire women in tech, I think is important because they need to have a presence to help make this work_ as well.

(30:02) Danny

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, I’m so, yeah, I’m glad that you’re talking about it. I, that’s partly why I wanted to, you know, bring it up because I just, I just want to give that topic as much oxygen and as many spaces as possible. My senses is that, you know, for younger women, seeing people like you, you know, out there, you know, in big roles and stuff, hopefully feels inspiring and hopefully shows that.

It is possible. But there’s something like that struck me that I think you’ve mentioned as well. It’s like you’re not the quiet type. You’re quite like confident and you are OK to speak out if something doesn’t sound right. How did you get made that way?

(30:39) Caroline McElroy

No.

I grew up in a very loud family where if you don’t speak, you… no. I think I was very lucky with the sort of people around me who are strong, well women especially, who will really stand up and say what they think. We have a constant fight in my family of like who gets to talk, like always kind of talking over each other which I don’t love but…

I it does make, you know, I’ve now therefore become someone who I need to, I want to try and actually listen a little bit, like, you know, take that step back and I don’t always have to say what I am thinking. ⁓ Cause it, you know, if you, if you’re the one speaking, you’re not learning. ⁓ yeah, I think, I think it’s just, I mean, how I was, I was raised, but I’m so grateful for it and

(31:40) Danny

Yeah.

(31:50) Caroline McElroy

I’ve had conversations with people who are quiet and more shy and have been impacted in the workforce by that, by people thinking they don’t know what they’re talking about. And, you know, it ends up not working in their favor just because they’re quiet, which is really tough and it shouldn’t be that way. So, yeah, I think it’s…

I’m lucky it’s a strength and I should use it as ⁓ a platform, but ⁓ yeah, it’s been really interesting to see that not everyone’s the same as me, because I always thought we all were like this.

(32:30) Danny

Yeah, Yeah,

no, I, similar to you, I’m a of a loud mouth. I’ll say that about me. You can decide as much about you. And I, but I am becoming more aware, certainly in last few years, and my son is also neurodiverse about neurodiversity and its place in, in like corporate spaces. And particularly, like when we talk about people that are quieter.

(32:50) Caroline McElroy

and

Yeah.

(32:59) Danny

It might well be that, I mean, there’s lots of names for it, introvert, neurodiverse, autistic, you know, who knows, but we’re all different. And something that I think a lot about is, and I don’t get this right, you know, some of the time, but I try to think about how to make, certainly in a workshop space where I’m in control, I really like try to create, you know, pockets of inclusion.

(33:04) Caroline McElroy

Hmm.

this.

(33:26) Danny

And do you remember when we did a workshop the other day, I was sort of like, let’s have a quiet moment where you can write your thoughts and then let’s go to group discussion. And I try to do that because something I learned, I actually worked for a company called Dot Project. It was a co-op and we worked with loads of charities. And when I moved from the corporate sector to charity sector, my jaw just dropped to the floor because it was just like…

(33:26) Caroline McElroy

Yeah.

here.

(33:55) Danny

totally different language, a totally different way of being. And there was a lot of conversations about inclusion at the time and diversity and creating diverse spaces. And I, it’s something that I’m, I see it as a continuing thing of like, how can I bring that into the work I’m doing? And I sometimes get that wrong. And I come in a bit like a wrecking ball. And then sometimes I try to adapt and sort of go, okay, I need to say less and less and more.

(34:08) Caroline McElroy

Thank

Yeah.

(34:23) Danny

you

(34:24) Caroline McElroy

Yeah, I mean, think it’s a little bit, I mean, I completely agree with everything you’re saying. I think it’s knowing your audience a little bit as well, and you can kind of get a bit of a vibe of how they’re feeling and what they, you know, and I do this in my day-to-day life as well, is if people ask me to define service design, depending on who I’m talking to, I’ll give completely different definitions. So I think, you know, it is about just…

being receptive to who’s in the room, how they might be feeling and as you say, including as you need it or you know, doing different activities to make sure you’re kind of catering to everyone. Yeah.

(35:04) Danny

real

empathetic skill, isn’t it? I they call it like moving the room, don’t they have sort of like, where is the energy right now? And what you know, and especially if working remote, it’s harder, isn’t it? But if you’re in a room, it’s like, I don’t I sometimes I can kind of feel like, there’s some tiredness happening. Or so and so looks irritated, you know, and it’s so much valuable data that it can happen that

(35:07) Caroline McElroy

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes. yeah.

Mm.

(35:31) Danny

as service designer and as a facilitator, we have to really respond to that, find a way to sort of orientate, how do we pivot in a session to someone being annoyed or something like that. So it’s something that, because I think that I’ve seen you do a lot is communication. And I wonder about the language that you think about when you’re communicating. Is that something that you

(35:36) Caroline McElroy

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

(36:00) Danny

you’ve learned along the way, like is there something that you think about, words you use, is there something that, a practice that you’ve developed do you think?

(36:05) Caroline McElroy

you

Yeah, it’s really interesting because I don’t know if men get the same, taught the same thing as us. And I’m not trying to play the victim or anything and be like, that’s poor. Like, not at all. But it’s an observation I’ve made over time of how women, like tips for a woman to sound stronger in her language. It’s like, why does she, like, you know, like.

(36:19) Danny

I love this topic, by the way. I just think this is fascinating. Please say more.

(36:41) Caroline McElroy

Great that she needs to sound stronger, but the men, it doesn’t seem aligned. But one of the things that I remember and I try to use is not saying the word just, ⁓ which makes you sound a little bit less kind of authoritative. ⁓ I just wanted to check, like, is it okay? And it’s kind of like, it’s like a, and maybe I’ve now built this up in my head because I really don’t use it or like to use it.

Unless it’s intentional, but I You know don’t want to sound like I’m just checking if this I’m like hi like now I’ll do well. I just I’ll do like I’m letting you know or You know it’s much more directive. It is this is happening Which isn’t it’s not bossy, but it’s to the point. It’s I yeah, I know what I’m doing This is what we’re doing or you know open discussion about it, but it’s

(37:33) Danny

Yeah.

(37:40) Caroline McElroy

It’s not kind of asking, ⁓ yeah, it’s just clear and it’s more, it’s just stronger language really. So that’s, yeah, definitely one thing that I like to use as well. Not apologizing as much, but I think that.

(37:58) Danny

It’s sort

of like making yourself smaller. It’s kind of like, it’s into my mind when someone uses that word, just like, I’m just here. Can I just ask you something? Can I just suggest this? You’re sort of getting smaller when you say that. And it’s very true. Like, I’ve never had that thought or conversation with, certainly not with other man, about, you know, how do we not make ourselves smaller? Like, it’s just not something that,

(38:05) Caroline McElroy

Yeah.

Mmm.

Mm. Yeah.

(38:27) Danny

we think that men I don’t think men think of but

(38:30) Caroline McElroy

Wow, that’s

really interesting to hear actually. Yeah.

(38:33) Danny

Yeah, certainly

not in the circles I’ve been. I’ve noticed a shift. mean, I can remember going back like 2005, 2007. Like, I was quite shocked at some of the cultures I encountered, you know, they were like, it was like, you’d go into a meeting and then there’d be like another conversation that would happen on the way out with just the guys and stuff. And it was like, I just found it like really odd.

(38:57) Caroline McElroy

Hmm.

(39:01) Danny

And I didn’t, I was quite young, I didn’t know what I was actually witnessing. was like, why are they talking, why didn’t they, what? You know, like that kind of thing. But I have seen a lot less of that these days, but it sounds like it’s still present in the industry and it’s something that we should all, everybody should take collective responsibility for, I think.

(39:21) Caroline McElroy

Yeah, I with this award that I won, is the platform to recognize women below senior management level, the topics we spoke about were were about a little bit of this. And don’t quote me on the study. But one of the studies done was they put with the same content. And I think it was maybe I don’t know if it was AI or they put a male and a female.

entrepreneurs putting the same pitch with the same content to a panel of angel investors and Men were 60 % more likely to get the investment than the woman and That’s you know inherent bias and things were saying the exact same thing And I mean you can kind of Google that narrative and it comes up with the study and it was super interesting But yeah, I just I thought that was

(40:00) Danny

Really? Really?

(40:17) Caroline McElroy

Couldn’t believe that that was the case and they found that the way women would get more and whether it was in that study or a different one was if they spoke about how they were de-risking then they were More likely to get picked so women have to almost go above and beyond Or do more to make it to kind of get to that same level and One of the I mean on this kind of language topic we had a talk

at this, we had the networking day for this awards and one of the ladies was saying about how women, I’ve just completely lost my train of thought as well, I started thinking, was like, should I say who her name is? Maybe I shouldn’t, well, so I’ll give a shout out to Vanessa. But let me just try and remember what I was going to say. ⁓ how women, so when we get given credit for,

(41:07) Danny

Take your time. Take your time.

(41:15) Caroline McElroy

Work saying and she gave this great example of you know, well done to say Caroline on leading this project And I would go ⁓ no, it wasn’t just me. It was you know X Y and Z So then down down the line when someone comes to say ⁓ Caroline’s really good. She’s a great leader. They go no, it wasn’t Caroline. It was X Y and Z because I have my narrative and the story I’ve been telling was I didn’t lead that work. It was done with

this person and this person and this person. So they’ve done the work and it was so interesting because I never thought about it and I always try to remain humble ⁓ and you know I’m like no it’s not just me like I did it with like you guys like I’ve done that in the workshop and they’re like you did a great job and I’m like no I couldn’t have done it without you guys like thank you for your you you’re trying to be humble but she was talking about changing the language to say I really enjoyed leading on that or you know like

(42:05) Danny

you

(42:13) Caroline McElroy

Thank you for allowing me to lead on that. It was great to work and collaborate with X, Y, and Z. And it really, then that, it was a little bit about kind of that personal brand and the narrative, but it really highlighted to me how important it is to take kind of ownership of when you’ve done a good job. And that’s not a bad thing to take the credit. You have led it, like, you know.

you did lead on that project, that’s right, like she’s not wrong. So that was super interesting, something I’d never thought about before and something I’m trying to work on. Still remaining humble and giving credit where it’s due, but still being able to receive the praise and accept the praise as well.

(42:59) Danny

Yeah,

that’s so interesting. I find in my experience, I crave that praise. It’s probably something to do with when I was a kid or something like that. And yet when it comes, I almost want to defer it. I think in a workshop that we were running recently, one of the people running it said, oh, thank you very much. Kind of looked me right in the eye when he said it. even though I had

(43:11) Caroline McElroy

Yeah.

Yeah.

(43:27) Danny

been working with you really hard, you know, for a few weeks to get that to happen. As soon as that praise came, I immediately like, yeah, cool. Yeah, cool. No, but I wanted it, but I didn’t want it.

(43:37) Caroline McElroy

I think it’s…

do you know

what’s so interesting as well is in that same workshop, when we were going around the room giving out things, I was trying this thing that I’ve just spoken about. So I said, thank you for allowing me to lead on the Manchester workshop and for co-leading with Danny on this. didn’t say, ⁓ like, cause in the past I would have said, Danny did most of the work. no, was Danny, know, da da da da. And we did, we co-created the thing together.

(44:07) Danny

100%, yeah. ⁓

(44:09) Caroline McElroy

And so that, and I think, you know, they walk away and they’re like, oh, they co-vetted it. Like she was still a leader on that, you know. So yeah, that was my fun example there in the room.

(44:19) Danny

Yeah, I

love it. I love examples like that. And I hope that it gives people inspiration and gives people some sense of how you can model that in real time and ⁓ just like a little takeaway exercise of sort of like next time someone says to you, you know, thanks for running this thing or doing this thing, you can meet it rather than turning away from it. And I think that applies to everybody, but even more so perhaps women who might have a tendency.

(44:34) Caroline McElroy

I’m on it.

Yeah.

(44:48) Danny

to sort of want to get smaller and not kind of accept that. that, mean, I don’t want to speak. Yeah, yeah. No, it’s such good work. And I, you know, I just feel like this podcast is about deeply human. It’s about humans, it’s about people, it’s about us struggling with this mess. it societal, you know, inequality, be it, you know, our own feelings and our own struggle.

(44:52) Caroline McElroy

Yeah, yeah, think that’s absolutely fair.

Yeah.

(45:16) Danny

with the day-to-day job. you know, I really welcome that. ⁓ But yeah, thank you. I feel like this is a good point for us to close. But thanks so much for coming on and sharing your experience. you know, within a few days of meeting you, I was just like, I’m not going to come and talk to me. So thank you for coming. And yeah.

(45:19) Caroline McElroy

Yeah.

Thanks for having me. It was fun.

something new. try to be a bit of a yes girl, especially when it comes to my career, saying yes to everything. So I was like, yeah, it’s a new fun thing to do. So thanks for having me. I enjoyed it.

(45:47) Danny

Amazing. We did it together.

So yeah, thank you, Caro. Thanks. Thank you very much.

There we go.