Not many people can say they’ve gone from being a nuclear engineer to helping design Air Jordans at Nike. But that’s part of Kevin Bethune’s story, and today we chat with him about his journey from engineering to design.
Kevin also published a best-selling book last year called Reimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation. We talk about what he hoped to learn from writing the book, and discuss a critique of design thinking, the role of rigor in creativity, and the rewards and challenges of working with multidisciplinary teams.
Bio
Kevin Bethune is a Design & innovation executive leader serving, scaling and leading creative teams as large as 30+ nationwide, and influencing global teams as large as 70+ in the definition of design functional excellence and innovation best practices while respecting local differences.
He’s also an entrepreneur and founder of dreams • design + life, a “think tank” combining strategic design and industrial design to address human-centric and holistic opportunities to solve latent needs across industries that benefit from integrated physical, digital and service-oriented experiences.
Kevin is a globally recognized speaker who’s given talks at TED, DMI, IDSA, AIGA, MIT, Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon, Notre Dame, ArtCenter, Lucerne, Nike, BCG and Google Design. Kevin is represented by BrightSight Speakers (contact: Tom@brightsightspeakers.com for inquiries).
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Summary (Via ChatGPT 🤖)
In this Design Better podcast episode, Kevin Bethune talks about his journey from being a nuclear engineer to a design and innovation executive leader. He also discusses his best-selling book called Reimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation, the role of rigor in creativity, the rewards and challenges of working with multidisciplinary teams, and his experience working at Nike.
Highlights
Kevin Bethune went from being a nuclear engineer to a design and innovation executive leader.
Bethune's childhood hobby of drawing and his interest in math and science led him to pursue a career in engineering.
He lacked business acumen and pursued an MBA to gain a better understanding of the strategy around engineering work.
He met Albert Shum and Dwayne Edwards at Nike who helped him explore his creativity, leading him to footware design.
He worked on the Air Jordan Fusion 8 model with Dwayne Edwards and got two shoes with his design credits under his mentorship.
Bethune discusses the role of stretch assignments, cultivating mentors, and navigating the "not invented here" syndrome.
He published a book called Reimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation, where he talks about a critique of design thinking, the role of rigor in creativity, and the rewards and challenges of working with multidisciplinary teams
Transcript
01:52.83
Eli Woolery
Kevin Bethune, welcome to the design better podcast. Yeah, we're we're excited to have you and want and have you on for a while you come out with this great book and.
01:55.33
Kevin Bethune
02:03.90
Kevin Bethune
Thank you very much for having me.
02:12.72
Eli Woolery
Before we talk about that I just want to talk about your career path a little bit and um, we sort of have a little overlap in the trajectory of our career I started more as a mechanical engineer when I went through product design. It was much more engineering focused and so I had a lot more kind of hands-on engineering work in my first four years so years of my career. And it looks like you had a much more technical role as a mechanical engineer working on you know, essentially being a nuclear engineer which is pretty intimidating sounding quite honestly. Um, but maybe you could talk us a little bit about you know how you made the transition from that role. Um, it looks like you're getting your Mba and working at Nike and then kind of transitioning into the world designed. We're curious about that that trajectory.
02:57.22
Kevin Bethune
No, no thanks for asking I I think if I go back to the days of youth I had a create sorry if I go back to the days of youth I had a ah creative inclination that was sort of expressed through the hobby of just drawing in that. The the act of drawing was just like sort of how I interpreted the world. How I saw the world was interpreting through sketch. Um, and I'll and I'll emphasize that it was drawing versus actually formal sketching because I didn't know I wasn't formally trained. It was just my hobby. Um, but I think the intersections of of. Math and science and those interests coalescing with the the knack for drawing I should say um, led to perhaps engineering as the more pragmatic choice to take as a first step in career. Um the notion of design or innovation those were like foreign words that were not celebrated.
03:49.76
Kevin Bethune
Around me at least where I was I was raised and at that time was ah for the better part in the Detroit metro area and the heart of american automotive industry. So most of the neighbors were factory workers engineers or business people so engineering made more pragmatic sense. Um. But when I ended up in the nuclear power generation industry I was very thankful and that that industry had a wide open door. It was a great avenue to come in and and learn the arts of product creation pretty quickly. Um, and as you said like nuclear was very intense. The the criticality of the work. Learning what critical path means learning how to work with high performing teams to get hardware created ah deployed in the field these kind of things made me really appreciate what it means to deliver something of value. But I think through those experiences a natural. Curiosity for the bigger picture sort of emerged in that work and I lacked perhaps the business acumen to be able to understand perhaps more of the the strategy around the engineering work so that led naturally to scratching the itch to get an Mba um, and meanwhile that creative itch for my youth. Hobby of drawing with always been there but when I got to Nike post business school that environment really opened my eyes to the power of that creativity could have not necessarily in isolation but also in conjunction with technology and business and so I started scratching my curiosity in the Nike environment.
05:21.76
Kevin Bethune
Meeting newfound creative friends that exposed me to you know design literature um some of them allowed me to channel my rock creative skill to actual you know footware design and and trying some things under their mentorship and was able to actually ship ship some product in the Nike environment which was really gratifying. So. Ah, pause there sorry for rebelly.
05:41.50
Eli Woolery
Now it's great.
05:42.92
Aarron Walter
Yeah, it's kind of amazing. Um, and I know that like from your perspective especially in the book. Um, it's it's pretty clear like your thread you said creativity is the common thread in my career. And you had that from your childhood and if that's applied to you know Westinghouse and nuclear engineering or Nike and shoe design or you know agencies and doing lots of digital brand and design work like you can you can follow that thread through for yourself. But there's a challenge because most people especially like hiring managers. They're going to have a hard time really understanding like well wait a second I'm sorry this is Nike and we're not hiring any nuclear engineers over here. Um, how do you How do you like position yourself in those transitions to help people understand. Who you are and what you offer.
06:38.84
Kevin Bethune
Yeah, there was sort of ah a delicate tact of navigating the not invented hear syndrome where it's like if you had ah in a Nike environment if you had a different background that was pretty Nike no one seemed to care about that. It's like what can you deliver for me today.
06:44.60
Aarron Walter
M.
06:55.28
Kevin Bethune
Um, and I have to assume good intent in most cases that people just didn't have the time to understand fully like what you brought to the table beyond your title and in many cases all they saw was the title at first blush. Oh he's a business planner. So that means he's he's a numbers guy. There's no way he could be creative.
07:10.96
Aarron Walter
Right? right.
07:14.73
Kevin Bethune
But I think um, there were sort of the delicate navigation of of trying to stretch those conversations to a point where it's like well actually let me take this from a coffee chat to having me actually show you what I could potentially do to help your team.
07:32.50
Aarron Walter
Um.
07:32.90
Kevin Bethune
And so those coffee chats turned into opportunities to stretch myself even if I was working for free to show that product Organization. You know what I have some raw skills that could be helpful to you some perspectives from my previous backend that could be helpful and let me show you by just doing some free work to show you how passionate I am about learning your space. And the act of doing and experimenting then it opened them up to want to like share more find value in the things I was giving them and then they would see the mutual synergies to where you know maybe it was it was time for another um opportunity that could open up for an interview perhaps or. Yeah, there was an appetite to want to give me another project that created more evidence and allowed people to see me a little bit differently than just my title.
08:12.21
Aarron Walter
Are.
08:19.33
Aarron Walter
Yeah, could you go deeper on that. What's ah, what's ah, an example of where you you use these methodologies to get your foot in the door.
08:28.22
Kevin Bethune
Yeah, um, so a couple anecdotes. Um, when I was a business planner First job out of b school at Nike and I was doing a lot of you know, financial and operational analysis to help the sea level suite. Navigate earnings release calls and these kind of things but outside of the day job I meandered over to Nike innovation and I met a gentleman by the name of Albert Chum so Albert has just recently navigated through Microsoft just departed Microsoft for his next chapter. But at the time.
08:43.12
Aarron Walter
Um.
08:58.45
Kevin Bethune
Albert was this interesting hybrid business creative sort of in this basement studio area at and at the nikemia handbuiling and um, he just said hey um I can tell you're curious about what we're doing. Um, why don't you stretch your. Brain with us. You don't have to tell anyone that you're doing work for us on your personal time. It's it's your time you're just coming as Kevin so just come as Kevin and help us out instead of just going on that lunchtime run come exercise your brain with us so that was like a first anecdote of like.
09:33.10
Aarron Walter
Um.
09:36.61
Kevin Bethune
Wow, there's something to this stretch assignment approach and then fast forward I happened to meet Dwayne Edwards who was at the time the footre design director of the Jordan brand. He's now the president of Pen Louis College one of the world's only 4 design academies dedicated to the industry. But at the time he met me over a coffee chat where he saw this very curious creative person that had a title that was very business oriented but he could tell he he gave me a little bit more time to understand my backstory just to realize that there was more to my story than just the title I showed him my raw creative. Drawings for hobby and he said you know what you have raw skill I can work with it I have too many briefs not enough designers if you come meet me in the mornings at like 6 a m he was one of the early risers at Nike but we would meet at 6 in the morning we would comiserate on a couple of briefs that he had. We would then go do our day jobs and then I would work on his stuff to the wee hours at night and we work that way for the better part of a year we got 2 shoes with my design credits under his mentorship and he held me accountable like case standards are very high and.
10:38.47
Aarron Walter
That's amazing.
10:50.38
Kevin Bethune
At times I trip to myself and stumbled over my own two feet would he helped me. He invited me to the Jordan product reviews I slid my sketches meekishly onto the table where all these incredible Jordan brand folks were like leaning over to look at my sketches so these are very gratifying very scary moments as well. But very gratifying to. Have the Jordan brand nurtured me through their process and respect my contributions that way the Jordan it was ah it was actually an interesting story that the the shoe model was the air Jordan Fusion 8 which was a.
11:12.96
Aarron Walter
Which which Jordans did you work on.
11:27.72
Kevin Bethune
Ah, a weird combination of elements from the Nike Air Force one and the iconic air jordan 8 and so we did a couple different permutations of celebrating the legacy elements of the shoes to arrive at 2 new designs. Yeah yeah.
11:43.53
Eli Woolery
That's super cool I think in the book you mentioned too that you um, cross paths and maybe had some mentorship from Jason Maiden who's a friend of the show. Um, maybe you talk a little bit about that. But just also in general like how do you? you know that stage of your career. How did you think about cultivating mentors and maybe now how do you think about kind of.
11:50.49
Kevin Bethune
Oh yeah.
12:00.27
Kevin Bethune
Um, no absolutely um, you know Jason definitely is a dear friend and.
12:01.80
Eli Woolery
Paying back that mentorship.
12:08.22
Kevin Bethune
While many conversations as I was trying to network and meet people at Nike. It was very much like you know you're you're the numbers guy. We see your title and and this is sort of who you are. You're defined as this but Jason was one of those first conversations as ah as one of my first professional design friends ever in my career. He set me down and he just sort of articulated the landscape that was product design through his lens and I was taking notes furiously over that 30 minute coffee conversation. But I really appreciate that he just he just painted the landscape for me for the first time so that I could begin to have like points of wayfinding to go learn more. Ah, so that's where Jason came in and I you know I'm I'm indebted to folks like Jason Dwayne albert the folks that really gave me ah a shot gave me a little bit more time to understand the fuller me and so now I definitely carry that conviction and so i. You know I try to do my best to always offer time always for anyone that has a question I try to entertain it and point people in a path that works for them. So yeah.
13:17.44
Aarron Walter
Is there something is there something in the water over at Nike because it does seem like there are a lot of just really smart talented people who have have some tenure at at Nike we also talked with ah. Greg Hoffman in episode 67 and his work there and of course Jason Maiden we had him on episode 47 um, all 3 of you are incredibly accomplished multidisciplinary thinkers. Um, and there are lots of other folks who passed through those halls as well. What's in the water over at Nike?
13:52.18
Kevin Bethune
You know? Um, yeah, Nike is still a company There's a lot of you know, challenges and opportunities navigating ah a brand like that. But I can say I really cherished my time there and that you were navigating an environment that did have. Very deep convictions for how it intended to serve the athlete and also the culture that sort of orbits the athlete experience and so you know I think the competitive drive the the ability to stare down any challenge like. Every every nuance of the work. You know you felt those convictions every day and even how we how we collaborated how we communicated how we gave feedback. We were always referencing the 11 maxims that sort of pop that sort of point to the the original builders of of that generation that actually built and created Nike in the first place that. Those convictions you feel it pervasively in everything.
14:48.86
Aarron Walter
Do you know those 11 ah rules or maxims.
14:51.50
Kevin Bethune
So I probably will fail the examination the site all 11 but like the last one those remember the man you know around co-founder Bill Bauerman and you know he was the archetype that like even in a board meeting an executive board meeting with all this. Intellectual horsepower on the table if there is a new model offering that was debuting. He would have the scale in the boardroom and he would weigh the shoe in front of the cast of board members like that's the lore of of Bill Bauerman that innovation that that quest for excellence to to push. And not take anything for granted, not take anything as a given you could always make it better. No finish line like that mentality. Um that that place oozes of that spirit.
15:40.80
Aarron Walter
Um.
15:40.87
Eli Woolery
That's great Kevin you talk ah a lot in the book about the importance of having a crossfunctional mentality and your career kind of encompasses that like you have your you are you are the intersection of design and business and technology and you know if you're. A product team. You need to understand your cohort What's your advice to people who may not have that you know career background necessarily but want to understand their colleagues better.
16:03.75
Kevin Bethune
Oh well. Thank you I mean I I first have to say that the notion of like fulfilling a hybrid or polymathic journey was not always celebrated in the most cases it was you know I had to get used to being misunderstood. And only seeing seeing at first glance from my title at the given moment but just based on you know, especially the last five ten years and as we move forward and into the the future I think never before will we feel this. Need to bring disciplines together more so than what has typically been the exception. It's been more so the exception not the rule to bring multidisciplinary teams together around certain shared objectives but the future is requiring that more of us. It's requiring it to be the norm. Not the exception is what I'm trying to say. Um, and so for anyone that's navigating even if they haven't had perhaps like an equally proportionate career across these different disciplines like maybe I have had I think everyone has the opportunity to understand like how do they fit in the multidisciplinary puzzle now because if you is going to require that. You're going to be in rooms with different people more and more often. So the question becomes how as an individual do you exercise your breadth of collaboration communication strategic alignment visioning with different actors in the room. But.
17:34.69
Kevin Bethune
How can you still then bring your depth of expertise to the party to the table and be respected for that and know that your depth of Expertise doesn't always shine in a meeting room over post-it notes or whiteboarding like sometimes you have to get away from the team and go leverage your depth and bring something of substance back to that team to propel it forward. So this orchestration of breath in depth is what I talk about in the book around like how do we prepare ourselves for those future needs that lay over the horizon.
18:03.42
Aarron Walter
So there's an additional dimension to your your skills that you've developed through your career and you talk about it in the book. You share some um you know, very poignant personal stories about navigating corporate America um, and you said in there that you've learned to walk with tact through. Corporate America tell us about that.
18:25.48
Kevin Bethune
Yeah, um I think surprisingly as I was writing it was during the actual first year of the pandemic 2020 and we were also experiencing a lot of the jarring stuff in the media whether it was the summer of Church Floyd rise of hate crimes against asianamericanpacific islanders this tightened awareness of a lot of these overt jarring realities that were affecting people in our society. But as I'm writing about my professional experiences I couldn't help connect the overt stuff with a lot of the covert.
18:58.70
Aarron Walter
Yeah, yeah.
18:59.58
Kevin Bethune
Resistance I remember experiencing and I'm very careful to say you know there's a tack to this because if I do something if I make a contribution if I make a prototype or whatever I am readily accepting and very welcoming of any constructive critique. Around anything that I have to offer and I'll take that all day because it helps us all learn. But as I reflected I realized there was a very healthy share of covert stuff that didn't have a concrete or constructive nature to the feedback or resistance it was it made me question is this.
19:18.14
Aarron Walter
Um.
19:31.87
Aarron Walter
Oh.
19:36.67
Kevin Bethune
Resistance I'm feeling where someone's just outright rejecting me rejecting my presence resisting what I have to say shutting me down um does it does it relate to my identity and I you know it's one of the things where you never know for sure. But you're forced to kind of go through a mental tax of what does that mean? um.
19:40.94
Aarron Walter
Um, yeah.
19:48.77
Aarron Walter
Yeah. Yeah.
19:56.70
Kevin Bethune
And because perhaps I'm not behaving like the the Alpha voice in the room. That's perhaps more consistently celebrated in certain environments. Maybe my tech is different but I'm already being made to feel like something's wrong with me and so let that.
20:07.61
Aarron Walter
Um.
20:14.51
Kevin Bethune
That toxicity sort of you know to digest it as attacks. But also to just like parse it and understand like what feedback was actually helpful for me to grow and develop as a better professional but what what feedback was actually harmful and how do I process that.
20:25.33
Aarron Walter
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and and it sounds like in in the book you were you were kind of talking about and and as you allude to with this idea of navigating with tact. It's There's some sometimes where it's sort of like I'm going to let this just roll off my back. And there's other times where that's not the right approach where you know it's time to time to say something or make that person aware of of what they're bringing ah to to the team to you to to the world. Um, what's that like to how how have you figured out. When to speak up and how to help people See. Um I don't know in ah in a way that they can listen that they need to take a different approach.
21:14.97
Kevin Bethune
Yeah I think even even in the heat of the battle where you know there there might have been a you know ah macro aggression. Even then I try to at least start with the assumption of good intent of all parties in the room.
21:28.10
Aarron Walter
Oh.
21:32.12
Kevin Bethune
And what I try to do when I actually do speak up in Urban uncomfortable times where I've had to to really sort of lay out some convictions for people I try to point it to the folks that we're we're intending to serve So the team and are around the room is ideally intending to serve a.
21:42.55
Aarron Walter
Um.
21:50.93
Kevin Bethune
Target Demographic or set of customer stakeholders. Um, and just reminding people of the imperatives the convictions that matter for those people we're trying to serve and pointing out constructively in a solution oriented way. What are perhaps some of the present behaviors. How are those behaviors actually impacting our ability to serve you know if we're talking too much about politics or we're talking about someone feeling like we're encroaching on their turf because we have an idea we're trying to just naturally connect the dots and formulate the story. But if someone's resisting for the sake of politics or resisting for the sake of some.
22:09.93
Aarron Walter
M.
22:27.91
Kevin Bethune
Hidden agenda that no one's understanding will logically help us understand how we're having these disconnects from our ability to serve and laying things out in a solution oriented way has been a helpful tact and approach to take.
22:34.50
Aarron Walter
Yeah.
22:43.84
Eli Woolery
Gather I'm sure that you know having assuming good intent from other people when they're saying something that you know might feel offensive or harmful. It's not an easy way but it seems like it's a really powerful attitude to have and my guess is that. You know the way that we communicate these days whether it's over social media sort of externally or on slack internally makes that makes that lot more challenging in a lot of ways like not being able to have those face-to-face conversations as much have you found any ways you know in kind of more remote or hybrid environment that people.
23:06.19
Kevin Bethune
No.
23:17.61
Eli Woolery
Can have those kinds of challenging conversations in a productive way.
23:22.35
Kevin Bethune
Um, yeah I think I think think thanks to slack and email and you know Zoom's and um, virtual sort of team environments like Miro or morrell. Um.
23:36.49
Kevin Bethune
I think the same work can get done albeit with the degree of separation and challenge that layer that we have to sort of work through. But if anything I found especially over the last couple of years. Um I've actually found a ah heightened sense of intimacy even if I can't be. And ah in a room with people or or together on a one on-one with someone I I found I've had a lot more 1 on 1 intimate conversations where through this intimate channel communication. Um, the the curtains of of.
24:01.60
Aarron Walter
Um.
24:09.21
Kevin Bethune
Boundaries have sort of relaxed a little bit where we can be even more vulnerable with each other and be more direct around like how are you feeling or how how did how am I feeling How did that interaction go and you know maybe I send some tension. Let's talk about that if you don't mind and so I think if anything surprisingly that. Business conversations I've had have been a lot more Intimate. We've been able to address the gnarly feedback a little bit better even in a remote sort of modality. Yeah.
24:40.58
Aarron Walter
Well, let's talk a little bit about your book. Um, you know you've had an amazing career as we've been discussing and you know how did you get to this point in your life where you think you know what I need to capture what I've learned and share that with other people. Um. So Why write the book and what did you learn from the process.
25:00.63
Kevin Bethune
Yeah, definitely writing a book was not at my career bing Go card whatsoever I Never I never deemed myself a writer. Um, but I think through the career I learned the importance of communication through written word just like the the.
25:18.79
Aarron Walter
M.
25:18.93
Kevin Bethune
Need to document need to to communicate around the work that you're putting into the world and I would say more recently in the last couple of career chapters where I've had to stand up design and innovation capabilities in spaces that hadn't necessarily understood the power of creative problem solving. Um, and not having to design to sort of be a transacted notion at the end of any value stream like these environments we were doing atypical things that what the business community generally understood about design or design thinking and and watching some of those. Ah, stakeholders and realizing that they were constantly sort of writing and giving talks outside of their day-to-day work. This notion of eminence was sort of introduced to me by some of my business partners and mentors around me that hey Kevin you're doing some atypical things with this design team that you're growing. You need to start talking about that too.
26:13.40
Aarron Walter
Um.
26:13.73
Kevin Bethune
And ah and this was really manifesting itself inside of the Bcg environment when we were cooking Bcg Digital ventures and really scaling that platform inside the bigger Bcg parent and so when I left Bcg after having written articles for design communities. We we did a ted talk moment. With Ted and Bcg back in 2017 in Milan and there was a lot more appetite people were asking me for even more perspective and like wow well how do I codify all these experiences and and try to put it together into a book proposal and my mentors around me were encouraging me to like.
26:40.61
Aarron Walter
M.
26:51.87
Kevin Bethune
Submit it to publishers and thankfully the mit press stepped in to want to really commit to a project weirdly enough at the very start of the covid 19 pandemic so the house the beginning of the writing journey when we were dealing with isolation.
27:02.70
Eli Woolery
Um, which okay.
27:06.34
Aarron Walter
Yeah, and for listeners Bcg could you tell us what the acronym stands for and describe it a little bit.
27:15.69
Kevin Bethune
Sure sorry, um so Bcg is the Boston Consulting Group they're one of a few tier one management consulting firms that consult to most of the world's global enterprises at some way or some level. Yeah.
27:30.76
Eli Woolery
Great, um, one of 1 of the topics you touch on kind of early in the book. Um is this is design thinking and sort of but some critiques of design thinking and it's it's kind of interesting and topical to me because it's come on up on our product design alumni list. And actually that Albert Chum who you mentioned who's also an alum has touched on it not on Linkedin a little bit but you know there's there's there's all these very legitimate critiques of design thinking but in some ways it seems like they I hesitate to say miss the point but maybe frame it incorrectly.
27:53.88
Kevin Bethune
Um.
28:04.30
Eli Woolery
And maybe that's the fault of the sort of some of the proponents of design thinking that put it out. There is this like magical thing that can solve every problem when reality. It's really more of ah a toolkit and something that you can you know pick and choose the right situation to use. But maybe we could just yeah, talk a little bit about you know how you how you frame it How you think about it How you've used it.
28:11.51
Kevin Bethune
Me.
28:23.40
Eli Woolery
And your work.
28:24.68
Kevin Bethune
Yeah, um, yeah I Definitely drew a lot of sorry I Definitely drew a lot of inspiration from some of the early architects and writers that have sort of laid out the Frameworks or at least the philosophy of design thinking I think it's been. Especially helpful to the business world to figure out like hey there's ah, there's a there's an open aperture around creative problem solving that you can really embrace and if you don't come from design you can participate in this. So Um I view it as a philosophy that's been quite helpful but at the same time. I'm also conscious of the risks of how it could be harmful and you know in the wrong hands with the wrong context. Um, with perhaps if it if it lacks perhaps the lens of inclusion around who's actually participating in the process. And how are those voices those different voices being respected or not so you know I think I think unfortunately there's still a lot of ambiguity in the business world to understand the differences between like what is design thinking What is the actual practice and capabilities that represent design. And how do you actually instrument some of this stuff in your organization I think there's still far too much ambiguity. Unfortunately, um, where we we do need to crack through that class ceiling of ambiguity and show people perhaps stronger proof points of how do we weave together strategic positioning of design and how do we.
29:55.52
Kevin Bethune
Make sure that we empower and create the right runways where the depth of craft can also be celebrated in Tandem So. That's that's a lot of the conversations I have right now with my client partners whether they big big companies and innovation groups within them or your you know young ventures that are trying to wire themselves. For innovation and design from the very beginning of their journey. Yeah.
30:16.15
Eli Woolery
Yeah, for yeah I totally agree with all that and I also think 1 thing that's happened and this might also be the fault of our education institutions. But you know I think oftentimes we're really heavily weighted towards the frontend design the sort of divergent. Part of design exploration ethnography that kind of thing and less so on the actual implementation and craft involved in that actually shipping a product and so I feel like you know one of the dangers is you go? Let's say run a design thinking workshop with with the team. And all they think it's just all about like postits and you know in interview people and not about actually creating something and shipping it and getting it out to the world with your you know, obviously with your other partners. But yeah I think that that part's interesting as well. I'm curious if you want to that.
31:03.66
Kevin Bethune
Yeah, yeah, it's um I think what drove me crazy especially in those recent forays where I had to stand up these things that yeah, our stakeholders would want. They would want to ask for certain things that they would call design thinking and it ended up being. A lot of formulaic mini sprints or showcases to show the power of the creative process and unfortunately they might expect the magical answer out the other side of that event whether it was a 3 hour workshop or a one week sprint and it's like some of this stuff like some of the the realities and and challenges that we're dealing with. Some of those are like long pole challenges that require deeper thought it takes time away from the team room like to your point in the field in the garage cooking cultivating iterating and there might be nonlinear pivots and loopbacks and accelerations. So I think there's something to. Understanding How do you cultivate these capabilities at a strategic level also at a practitioner level from a depth perspective but then really coach people to understand that this is not ah, a linear undertaking that there's a lot of nonlinearities that you need to celebrate as well.
32:17.29
Aarron Walter
In the book you you talk about the the role of rigor in creativity and that's something that I don't often hear in design teams anymore. Um I see it to a certain degree in industrial design teams but software design teams. Rigor the idea of like let's really go deep on a problem and solution set. Um, let's you know produce really great work. Um, how do you see rigor. How have you seen rigor in creative teams like when it's. When it's done right.
32:53.88
Kevin Bethune
Um, um, you know I if I talk very um, very much if if I describe this in the context of like a very simple framework of the double diamond. Let's just say so. In the and the period of discovery we might be out be out the field. Our our stakeholders might be expecting sort of the 1 slide takeaway summary of those interviews that we just had yesterday. They want that in their deck tomorrow so they can move the project forward. Um, and that that's. Sort of an example of just like the formula like nature and and there's no way that we could really do good work of digesting what we just heard or observed in the field and be able to hand over insights because what's typically happens is it's going to be a snooze fest where we're just echoing consensus because I think we're going to be fearful to you know synthesize or.
33:36.16
Aarron Walter
And here.
33:44.24
Aarron Walter
Yeah.
33:50.44
Kevin Bethune
Or create. Ah a bullet point that um isn't a risk. But if we fight for the time and again I think this is all around like how do you empower these teams to to go deep and there was a project where we had to like we actually had the fight to give the team more space to do what it needed to do. They did.
33:54.24
Aarron Walter
Who.
34:07.68
Aarron Walter
Um.
34:09.27
Kevin Bethune
Traveled to China and visited a few megacities and had like 60 interviews of footage and camera observations and we we allowed them almost a full week to take the time silently to codify all the things that they've heard like to to comb through those reams of video footage. To sit in a room quietly and just affinity map all the all the different verbatims and observations and takeaways and no one was we we didn't allow anyone to like bug that team to like bug them for takeaway slides of what happened in those China megacities we we allowed them to just cook and simmer. And really ultimately reveal the less than obvious associations that the the abductive sort of process allowed and giving them that space was mission critical for the product when you see where the ideation went after that things they were able able to diverge from the insights. There were new and novel insights that led to new arenas that no one could have predicted that that team would have cooked up if they weren't given that luxury of time. So sometimes you have to take the risk to empower the team in that way.
35:15.63
Aarron Walter
That's and it's so rare. Um, and even though I think most of us who are have been in this creative industry for a while we know that incubation is a really critical phase of creative exploration. We need to like.
35:22.44
Kevin Bethune
Or.
35:30.29
Kevin Bethune
You.
35:33.52
Aarron Walter
Let the let the juices marinate a bit to find the solution like we've all gone to bed and woken up with a solution or taken a shower or taking the dog for a walk and then all of a sudden like these great ideas come out. Um.
35:45.61
Kevin Bethune
Yet.
35:47.67
Aarron Walter
Yeah, and it's just so rare in business that space is given for that sort of thinking.
35:53.47
Kevin Bethune
I'm very conscious that like the time that I was spending upon reflection was falling within 3 categories. The the first category was stakeholder management just keeping everyone informed and updates and. Stand-up meetings and these kind of things like they're they're necessary. Um, the second bucket of calories was all the documentation work to satiate those stakeholders whether it was making decks or status emails and things like that takes time to even ah fromm designing wire frames or id sketches it takes time to like document the deck that. It's around those assets to put them on a wall or have a powerpoint or whatever the third bucket of calories to your point is that creative problem solving time and all the different ways that we creatively problem solve as as design professionals the first 2 categories of time. Always collapse and threaten that third bucket. So how do you? then? wire your you know your calendar your your day of life to ensure that that third bucket of calories is prioritized and protected and almost held sacred compared to the first 2.
36:59.53
Aarron Walter
Yeah, it is sacred. That's ah, that's a perfect way to describe that time sacred time.
37:03.21
Kevin Bethune
Absolutely absolutely.
37:05.30
Eli Woolery
Are there tactical ways that you do that Kevin like block off your calendar or how what are some of the what do you have any suggestions for folks to improve their creative process in that way.
37:17.70
Kevin Bethune
Um, yeah, definitely a lot of calendar blocks and you know it's like you almost have to be conscious of like what? what. Is the modality of your typical day in a life that you can at least control people don't realize that they you can actually control your time more so than people give themselves credit for and sometimes the speed of the clock is an implied authority where you feel like you don't have the license to do that because slack is pinging all the time and or you're always getting thrust into a meeting. But if you think about the the important objectives that you have because there's a lot of asks of us every day but I think I've learned and I even even had training within Bcg that really helped me understand and see this for myself. A lot of things that profess to be urgent aren aren't necessarily important. But if you're holding it accountable to you know, quarterly metrics or annual metrics or whatever kr is a kpis I need to block the deep creative problem solving time and my calendar and ensure to ensure that those important long pulls of work. Get done. And by the time that they're needed to be done so blocking the calendar bes become like a relentless habit that I have that I don't allow the inbox or slack or these things to dictate how and my ability to get that stuff done. Um.
38:38.94
Kevin Bethune
So Being very surgical about where you spend your calories like I'm all for that and any designer that I have the privilege of serving I try to counsel them to think about their day in the life and that you are more than welcome to structure your way of working if you don't want to check slack during certain hours because you need that head down time. We know that now if like let's let's talk about that as a norm so and a given week. We're not bugging each other during these core hours and you have the luxury of head downtime to get your stuff done.
39:08.16
Aarron Walter
Eli does this all the time his slack status has Kermit the frog typing furiously when he's busy I know don't don't mess with Eli when when the kermit the frog icon is up.
39:16.20
Eli Woolery
Ah, writing writing mode.
39:20.39
Kevin Bethune
Um I Love that.
39:21.60
Eli Woolery
Ah, toys get um, one of the talkic that comes up in the book in several places this idea of kind of multi multi the book sorry multidisciplinary teams and maybe let's talk about what are the advantages of them and what are the challenges you might face when you're assembling a. Ah, diverse Multidisciplinary team.
39:41.79
Kevin Bethune
Yeah I'll start with the challenge first in that um, from memory like we need stick different people that haven't worked together before in the same room. There's all kinds of baggage that you have to unpack you have to let that team sort of figure out its norms and structure. Who leads on a given day like that orchestration needs to be the team needs to figure that out. Um and it would always bug me when I would see teams like on day one kickoff together and that you you see the first line on the screen as the work plan someone hypothesized. Well I can get almost guarantee that. 3 hree quarters of that work plan is probably erroneous because it it it it ah unproductively assumes the wrong things about each individual around the table but the best teams that I found have an open conversation of norms working styles, leadership tact ownership. Rural clarity and like figuring that out and an a norming couple of days before they really get going against their plan so that that I think is is critical to get over that hump and then ideally if that team is empowered. You just get the benefit of diversity because everyone's bringing. Cricculating different data points insights strategic framing guiding principles and a multidisplinary team has a lot more ammunition. A lot more substance to work from to craft their initial hypotheses and strategies and plans.
41:07.10
Kevin Bethune
Then if you didn't have if you if if someone sort of created that in the isolation and a vacuum and was trying to hand that out to the next discipline without talking openly with them.
41:19.15
Aarron Walter
Kevin ah, your book is focused. Ah 1 key piece of it is about innovation and that is like that's a ah red thread that runs through your career. You even said in the book kind of early on what you are interested in is like where can I go to the place where I can work on the new ideas. Um.
41:33.70
Kevin Bethune
Yeah.
41:37.30
Aarron Walter
And innovation is it's almost like it's almost banal how often it's used in corporate language like we're going to innovate. We're going to do something innovative. Um, but it's real I mean it's a real byproduct of the creative process when it's ah when the creative process is nurtured and and.
41:44.92
Kevin Bethune
Ah.
41:55.88
Aarron Walter
Um, respected what are in your opinion the essential components. Ah that lead to innovation in a company.
42:08.83
Kevin Bethune
I might have to speak at an individual level and then an organizational level but individually I think Curiosity is mandatory. Um, and it's not ideally like we're not like looking to innovate for the sake of scroking our own ego.
42:21.84
Aarron Walter
Oh.
42:23.60
Kevin Bethune
It's like the curiosity to be able to look at who we are intending to serve and figuring out any and all ways to thoughtfully engage those people at ah at the most human level we can. We can imagine to get an understanding of their needs and not just like.
42:43.37
Kevin Bethune
Make assumptions about those needs which I think unfortunately happens all too often and not because we we sort of see those needs through the lens of our existing court business which is already biased where we're already biased at the gate. So having the humility to understand people at a deeper human level and figuring out. How do we? How do we actually show up for those people. On their terms in their turf in their language and even engage them as part of the team in the first place and ideally as we evolve our teams and our ability to think about like organization how how we how do we wire ourselves for innovation. Ideally. Our team is composed of diverse constituents that represent the people that we're serving so the relationships can be leveraged in a more authentic and thoughtful way to co-create our way forward together. So curiosity has to drive that a strong conviction for diversity equity inclusion. Is required to to do that at an organizational level as well. Um, and ultimately ideally we're tracking and staying focused on the value criteria that matters to every stakeholder that we're we're solving for because usually it's never the end customer every topic every vertical every industry situation. There's always a multitude of stakeholders and if we can keep track of their value criteria and even under the the headwinds and tailwinds of trends that are impinging on us all the time. Social trends tech trends economic trends environment political trends all the things. Um values will either stay steady.
44:16.57
Kevin Bethune
Or they might migrate to a different place So our ability to stay innovative means we have to we have to so always stay relatively connected to those stakeholders as they change and Morph and evolve through the course of time and ideally we can then generate ideas that help the company.
44:25.94
Aarron Walter
Um.
44:35.89
Kevin Bethune
Grow to match those needs not grow in the sake of like capitalistic ambition grow at all costs grow. You know greed is good kind of mentality if if we stay in tune with those needs over time. Our company ideally will grow in a sustainable respectful. And thoughtful way where our brand actually has mind share with those people because they trust that we can deliver to their Needs. So That's innovation for me.
45:06.54
Eli Woolery
Let's talk about a little bit about leadership too. And um, you you bring up several times the concept of servant leadership and harkening back to our episode with with Jason Baden that's that's sort of his frame of mind around leadership as well leading from behind and um in one.
45:16.95
Kevin Bethune
Indeed.
45:22.92
Eli Woolery
Sort of table in the book you outline these principles of servant leadership things like setting direction risk tolerance and you contrast them with more of a gatekeeper style leader. Maybe we could talk about a couple of those principles that you outlined there.
45:36.64
Kevin Bethune
Yeah, um, like when it comes to like I'll use one 1 example around like hiring I remember unfortunately in my past inflection points where I might have heard things like oh you know can I can I have a beer with this person when I like this person. When the laptops close or we're breaking out the ping-pong paddles. Well I like this person. It's like what? What do you mean? when you say that you're evaluating this person and whether you like them. Well we're not being concrete about how that person and their difference could actually push us to be better as an organization and be more relevant to the people we and. That we intend or claim to serve. Um, so unfortunately I've seen a lot of behaviors where the subject where the subjectivity creates an environment and atmosphere for immediate exclusion where we're we're missing out on the potential that that person that candidate could have had for us. And I've been the recipient as a candidate I've been the recipient of some of those sound bites where it's like where's your edge like what? What do you mean edge? What kind of edge are you looking for? Do you expect me to be like so and so person over there. Well they're actually different from me and I've been told why why can't you be like that person over there. And I'm looking at that person that that person has in their cubicle I hate I hate working with stupid people like sign up on there. You know I remember this like it's for all to see you think we're all stupid but you want to be like that person. Okay I got it. Um.
47:06.48
Kevin Bethune
Just as an example.
47:10.34
Aarron Walter
So curiosity is core component to innovation and it seems like it's It's a core component just to how you ah live your life I'm curious what you're curious about right now. What are you reading watching listening to that's exciting.
47:26.30
Kevin Bethune
Um, I'm I'm definitely gearing up my fascination around all the different Ai tools whether it's chat gbt or mid-journey like especially from a visualization industrial design. A lot of my id mentors. Are you know.
47:31.85
Aarron Walter
A. And.
47:42.14
Kevin Bethune
Bringing me into experiments where we're feeding these these algorithms initial sketches and then the the algorithm puts back 100 sketches back in 3 seconds you know so it's it's very interesting how these tools could augment so thinking about that I'm a believer that still the idios secreies the nonlinearies that make us human.
47:56.52
Aarron Walter
Ah.
48:01.47
Kevin Bethune
Still kind of keep us front and center and ahead of the curve of some of these platforms and these we have to figure out how to leverage these platforms to better assist us in our creative work. That's my belief. Um, until some platform proves me wrong. Um. And I also think about just the present climate that we're in with a lot of the the recent unfortunate layoffs and how it has disproportionately affected design and the mini arena especially up and down the west coast of Silicon Valley and and also I just came from New York last week and a lot of sobering conversations of people being affected.
48:25.71
Aarron Walter
Um.
48:29.85
Aarron Walter
Yeah, Mark yeah.
48:37.26
Kevin Bethune
And it makes me wonder like who is the who is the source of influence where they the cuts need to manifest themselves like who is leading that conversation and I wonder is it is it the I hate to say myopic short-term mindset of Wall Street to say you know we're we're.
48:48.69
Aarron Walter
Um.
48:55.40
Kevin Bethune
And Recessionary Um, we're in a recessionary environment. We don't know if we're fully in a recession yet, but it's a Pre-recessionary Environment. So What are you doing to cut costs and the companies need to say? Oh um, I'm demonstrating cost cutting by targeting nonesssential functions and trimming. Trimming those things down but part of me also says that same wall Street Analyst if I'm going to reward someone's um, you know valuation or stock price or whatever based on confidence of what we think you can do not rewarding you for the thing that already happened like.
49:30.17
Aarron Walter
Yeah, yeah.
49:32.19
Kevin Bethune
Wall Street doesn't behave like that they they they price they value things on confidence level. What they think you can do So are we shooting ourselves in the foot when we see a lot of these design layoffs where the innovative capability is then Hamstrung. You know and how is that company going to poise itself as we emerge out of any recessionary environment that we're in how how feature proof How feature fit are they if they cut cut themselves off by the Knees. So I think about that so who are the voices at the table influencing this behavior of most companies. And unfortunately this subordination of design that we've been observing in certain pockets of Industry. So.
50:12.43
Aarron Walter
Yeah, it's been a fascinating conversation conversation. Kevin where can people learn more about you and your book reimagining design unlocking strategic innovation.
50:23.21
Kevin Bethune
Oh so Kevin Butin Dot Com or you could find me on any social platform usually at at Kevin Bethoon also like any any of that one of those channels will lead you to the book site which is Kevin Bethune hyphen reimagining design.com
50:38.19
Aarron Walter
Fantastic Kevin thanks so much for joining us on the show.
50:41.90
Kevin Bethune
Thank you both for having me appreciate it.
