Making work about humans, not just products

[00:00:00] Sinem Erdemli: We give a lot of importance to things. The thing that we're building, but there's not much emphasis on the interactions that go on the team that you're with, the manager that you have or the mentor, the friends that you make at work. 

[00:00:18] Callum Goodwilliam: The care that's put into supporting and retaining and growing talent goes back into the organization. Not just in the work and the things that are built, but the way that people speak about the organization.

[00:00:29] Nirish Shakya: how safe do you feel failing learning and growing in your organization and is it even encouraged? Or is work just about work?

[00:00:40] In this episode, I had a chat with my good friends, CNY Ley and Callum Goodwill, who are also the co-founders of Random Animal, a socially impact company that's on a mission to improve work for everyone through better access to learning, design and community.

[00:00:59] Cinnamon. Calum. Emphasize the need to focus on the human aspect of work and creating conditions in organizations where teams and individuals can thrive. And they also talk about the importance of building safe spaces and communities where people can go to develop their skills in a non-linear fashion and get support from more experienced peers.

[00:01:21] Shivaun: This is the Design Feeling Podcast with your host Nirish Shakya. 

[00:01:31] Nirish Shakya: Hello. My name is Nirish Shakya and I'm a human-centered designer, educator and coach. And this is a podcast for well, human-centered designers and innovators and problem solvers who tend to forget the human within the. The conversations you'll hear will help you increase your self-awareness and creative confidence so that you can make the impact that gives you the joy and meaning that you seek.

[00:02:04] Let's get started. 

[00:02:07] And Callum, welcome to Design Feeling. It's great to have you join me today.

[00:02:13] Callum Goodwilliam: It's great to be.

[00:02:15] Sinem Erdemli: Thanks. 

[00:02:16] Nirish Shakya: thank you. We have been planning this conversation for quite a while now, and, I'm really excited that this is finally happening. I know we, all of us have met in person a couple of times over the past, couple of years, both in, London, with sym, over some barbecues and some coffees and dinners and with Callam and Valencia, who was very kind to host me, when I was there as a homeless person after losing my passport. But that's a story for another day. 

[00:02:43] So, Siam, you are in Turkey in Istanbul at the moment? 

[00:02:48] Sinem Erdemli: Yes. 

[00:02:48] I. 

[00:02:49] Nirish Shakya: And Callum, you are in Valencia, Spain, very, exotic 

[00:02:53] and, fun locations. and to me it's definitely sounds a lot, like, a lot more fun than where I'm right now in cold, snowy London. but tell us about, well first of all, how, how did you start?

[00:03:07] This company that you've decided to name Random Animal, and obviously when people hear that name, they'll be curious to know where did that name actually come from?

[00:03:18] Callum Goodwilliam: There's, I feel like competing or multiple stories, maybe not competing, but like multiple stories as to quite how we, how we landed here at this point. I've definitely got least one of them. but there's probably a few. So, and I met like as and as I met you as well ish. I'm working for General Assembly, many years ago now.

[00:03:38] And, my role there was, a program manager I hired and worked with lots of different people with a really broad range of different technical expertise and, subject matter expertise, that we hired as instructors to work in the community and to deliver the various programs that they offer. but we had this kind of odd little tradition, one of these things that kind of, you don't notice you're doing until you look back on it.

[00:03:59] But one of things that we had as a, Tiny ritual. when we were, when we had new people joining our, team,within, within GA was that we had this quiz, which was the animal in you? Or like, what, what animal are you? And it's one of these really like ridiculous, but kind of lovely, click through 10 questions.

[00:04:16] Which Disney princess are you? Oh, it turns out you're an otter. kinda thing. And we did this, we did this kind of, there was no regu regularity as to when this quiz popped up for people. It was one of those things where like at some point or another, someone in the team would be like, Hey, have you done the, you've done the animal quiz yet?

[00:04:38] And what I realize, when I look back on that experience was that it used to be an indicator that someone had, warmed up to being in the team. Like. It wasn't a requirement, it wasn't a rite of passage, it wasn't something that you had to do. But every now and then someone would remember that there was this quiz and we all found it funny.

[00:04:57] And it always kinda drove another outta conversation about the kind of person that you were or the way that you worked. And like, the same as all of these things, they are not meant, oh, I don't believe that might be taken particularly seriously. But there were always like a nice topic of conversation.

[00:05:12] And I noticed that it was one of the things that sparked kinda, I don't wanna say just like connection within the team, but it's just like one of these tiny little things that stood out to me as, oh, that was one of the ways that we worked together and how we shared understanding or meaning as a group.

[00:05:27] and as part of that, I just, I had a very silly, running joke around, like horse masks really like the silly, they, they sharpen gifts everywhere. They are funny. I dunno why they're funny. They are just funny.

[00:05:41] Nirish Shakya: and they get really sweaty at the end of the party.

[00:05:43] Callum Goodwilliam: Yes, exactly. I went through a phase of, sharing gifts connected to those, to the point where my, old boss bought me one for Christmas year.

[00:05:51] and that just connection with a random animal was random animals as part of that quiz was just a of that stuck with me in the conversations that we were having about work and ways of working. I, I realized that there's probably a few other things I've missed as well. What's your, what's.

[00:06:10] Sinem Erdemli: Yeah. The way that we ended up here is through just random chats, which we like. Random chats, random animal. we were talking, I think about like service design in the beginning And, then it turned into teaching. Well, Callum used to be my like boss at like general assembly, so we

[00:06:32] Nirish Shakya: Or should I? Should I, should we say our boss 

[00:06:35] Sinem Erdemli: Yeah, our boss. yeah, so we, we had like regular catch ups and that turned into I guess like sharing, I dunno, things that were on our minds. And then when Callum left Generals and we just carried on talking and it was about like service design and how we apply it to work. And I was really into like ways of working and really like cross-functional teaming and. Teaming in, in, in particular, in self organizing teams. How do we do this? Like, is there a different way, education, da, da da, like, and it, it turned out to be like a year and a half later and we were having regular catch ups, like sometimes spending like half of a bank holiday just jamming on a mirror board, thinking about how we might, make sure that someone who,wants, like is in The middle of their career, is looking to step up and learn about leadership, but doesn't know where to go, doesn't have a massive budget for coaching.

[00:07:36] Like, what do they do? Is there any resource other than, like a bunch of LinkedIn videos that they can listen to alone. so a couple of like, just different ideas and then we were like, oh, 

[00:07:48] actually, like this might be a thing that we 

[00:07:50] do. And, and then. 

[00:07:52] We had created the substance of it, I suppose.

[00:07:56] We were like,

[00:07:57] oh, what is the name? 

[00:07:58] and 

[00:07:59] just got in, I guess like inspired by, like random animal because like Callum had 

[00:08:05] the horse as the emoji and I had the fox as the emoji. And then somehow like we just like a bunch of randoms 

[00:08:14] So yeah.

[00:08:16] Callum Goodwilliam: And, and there's one other which was quite nice. The person that we collaborated with around our, our branding and visual work spotted the connection between, know, when you open Google Docs and if you come in person, normally you're getting like,

[00:08:28] Nirish Shakya: Ah, yes,

[00:08:29] Callum Goodwilliam: or whatever, any kinda type of animal type.

[00:08:32] They spotted that as well. And obviously we're education in the tech develop.

[00:08:41] Nirish Shakya: I love that. I hadn't actually, yeah, because,every time you, get someone to come into your mirror board or your Google Doc, you come in as a random animal, right? And that's, that's our identity to start off with. And that's what makes us, like you said, comfortable being that space.

[00:08:57] Cause we are all random animals rather than, being different things. Right? We are all, we are, we're all connected by this kind of inner, I guess, common identity, that we all share. That's, that's, that's super fascinating. I, I, I just thought it was a random name, but there's deeper meaning into this 

[00:09:15] love that. love that.

[00:09:17] And, what are you guys trying to do with this 

[00:09:21] Sinem Erdemli: Retire. 

[00:09:25] Nirish Shakya: but before then, 

[00:09:26] Sinem Erdemli: We can remove this, by the way, 

[00:09:29] Nirish Shakya: what's your, what's, what's your why? Like, why, why, why are you bothering with this?

[00:09:36] Callum Goodwilliam: The one that I come back to you, timing again is making work better for everyone. And that sounds simple or perhaps a little grandiose, but like genuinely the thing that. thing that's been a thread in my work and the, and the things that I've done in my career so far has been a combination of two things.

[00:09:59] One, I've never quite ever left 

[00:10:00] education, like just in one way or another. Always been involved in roles that have supported education and learning. And two, how do we use tooling and technology to make work and make life better for people? I, there is so much opportunity to, I dunno, don't go far as I'm a techno optimist, but like I see the amazing possibility and possibilities for using tech in ways and, enhancing people's lives, either by being able to create more opportunities for them or opportunities in their pathways and and work experiences. Through, I guess understanding both the combination of technology and people like those, like technology and working well with technology and understanding people and, and those two kind, I guess those two halves have been at the center of everything that I've kind, I've done my work, took me a while to figure that out, but that was where it started for me.

[00:11:03] And I think that, as you said, those overlapping spaces of how do we make work better? How do we make learning better? What are the things that are missing for people? How do we make it more accessible for more people, I think sits right to heart for me.

[00:11:21] Nirish Shakya: and, and what's wrong with work right now?

[00:11:25] Callum Goodwilliam: I mean, there's a lot of things. There's a, there's a lot, right? There's a lot of challenges for lots of organizations and for lots of people there's. Lots of, I think gaps. I mean, starting, let's start at the beginning of like, there is a huge space of skills gaps and, talent shortage that lots of organizations are talking about now in terms of the need for more people with high, high digital literacy, high people skills, team skills, people development.

[00:12:04] There's a huge, there's huge gaps there for organizations. Organizations are saying they need more people with digital literacy, high kinda technical skill skilling. and there are lots of people desperately wanting better work conditions, better opportunities, better roles in which they can grow their careers.

[00:12:19] They can have more stable opportunities, they can,move into new opportunity. So, Companies are saying that they need more people and they need more, highly skilled people, and people are out there saying, we want more opportunities to get into these roles. We want more opportunities for stability, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:12:39] there's a need there on both sides of the coin.

[00:12:43] Nirish Shakya: Mm-hmm. . And are you trying to be the bridge between those? 

[00:12:49] Sinem Erdemli: Yeah. but not just us. I suppose like we ide understand that it's not a one person or a two person or a one organization job. It's a way, and I like it. We're still kind of figuring out how it will happen, but the intention for us is about partnership and collaboration in this space. It's not about competition.

[00:13:19] And I think what, to your question about what is wrong with work is that my experience at least, like we give a lot of importance to things. The thing that we're building, if it's a digital product, it's the, you know, look at the app and like on my portfolio, I need to show the thing that I've brought in.

[00:13:42] But there's not much emphasis on the interactions that go on the team that you're with, the, the manager that you have or the mentor, the friends that you make at work. And it's, I think bringing a focus back to the human, and bringing the focus back to the person and the learner. Let's make like, education learner led, let's make work employee led, rather than saying, oh, we like work on amazing, creating amazing products.

[00:14:20] Like, great. But if your team 

[00:14:22] is of friction and. , you can't feel safe raising something with like, say, raising a problem. That amazing product when you put it on your portfolio, it's just gonna be like a whatever thing. And the industry, I think, needs to stop caring about the shiny things and really focus on creating impactful work together without trying to go after like a zero sum gain.

[00:14:54] Nirish Shakya: Hmm.

[00:14:55] Callum Goodwilliam: Yeah. to add to that, I think one of the, to give you a really tangible example of, I think one of the things that evolved or my, some of my perspective that evolved from being in a 

[00:15:03] community like general Assemblies was that when you 

[00:15:07] take the next step in your career, you're deciding to retrain or you're gonna do something 

[00:15:12] very different. There's an awful lot of, there's, it's high stakes for people, right? It's a lot of 

[00:15:17] time, it's a lot of energy, it's often a lot of money to be able to commit to doing something like 

[00:15:20] that. So people put their all into it. And one of the lovely things that comes out of that is like this very quick forging of strong bonds and relationships and friendships that can bloom outta those experiences.

[00:15:35] I saw that an awful lot, both with instructor that were working on these programs. Amazing

[00:15:43] career. One of the things I noticed was like that sense of community where you can like drop your guard, be very vulnerable about what you dunno. Beginner's mindset, learner's mindset, however you wanna describe it back

[00:16:01] exceptionally. But the positive memories that people can come away with if they're supported well, if they're looked after, can be transformational. Like, change your career, change your life, go in a completely new direction, and you can come out the other side of that. With a new network and a new set skills.

[00:16:22] One of the things that I was like, I want, I see feels maybe it's, there's an opportunity for us that that's there for people who are taking that first step on the ladder and pivoting into a new role, right? If you do that, say you come from a background where you don't have any digital experience or specific work as a developer or a product manager or anything, or a designer.

[00:16:42] You have that support when you first make that step. But after that, when you're wanting to go deeper with the skills, the learning doesn't stop at that point, right? You go into a new job, you meet a new team, and you're, again, you're continuously in that space of like, I'm having to learn, I'm having to grow.

[00:16:56] That community and connection that is there at the beginning of that transition actually starts to drift away. Like you, you potentially, you maybe stay in contact with one or two people. I know that that's the case often, like people will kind of keep a smaller group of people that they, they still stay in contact with, but that supports space for people when they are maybe mid-career or they're starting to think about trying to go from a junior to mid or mid to senior.

[00:17:21] How you create that continuous like space for people to come back to is, I think that's, that's missing for a lot of people. They want to continue to be able to have a network, something that they can dip in and out of when they need it and as they need it. And I think a challenge there is about how do you make that easy for someone to do?

[00:17:39] How do you make that something affordable for someone to do? and on demand, increasingly people are wanting learning to be as said, highly personal, highly bespoke to their needs and crafted to where they're at at that moment. and that's the problem space that I think we're both super curious by, like, how do you create that community that people can keep coming back to and create a combination of programs and network and contacts that allows people to push the next stage of their career wherever that is, wherever you, right at the beginning of it, and you're a junior or you are all the way up to a senior, senior designer, senior lead in any kind of, tech discipline.

[00:18:16] Nirish Shakya: Yeah. There, there are quite a few things I wanted to unpick there. There's some really, good things that came up. and one of the first things that,I wanted to unpick was, what CM said around, how Sheena were trying to shift focus from things to people. which. to me. I totally agree.

[00:18:34] That sounds lovely thing to do, for companies and for employees. but the reality is, you get hired to build things, right? Like when you're going into an interview, you have to show proof that you have built things in the past and that you can build things in the future. And that's how most companies make money through things, products and services.

[00:18:53] why would they care about, shifting that focus from something that already makes them money directly, although like, with the full knowledge that yeah, if we were to invest more in people and turning into a, an employee centered experience, that would probably help in the long run.

[00:19:11] But especially in today's world, for example, you. All the big tech like Facebook, they've, they've laid off like, what, 12,000 people and they're planning to lay off another 10,000. Right. everything is so, volatile and unambiguous, both for on, for both sides, for the companies and for the employees. and it feels to me that that's gonna add another layer of challenge to, to your work to make people, again, care about some of these things that might not directly attribute to, revenue or, shareholder, shareholder value.

[00:19:40] H how do you plan to tackle that?

[00:19:43] Sinem Erdemli: I, think like, the way is, I, don't know. Callum, you can jump in. Like, we'll care if you don't wanna care. It's an outsourced caring mechanism, like, and if the moment you decide you want to care, then we can come in and help you start implementing processes and people that are going to create that

[00:20:09] caring system.

[00:20:10] But it's, it's a way to de-risk owning a retraining program for your mid-level designers or mid-level product managers. 

[00:20:22] It's a way to say, okay, like, here's a 

[00:20:24] community, it's affordable, and then let's, let's subscribe to it and actually use, this community to do it for.

[00:20:37] Callum Goodwilliam: Yeah, I, I think to your point, NIUs, like, I, I don't think the intention of what we would wanna try and do to support organizations or individuals, Ultimately runs against those goals of being, shipping excellent products, being a profitable entity, like being successful. 

[00:20:57] I think the thing that I've seen, and I think really smart organizations do is recognize the importance of creating conditions where teams and individuals thrive, like you take retention.

[00:21:11] Yet, of course, there are periods of change within, within industries where sweeping changes happen and redundancies are made and sectors laid off. Right. But you take that happening in the tech sector at the moment, is that, A huge number of smaller organizations that maybe didn't have the brand recognition or clout to attract potentially really highly, highly skilled workers that are interested in working at some of these large tech organizations.

[00:21:39] The really smart ones now will be creating the conditions that mean that those people that have been affected, they can now attract them and they can bring them in-house and create a, a, a thriving culture that ensures that they attract that kinda talent. Now. That, to me feels like a huge opportunity for organizations in terms of how they're approaching.

[00:22:01] The way that they onboard people, the way that they, you know, the, the, the data around the cost to organizations in, in retention alone, right? It's, it's significant. It's, there's plenty of data out there that points to the fact that if you're good at retaining your best employees and the best and brightest like that has a huge impact on bottom line.

[00:22:19] And then a huge impact on the cost of hiring and outsourcing and going through all those kinda cycles again. So I truly think that really smart organizations are thinking about that kinda tension between the changes that might be happening in other parts of industries and how they can, I don't wanna say benefit from it, but be ready to capture those kinds of,ca support the changes are happening or be ready to try and make conditions better.

[00:22:45] and I, I genuinely just like have a really, from all the experience I've had in organizations, it's like, The care that's put into supporting and retaining and growing talent goes back into the organization. Not just in the work and the things that are built, but the way that people speak about the organization, your brand, like how people speak about the brand, how you attract other people to, to your organization.

[00:23:10] I think those things are incredibly hard to measure and I think companies tend to shy away from trying to measure that. Cause it's, it's, it's difficult, but I think it can be done. And I've seen examples of it for sure.

[00:23:23] Nirish Shakya: And what if, let's say there's a, a business leader or a design leader listening to this right now, and, they're, they agree with what you're saying and they want to, will assess, their own organization in terms of like their current gaps and what kind of conditions they have, created for their employees.

[00:23:40] how can they start to do some of that assessment just to kind of know what, what are they starting with?

[00:23:49] Callum Goodwilliam: In my experience, it's always that deep collaboration across the kind of different leadership functions in any organization to really understand where the gaps are for individuals and teams. how any leader does that obviously varies depending on the structure of the company, but being able to really get into and drill down into those problems and understand where the gaps are from a development perspective or from a team's perspective feels like the most important.

[00:24:16] It's always gonna be the most important thing. Once you know what the problems are and you're able to talk about them and you able to point you able to re research and evidence that, well, then you've identified the problem space to which you then would consider kinda the right solutions for it or the, in most cases, there's gonna be a range of different solutions or a holistic approach to solving that.

[00:24:36] but yeah, knowing what your problem or problems are, say. I've always been interested in service design. I have never described, I've never gone through any formal training in, defer to.

[00:24:50] Nirish Shakya: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Yeah. you know, Siam you are, you are, pretty big on, workplace wellbeing and, I have seen firsthand in terms of the things that you have done, for clients and also for companies, around helping teams work better. Right. what kind of challenges have you faced in trying to, implement or embed some of those, rituals or practices, in, product teams, digital teams?

[00:25:14] Sinem Erdemli: the, in all honesty, egos, I think that's it. Usually, like the insecurity that you may feel with change probably is one. One blocker, one tension, friction. the other one is the, I guess like learned helplessness in saying, well, I'm not going to, so I'm imagining a scenario where, the leadership team is like, well, the manage or the management team, they're like, oh, cool.

[00:25:44] Like, let's find out what's going on. And then they do a bunch of interviews. They do a bunch of like surveys, co-creation workshops, whatever. And then there's some sort of excitement and energy around the activity, and everyone's like, yeah, like, we're doing this. And then there might be an underlying feeling of saying, well, actually, like every input that I give, like, nothing's going to change.

[00:26:07] So there needs to be, I suppose, like an honest conversation. Which is missing around, like, this is our boundary, this is our scope, this is what we intend to change. We can't give you all of you a raise of like fif, I dunno, like 50% more money. but we really need to like, it's the shared vision. Sorry, I'm just talking over myself.

[00:26:32] it's the shared vision that like needs to be established. The trust between the teams and the accountability. I think like we, like if I trust you, if I'm, say I'm the manager and you're like the person, like the contributor, individual contributor, I need to be able to trust you to say, okay, like you own your experience as well, so I need you to give me feedback rather than wait for.

[00:27:02] Instructions. Same with teaching and students. You can't, like, as a student, you can't expect every single minute to be planned. If it's, like studio time. It's for you to learn how to manage your time. And that's what we really want to, provide. It's, it's almost a like a career companion to show that, okay, like, we're here to support, but you need to take accountability.

[00:27:32] You need to take ownership of the experience that you're creating. So I think like lack of accountability, lack of

[00:27:39] trust, and like lots of big egos and really like, 

[00:27:44] I guess like fragile egos get in the way in implementing these. So you could do all of the, 

[00:27:49] the double diamond and the idea generation, but for the implementation to 

[00:27:54] stick.

[00:27:55] Everyone needs to be on the same page about what the intention 

[00:27:59] is.

[00:28:00] Callum Goodwilliam: Yeah. 

[00:28:01] Nirish Shakya: are there any, tactics or strategies that have been more effective than others in terms of like managing these challenge?

[00:28:08] Callum Goodwilliam: One of the things that I come back to time and again about how you can support either individuals and how they start to change roles or take on new responsibilities, moving to new opportunities or how you help organizations shift is the ways in which you build psychological safety. Like it's referenced in so much of the literature around teams and working with others and organizations.

[00:28:35] It's like, can you, what's the fastest ways that you can help increase psychological safety? And that goes back to SIM's point around if someone's like, why isn't someone talking up or speaking honestly about what they need? And that might not be anything to do with the direct line manager or their experience.

[00:28:54] There could be about whole history of things that have happened both in their career previously or in the organization itself directly. So you have to be aware that that change for someone and how you create conditions that allow. More psychological safety isn't necessarily gonna happen in one course or in one day.

[00:29:13] And I think companies, obviously, it's totally understandable that a company wants to move really, really quickly to change positively in the right direction and enable all of these conditions that suddenly means that teams transformed overnight. You can do a lot of things in terms of skills and in terms of support that do enable change quickly, but I think there has to be a recognition and understanding that some of these things may take more time and there are different ways that you can get to that space.

[00:29:38] And I think. I think for us when think, when thinking about how do you help someone grow psychological safety, well yes, there are conditions within an organization that might need to be adjusted to improve that, but providing some structures, organization build the tools or is one companies the other side is actually providing a community in a space where people can come to independently of their work.

[00:30:05] So you can come and be part of the random animal community and there will be space or programs or time for you to work on developing those skills in a non-linear fashion or not in a set, not in a very fixed condensed period of time. Cause maybe you need some more space to figure that stuff out or help create conditions that push you kinda kinda to, to improve that for you.

[00:30:26] So yeah. Speed, I think is one of the things that feels like another challenge. It's like companies wanna move quickly all the time, and yes, I understand why it normally means that it's cost like one way or the other. It costs an organization either in progress or in, money one way. So I get it, but I think some of these things need more time, or depending on the need and depending on the individual, depending on the problem.

[00:30:53] Nirish Shakya: Yeah. And I think, that's, that's the, the awareness that we probably need to have as leaders or, as organizations where different things need different, amount of amounts of time to change. this kind of reminds me of this metaphor of, when you're, like, when you're on a train or you're driving down a highway, like the trees closest to you move so fast, whereas the, the buildings further away move more slowly and then the moon never seems to move.

[00:31:16] Right. And a lot of times, people and culture seems like the moon is like, the culture doesn't, doesn't seem to change. Doesn't matter how hard I try, but it is moving. just, you can't see it. Right? Because maybe, that, that we're talking, perhaps talking about a, a different scale.

[00:31:31] Sinem Erdemli: Yeah. And 

[00:31:32] it's more, it's moving quickest at times of, stress, like now volatility, how you respond to, 

[00:31:40] all the 

[00:31:41] layoffs and like what you what message you're giving, what. Behaviors, your,how you're 

[00:31:49] behaving, what what like micro messages you're giving away with, with your way of acting and behaving and, taking care of

[00:31:59] Nirish Shakya: Yeah, I just had a question around that in terms of, if you're a leader, you know what the gaps are, you know what you need to 

[00:32:04] do, but you just cannot prioritize or make time for it because there's so much to do. 

[00:32:13] Every day to get, 

[00:32:14] products shipped. How do you, how do you even make time for 

[00:32:19] it?

[00:32:21] Callum Goodwilliam: So

[00:32:24] I mean, to a degree. Yeah. I mean like I know you're part, I know you're partially joke, joking there, but 

[00:32:32] like 

[00:32:33] Sinem Erdemli: serious 

[00:32:34] Callum Goodwilliam: Yeah. 

[00:32:34] Sinem Erdemli: delegate. We like leaders. You don't have to be a manager. Like I'm, I, wanna distinguish between leader and manager. I could be a leader like what? At whatever level within the organization. And if as a manager of multiple people, you. have still a lot of things to do, which are involved in the actual product, I might ask why? like what are everyone that you're managing doing? Are you managing them? If you are managing the people to deliver good product, then

[00:33:11] you should be prioritizing people over the thing that's being built to enable them to build 

[00:33:17] that. me, like it's delegate. like, if, if I, understood 

[00:33:24] your, like, like leader in a, in the way where like I need to do a lot of things and it, it'll shift, right?

[00:33:29] Like you, won't have that as a priority all the time. But if

[00:33:33] it's high stress, everyone's under a lot of stress, then you can prioritize that for one day and then switch the priority the next day Sorry, Callum, I like.

[00:33:44] Callum Goodwilliam: No, no, no. I, I completely agree with you. and 

[00:33:47] like your point around leader, like manager is a, is a title, leadership is a set of behaviors, right? It doesn't matter who you're, like, I, I, I find that one a real sticking point in terms of the way that people talk about it, as though, I think we want to encourage with an organizations, every, everyone, every organization needs more leadership or leadership behaviors. How do you, when you are in a position of leadership, where it's expected of you in 

[00:34:15] your role, ensure that you are creating that space? I think it's incredibly, I think it's incredibly difficult. Like I think the best examples that I've seen, in, in, in both in my roles and in organizations is where you can create conditions for peers to engage in conversations around this space.

[00:34:41] And I think, again, back to what we wanna try and be able to do for people is that if your organization doesn't have that space or outlet easily, how can you pull people together who are living shared experiences or have commonalities in how they're trying to manage complexity or how they're trying to prioritize creating that, these opportunities for people within your organization, pulling people together into spaces where they can talk about this stuff.

[00:35:06] And learn from each other has always been the thing that has made the difference for me individually, and it's why I'm such a, like, I believe in it so firmly, like you two as two people that I've sat and spent hours talking about, trying to figure out solutions to complex things in relation to people and development and support within organizations.

[00:35:25] You're just a, you're, I've had so many incredible insights just from these kinds of conversations. So how, what do I recommend you try and do is doesn't matter who you are. Try and create those peer relationships where you can get brilliant minds to talk about these things with you. Check your biases.

[00:35:43] Check your gaps. Check where you feel confident, get feedback from them regularly. Listen to the thing. Really learn to listen to the things that they're struggling with and help them support them through those things. For me as well, has been the kind of the best part of my professional development and how I've grown fastest.

[00:36:03] Nirish Shakya: Yeah, I love that cuz I think that that is another way to delegate where you're not, doing the work yourself, but you're creating conditions for great work to happen by, I guess creating fertile conditions where people can come together. and like you said, Callum early in terms of feeling safe to, I guess be themselves, without, retribution.

[00:36:22] and I guess that that is the, the holy Grail, for a lot of, leaders and organizations out there. How do you create that space?

[00:36:29] Callum Goodwilliam: The thing I caveat with that is that like I'm, I don't think I'm naive enough to think that that is possible at all times in all organizations. In fact, I think that's a rare thing and that is a hard, really hard thing to cultivate. So the expectation that you can go in and be your fully authentic self in every organization setting and that to work for you from a career development perspective, I think that's not absolutely not the case.

[00:36:55] Nirish Shakya: Hmm

[00:36:55] Callum Goodwilliam: you have to. Really be able to learn how to work within the systems and the expectations within your organization. And some organizations have really got the conditions figured out well, but I, that's why I think there's a gap. I think there are opportunities for people to be able to come together and for organizations to work together to better create those conditions.

[00:37:18] but it's not easy. It's really, really not necessarily easy.

[00:37:22] Sinem Erdemli: like a mentorship. And a line management structure, or a buddy and a line management structure or, you've got your, for us, like at, like at a, at Red Badger as like a consultancy, we come together as the project team that we're on a project and really share honestly, and openly and ask for reach out for support.

[00:37:46] And it's, I think like mentorship and having those relationships really help because we're not taught, how to be a leader, how to, manage people. There are trainings that let you do that, but there're not, as, they're very late in the in the game of, of like career development and it's about bringing, growth mindset and how do you give feedback and all those. Interpersonal teaming skills into your education as early as possible. And I say education not in a like primary school, but 

[00:38:25] in your career development. And that's why I think like what we're really passionate about is the things 

[00:38:31] that are not related to,

[00:38:33] you 

[00:38:33] know, how to make a wire frame, but more 

[00:38:35] so, how like different ways of giving feedback and running critiques and workshop, like facilitation, creating a safe space and peer coaching rather than, one-to-one.

[00:38:46] Give me 

[00:38:47] like all the direction, like how do I set a goal for myself? How do 

[00:38:51] I, make my 

[00:38:53] career journey 

[00:38:55] Nirish Shakya: not the work directly, but the work around the work that 

[00:38:58] Sinem Erdemli: The work on you so that you can do the work 

[00:39:00] Nirish Shakya: That's right. 

[00:39:01] Callum Goodwilliam: I think that's one thing that has, it was such a common thread in our conversation early on, is that I think historically there's been this. Particularly with the rush to digital that happened over the last decade or more. It's like there's such a strong emphasis on technical, technical skills.

[00:39:17] And yes, they're obviously critical, but there's often been an conversation. It's like you're either incredibly technically or you work with people. And, but that's increasingly, I think people understand that that's nonsense. Like you have to have, you should be developing your skillsets,holistically.

[00:39:35] And, and you need realistically, regardless of whether you wanna be an individual contributor or work as a kind, one person in a, in a wider team or whether you wanna manage people, the peoples skills and the communication skills connected to working effectively with others are critical and a critical part of growth, whichever way you kind wanna go.

[00:39:53] So it doesn't need to be either or. That binary thinking there is like totally, I think just useless. And it can be yes. And you gotta do both. But yeah, I just think that it, it's, it's frequently described in you either in one camp or the other, and I just think that's just.

[00:40:10] Nirish Shakya: Hmm. And I know, 

[00:40:12] Sinem Erdemli: feeling as much as thinking. 

[00:40:15] Nirish Shakya: That's it. That's it. and I know both of you, cinnamon Callum, you're big on like, learning and education and, you've been in the education industry for quite a long time. both as,coordinators and educators. and and we've all, taught, boot camps as well at General, general Assembly and other places, and help people graduate out of those and get into workplaces.

[00:40:34] but one of the conversations I remember having with you guys last time was around, there are limitations to what the, 

[00:40:39] boot camp can teach people, right? It, it teaches, teaches, a certain level of skills. But beyond that, once you get into the workplace, you're all by yourself. Like, you know how you have to kind of figure out, figure a way to out, by.

[00:40:50] and I think I remember what you mentioned was you were, you are also trying to kinda support that post, formal learning journey, into the workplace. how, how do you plan to do that? Is that, is that something that you're still doing?

[00:41:03] Callum Goodwilliam: Absolutely. I, I would say like I'm always fascinated with the language around what we used to describe anything. And, bootcamp I think is a really fascinating piece of language. I think it's accurate, but. When you think of boot camps, you think of what, like drill instructors working incredibly hard,being put through your paces

[00:41:24] and you 

[00:41:24] Nirish Shakya: five,

[00:41:25] Callum Goodwilliam: yes, exactly, gimme five and you have to work exceptionally hard over a really condensed period of time and it will whip you into shape.

[00:41:33] Like I think that's a pretty fair piece of language to associate with that kind of like immersive, career change, kinda work. It is really hard. You need a lot of good support, I'd say. I've never seen anyone taking the drill instructor screaming approach that that doesn't resonate at all, but the like, intensity of it Absolutely does.

[00:41:53] And I think one of the things that we chatted a lot about over our time working together is that that set of conditions doesn't necessarily work for people for lots of different reasons. Either of financial responsibilities, family responsibilities, caregiving responsibilities, lots of things which.

[00:42:09] And so what we've become a bit obsessed with is like, how do you offer the same kinda quality of learning, but maybe over a different time period or bolted together and connected together in different ways so that you're still getting to those kinds of goals and that's excellence, but maybe not in that format.

[00:42:28] And it's, I know base camp or you referring to ourselves as a base camp, not base camp at all, but like a, a long journey across a mountain or a hike or any of those kinds of storytelling where you're setting out on a long adventure. To me, that's the thing that kind resonates more closely with the kind work that we want and that we would wanna provide for people and organizations.

[00:42:55] It's not a short journey. Continuous learning is just, it's just a necessity at this point in terms of your career, how we create conditions where, Learning is something that's accessible and enjoyable and part of.

[00:43:14] Sinem Erdemli: Yeah. And it's, it's almost like throughout that journey you will still be curious about something. You'll still want to learn something. So it's almost like taking the foundation of say, design like UX design or product management and say, okay, like how do I build, growth mindset or leadership on top of it?

[00:43:37] How do I build product management as a complimentary skill or maybe not comp product management, but I dunno, facilitation or giving feedback. And kind of. the way that I think about it is like a, like a choose your own adventure books that we used to have. Like everyone's adventure is gonna be different in their squiggly careers.

[00:43:58] Giving modular 

[00:44:03] Lego type, it's a lot of 

[00:44:05] metaphors I know, but it's like, it's almost like Legos that you brick, you pick 

[00:44:09] the big brick that you want to reach a particular 

[00:44:13] goal, and then you pick another brick and then You stand back and reflect and it's within the, 

[00:44:19] within a similar safe space rather than trying to find someone 

[00:44:25] wherever your career takes you to. 

[00:44:28] And there's continuity in the support that you.

[00:44:32] Callum Goodwilliam: And I'm gonna add to that metaphor, which is that the, when you're staring at a big pile of bricks that I go bricks on the floor. And you don't have instructions or a guide to build the thing. you. 

[00:44:47] might not know what it is that you want to build. You might be experimental, you might be happy to just like, I dunno, I'm gonna build anything.

[00:44:53] And, oh look, it's turned out like an alien spaceship. Cool. But for me, the value of, building a community around practitioners who have walked that journey or walked a version of that journey means that you can, they might not give you an exact map, but they might give you a few different routes and options.

[00:45:14] Some might be the, the, what is it, like the green trail or the red trail, like, the easy to hard pathways that you could take, but by surrounding yourself with people who have been on those kinds of journeys and who love helping others do it. And I think that was one of the things that, from the first time I met either of you, is just like the joy in helping other people figure out that crazy pathway.

[00:45:37] It's not gonna be identical. They're not gonna take exactly the same steps that you did, but you have so much to share with those people and, and enjoy giving it back. Like that's a nice thing. I've never met anyone who, when asked, would you mind like talking about, about your experience and how you got to where you wanna get to?

[00:45:53] I've never met anyone that's like, no, I hate doing that. Please don't ask me about my learnings and what I would've done differently. And if I could go back in time and meet myself on day one of this journey, here's how I would, here's the advice I would give myself. Most people like sharing that advice, especially if they think it could help someone else do it more easily or learn from the mistakes they made along the way.

[00:46:15] Nirish Shakya: Are you, are you guys referring to mentors or is it something different?

[00:46:19] Callum Goodwilliam: I think this is a core part of mentorship. I think it's a core part of being an instructor of a pro, any kind of program, whether it's a one day program or one week program, or one year program if you're leading others, I think. Doing that in a training or a learning environment, whether you're a mentor for someone else or whether you're just part of a community like it, it, I think there's a blur between the, title that you have and the roles that you play in work and in communities and a lot of the people that, again, you two are both perfect.

[00:46:51] Perfect. Examples of this is that your title might be one thing. You play roles of support that are paid in some circumstances and some of the work that you do are totally free and informal in others. but you do them in both those spheres, if that makes sense. because you are interested in it, cuz you care about it.

[00:47:08] So yes, it could be an then, so could be an instructor or a teacher, it could be as a manager. or it could just be unsolicited. Unsolicited cuz someone reached out to you and said, Hey, is there any time you can gimme some advice on this? I'm struggling with X or Y.

[00:47:22] Nirish Shakya: So what I'd like you to do now is both of you to just close your eyes for a bit and it's the future, let's say five years from now on, 20, was it 2028, would an ideal future of work look like to you? Who's in it? What are they doing? How are they operating and why?

[00:47:55] Callum Goodwilliam: Companies are continuing down the pathway of recognizing that experimenting and being open to different ways of working. Has deep value for both their own organization, for the people that work in it and for the planet and the world around us. Like we haven't really talked about the environment as part of this conversation, but we've spoken cinema night at length that like the role the organizations have in helping drive change and be part of positive change that needs to happen for the planet and for the people that live here, i e all of us, like feels really, really key.

[00:48:43] I think the work that we want to do is to make those kinds of organizations more accessible to more people. I think everyone. Keen to work in companies that are making a positive difference and it's clear to them the positive difference of work that they do has for teams, their companies, and ideally as well.

[00:49:09] I'll.

[00:49:10] Nirish Shakya: And I just wanted to point out, if you're listening to this episode, is that Callum had, it had his eyes closed the whole time when he said that, so he was going definitely really deep there. and one of the things that, I think that remind me of, of con of conversation I had with,the guests on this podcast, Dr.

[00:49:27] Martin Thomas, who is a professor of interaction design at the University of Sydney, who mentioned, how, there is the three circles of desirability, feasibility, and viability. And now companies, you would wanna think about adding a fourth circle of sustainability. Like how do you make your products, your services, and your impact more sustainable over the long run and not just, think about your users, customers, and shareholders, but also the planet, non-human stakeholders, the environment, like you said.

[00:49:56] and then I think that's gonna, come towards us close, sooner than we probably think they will. So sym, what about you? What does that ideal future of work look like to you? 

[00:50:10] Sinem Erdemli: Mine was a lot simpler, but a lot, I guess like harder to achieve in, in some way because my like, and it was a very short, like, because it's very much aligned with what I want to achieve, like personally as well is work is not a source of stress, it's a source of point of interaction with other people where I get to, hang out with my friends, like a quote from like a future employee.

[00:50:44] doesn't have to be like friend, friend. It can be, rewinding like the future looks like a place where I can interact with people. Trust and can learn from, and they trust me back and I feel safe. And it's not a source of stress. It's not a source of staying awake at night worrying, oh my God, I have to see that person tomorrow. or, 

[00:51:15] there's a deadline that I must miss.

[00:51:18] What, what am I gonna say? How am I gonna handle it? It's not, we're not in a rush like to attend a meeting, ideally

[00:51:30] Nirish Shakya: Hmm.

[00:51:30] Sinem Erdemli: and we're focused on the bigger impact stuff. Linking to what Callum was saying, like actually creating meaningful impact and being able to collaborate without competing.

[00:51:43] Callum Goodwilliam: I was gonna say, can, can I, I, I don't wanna 

[00:51:45] revise my answer, but I wanna maybe like add, add a caveat to it. Two, two caveats. One, this is a very classic K dynamic, 

[00:51:52] which is I'll talk for ages and then ask, and she'll go, no or Yes, she'll, she'll, she'll say, she'll 

[00:52:01] summarize in a I absolutely desperate. 

[00:52:09] Second, 

[00:52:11] acknowledge, acknowledge is that I feel deeply privileged and. In most of my work in my career, I feel like I've, I've had some tremendous opportunity and I feel very lucky to work with really talented people and really nice people a lot in what I do. And I recognize that lots of people do not have that privilege, but more people absolutely should have.

[00:52:38] Like ultimately, that for me is the most important thing being, having, having the luxury of being able to work in learning or work in design or work in a very specific, focused area of one industry or, or the tech sector. It's like loads of people do not get to do that, and loads of people face much more difficult conditions and circumstances in their work. Helping people manage those circumstances or create conditions for change, that just feels like the thing that's worth doing until the end of the universe. Like we, the more that we can do that for people. In small ways and bigger ways feels like we're chipping away at something which helps drive wide, wider change.

[00:53:20] Nirish Shakya: Hmm. So it's not just about doing the work that gives you meaning, but also helping other people get meaning out of their work they're doing. It's something that, something we need to think about. Great. So how can people who are listening right now get involved with your work with a random animal?

[00:53:41] Callum Goodwilliam: Come say hello. that's probably the starting point. yeah, we've been, we've been softly launching, or I say like working on, bringing the website to life and talking more to people about the services that we intend to offer over the last few months. Websites now live, you can come and say hello,

[00:53:59] depending on what 

[00:54:01] Sinem Erdemli: random animal.org. 

[00:54:03] Callum Goodwilliam: Yes. That's alright. Yeah, we have a mailing list to sign up so you can find out more about the programs that we're gonna be offering in the coming months. and I guess, I suppose it depends on, you need right now, if you work in an organization where you're needing support with talent development, onboarding, a whole range of different learning programs that might support teams or technical training, come speak to us about that.

[00:54:26] If you yourself are looking to go through some programming or support development for your own personal journey, 

[00:54:32] not attached to organization or another, come chat to us that we've got a small, amazing people. we wanna meet some more of you in

[00:54:43] Nirish Shakya: Awesome. And is there a, a resource, a book, a person that has been very helpful in your career that you would recommend?

[00:54:54] Callum Goodwilliam: I, I realized, Something practical that might be nice to share with people around mentors and finding them. It's a question I used to ask bunch of literally every time I did talks 

[00:55:05] regularly in, in previous organizations and specifically with training instructors.

[00:55:09] I would always tend to ask the question, who's your favorite teacher and why? I think back to primary school, think back 

[00:55:15] to secondary school. Most people 

[00:55:18] can find one teacher that comes to mind very quickly about how they made, how it made them feel about learning early, early on. And try and find the reasons why they made you feel like that about learning and about a subject, whatever those reasons were.

[00:55:36] Go find those people in the world that speak the same way about a thing that you wanna learn, a skill you want to develop, or a subject that you're interested in. Because if you just seek those people out and they're everywhere, those are the people that bring the learning to life for you, and I think help incredib teachers.

[00:56:00] And why is.

[00:56:03] Nirish Shakya: for me, the, the person that comes to mind is, my, one of my teachers, in year nine is the name is Father Bill Robbins, and this is back in Nepal. And he is the only teacher or the only person in the world, that actually made me love physics. and I, otherwise, I used to hate physics and chemistry and biology and, but the, the way he taught us it just, he, he would kind of give examples of how heat would transfer from one object to another by, telling a story.

[00:56:29] Going into like a river to take a bath . And I just find it so fascinating, right, in terms of like the, the ways in which, you can't learn these really boring topics by bringing to life. but no, thanks for sharing that tip. It, it is definitely made me think of, how I learn and who I can learn from and how maybe I can be that person for, for someone else.

[00:56:50] Callum Goodwilliam: Nice.

[00:56:50] soon, yougo.

[00:56:54] Sinem Erdemli: So many I can give you. a notion link of all the resources. 

[00:56:58] Nirish Shakya: to our show notes, 

[00:56:59] Sinem Erdemli: yeah, yeah, sure. Like it's called the library or something like that's the weird name that we've, collected. lots of different people like inspiration, like out from like this whole, the future of. Movement has been super inspirational. to me, all my, colleagues and friends and my mentors, are, which you are one of them, nearish as well.

[00:57:26] Nirish Shakya: thank you. 

[00:57:26] likewise as well.

[00:57:27] Sinem Erdemli: yeah, I think like those and The biggest one, like, and my students too, like, it's like awesome 

[00:57:34] to learn from everyone. I'm reading the Second Mountain, recommended by Lawrence from Happy Startup School. 

[00:57:42] Callum Goodwilliam: It's a cool book. I'll, I'll rattle off a few that I think have been like pretty instrumental in a lot of our conversations. The podcast lead demo, by Lisa Gill is excellent. She's done a tremendous amount of, amazing kinda content around the future of work, that I think we're both obsessed with.

[00:57:58] a lot of that and a lot of the, the talk in that space stem from reinventing organizations by Frederick,was one of, was one of the books that we jumped off with, probably a couple years back now. the com, the greater than community doing tons of work in self-management space and. The future of organizations and ways of working.

[00:58:16] I dunno. There's a few books as well that I just think have really informed a lot of our conversations. There's quite an old one called The Progress Principle by Teresa is I think, amazing about understanding what helps people thrive in all types of organization settings. ranged by David Epstein, drive by Dan Pink, that's as old as the now.

[00:58:36] But autonomy, mastery, and purpose feel like they're still hold up pretty well today in of the things that everyone's looking for in work. I'm currently reading What's Up Problem by Tim Urban, and I'm only a couple of chapters into it, but I think it's a super interesting framework for thinking about how that framework for thinking and engaging in, in complex issues.

[00:58:57] Nirish Shakya: Awesome. We're gonna put links to all those, resources in our show notes, so you can just, click on it on your podcasting app that you're using to listen right now. and Callum, I do have that book, reinventing Organizations that you gave me last time I was in Valencia. I've got that in my bookshelf.

[00:59:11] I still haven't read it, I have to be honest. But, it's definitely on my, on my to-do, to to read list, which I'll definitely pick up soon.

[00:59:18] but lemme just quickly review, some of my learnings when I've picked up over the last hour speaking to you guys. and I think, One of the things that definitely resonated with me was around how there is this conversation, that's happening, that's shifting the focus away from, things and products that we build to the, the people and the culture that is building those products.

[00:59:41] Right. And a lot of times it is about letting people come in and connect with each other in a space that, that feels, relatively safe enough for them to be, just enough of themselves to operate, without stress. and being able to be vulnerable and be creative in terms of coming up with ideas they need to come, come up with.

[01:00:04] And obviously there are lots of barriers, challenges, and gaps that organizations and leaders face while trying to create these fertile conditions. it's not like a, an overnight job. . But one of the things I picked up from the conversation was how important it is to get started, even with like some sense of, increase awareness and then scope out the problem that you want to start with.

[01:00:27] You can't change everything straight away, but what is that tiny scope? What does that tiny mvp, what does that look like to you in terms of, reinventing or reshaping some of that, workplace culture and the, and the learning culture that you wanna build to, help people grow. and yeah, don't be afraid to delegate or outsource cuz there's always, things for us to do, as leaders or as practitioners.

[01:00:52] And it's our job to proactively make space and make time for that and maybe, either delegate or maybe even eliminate things that don't matter as much. and. there might be things you can do in terms of, for example, getting people like yourself, like, random animal to help you out.

[01:01:10] Or, even getting mentors as well in terms of seeing how they, what kind of trails they walked on. and trying to get that instruction manually manual of, building the Lego bricks, building the, in the, the, the shape that you want to create for yourself rather than, a lot like not knowing you know, what to do there, but also being okay with, the, the fact that if there's different ways of working and not just one, and experimenting with those different ways, so that you evolve with the change, the rapid pace of change that we're facing in the world right now, rather than trying to be, rigid about it.

[01:01:49] cause ultimately, I think some of our long term focus that we're also thinking of, not just, it's not just about d desirability for users and. Technical feasibility and business viability, but also about thinking about bigger things like the sustainability of our work and the impact that it had, that it has on the planet.

[01:02:05] and ultimately, yeah, how do we, make work not about stress, but also about friendships and fun, and have a bit more fun in the workplace. So thank you so much, cinnamon, Callum. there's been lots of notes that I've been taking the whole time, as you can see in my notebook here. And, thank you so much for sharing those insights and learnings with me today.

[01:02:25] Sinem Erdemli: Thanks. for having. 

[01:02:26] Callum Goodwilliam: yeah, lovely to join you and lovely to chat.

[01:02:30] Nirish Shakya: And I've got one final question. Imagine that it is your last day on Planet Earth and you are on your deathbed, you're about to die, and someone comes up to you with a tiny piece of paper and a pen. Let's say a tiny, post-it and a sharpie, and asks you to write your last words for humanity. What would you write on a tiny piece of paper?

[01:02:53] Callum Goodwilliam: Good 

[01:02:54] Sinem Erdemli: Be nice. Jinx 

[01:03:00] Nirish Shakya: So 

[01:03:00] Sinem Erdemli: said Good 

[01:03:01] luck, 

[01:03:01] Nirish Shakya: and be nice or be nice first and then good luck.

[01:03:05] Sinem Erdemli: Be nice. good luck.

[01:03:09] because being nice isn't that easy all the time. 

[01:03:13] Callum Goodwilliam: Yeah. Yeah. That works for me. Yeah. Put, it's, it's hard to do that consistently. that's great.

[01:03:24] Sinem Erdemli: What about you? Have you changed yours since? 

[01:03:28] Nirish Shakya: I would say, 

[01:03:29] Focus on what matters. 

[01:03:33] Cause we're so caught up on things that probably don't really matter in the end. So what are the things that really give us that meaning that we seek as human beings? And you might be surprised that might be things that, 

[01:03:50] you know, focusing on right now. 

[01:03:54] Callum Goodwilliam: I like that a lot. 

[01:03:55] Sinem Erdemli: Love it. 

[01:03:56] Callum Goodwilliam: Yeah. 

[01:03:57] Sinem Erdemli: So good. Focus, be nice. Good luck. 

[01:04:02] Callum Goodwilliam: be nice. I, cause I was gonna say, maybe I'd revise mine to like, keep going cause maybe keep going Is, is kind of, or, or better than good luck because. Point. It's like it takes effort and you gotta keep going. Pushing forward steps, steps forward.

[01:04:23] Nirish Shakya: Yeah. 

[01:04:23] Sinem Erdemli: like the cynicism and the Good luck. 

[01:04:26] Nirish Shakya: And it's like a cycle. It's like a loop, right? Like you focus on what you 

[01:04:29] think matters. Then you 

[01:04:30] are, you, you are nice working with other people in and, and keep going with it. 

[01:04:35] Sinem Erdemli: Oh, don't link it to the lean. Lean, oh my God. Build measurer. 

[01:04:41] Nirish Shakya: you might focus on something that's, that you find is more important and then do the whole thing again.

[01:04:46] Sinem Erdemli: Okay. Yeah. 

[01:04:47] Callum Goodwilliam: it. 

[01:04:49] Sinem Erdemli: Good.

[01:04:50] Nirish Shakya: awesome. 

[01:04:51] Sinem Erdemli: a name. Let's give it a name. 

[01:04:52] Nirish Shakya: Great. Awesome. Great to chat. and hopefully I'll see you in person soon, in Valencia or in Istanbul or maybe, when you guys are back in London. until then, take care, take it easy and see you again soon.

[01:05:06] Sinem Erdemli: Thanks. 

[01:05:07] Callum Goodwilliam: Bye.

[01:05:08] Thank you so much for listening in. If you have any suggestions or topics or people that you'd like to have on the show, please email me at nirish@designfeeling.co. I respond to every email. And see if you can share this podcast with one friend who wants to increase their self-awareness, creative confidence and meaning. See you next time.