Leadership in Design & Climate with Shana Dressler and Brian Quinn
Designers may have incredibly innovative eco-friendly ideas, but how do we actually get these ideas into production? How do you convince a client or an employer to choose a more sustainable option that might cost more? Why do design-led companies boost stock performance by 211% over standard S&P 500 companies?
These are a few of the topics covered in this 39 minute interview with Creative Leadership specialists Shana Dressler and Brian Quinn. Shana & Brian have been working together to bring leadership skills to creative professionals, and we were happy to sit down with them and a live audience of our community members to chat about the skills necessary to lead clients & teams towards positive change.
To stay in the loop on the leadership skills training sessions we may offer in the future, sign up at climatedesigners.org/leadership.
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Transcript:
Sarah: [00:00:00] Welcome to a special episode of we are climate designers! Not only do we have two great guests joining us for this episode, we have a live audience joining us for a Q & A session after the interview, which is something new that we're trying. It's something that we're going to be offering our community members. So if you are not part of our active fun and engaging online community, definitely sign up. You can connect with others in your area and around the globe by heading to climatedesigners.org/community to get all the links to get in there And it is free! Let's get started
Marc: [00:01:08] Yeah So today we have Shana Dressler and Brian Quinn they're gonna introduce themselves in a minute but yeah super excited to have you all here and Shana you and I have been colleagues for a very long time now So it's exciting to work with you again after so many years So would love to hear from you all about your backgrounds So you've been doing this kind of creative leadership training for a while now So how did you all get into doing this kind of work and maybe more importantly why are you doing this kind of work
Shana: [00:01:36] So first of all thank you so much mark and Sarah for having Brian and I so my background starts of probably 2010 where the New York city the startup community was just getting going I think most of us that were Launching a social enterprises and for-profit businesses had no idea what we were doing and that parlayed itself into small business skill training And so I worked for about 10 years with entrepreneurs and then started to realize that the most impact I could make would be to do leadership training Because at the end of the day if you have an idea and you have a team basically if you're not being effective as a leader it really doesn't matter how great your product or your services you fall flat on your face If your team isn't willing to follow so yeah and that led me into getting leadership training in Amsterdam at the things school of creative leadership And I'm also an executive coach and there was a lot of training that was involved with leadership there.
Brian: [00:02:32] Yeah And Shana and I have known each other for a long time and We originally were working together reconnected and like 2019 and then ended up creating a workshop together around human skills or soft skills for 99 U And it was I think the last physical event they had my background is I'm an event producer and experience designer curator of conferences And I'm the one bringing together the workshop experience side of things As we look at this idea of at the time it was like the future of work And then also I think the future of leadership has is really connected with that as well we recognized that there was a massive change that people weren't going to be working the same This is all ahead of the pandemic and we wanted to help change that And now obviously the pandemic threw a few things off in terms of doing more of these workshops or events But I think it's great now to look at it in terms of reinventing companies or the way in which people work from the inside out and how can that be applied And in this case certainly the idea of applying that to climate designers is really interesting and around the scope of leadership
Sarah: [00:03:39] Yeah for sure in our work educating designers we've definitely found that there's a real need at a certain point in a designer's career to learn these leadership skills one of the things I like to talk about is the design index fund is a group that analyzed in 2015 they analyzed the difference between I think it was 10 Design led companies and contrasted them with the S and P 500 And they compared these 10 design led companies with the value of the stock market over 10 years And they found that design improved the performance of these design led companies by 211% So that's what I like to talk about is the the value of design and what it brings to these companies So design led companies meaning apple Airbnb and Pinterest And we talking about what is the value that designers bring to businesses and maybe putting like a measurable number on that and then thinking as designers as climate designers we have the choice which businesses we want to Bring that 211% value boost to And which companies we've worked for in which companies we lend our expertise to so I don't know Brian do you have some thoughts around like maybe why is it that design led companies are doing so much better than the standard S&P 500
Brian: [00:05:09] we certainly when we did our program one of the base the kind of pillars one of the four pillars that we started with around like what are the humans centered skills for the future of work And trying to think about this is it all boiled down to empathy And I do think that designers are uniquely suited in this weird and sensible way to to be very empathetic And that means they also engage in a process I guess to generalize and saying all designers but when we look at companies there is that trope of course that many companies out there still think that design is the last part of the process so how it looks And yet they still have terrible weak products and services all of that But designers perhaps are in the way they think very well equipped to see a new way of looking at the world and having that conscious approach of intention and value and how things work So as of course we know our world is getting super complex it's just clear that design needs to be a part of this people say seat at the table maybe it's driving the whole process I don't know but I think that's certainly when we heard about it when certainly I heard about climate designers it made a lot of sense to me because it's okay climate change is one of the biggest issues maybe may dwarf this pandemic it's going to be huge in the future So how can designers take the lead either internally in teams or through the work they do through their own companies through communication and storytelling I think they're well equipped in many ways It's just about perhaps bridging that gap of leadership
Sarah: [00:06:32] Yeah One we talk about often as a design led company to look at is Airbnb we love their story They were founded by three designers and I'm assuming that their current status as the most valuable travel company is not due to the awesome Photoshop skills those founders have
Brian: [00:06:48] Yeah I it's so funny because I work in travel right now I organized conferences around the business of travel and yeah it is Airbnb is become one of the most valuable companies in the industry but and they got they the founders came out of RISD and they They obviously had the I think there was two co-founders and then they brought on like an architect to help to build things maybe they were inspired by Steve jobs at some point who knows but they ended up in Silicon valley I don't think anybody really took him seriously at first And over time though they've really came in with their convictions about this mission of we want people to stay in other people's homes and have this air bed and breakfast experience And everyone was like you're crazy But maybe it's the strength of their beliefs or knowing that they wanted to build a community around this but somehow over time and does great design as a part of it in terms of the visual aesthetic that imbued a lot of trust but over time they've grown and the idea latched on And it's a great example I think it's also really interesting to say with companies like Airbnb or apple that they wouldn't necessarily be built in the same way as if they were started today and we're facing an entirely different set of challenges So what's the ability to see something like that kind of company for climate design or climate change in the future as well So I think it can be there designers just inherently try to see things differently and build it so it's a matter of where can we get there
Sarah: [00:08:10] you mentioned that it happens over time There's design process that goes into that and iteration listening to your customers and realizing where the problems are and then making changes based on that I think is a big part of that evolving over time to become a really valuable company Shana what do you think it is that design led companies are doing differently than other companies?
Shana: [00:08:29] I think the design-led companies start with designers, and so their orientation towards leadership as soon as they assume the role of being a leader is going to be very different than if you are somebody that comes up the ranks of a fortune 500 company and or you have a business background and what Brian said before about people responding to like the founders of Airbnb like you're crazy is probably what makes design leaders great because there's an openness to it Like creative leadership is all about exploring things that are out of the box so I think that needs them with people And that's what leadership's all about you have a vision of your company and then you have to have people to execute on So already having human centered design as a process that becomes more applicable to people understanding how innovation works and how there's a disruptive nature of innovation hopefully translates into people understanding that people will feel disrupted in the process of the business being disruptive and then I think also the The point about empathy when you talk about leadership competencies empathy is one of the qualities that ranks the highest after vision you're going to lead somebody that has a clear vision And then after that you want to feel appreciated You want to feel seen that's what's going to excite you and inspire you to follow so I think that all of these qualities is probably what has a lot to do with why design led companies and also anyone that's doing working in design realizes that they have to collaborate And whereas people on top might be managing top down There's no way when you're working as a designer with everybody that it takes to get a product you have to collaborate and being a collaborative leader just makes you a stronger leader
Marc: [00:10:14] Great So I want So I want to circle back to what Brian said a few seconds ago So what would a design led company focusing on climate actually look like So maybe Shana do you have any thoughts on that on that
Shana: [00:10:23] I think that if you're not thinking about climate I don't know what you're thinking about I think we've all heard the comment If we don't have a planet to live on and live in in a way place where there's clean air and everything else that we need to thrive like really in no business So I think that it's so shortsighted not to understand your larger impact and how you are in a larger eco ecosystem in general so I think in terms of design-led companies focusing on climate I think one is you need to be deliberate about it and know that this is something you're tackling It Can't just be something that you're adding on later I think it has to be designed into the whole process and I think it's just not necessarily climate out there It could be like how are you using resources How are you figuring out recycling What is the impact of your own business has on the environment start close to home we can't do a lot about what's happening in multinational companies I have to think across the globe like start local in terms of impact and I think it's just there's so many tools that designers and design companies have like circular design back in the day when people were talking about cradle to cradle understanding if we're using raw materials how they're going to end up so we think that all of these things may be accompanies thinking more like social impact but at the end of the day it's absolutely connected to climate And so I think also making that intellectual connection is really essential that it's not just this term that I always feel is spread on everything what does social impact mean Anyway that's the social piece but what about the environmental side
Brian: [00:12:01] it's so interesting So we're being very general right So it's designers we're painting designers with one brush and we're painting the climate change problem with another as well it's such a complex issue and yet no matter what kind of designer you are or what company you work in or what you see your role being it's I guess what I'm trying to figure out is how can and I think what we would embark on in a kind of Leadership dedicated summit here And what I'm also excited to hear from people in the questions and hear from their individual problems is trying to say how can we engage in a process And whether it be project based within a company and yes you could say it's is it just fulfilling some kind of CSR type need versus them understanding a larger intrinsic problem of in global issue where do you start small or do they are they looking to reinvent their entire company Either way I think designers are the ones that can really help lead the way in which a company tackles this And it may just be storytelling and maybe design thinking and embarking on that process But if a designer imagines themselves as the CEO is the leader of a company and where would they across the board look at these different gears that are operating and how whether it be data analytics or just analysis and feedback and all of this stuff how can we actually understand the impact of the company and then change operations and try to make maybe drastic everybody has even if they're a big company they're going to run into financial concerns of saying putting the brakes on it saying this is too much but trying to make the case that it's going to be much better in the longterm to affect change now in many ways I guess how can designers be at the helm for not only that conversation but strategy in terms of how a company is able to tackle that and maybe it's instilling that core belief across the company thinking empathetically again about I understand each person's job and their challenge And here's how I'm going to help to see that tackle it bring it into the process and not trying to bulldoze through these things is I think is also something I would expect designers might approach in terms of how they bark on this change throughout a company a design led company So I hope that again I think it would be great to then really get more granular with actual examples but yeah
Sarah: [00:14:14] yeah Yeah For sure
Shana: [00:14:14] I'll add that also when I ran an incubator for Google for design entrepreneurs and one thing we realized that maybe designers don't articulate enough of is they're actually trained to become strategists they're problem solvers they're communication specialists They know how to shape chaos into something that communicates powerfully And these are all really incredibly important skills that tie back in terms of a leader to vision Like again who do you look to To follow somebody that actually has it an idea ahead that they have a true north they have a destination and then basically we're inspired to get on board with that leader And so I think where designers can start to insert themselves even within a company is being intrapreneurial starting with where are the gaps Where are the issues what is the head of the company and people that have a C in their title like CTOs CIO CFO CTO there's so many see there's like chief data chief data officer what are they missing that you can see That is a really unique quality that people that go through design school get trained on And then how do you package that up to communicate what's needed then I think finally it's like compelling communication is a huge part of when I've seen design curriculums It's not good enough to communicate but you need to be Succinct and compelling and get to the point and to persuade And so I think that when you really see that as your skillset you can almost shift your lens to somebody to to the type of person within a team that can really affect very significant change
Brian: [00:15:58] one of the modules in our workshop generally is influence and persuasion And I think that's a big part of this climate change arguably has become this political issue and it's something that becomes emotional for some And it's about how do we actually show people in many ways that even seemingly minute or infinitesimal changes now can have massive effects in the future or how can why do I need to worry about this problem in the future And I know that I'm sure many of us could try to tell that story til we're blue in the face but at the same time trying to engage in a process in that and thinking about also of course profitability for our company and answering that equation is going to be inherent in that process too So it's there's no one path but I do think that's part of that empathetic journey that would be really great is as long as people are willing to hear it to a certain degree.
Sarah: [00:16:46] Nice Shana when you were talking about meeting with the different heads of different departments and the CTO and the CEO it reminded me of my background in software startups in Silicon valley I was trained as a graphic designer and then I was mostly self-taught as a UX designer I just fell into the role and I was never formally trained in leadership but I Just graduate graduated into that role through experienced And one of the things that you were talking about something that I would just do because I wanted to help everybody in the company do what they do better And so I would meet with every head of every departments as the sole designer at the company to just see how everybody was using the product and where the gaps were It was just something that I highly recommend people start doing if nobody else is doing it I'm getting back to now that we know how valuable leadership skills are to a designer's ability to change and improve business practices and products which is exactly what we're trying to do as climate designers Or we're trying to help them change their practices to become more sustainable regenerative innovative eco-friendly All the things so obviously this requires companies to do things differently than they currently are so as a designer who might come into a company like I was in my roles I was hired as a UI designer And then I just started doing product management cause nobody else was doing it and became head of product And it was just what I did but if you're not as a cheeky as I am I guess how would someone go about learning these skills and can it be done more quickly than 10 or 15 years of the school of hard knocks Like I did I made a lot of mistakes of course and learned a lot from those mistakes but is there a way to teach people these leadership skills more quickly and less painfully?
Shana: [00:18:39] Yeah I think the first thing is the best way to lead is to start with a project that you take the lead role on because leadership training can become very academic like to listen to somebody talk about how to lead You're not leading yourself is a little bit hard to follow so I think as somebody that's working within a company the first step would be like listening for what's needed listening for where there's a gap listening where there's an opportunity And then the proverbial raise your hand and offer to take initiative and get started because you're not going to really learn how to lead until you have people that are following you that's the whole point And I think it's also it's not necessarily a lead follow dynamic It could be how do you lead There's three types of leadership There's no top-down you're just like the commander there's a leader lead leading by the side and there's also leading from behind And so part of really picking your leadership style won't be possible until you start to interact with people to see how does your personality drive with another person's and how do you need to keep aware of what the dynamics at play are so that you can figure out how to you adjust yourself Because telling other people what to do and being critical is not going to get the best out of people So there's so much that goes on with like observation and like a test and learn if I speak this way to somebody what kind of impact am I going to get If I give somebody feedback in this way so I think a lot of it comes down to really coming from a place of curiosity and as much as it's like the worst news and leadership is it's really about self-knowing The better You understand yourself the better you understand where your own landmines are the better you understand what irritates you that's step one like the consciousness piece And then the sec step two in leadership is called self-management meaning manage your self because you cannot manage other people easily but you can start to course correct for the way you're coming off and how to do that as you're observing all the time what is the response What's the look on somebody's face we're all on zoom so much Most of us are probably not paying attention but most of us are very emotive through our our face Or our body like as a coach I was been trained look at somebody's body If they're all of a sudden tensing up and their shoulders are way up to their ears or if they have a stance that looks you know stressed out chances are the body is the biggest indicator to understand what's going on and the head and the heart so like circling back to this in terms of like how to do it is start off with offering yourself up to take the lead on something and be passionate about it and then get great people around you so that they know you're not going to be perfect None of us are on and that you're there to to keep learning together as a group I think that the more it's about us and less about me and you where there's that separation I think people tend to create a lot more psychological safety which is one of the main principles in a leadership and team study that Google did a few years ago where they found that when we feel safe with other people we work much better We can deal with conflicts as they raise We can Give each other feedback And these are all of the things that kind of get us back to a place of optimal working and getting things done And everything else gets in a way of just not being productive is not so much about the work it's usually about relationships So I guess it's a good in the bad news it's easier to learn a skill That's a hard skill like coding or graphic design or customer development research but it's much harder to deal with people cause we're not taught it you're often not taught it from parents Your friends don't teach this to you Most religious education Isn't about how to show up you can read a book that doesn't really help you flex the muscles around How do you change your behavior so yeah unfortunately I think our school systems need to start teaching a lot more about all of these what Brian and I are adamant are human skills They are not soft They are not easy and mean I think we would all have a better day in and day out experience if we were just a lot kinder.
Brian: [00:22:56] The connective tissue We often say I think a lot of people say that but yeah sure Yeah
Sarah: [00:23:00] Brian do you have thoughts around specifically how long is it going to take to learn these kinds of skills
Brian: [00:23:06] Yeah that's the funny part cause it's it could be instant or take a lifetime it's I think of these things as a practice and it's funny going back to the soft skills idea at the same time Shana I was listening to what you were saying and thinking about perhaps what designers bring as they also bring a willingness to engage in a process And if we thought about employing some Even product design process to a challenge like this that is complex because of humans And really if we think about something as large as climate change and and addressing that within a company and all of these questions that might come up people have problems understanding what they need to know or how much they need to know before they take action And anytime people have to make choices it's about are they changing their mind or being told to change their mind And so it's all of these things And yet if we demystify that and take it into a process and use our strengths as well there's times where I think Shana you say let's take our design hat off or keep it on or off I I think there's times where it's just let's not just be a designer because I think that can could be limiting in some ways too And be broader than that But At the same time using our skills and engaging in a process and knowing who you're leading the company you're at and what their goals are and what matters to them And then using that to think about how can we bring that into this process And anytime we're trying to start something ambitious or disruptive and there has to be some patience in terms of how long it takes but I also think that participation as far as bringing people into that makes it gives them a little bit of comfort and the agency and the fact that they can maybe be a part of that growth together with you And you're just helping lead it versus any sort of force feeding of here Let's get into this thing We have to do something on climate change Like people just I'm sure it can glaze over but any good
Shana: [00:24:57] Yeah they've done so much study on knowing facts doesn't actually — that's not the tipping point for people. You can deliver up lots of data and lots of knowledge…
And with designers understanding what goes into customer development and interviewing and design research It's applied that to human experience, Like how is it that we change? What makes us change? What when are we willing to go through something painful to know that on the other side is a benefit? Meaning if we have to stop — if you're thirsty are you going to not buy a bottle of water because you've forgotten all about water ball at home — what is that deprivation piece? That that's just an example of — we all know, yeah, Bring your own water bottle, you forget — And when you're a designer thinking to that specific example to bring back into your work, so then how do you, How do you figure out what that behavioral change piece is for the work you're doing in your job? Knowing that all of us — we know these things and we still, there's some reason that we're still not getting it.
So I think the more concrete you can think of examples around change, what are the skill sets you've been taught, And then to think, again, as designers are trained to do, think outside the box, for the impact that you want to make within climate and your job and hopefully a project that you'll take on as an intrapreneur within a company to start to flex those leadership muscles.
Brian: [00:26:25] And just to speak to one of the questions cause I do think it relates to this as in terms of designers dreaming big and how do you create something that's approachable or something that you know especially with leading it you understand that it can actually get off the ground is how can it have a beginning and an end? And what's the goal, That's something that you can ship, that is actually Achievable and put some boundaries on it versus something as broad as climate change and just broader initiatives — what's our key … I work with a lot of destinations globally and they often wonder what's the KPIs of what we're measuring the effect of what we are doing as a destination as a city in terms of our own initiatives or the actual overall environmental benefit or sustainability of how our entire city is achieving it is it on that big macro level or is it just really how we've had our own little benchmarks And I think it's a hard balance those tactics are some of the hardest questions to answer but at least if you define it give it some parameters and guardrails then that may help set it up for success and leading the next project that proving it out for the next time and continuing on.
Marc: [00:27:32] Great Great So maybe this is a great question to wrap up with So many of our community members are designers obviously and they're working with companies who might be a little resistant to adopting innovative sustainable approaches when it comes to doing less harm to the planet especially because of these approaches often costs more ,might take longer to get into production, all that stuff .So I'm wondering if you all have any tips or ways that designers can approach companies or even clients that are maybe a little bit resistant to doing more — creating more of a sustainable approach?
Shana: [00:28:04] The good news is that it's possible The bad news for most of us is that to get the attention of these leaders use you have to talk about how it's going to hit their profit and loss their P and L sheet So you have to figure out a very clever way to make the case for Implementing this change will actually save the company money.
And I know that sounds so crass and so disconnected and so horrible. But the truth is that's where a company will change behavior.
So taking us away for just one second from climate into diversity, equity, and inclusion — companies are now starting to implement these policies because they're getting sued. So they're willing to spend money on it and they're willing to make change because it's costing them money. They realized — McKinsey did a huge report (That's a management consulting firm that has global offices) that diverse teams, actually, they could find a lot more ROI with a product or a service when a diverse team came together to do the production.
So using the example that's not climate, So climate designers need to learn from that and figure out — maybe you're doing a presentation on, what's the short term is that maybe we can't save you money, The medium term is when you start to save money, and the long-term is when you're going to save lots of money.
And part of the the convincing factor is for this company to be so shortsighted, maybe there's another competitor around the corner That's going to take market share if this isn't implemented quicker also. Because most of us that are conscious consumers if we have to choose between two companies that do the exact same thing and one is more conscious around climate and ethics, most of us are going to put our money down to align with our own values.
So I think, again, just to restate what I stated, you have to take a big detour off what you're used to doing, which is, again, to try and convince them, because to all of us it makes sense. But for people that are being driven by profit you just — it's a translation. You just have to learn their language, speak it, do all of your convincing in their language and pull it back to what you know is better.
And that's that comes back to the leadership piece. That's the vision that you have that they don't have. That comes back to persuasion. You having the capacities and the competencies to take somebody that doesn't agree, And again, use your skills to get what you want. And again, I think, be willing to realize that this might not be a straight path forward. That you're going to have to take some back country roads, but keep your true north so that you get back to where you want to go. So that's why I said the good and the bad news. Yes, It's doable, too, You have to be very clever in how you do it
Brian: [00:30:47] Yeah I think the motivator may not always be money either I think understanding where if we keep talking about a general company what are those things that they hold sacred or that is truly most important maybe fear can be a motivator maybe because if apple were built today at launching the iPhone is revealed to be like super environmentally harmful that it would have been a flop who knows but I think it's the companies today the kind of paradigm for what people are generally accepting both on a kind of public level public perception and what governments are regulating and that may continue to evolve So there may be that fear of paradigm of here's this facing problem that we're going to have to figure out And we can use design thinking or a process to engage in this in a different way or it may just be that there's a intrinsic mission to doing good in the world and we just need a way to get there and to try and think about again shepherding that I think so often people have that process or that goal in mind but then you get into somewhat of a process and you realize it's going nowhere fast And so maybe the analytics and ability to bring back some feedback come into come into a process and evaluation of work would really be helpful here And that could be small that doesn't have to be like we're design thinking experts That could be just even in a small business like a designer could say Look I think I can help us get there it's I think it's about stepping up in many ways too And just sharing saying let me help figure out this process or I think I could help here So
Shana: [00:32:19] I think it's also examples If you can point to examples where in your industry using innovation and sustainable practices has worked that's really helpful tool that would be my addition
Sarah: [00:32:31] Yeah yeah so what I'm hearing from you is holding that vision of the bigger picture you're trying to help the business create a brand And so maybe one of the choices that you need to make in the short term might be [more] expensive But if you remember that it also costs money to do build to do brand building activities they're actually saving money from that other place because this is actually a brand building choice and just like thinking more holistically about that.
Brian: [00:33:01] Yeah It won't be a straight line ever And I think anyone looking for a straight line of here's some sort of profitability out of making these changes that's never going to be the case but I think yeah maybe getting the company to feel more comfort with discomfort maybe having the confidence in yourself to help lead that process I think those would all be a part of it and a lot of the skills and approaches that we look at in in the workshops they vary depending on the use case And I do think it's interesting to say how can we all build our arsenal of these skills and employ them at different times and know when to use them so often it's just that people don't even really take the first step in terms of embarking on even picking one of them it may just be a little bit of trial and error but yeah I think that's stepping up and saying I'm going to bring a sense that and shepherd it is going to be important Yeah
Sarah: [00:33:50] Yeah it's a whole host of skills.
Shana: [00:33:51] I think the idea about how can designers get the seat at the table and a what's so critical about being at the table is you want to be understanding what the leaders of your companies interests are. What their concerns are, what obstacles are they facing? So that's why you want to be at the table, and then how do you get there is probably a little bit more complex but I think it all comes down to, as much as you can, understand like what's going on with your company — how to get visibility in your company, what kind of committees might be around. Like how do you start to understand what the larger strategy of your company is. Yeah, I think that all of those play really an important part in trying to make change. Because, like, sustainable solutions are really effective, but if you can't convince anyone to do them and you don't know the language in which it's going to be effective then just remains an idea. And all of us just remain very frustrated that we don't see things changing.
Sarah: [00:34:48] For sure
I liked Shana how you brought in the example of diversity inclusion. And just to draw the analogy for anyone who wasn't paying attention, we are seeing similar trends in the climate space now where companies that have not been kind to their environmental ecosystems are being brought up into courts and maybe facing not just activism action but also legal action. And so part of what you're doing by adopting some of these sustainable practices is prevention of future liabilities like that.
I feel like we could talk about this for another hour but we do want to have a little bit of time for live audience questions. Before we do that, do either of you have anything else you'd like to share, or just tell us how people can learn more about your work and connect with you online?
Shana: [00:35:41] I don't have anything else to add. I'm really curious to hear what people's questions are. For me, I have two websites: One's ShanaDressler.com and that's my executive coaching work. And I also have a leadership consultancy called turquoise and the URL is turquoise.nyc. I do a lot of my work is project-based meaning working on soft skills training on an actual project which I found to be much more effective than pulling people off site to do a lot of disconnected just to bring in different workshop exercises and then they don't know how to then apply it back to their work. So that's a little bit about me
Brian: [00:36:18] Yeah And I'm really curious to learn about everyone's work as climate designers here but I would say with regard to Shana and myself reach out to Shana if it's something around the leadership training or the workshop that could be achieved. And I think that's a great place to start the conversation, we talk all the time but to channel things I think it'd be helpful to reach to Shana and or yeah I'm always excited about this. And I need to like look at more conversations on Twitter now and everything just to find out what are the ideas. And whereas the communities that are talking about this, I'm very intrigued.
Marc: [00:36:47] Great Great And before we wrap up just wanted to mention this to as many of you are listening and joining us live that climate designers is all about action, right? We're all about providing our community members with the tools and resources that they need to put climate at the center of their work And so we'd love to offer you all ways to level up and step into those leadership roles And so we're excited to be working with Shana and Brian on creating some sort of program to do that, and just full transparency, we don't really think that this program exists anywhere — the idea of bridging design, climate, and leadership.
And so as many of you know Sarah and I over the last however many months of building out climate designers we're really building the bike as we ride it in regards to creating this whole initiative. And so we're all on this journey together. We're co-creating the skills We feel you all climate designers need to have to take climate action. And we're really Excited to announce that we're going to be hopefully creating this program with Shana and Brian. So if you're interested in taking part in this program head to climate designers dot org slash leadership and you can sign up for more details as we build out the program and launch it and all those amazing things. Yeah.
So maybe with that, Shana, Brian, and thank you all for joining us on the on the podcast. And for those listening don't forget to subscribe, share this episode with any colleagues and the people that you work with that would benefit from listening to this interview