The Realities of Design Leadership with Marzia Aricò

00:00:00] Gerry Scullion: Hey folks and welcome back to another episode of This is HCD. In this episode I'm catching up with the brilliant Marzia Ariko, author of Design Leadership Chronicles, to dive into the messy realities of design leadership, trust and organizations, and why design roles as we know them may not survive into the next decade.

[00:00:18] Gerry Scullion: Marzia shares her personal journey, the lessons she learned from writing her book, and why she believes design leadership will evolve beyond its current form. We also discussed the challenges of bringing true diversity into the leadership and pitfalls trying to sell design and the power of understanding how organizations actually create value.

[00:00:38] Gerry Scullion: If you're an emerging leader in design, this episode is just for you because it's packed with real talk, hard truths and practical insights on how to navigate the world of leadership without losing yourself in the process. Let's get into it.[00:01:00]

[00:01:01] Gerry Scullion: Marzia, where are you today? Are you in Rotterdam? No, I'm in Palermo, Sicily. Oh, la pizza, la pasta. I

[00:01:11] Marzia Arico: actually moved here over the holidays, during Christmas holidays. Wow. It's a life prototype. So we're trying to live here. We gave ourselves until August. Yeah. To see whether it works. Yeah. We have a whole prototyping plan, like.

[00:01:30] Marzia Arico: Who are we now? Me, my husband, my children, you know, yeah. All checking whether life here is better than there. Now

[00:01:37] Gerry Scullion: you do know you sound much more Italian than you did the last time you had John. I haven't

[00:01:43] Marzia Arico: been here for a month already. Well, not

[00:01:46] Gerry Scullion: that. I have a big love for Italy as I've told you a couple of times.

[00:01:52] Gerry Scullion: I got married in Italy. Oh yeah, I knew that. Then in Naples. We dream of going back and [00:02:00] hanging out like there and introduce our kids to the area. Um, so you're prototyping life like, you know, back there. What are the, what are the key differences that you're finding between, uh, the Netherlands and Italy?

[00:02:13] Marzia Arico: There are some obvious ones, right? Like, you know, the weather.

[00:02:16] Gerry Scullion: The government.

[00:02:17] Marzia Arico: Yeah, the government. But also, also like people's attitude towards life, you know? Yeah. Uh, is, is way more street smart here. Like people just. Get to do things like, well, in the Netherlands is way more legacy, you know, things are in a certain way.

[00:02:36] Marzia Arico: Um, and I'm enjoying, I actually needed that, that creative side that, you know, create that is a level of creative energy going on. And that is so, there are so many people coming from the north of Europe here just because that is cold and here is not.

[00:02:52] Yeah.

[00:02:52] Marzia Arico: They bring, you know, new energy, new, new, you know, ideas, and it's really popping.

[00:02:57] Marzia Arico: And I started to believe, you know, that, [00:03:00] um, if any new model to our society will ever emerge, will come from places out of the fringes like this, you know, they're not going to come from central London.

[00:03:09] Gerry Scullion: No, they're going to come in the spaces where there's space to breathe and

[00:03:12] Marzia Arico: lead and think and create.

[00:03:14] Marzia Arico: And, and where, to be honest, there is not much to lose in a sense, you know,

[00:03:18] Gerry Scullion: like, yeah.

[00:03:19] Marzia Arico: Um, and so I'm, I'm here and for now I've been, you know, observing, but I've been having a couple of ideas for businesses that I want to start.

[00:03:30] Gerry Scullion: Before we start recording, we're talking about entrepreneurship and that's kind of like when you do what I do and what Marzi is doing now, like it is feeling much, much closer to.

[00:03:41] Gerry Scullion: Testing businesses and testing ideas and going with your instincts a lot of the time. Um, for people who don't know Marsi Arik, okay, so you arrived back into Sicily. Is that where you grew up?

[00:03:55] Marzia Arico: Yeah, I grew up

[00:03:55] Gerry Scullion: in Sicily. So they already know who you are and what you are in the area. [00:04:00] Sort of.

[00:04:00] Marzia Arico: 20 years, like it's really long.

[00:04:03] Gerry Scullion: So you, you, you're going back into that world and they're like, oh Marzia, great to see

[00:04:08] Marzia Arico: you. Because people are so old, like people that I used to know, like 20 years ago, they're so old. They probably think. They don't

[00:04:14] Gerry Scullion: listen to this. They're like, excuse me Marzia, I'm not old.

[00:04:19] Marzia Arico: Like you're in a movie, like I'm

[00:04:21] Gerry Scullion: saying.

[00:04:22] Gerry Scullion: I'm not old. In my mind, I'm only 20. I know, it's, it's, I can imagine what it's like, but they remember you as a child. So when they ask you the question, what do you do now? Like, how do you answer it?

[00:04:37] Marzia Arico: Yeah. So I say I'm

[00:04:39] Gerry Scullion: a consultant

[00:04:41] Marzia Arico: because it's, you know, fluffy enough for them to go, Oh, okay. Yeah. Consultants.

[00:04:44] Marzia Arico: I kind of understand. And then I say, and I do it in design and that's where I, I mean, design consultants.

[00:04:57] Gerry Scullion: So, like, I mean, most people who [00:05:00] listen to this podcast will be very familiar with that conversation, especially if they say the terms like service design, user experience design, any of those things.

[00:05:07] Gerry Scullion: Within our world of design, we all kind of nod and kind of go, yeah, I know what you do. Um, but what do you do after that to help connect the dots? I'd love to hear your perspective on how you explain

[00:05:17] Marzia Arico: this. I use the word creativity a lot. Um, so I. Say that I help people in organizations, you know, lead and work more creatively.

[00:05:29] Marzia Arico: And I say that I work only with large, mostly with very large corporate, uh, clients, uh, that have issues related to the fact that they're that big, right? And they have a lot of processes and a lot of policies and a lot of rules. And those rules are not necessarily set for people to thrive in the modern days.

[00:05:48] Marzia Arico: So I, I help people think more creatively about this stuff and that, that they kind of understand because I mean, creativity is, is, is something that they recognize, right? That I guess they have no clue how you do [00:06:00] that in real life, but, but, um, they position me in, in, in a certain box that they can recognize.

[00:06:07] Gerry Scullion: Okay, yeah, because like, my perspective in Italy is obviously quite different, I'd imagine, to yours, you know, and if you're, especially if you're in a rural area in, in Italy, what are the opportunities like? To work as you are as a service designer in that area.

[00:06:26] Marzia Arico: No, no, no, but I'm not here to work here. I'm here.

[00:06:32] Marzia Arico: I work somewhere else. Inside this laptop, right? No. And I keep traveling as I was traveling before, to be honest. I, so I've been living in the Netherlands for 10 years now, 10, 12. And I would say 15 percent of my clients are in the Netherlands. The rest is, uh, UK. It's in the US, Germany, Luxembourg, north of Italy, something in Milan.

[00:06:58] Marzia Arico: So it really makes zero [00:07:00] difference for me to be here or there. It's just that, you know, if you need to travel, it's a bit, uh, longer, like the trip is a bit longer. Like I could, I could go to London in two hours and a half, three hours from Rotterdam. From here, it's a bit longer, but you know.

[00:07:14] Gerry Scullion: It is what it is.

[00:07:16] Gerry Scullion: As long as you're enjoying yourself, that's the main thing. Now, look, I have, I have like someone joining this podcast now at the moment.

[00:07:22] Marzia Arico: Oh my God, what a beautiful

[00:07:24] Gerry Scullion: book. Hello. Looks great. This is the Design Leadership Chronicles. I'm going to, I'm going to be honest, right? Like I remember probably three years ago, was it?

[00:07:35] Gerry Scullion: Yeah. You sent me a message, you go, uh, Jerry, I can't do an impression of you, so it's just going to be generic Italian.

[00:07:40] Marzia Arico: It's a message, you're going to add an Italian accent to it, and I'll read the message.

[00:07:44] Gerry Scullion: Everyone will be like, so rude, he was putting an Italian accent to her face, and I was like, yeah, I'm sorry, okay, this is what, this is how I do it, I just love accents, it gets me in trouble maybe 50 percent of the time.

[00:07:58] Gerry Scullion: Um, but I remember when you sent me, [00:08:00] you know, so I've got an idea for a book, it's going to be, uh, cartoons. Initially, I think the word cartoon might've been in, maybe it was graphic novel, maybe, maybe I'll give you the credit, credit there. I was like, Marzia is actually crazy.

[00:08:15] Marzia Arico: You did, you were very negative.

[00:08:17] Marzia Arico: You're like, I don't think

[00:08:19] Gerry Scullion: I said that initially. Like, you know, um, I was like, I don't. I don't know. Like, you know, I was like trying to see it couldn't for whatever. And I look back at it now and I was like, I was a negative Nancy. I really was like, you know,

[00:08:34] Marzia Arico: Help me. He helped me to think, okay, okay. Jerry's not really possible.

[00:08:39] Marzia Arico: So, so I need to really think through why am I using this format? What am I trying to achieve with it? You know, I, I, he gave me the push to really think about my choices.

[00:08:51] Gerry Scullion: Yeah. You do know that came out of a place of kind of love and respect, wasn't it?

[00:08:57] Marzia Arico: Yeah, of course.

[00:08:59] Gerry Scullion: Waking up, I wasn't going [00:09:00] to go, oh, Marcia, I'm just going to ruin your day.

[00:09:04] Gerry Scullion: It was definitely not that. And from where you took that idea to now, I'd love to understand a few things. One, the journey from there to here, uh, This beautiful book. It is a beautiful book. I absolutely, I don't, I cannot remember the name of the, oh, it's Gustavo Canete. It was, it was one of the main illustrators and Elena and Iris.

[00:09:30] Gerry Scullion: Um, they did a remarkable job. Like a remarkable job. I remember saying, I think I said to you, can you draw? And you were like, no, I was like, okay, this is going to be, it's going to be interesting. And you'd sent me a few different drafts of it. And I was just like, it

[00:09:47] Marzia Arico: was very,

[00:09:48] Gerry Scullion: yeah, right. Really early. Like, I've got a couple of ideas where I kept on saying to myself, that's going to be a tiny book, not like physical size, like that size.

[00:09:59] Gerry Scullion: I was like, it's going to be [00:10:00] really small. And then you're like, no, I'm going to do a lot of them. And I was like, okay, maybe that will work. But I think in my mind, I was locked into the whole kind of cartoon thing of like, are you going to have a cartoon version of, I don't know, um, Ben reason or, or, or cartoon versions of all these design dudes or designers, designer.

[00:10:18] Marzia Arico: Actually, a lot of women don't say dudes. So I guess that's what

[00:10:21] Gerry Scullion: I said. Designer S's or designers, I said, or design dudes. That's what I said. So you've got this and it's, it's been out now for, was it six months? Uh,

[00:10:31] Marzia Arico: yeah, been less like four, four months.

[00:10:33] Gerry Scullion: Four months, four months. I've had it longer, haven't I?

[00:10:36] Gerry Scullion: I think I got, I think B BIS sent me this about about four or five months, I think is probably, uh, in around that time. Tell after we WhatsApp and we were going back and forth, what did you do then? Apart from, um, hate me.

[00:10:52] Marzia Arico: I hate you at all. I actually welcome, you know. Feedback that is constructive. It was constructive.

[00:10:58] Marzia Arico: It wasn't just, [00:11:00] um, okay. What did I do? So I started thinking about why do I want to do this graphic novel? Like, why do I want to do this as a graphic novel? And I actually started building connections with my experience working with designers. I've been, I've been in design for like 20 years. And in the last 10, I would say I were more non designers than designers.

[00:11:23] Marzia Arico: And a lot of the people that I've been teaching a lot, I was in school. So universities have been working with, you know, TU Delft, with Imperial College, with the Polytechnicals, I've been always doing that. And a lot of designers that I know, especially in design leadership roles. They either have ADHD or they are on the spectrum and, uh, people that cover those roles, you know, happen to, to, to, to, to experience that.

[00:11:48] Marzia Arico: And for people who have ADHD, it's very hard to read, take, book, it doesn't work. Cause you have to, or dyslexia, a lot of them also dyslexic, right? So they're all, [00:12:00] they're all, uh, you know, reading a thick book with concepts is really hard. And I experienced it because I, I, I did a PhD in 2016 or 17, a Copenhagen business school.

[00:12:12] Marzia Arico: And it was, you know, I thought it was a brilliant piece of work. Almost no one in my office actually managed to read it, but not because, not because they were not interested because then when I. Presented to them and I share the content in a, you know, visual format and a more storytelling way. They were all really hooked up.

[00:12:29] Marzia Arico: It's just that, you know, really thick text. It's not for everyone.

[00:12:32] Yeah.

[00:12:33] Marzia Arico: And so I wanted to do something that was way more, the other spectrum of my PhD. So I'm completely on the other side, something that was absolutely inclusive, that was easy to, to read, that was quick to read. Uh, and it could also feel relatable to people.

[00:12:47] Marzia Arico: I wanted people to see themselves in this book. And that's the second, the second aspect of it that, you know, with a graphic novel, you can express emotions in a way that is really hard to do with words. [00:13:00] So by showing a face of someone that is really stressed and anxious, you see yourself in that person.

[00:13:06] Marzia Arico: You have been in the person's shoes. So it's way easier to, to, to feel it. To be in it with your own, you know, body and soul.

[00:13:15] Uh,

[00:13:16] Marzia Arico: and so that's what I wanted to do. I want for people to really, to really connect with these characters and these characters, mind you that they are real people, real names were real companies.

[00:13:27] Marzia Arico: And it was not easy to get to this point because it's much easier to say, Oh, we're going to anonymize it all. You're going to use just a random name and a random company. But we decided together with the people that have interviewed to really, you know, share, is this a reality? These, these are the names of the people.

[00:13:41] Marzia Arico: This is what happened. This is like, you know, a real snapshot of a couple of days in someone's life at IBM, you know, anywhere else. Yeah.

[00:13:51] Gerry Scullion: So

[00:13:52] Marzia Arico: I was, I was convinced that that was the thing, but then I am not very good at drawing. I mean, I can draw, but not to this level. [00:14:00] So I went looking for someone that could help me.

[00:14:03] Marzia Arico: And I went online and I found this dude in Argentina who's called Gustavo Canete, who is an absolute genius. He's an artist who works with graphic novels only. Um, and he has designed all of the pieces in black and white, so he is a black and white style mainly. And so I've been working with him on the first part of the book, which is all about making sense of the status quo.

[00:14:29] Marzia Arico: So I had this few stories that were about, you know, understanding the current context in the organization, and I could really see it in a black and white format. And so the way we started working with him is that I, I basically went out, interviewed the people that I wanted to include in the book, uh, recorded the interview.

[00:14:46] Marzia Arico: I transcribed the interview, and then basically I could just see the graphic novel in my head and write it as it was, uh, kind of a theater script, right? So I was writing, you know, panel one, um, Tom [00:15:00] enters, he wears this and that. And this is what happens, right? And this, this is what people say. And so I constructed this whole thing as, as a, as a theater script.

[00:15:09] Marzia Arico: And then I sent it to him and he was, okay, yeah, I can work with this. And so the first round he made, he made a storyboard that was very sketchy. And probably that's what I sent you actually. Super sketchy, like you could, you know, you just could see like the volumes and then a bit of the basics interactions.

[00:15:25] Marzia Arico: And then on the base of that, we could very quickly iterate and work. Okay. I don't think this is not what I had in mind. This is what more what I had in mind. And then for him, it was a great chance to actually, you know, bring his own perspective to it when he would say, you know, I don't think this scene actually works.

[00:15:40] Marzia Arico: I think it will work better in this other way. Because I'm the content expert, but it's the expert of the medium that we were using, right? So we managed to really work together very well in that respect. And then, and then from there, when we were happy with the storyboard, we moved into a draft design, and then we moved into the detailed design, and then we moved into adding the grace.

[00:15:58] Marzia Arico: And in between, I was [00:16:00] having check ins with a person that was actually the character in the book to make sure that they felt comfortable with it. And for most people, it's like, Oh my God, that's me in a cartoon format. That is so weird. Everyone was like, Oh my God, this is my life. You know, because when you tell your story in an interview is one thing, but when you actually see it.

[00:16:19] Marzia Arico: You know, depicted like that. It's quite confronting.

[00:16:22] Yeah.

[00:16:23] Marzia Arico: Confronting slash illuminating. For some people was like this eureka moment. For others was like, oh my god, I'm not sure whether I should do this. Um, and so this is how we went about it. And it was a great experience. And then at that point, then I started looking for other, uh, illustrators.

[00:16:39] Marzia Arico: So I used, I worked with three different illustrator artists, two women and one man. And the reason why I decided to do that is because I had in mind three very different, somewhat very different parts of this book that were tackling quite different topics. So the first one, because it's about understanding what's there, it's black and white, it's quite [00:17:00] dry.

[00:17:01] Marzia Arico: Uh, but the second part is about seeking change and the ability to really find, find the right type of change for your organization and for yourself. And the style had to be different. So I went out to look for someone that is good at working with monochromes, that has a way more, you know, uh, rounded style.

[00:17:19] Marzia Arico: And then the third part, uh, which is a bit more realistic. It's, um, it's about, um, uh, envisioning alternative futures. And that brought in all the colors, basically. And for these two women, I basically started looking, researching all sorts of graphic novels and looking at people whose style I really liked.

[00:17:39] Marzia Arico: So I picked the style and then, and then, you know, found the person. Well, Gustavo was really, I found the person and I really clicked with him. So.

[00:17:49] Gerry Scullion: You, you interviewed lots of, was Harriet Wakelam in the future one from Recollection? Was Harriet, what part did Harriet Wakelam, I remember Harriet from Australia.

[00:17:57] Gerry Scullion: This is

[00:17:57] Marzia Arico: the current part. This um, future. The [00:18:00] current futures, yeah.

[00:18:00] Gerry Scullion: The futures, okay. So what, what was the, the most challenging part of the book? You've got three sections here, like the current state, if you want, and then, or the understanding of the current state and the future is, I think is pretty much, I'm kind of paraphrasing here.

[00:18:15] Gerry Scullion: Yeah. What was the most interesting part of? The book for you, what was the most illuminating piece that you learned?

[00:18:22] Marzia Arico: The first thing for me was the personal. Like, if you remember Harriet's story, at one point I described this moment where she got diagnosed with breast cancer, and had to leave work for 18 months, in a very critical moment for her career, and whatever she was trying to do, IAJ.

[00:18:39] Marzia Arico: And, um, and that, that for me, those moments were the most, and, and, you know, even with Natalie, um, from Wells Fargo, that's in the second part of the book, she tells about how, you know, in her childhood, she kept moving for between Paris and Manila, her parents were from the Philippines, but they were, they grew up in, in, in, uh, in, uh, in [00:19:00] France and how.

[00:19:01] Marzia Arico: Lonely they felt and now that I really had this layer of, you know, um, imposter syndrome since very early stage that she felt that she was really not good enough for any of the environments where she was. And you know, these stories, these aspects, this, you know, authenticity. And trust, if you like, because it takes a lot of trust from these people to actually come to me and actually tell me all of the details of these stories in their way.

[00:19:23] Marzia Arico: I was incredibly grateful on that one side and on the other, that was what really was illuminating for me because the real message of this book is not just, you know, to learn about, you know, tips and tricks and design leadership, how to make it work. But it's really more about how to integrate work. With your whole life, which is so much like you're, you're arriving in this, in this roles of leader where everyone is expecting you to have all everything, you know, uh, beautiful and perfect and all of the answers.

[00:19:52] Marzia Arico: And actually you're a fucking mess because you just diagnosed cancer or because, you know, you, you, you feel that you're not good enough for, [00:20:00] because you, you just got a divorce, right? You know, these leaders are people first and they come into these roles with, with a whole baggage of experiences and personal, uh, Experiences that really shape the way they go about these roles.

[00:20:15] Marzia Arico: And for me, that, for me, that was really important to portray and really important to tackle.

[00:20:22] Gerry Scullion: I mean, myself and yourself are probably You know, we're envisaging the future, uh, in, by doing what we do for a living and our aims are here to support design leaders and make sure that they can grow and be supported.

[00:20:39] Gerry Scullion: And when you go through this book, you see how human, uh, a lot of the design leaders are in the book. What advice do you give to the leaders of design leaders on how they can actually support and better nurture design leadership organically within their organizations?

[00:20:59] Marzia Arico: [00:21:00] Um, trust, I guess. One of the messages that come across from a few of the chapters from Yaku's chapter, but also from Harriet's chapter, but also actually from Shani, is that they had leaders that did not fully trust. Their, uh, position, their advice, their, their role, uh, because they didn't fully understand design.

[00:21:25] Marzia Arico: They kind of could, could, could see a, some value in it, but they couldn't trust it fully. And therefore there was as much as they could do. And at one point they either had to completely change job or shift role or, and so I guess if you, if you decide to invest in it and you decide to hire a design leader, which is not true.

[00:21:47] Marzia Arico: Just let these people do the work.

[00:21:51] Gerry Scullion: I mean, trust is, is so integral to what we do. And it's funny, I'm writing a lot about that at the moment these [00:22:00] days. Um, as I'm kind of working on lots of newsletters and content, potentially for something that I'm working on in the bigger scheme of things. Trust is easy.

[00:22:12] Gerry Scullion: I'm working on loads of stuff at the moment. My brain is, I'm trying to, I'm trying to curtail my brain at the moment to stop me from doing more initiatives. But trust is something we know is really important. And based on your experience, and especially because you've done the PhD in Copenhagen, or Copenhagen, as some people say, um, how do you cultivate that trust?

[00:22:33] Gerry Scullion: And is it possible to, um, you know, you can't say, you can't say to a CEO come here, um, Next week when I come in, cause I noticed you didn't trust me this week, but if you can come in next week, could you start trusting me?

[00:22:47] Marzia Arico: Yes, it has to be something that starts before end. So in the moment in which you decide to bring in these people and to put them in a certain position, to give them certain titles, certain budget, that certain size of teams.

[00:22:59] Yeah.

[00:22:59] Marzia Arico: [00:23:00] Uh, you're creating a partnership, right? You're creating a partnership that says. You know, I believe that these could, you know, become a value creation element for my organization. So, and that has to be treated as a partnership that will grow and there will be setbacks and there will be success moments, but you've got to trust the person that you're partnering with and that doesn't mean that you have to let people do whatever they want, right?

[00:23:25] Marzia Arico: You need to question, you need to challenge because that's exactly what a partnership is. But, uh. You know, you must do it in a way that is, you know, constructive, that is, you know, enabling, rather than, you know.

[00:23:38] Gerry Scullion: Absolutely. Do you think you have to like the person? Yes. You do have to like them at a personal level?

[00:23:46] Marzia Arico: Absolutely, I think so. It's really hard to find good people. You cannot, it really doesn't work. You cannot punish someone that you dislike.

[00:23:53] Gerry Scullion: Yeah, absolutely. I

[00:23:54] Marzia Arico: have never seen it.

[00:23:57] Gerry Scullion: Some people are like, look, it's, it's a transaction. And [00:24:00] I'm like, I don't, we're not robots, we're not robots. We're, we want to be around people that you feel like they have your back.

[00:24:07] Gerry Scullion: And you know, you're, you're ultimately being very vulnerable when you're in a design leadership role, you're, you're testing things. So, um, I really, and I don't usually, um, Like this person, Simon Sinek too much. I think it trivializes an awful lot of stuff, but Simon Sinek once. I remember, I think I read it actually, or maybe I saw a video of it.

[00:24:27] Gerry Scullion: I never can tell the difference in my brain anymore, but he was talking about, um, he was working hand to mouth. Like, so he was basically earning money just to survive. When he was working on why book, um, you know, I can't remember, I think it's just called why actually the book, um, he was looking for organizations where he could test a lot of the stuff out.

[00:24:48] Gerry Scullion: Whenever an organization rang up to him and said, Hey, listen, why should we hire you? And, um, his response was. Don't, don't hire me actually, you're not the right person for me. [00:25:00] And he would let them go. He said, if they come in with a suspicious mindset and they come in with that whole kind of like having to prove yourself,

[00:25:07] Marzia Arico: yeah,

[00:25:07] Gerry Scullion: that's usually a red flag.

[00:25:08] Gerry Scullion: And I'm like, absolutely Simon, that is something I'm always saying, like, if they're coming into you, can I go, why should I hire a group of designers?

[00:25:17] Marzia Arico: Yeah, that's such a great point because you see a lot of design leaders just not getting this to this new. Positions where the question is exactly that, what are you going to bring?

[00:25:28] Marzia Arico: Why shall I hire you? This and that, how are you going to prove? What are your numbers? Straight away, like they want saying, Oh, but they will change. I will convince them. No, they won't. They will not change. You will not. You're going to burn out. It's going to be awful. You're going to last no more than a year and then you're going to change jobs.

[00:25:44] Marzia Arico: This is usually what happens.

[00:25:45] Gerry Scullion: Yeah. The way I see it is most people have about 10 or 15 punches in their career. Like, so that's punches being jobs, like opportunities to really have a knockout. Don't waste them on these [00:26:00] kinds of opportunities, like, because if you, if you want to give two years, five years, 10 years to an organization, you're still in the same position.

[00:26:07] Gerry Scullion: I don't mean to be really kind of negative Nancy again on the same goal, but like. You know, you're wasting your life, you're, you're working in an organization that doesn't value you. And it's probably

[00:26:18] Marzia Arico: just wasting your opportunity or your career, but it's just really, it does something to you because you are in an environment where everyone keeps telling you that you're not enough.

[00:26:27] Marzia Arico: You know, the way it's just not good, that it's not helpful that, you know. And it does something to you as a person, but back to the point that you are a person before being a leader, and it's really hard to come out on the other side with self confidence and a lot of ideas, you know, it just doesn't happen.

[00:26:44] Gerry Scullion: Do you think design leaders need to be What kind of training, what does, what, what did you learn through this book? That was a formalized approach for design leaders suddenly do an MBA or something like that. And

[00:26:58] Marzia Arico: I don't think an MBA is [00:27:00] needed, but I think, you know, job rotation is a very good one being able to actually, you know, experience, um, different parts of the organization, like financing, you know, in HR, you know, in operations.

[00:27:11] Marzia Arico: And how things actually work, the language that people use, the unwritten rules, all those little dynamics, I think those kind of stuff are incredibly helpful. And I think the most effective leaders that I've seen, and especially for trying this book are people that come from another side of the organization that have.

[00:27:31] Marzia Arico: Done this and that, they were in engineering and they were in tech. They were, and then they, they discovered design, they started design and moved into design, but they're bringing with them, uh, like a whole bag of knowledge about how, how people operate in an organizational context. I don't think an MBA is needed to be honest.

[00:27:47] Marzia Arico: I don't think, I don't believe that spending 200 grand on an MBA is going to make you a better design leader.

[00:27:54] Gerry Scullion: I don't think so either. Like for years, I was like saying, maybe I should do an MBA. And then a few other people said, don't be so stupid. [00:28:00] Like, don't be so stupid. It doesn't work in my brain. One of the things I want to ask you a little bit more, and we'll talk about John Maida as well in a second, who was the forward of the book.

[00:28:09] Gerry Scullion: John Maida, is he still at Microsoft? Is he still at the

[00:28:13] Marzia Arico: Yes, it is. Is the AI guru, are you watching the kitchen AI?

[00:28:18] Gerry Scullion: What's AI? I'm only joking. But it's

[00:28:21] Marzia Arico: like, it's a super funny kind of LinkedIn video. I kind of,

[00:28:27] Gerry Scullion: and my brain is overloaded on AI stuff at the moment. I just need to switch off for a little bit.

[00:28:32] Gerry Scullion: But, um, I'll come back to that point in a minute. I want to ask you something that struck me. in the book, and you've lots of different people from all around the world. Okay, and I'm working with other territories at the moment, and I'm learning about different cultural aspects. What is your, what's the risk of two white people here talking about design leadership?

[00:28:56] Marzia Arico: Are

[00:28:57] Gerry Scullion: we looking at this, and I presume the [00:29:00] answer is going to be yes, we're looking at it from a western perspective, in terms of our cultures. Um, most of the text out there, In leadership that I can find is very white, very Western and, you know, American. What advice do you give to people who are, who are looking to challenge those cultural norms and really ensure that they've, they're bringing an inclusive mindset to design leadership?

[00:29:25] Gerry Scullion: So we're not perpetuating the MBA kind of requirement.

[00:29:28] Marzia Arico: Um, actually the, one of the reasons why it took me so long to write this book is because I was really keen to find at least three or four people that were not white and, uh, men and, uh, you know, living in the States or the UK. And that took me a really long time, like to find a black woman.

[00:29:50] Marzia Arico: In a leadership position was just next to impossible. It was so difficult. I had to really took me six months and not because there are no. [00:30:00] Black women in leadership positions or design leadership positions specifically. It's just because, you know, a lot of these people are not that, you know, visible in the network that I have, which is all white and Western.

[00:30:15] Marzia Arico: And so I really had to dig into the tent layers of my network to start finding names and people and And, you know, and I found a treasure is some incredible people are portrayed in this book, like Tanara, like, you know, Shani, like, Natalie, um. So I guess just don't think that your surrounding your world is their world because your world is 1 percent of the world.

[00:30:39] Marzia Arico: So, you know, there is way more around in the, in the, you know, even just starting from your network, but, you know, gravitating towards, uh, you know, higher layers. I don't know. I'm not an expert in diversity and inclusion, obviously, but, uh, this is not my field, but. You know, I guess just my recommendation would be just don't [00:31:00] stop to the, to the neighbor, to the first person that you know is a guru in the thing, you know, there are so many, you know, you know, I mean, at least I'm a woman, you're even a man, you know, it's just so hard, so hard that we are surrounded with just people that think and talk like us and to be honest, people in leadership, design leaders are found in Western kind of modern way.

[00:31:21] Marzia Arico: Thank you. Uh, corporations that it's not a role that is very widespread or common in general, you know, uh, even in corporations. So it's really a subset of a subset subset yet. A lot of diversity can be found. It should be found more. And so the reason why I chose this woman, the reason why, you know, I chose this character for the cover is to allow, you know.

[00:31:46] Marzia Arico: People that are in that, you know, path, the design, you know, career, maybe a manager level to start seeing themselves and the opportunities that could be for themselves to show that you don't have to be a white man in order to get to [00:32:00] these positions, but also that you don't need like a degree in design to come to get into these positions that you can come into these positions from all sorts of different positions.

[00:32:09] Marzia Arico: Places, and that's a piece of work that I started doing also with my, you know, video series. I have a video series called, uh, Design Voices Elevated, and I've produced two series. And I try to look in diversity in all sorts of different sense. For example, interviewing someone that does not have a degree, that was homeschooled for an entire life.

[00:32:28] Marzia Arico: That was coming from a family where there were 10 children. And, and yet she's in a design leadership position, but what does that mean in terms of stigma that you carry around that you do not have a degree where everyone else has a degree, a master, a PhD from some top universities, right? That's another, uh, you know, aspect of, uh, you know, bringing the different perspectives to the table.

[00:32:51] Gerry Scullion: The future of design leadership is something that I'd love to get your perspective on a little bit more. Um, We can [00:33:00] talk about DNI stuff, but as you pointed out, it's, it's not an area of expertise of mine and nor yours. I don't want to add, you know, kind of thoughts on that space when there's a great leader like yourself here in front of us.

[00:33:13] Gerry Scullion: Where do you see, um, the future of design leadership? Because it's still relatively new, like we've got product leadership and marketing leadership and design leadership is still kind of finding its feet, you know, if you imagine I had a DeLorean and we drove at 88 miles an hour and we went into the future and it was 2050.

[00:33:38] Gerry Scullion: What are the things that you would love to, um, look back and see that has changed to enable design leadership to prosper within organizations?

[00:33:48] Marzia Arico: I really doubt that design leadership as it is right now will prosper in organizations. I think it will die pretty soon. I think I don't think in 10 years time we will see

[00:33:58] Gerry Scullion: design leaders

[00:33:59] Marzia Arico: design leaders [00:34:00] with those titles with this type of shape.

[00:34:02] Marzia Arico: They will be there and I think it will grow, but within within structures that are way more understandable for organizations, I really see design leaders in strategy roles, right? Probably different type of title. It's not design leader, but something. Yes, you are a design leader, you bring design, that's your mindset, that's, you know, your, your, your toolbox, that's the way you think and see the world, your perspective, your pair of glasses is just that it's not a title that is called shift the label, you know what I mean?

[00:34:31] Marzia Arico: It's not a label because you're not representing design. You're representing something else. I've always seen design as a medium to an end. I don't see design as the end. Right. Like you embrace design to do something else, to do what. And that's why I, I try to frame these three parts of the book around the three things that I think the three areas where I think design is the most to give in an organizational context.

[00:34:55] Marzia Arico: Because we keep saying, uh, design can be applied to everything and anything. And I don't think it's [00:35:00] true. Actually, I don't think it's true. There are certain problems that really require way more analytical, uh, approaches than design, but design really thrives in uncertainty, thrives in visualizing alternative futures.

[00:35:12] Marzia Arico: It really thrives when the question is really fuzzy and there is not one solution to things. Right. And so. And so I think design leaders will start covering roles more related that to change management to it. We will see them way more in HR functions as well. Um, and as well as a strategy. I think this is going to be kind of the next step.

[00:35:36] Marzia Arico: What design leader will stay with that type of title will be still linked to product still linked to UX. Which I don't think it is the design leader that we want to see out there. Yeah, but the potential design in the world, right?

[00:35:52] Gerry Scullion: Yeah, I think it's rare enough to see somebody, unless it's on LinkedIn, of course, where everyone is delighted to announce they've got a design leadership [00:36:00] role.

[00:36:01] Gerry Scullion: Sorry, I'm being really cynical about LinkedIn these days. You see, you're saying in the future, that title of design leadership in an organization will most likely, you know, be dissolved and kind of morph into other things across the organization, like the DNA. The mindset will permeate more of the organization who will be the person that they look to then for the future of design and if there's no design leader, so to speak, within the organization, what, what, what area do you think will own it?

[00:36:35] Gerry Scullion: Like, at the moment when I

[00:36:38] Marzia Arico: need someone to own it, like, you know, I had the whole, um, in my blog, a rare piece of one point, um, called, uh, they all. Point of having a seat at the table is bullshit and, uh, and, uh, and it caused like a lot of, uh, blah, blah, blah, and, uh, responses. But, but, but actually the very point about that is that you cannot treat design as a [00:37:00] silo, design is not finance, like you cannot just live in a silo.

[00:37:04] Marzia Arico: Design needs to live and breathe across horizontally the organization in order to unleash its full potential. So maybe there is no one, uh, single example of what good looks like. Maybe there are 13 different examples of what good looks like, and these people will have very different job titles and very different backgrounds and very different ways to show, portray what is the value of design.

[00:37:28] Marzia Arico: And some will be quantitative, some others will be qualitative. And it will be more distributed. And I think that is the only way for design to really unleash his power in an organizational context. There is no way we'll be able to change anything in these places unless we embrace, uh, what they are.

[00:37:47] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:37:48] Gerry Scullion: So I've got one more question. We're not, we're not on the DeLorean anymore, folks. We've left the DeLorean. We're back in 2025. I know it was crazy. We all went into the future there. Marzia did a great role playing Marty McFly, [00:38:00] but now we're back. Um, if you are listening to this and you're in a, in a role at the moment and there's a fire inside, okay, there's a fire inside where you're like looking and listening and kind of going, you know, I'm going to buy that book first of all, that's the first thing you need to do.

[00:38:19] Gerry Scullion: And the second of all. I want to know, Marzia's like, no, yeah, good

[00:38:21] Marzia Arico: man, Cherry, good man.

[00:38:24] Gerry Scullion: What advice do you give to emerging leaders? So that are there at the moment that they're looking to take that step. Okay. You know, is this opening up Google and searching design leadership roles in my area or what is it?

[00:38:39] Gerry Scullion: That's a joke. The

[00:38:41] Marzia Arico: advice for me would be. To understand the context within which you operate. You know, you have no idea how many people I, I do a lot of, um, coaching to design leaders and emerging leaders, and the first question I usually ask, do you, who do you report to? Who does the person that you report to reports to?

[00:38:58] Marzia Arico: Do you know? Yeah. And they usually [00:39:00] know who they report to. They have no idea what happens after that. Yeah. And that is a massive signal of failure. Like you are failing whatever you're trying to do already from the first question. You've got to understand the context within which you are immersed. Who are the people?

[00:39:15] Marzia Arico: What are the power plays? How do people make decisions? How is value created? That's another question I ask, how is value created in your organization? Like everyone is in their own little, you know, box. I know that I need to, you know, take care of this part, but you are part of a much larger whole. And unless you understand the larger whole, you will never be able to spot opportunities for design to really unleash

[00:39:39] Gerry Scullion: its value.

[00:39:42] Gerry Scullion: 100%. I mean, there's lots of, there's lots in that conversation alone. So. The emerging leaders, they've got the fire inside, they're still listening to this conversation.

[00:39:53] Marzia Arico: Just go and listen to others.

[00:39:54] Gerry Scullion: Go and listen to others.

[00:39:56] Marzia Arico: Stop advocating for design. Stop evangelizing. [00:40:00] Stop, stop

[00:40:01] Gerry Scullion: selling design.

[00:40:03] Marzia Arico: Stop saying other design is good because you're not going to be able to do that.

[00:40:06] Marzia Arico: They're going to hate you. And so, you know, the only thing you can do is understand where you can add value and add that value and then let people recognize that.

[00:40:15] Gerry Scullion: Yeah, it's the push and pull scenario, really. It's like you're, you're, you're bringing people closer. Um, so there's a load, a load of pieces there for, for people to, to get started if they wanted to.

[00:40:27] Gerry Scullion: And I don't want, I don't like when people come on the podcast and say, buy my books, I'll do it for you. This book. Is, um, is fantastic. Okay. It really is because it gives you those multi perspectives. If you do have that fire inside you folks and you're listening to it, I don't get any money from referring these books.

[00:40:42] Gerry Scullion: People don't come on this podcast if I don't think there's merit in what they're talking about. There's merit in this. There's value in this book and you can do an awful lot worse than buy this and drop it onto the desk of your, your person that you're working with as well and share it around the organization.

[00:40:58] Gerry Scullion: If people want to follow you Marzi, [00:41:00] what's the best way for people to do that? And learn more about the services that you offer.

[00:41:05] Marzia Arico: Well, I have a website marzia. studio and LinkedIn. I'm always on LinkedIn, although you hate LinkedIn these days. No, I don't. I'm just like, it's a

[00:41:13] Gerry Scullion: steward at the moment.

[00:41:15] Marzia Arico: designmavericks. substack. com Oh, yeah. It's also that. I'm here as your begun agent. substack. com I'll put a

[00:41:23] Gerry Scullion: link to those in, in the show notes. If you're watching on YouTube or if you're watching full episodes on Spotify, they will be in there in the description. Links to those. Marzi is remarkable and I didn't say it at the top of the conversation, congratulations on the new addition to your family as well.

[00:41:38] Gerry Scullion: Okay, I've seen photos, an absolutely stunning creation, probably the best service you've ever created.

[00:41:46] Marzia Arico: Product service kind of ecosystem.

[00:41:49] Gerry Scullion: Absolutely. Um, you know, it's. It's got the full, full potential to see an amazing future, uh, as, as a mother and a father, uh, like you have at home. So [00:42:00] congratulations again from everyone here on This Is Ain't CD.

[00:42:04] Gerry Scullion: Thanks for coming on. Gerry.

[00:42:05] Marzia Arico: It's very nice to see you again.

‍