Nicole Kahn

Some of the bigger tech companies I would talk to, they want to really put you in that bucket like, do you do research? Or do you do design? I'm like, wait, but I do both. So having to actually parse that and find an organization that wanted all of me, you know, they didn't want me to just stop at I write research decks.

Liz Gerber (host)

We are so excited to welcome Nicole Kahn, who has worked at the international design consultancy at IDEO, WeWork and now Carta. Her creative superpowers are design research and storytelling. And I've always admired her ability to lead others and creative practice. We're so happy to have you here Nicole.

Nicole Kahn

Thanks. I'm thrilled to be here.

Liz Gerber (host)

We're going to jump right into it. So this question is about the start of your of your career. So wanting to know how did you get your start in technology design? And what was your Oh, I'm a designer moment or oh, I should be in tech moment. If you had a moment. Um,

Nicole Kahn

I so I was a chemical engineering major undergrad, I went to Brown. And my friends would tease me because every year, every quarter, or sorry, semester, every semester, I take four classes. Three of them were for my major and one was for fun. And my engineering friends were like, What do you take and like, Oh, I'm taking art of the short essay. And printmaking is the best class ever. They're like Nicole, you say that about every class that's not related to engineering. My senior year of college I took a class with RISD industrial designers and Brown (University) engineers. And that changed my life. That was it. That was the moment where they had played sounds very cliche, but they played the idea of a shopping cart video, I learned about the Stanford program in product design and my heart spit up and I'm like, This is what I want. Fast forward, you know, three years later enrolled in the Stanford Product Design program and you know, adopted the it's all about the journey, how like a chemical engineer, I can turn themselves into a designer.

Liz Gerber (host)

Is there anything you still use from your days as a chemical engineer that really serves you well?

Nicole Kahn

I think I'm like, I don't know. I'm pretty I can be analytical like I can like, get in. Maybe there's some like the analysis of research writing, which is both: how do you find the patterns and make it all it but also creative? I think I get some of that analytical. But no, I was not a very good at engineer. I used to be really good at Excel, because I had a job between undergrad and grad school where I like all these shortcuts and can do macros and pivot tables. So I feel like every once in a while I have like little trigger fingers. I'm like, I should be able to do this. But I don't think technology has kept up with me, or I haven't kept up with technology actually.

Liz Gerber (host)

I like I like that. Technology is not kept up with you. I like that framing. That's better. So then you, from there, —thank you that's a perfect transition—you went more into design research. So can you explain that path? How you got started? Was there a moment that you said, Oh, I research is where I'm at where it's at, for me,

Nicole Kahn

Got to Stanford and took a lot of classes and was frankly, like a very overwhelmed by all the people who'd like made handmade boats before and done all the machining and the welding and all that stuff, and took a class with someone who became my mentor, Michael Berry, and had the opportunity to intern with him the summer between my two years. And that's kind of where I honed in, I think after grad school. And the thing I really that drew me to like the design research, the strategy, the innovation side, it was the most open then. It was the furthest upfront in the design process and it meant that I had the biggest chance of actually telling people like, where is the opportunity, not on the mechanical widget of how we can make it but like, where's the market and the business and the innovation opportunities, and I loved that. And I found myself good at it, which was also reaffirming, when maybe I wasn't the best machinist out there. Welding, maybe I can hang but not so much.

Liz Gerber (host)

I love it. Thank you. And then the next further into that is you've really focused most of your career in tech, you could be in many different domains. So why why the connection and the focus in tech?

Nicole Kahn

Tech is, I would say, is newer and I was determined to get into tech, honestly, I think I felt that at the time I risked a chance of irrelevance if I didn't. That's one of the reasons why I mean, I wanted to leave idea for a number of reasons. But I was really hungry to get into tech. And that was not actually an easy transition. Because when you're in consulting for a long time, and at IDEO, while I did service and design and service design, experience design, innovation research, like how that maps into technology was not obvious for me. So I did a massive job search with lots and lots of opportunity. And, you know, there were opportunities to go run innovation labs, but I was most intrigued by heading to WeWork where I can lead up design research and strategy. So that end to end process that I ran at IDEO, where I didn't see myself pigeon holed as a researcher, I'm a designer, right? That gets that got translated for me in TAC and as design research and strategy, and that doesn't mean I don't get to do all the things I didn't get to do all the things I did it just like I had to map that it was not obvious, bigger tech companies I would talk to, they want to really put you in that bucket like, do you do research? Or do you do some design, I'm like, wait, but I do both. So having to actually parse that and find an organization that wanted all of me, you know, they didn't want me to just stop at "I write research decks," because I believe like really good research and experience design, you need to get from insights, actual insights into maps into opportunity areas into vision like that is the flavor of research and design. So yeah, that was kind of how I landed at WeWork. I had other job offers, and WeWork with the most exciting and I got more than I could bargained for I think on the excitement front with what I lived through at WeWork.

Liz Gerber (host)

you live through a very interesting time. I wonder if there's a lesson you took away from that either from that period of time during the pandemic, or just much more broadly, as you progress through your career that you'd be willing to share?

Nicole Kahn

Yeah, I mean, gosh, so so many so many learnings that we work. I learned what is like the result of hyper growth is like not a personal lesson, but kind of more of an environmental lesson like hyper growth startups come at a cost. So you're kind of challenged to grow year over year revenue at all cost. And you know, 10 years in, which is pretty much when I joined is in line with what I'm doing it card as well. You have a lot of technical debt, a lot of like user experience that people have been told to go build and launch at all costs, and haven't had the chance to, you know, like, step back, they almost don't want to pay the collaboration tax. So you build...

Liz Gerber (host)

speak more, you said they have a user experience debt.

Nicole Kahn

Yeah, that's what it's called. Like, there's UX debt. And there's tech debt. UX debt, it's like tech debt is like when your back end systems are like not built to scale or often when you're you've built this is I mean, way more technical. And don't please don't like I don't know it all. But like, you've built a monolith, right? Like you pile things on. And usually you have to decompose things into services so that your back ends can like really thoughtfully call it call things up to your front ends, and it doesn't, you're not like going through this mess and chain. Well, UX debt is kind of similar, where, for example, like you maybe have launched a new feature or a new product, but you've stuck it in a weird place in your menu, because you didn't have the infrastructure to build it anywhere else. And so like the user experience doesn't make any sense. It's not intuitive, but you've, you've done it, or I've seen a lot of like, we just shift our org chart like well, I'm the you know, I don't know, I'm the what would be an example, like, I'm in charge of floor plans, this group, and I'm in charge of memberships. And so memberships and floor plans become your top level navigation. But that's not a user's mindset. It's just our org chart. So there's a lot of unwinding of of that that needs to happen once you kind of pump the brakes on growth at all cost, and can actually step back and say, how do we go back to the first principles of what a user thinks? And what are their mental models? And like, what are their core workflows or jobs to be done? And then how does that start to reflect in the design? So yes, you have both of those. So that's like the reality of a scaling startup. I think on a personal level, for WeWork, I think I was always a fairly authentic leader, but it it brought me to a whole nother level of authenticity when you are leading people. So I had like a year of hyper growth. And then the IPO failed. And we did mass layoffs and it was very uncertain. And then a year of yuckiness and then a whole nother year and a half of rebuilding. And so, like the authenticity that I had to bring to be like, I'm sorry, this place is a mess. I don't really know what you should work on. I don't know what I should work on. Or I would you know, I wouldn't you can't retain people, right? I would say like this place is not easy to work like you have to want it. So just that level of like authenticity and being like I said, No one can question my tolerance for ambiguity and grit and being able to persevere and find the joy in the optimism. So a little bit of like, whoa, scouting startup, and then also like, what does it mean to lead through kind of trauma and ambiguity. Yeah, I would say, What's crazy?

Liz Gerber (host)

Wow, thank you for sharing so so authentically your experiences as a leader out, I'm wondering if you can dig a little deeper into that and say what the differences for you were between leading a design research team and being a design researcher.

Nicole Kahn

Being a design researcher means like you're being handed meaty, unknown challenges, and you have to go figure them out? By doing all the research yourself, right? Who are the people? Who are the users you need to speak to? How do I think about the ecosystem? How do I distill insights? And how do I map journeys and identify major pain points and help to strategize and prioritize. As the person who's leading that research team, I had different things I needed to think about, I needed to think about the team and the quality of the talent on that team. So that's a big part of like, do I have the right skills on the team? How do you think about deploying that team and then guiding? So what's Excellent? What does good look like? How do we start to define what what I always call them, those deliverables that people savor? You know, that one journey map that just like maps, the whole world that everyone calls up over and over and over again, or like your diagram of a strategy of how we're going to approach them. So helping to guide the design researchers doing the work. And think about like, how, what's the beginning, middle and end of a project? And how do I help make their deliverables the best that will serve the organization and their needs?

Liz Gerber (host)

I love on your LinkedIn bio, you have a short sentence that says "no great design is done alone." When were you inspired to put that, when did you have that insight, and when were you inspired to put that on?

Nicole Kahn

I had a moment. So in grad school, I'll just be honest, I cried a lot. I was very hard on myself. I was very intimidated, I had never done a lot of design work before. And I was surrounded by like the best of the best. And I didn't really see myself as like this amazing designer who could go off and design incredible things. And your your worldview is very small there, you don't see how you in a in a program with 30 students between first year and second year, you don't see how you map out in the world or all the things that you're learning. It was David Kelley, actually, who talked about how he wasn't the lone designer type. And even to the extent that when he did his own thesis, project years and years ago, he would recruit undergrads to come help him with work. And that was a big unlock for me, and also helping identify myself as a designer and realizing I didn't have to be, you know, the Steve Jobs, although it's probably not the right metaphor, but like the lone genius designer, and it was a team. And I've only ever worked in a team setting when I worked at Point Forward and his apprenticeship model. So it was me and a more senior researcher and strategist at IDEO. It's all team. I only know how to work that way, probably to a fault.

Liz Gerber (host)

I love the story, first of all, about a very specific story of a moment where David Kelley said he recruited undergrads. And just also your focus on the language you're using. It reminds me of your immaculate ability to tell stories, and how carefully you think about what story to convey, and what words to use it. And I'm wondering if there's a story that you have developed in your lifetime, about a project you did, or a story you're particularly proud of that really stuck with people that really, people still remember it to this day,

Nicole Kahn

The bar test?

Liz Gerber (host)

Well tell you that story. You can start there.

Nicole Kahn

Yes. So this was a good segue. The bar test super simply. And this is I have to credit my former colleague at IDEO Neil Stevenson, and I kind of came up with this as well. And it was that observation, which is we had our designers at IDEO doing the same thing, 14 weeks on a project. What happens in the boardroom at that exact meeting is make it or break it. And designers were spending two hours on that and not always doing an awesome job. So we spun up a storytelling series to help raise the bar on people's stories by by telling personal stories and showing the elements that make a personal story also apply to work story. First step of idea kind of ideas stories was to do the bar test, which is how well does your story hold up at a bar. So it could be a work story where you go, you don't get into a deck, you don't write anything down. You just go and you pitch it. What is the story of this project? What is the three line? And by the time you drink a drink, you should have it out and you should be able to get really good signals of like When did people lean in when did they lose you is this Is there a through line there? Those 5 or 10 minutes of actually just talking through the story and getting feedback, exponentially accelerate you You in actually developing a really good presentation with good observations with a through line with like a good punch line with things that they should hit in order for people to like actually pick up what you're putting down.

Liz Gerber (host)

I have to ask, can anything be made into a story?

Nicole Kahn

As long as you can accompany it with an anecdote. So people remember and it just people don't remember your synthesis of it, right, like so you can have the most beautiful synthesis of like, your awesome through line, like the point of this is, you know, whatever, you've just done a water project and like, everything about water boils down to purity, making that you don't have good stories about impure water, or when people found purity, like, it doesn't matter. No one will care. So like, I think you can make anything into a story as long as you can put the substance and the feelings around it. But I it's funny, I'm about to say it, but I'm no expert. I know.

Liz Gerber (host)

Stop it.

Nicole Kahn

I know.

Liz Gerber (host)

You are an expert in storytelling, design research, and many other things.

Nicole Kahn

I also really like words too. I think people just they discount how powerful choosing the right words really are. When you're making a point and like the art of persuasion and poignancy. Oh, it really helps. It's it's fun.

Liz Gerber (host)

Do you see it as design? A design challenge?

Nicole Kahn

Absolutely. Like, especially I'm super picky about anyone who's reported into me and I guided their work. I'm very picky about final presentations and the words that go in there. I'm like, is this thorough way? Are people gonna remember this? Like, this isn't pithy enough? Yeah, I I, and I have no I don't, I'm not a trained writer at IDEO. We had that as a discipline. Like there are UX writers, and copywriters, some who are, who come more from like the expertise of user experience, and how that pairs with like a product interface and some who are just like amazing at voice and tone. And for them, like it's still work for me to write for them. It's not it's like so fluid. Yeah, it's an amazing discipline. I love working with writers.

Liz Gerber (host)

Okay, two final questions. And we'll wrap up here, what's something you still want to learn? Learn about, do, in your professional life?

Nicole Kahn

I'm still learning tech, the sounds silly too, like, I don't know. Like, I'm still learning about the monolith and the services in the repo. And like, I think I it's an interesting thing coming from another world. And I had to check myself that we work I definitely have like a defining moment we work where I had to realize that I was the expert. And that took me a minute to own at rework, you show up to these meetings, and like, who put this stuff together just didn't make sense. And then you realize whether, you know, was there a meeting? Did I miss no, there was no meeting and somebody just tried to put a decade in, but they didn't know. And, hey, you're an expert, you go and lead. And so I'm so so trying to blend that, I think as I learn, like, more about the intricacies of tech, like, how does my expertise lend itself? When should I be louder and more assertive? When should I be learning and using that? What's the things that are important that I need to pay attention to?

Liz Gerber (host)

I love that. Thank you. Final question. Any advice you have to share with young people entering the field that might aspire to be in a leadership position like yourself someday?

Nicole Kahn

I think one of the most important skills a designer needs to have fits in that category of strong opinions loosely held. Your ability to have a point of view and influence is huge. I was just on this morning with my CPO

Liz Gerber (host)

CPO, which stands for?

Nicole Kahn

Chief Product Officer. So my new boss, because I already have a new boss. She was like, I really think designers need to lead more. They are experts at the users. They are experts of the problem space. They are experts about what's an awesome experience. And they often aren't loud enough. And I like my designers loud. I was like I will always have your back. But like lead with a perspective lead with a point of view. And I literally most of the people that I'm going to give feedback to that is a point for them. Your colleagues want you louder, your colleagues want you more affirm your colleagues want you pushing back more. And so that's my advice. And I would say especially for the women who maybe are going to be in the room with a lot of men. Get Loud, find your voice, strong opinions loosely held and there's ways to do it through humor. There's ways to do it was saying, Hey, this is my opinion, common invite the critique, invite the criticism, but like bring the opinion and they should not be shy about offering that it's all prototype can always go back. I define that as one of my personal flaws. Everything's a prototype. I'm just making it up. We're gonna try it. Some things are gonna work. Some things aren't. This opinion–it's a version of a prototype. Just put it out there. People are hungry for good leadership.

Liz Gerber (host)

Beautiful. I love it. Thank you so much Nicole!