In Conversation: Georgina Robilliard & Stefan Bramble, and Ted Tencza with Gretchen Scott

Introduction and Panel Setup
Gretchen introduces the panel and sets the stage for a Q&A session focusing on team growth, diversity, and culture.
The Importance of Diverse Teams
The panel discusses the crucial role of diverse teams in creating better products and fostering inclusive environments. They highlight the benefits of diverse perspectives and lived experiences in product development and decision-making.
Diversity Beyond Representation
Stefan emphasizes the importance of substantial diversity, moving beyond token representation. He explains the concept of archetypes and the need for multiple individuals from diverse backgrounds to avoid burdening single individuals with representing entire groups.
The Innate Value of Acceptance
Stefan shares insights from a doctoral candidate's research, suggesting that the human need for acceptance of difference is innate and valuable, independent of productivity outcomes.
Diversity Debt
Ted introduces the concept of "diversity debt," highlighting the challenges of building diverse teams later on if diversity isn't prioritized from the beginning. He encourages proactive efforts to avoid accumulating this debt.
Audience Q&A: Rewarding Interviewers
An audience member asks about rewarding employees for their performance as interviewers. Ted shares how his company treated interviewing as a skill, offering title promotions, swag, and incorporating it into performance reviews.
Audience Q&A: When is it Time to Play?
An audience member inquires about the right time to introduce play into a team environment, considering the importance of boundaries and safety. Georgina and Stefan discuss the interplay of boundaries, safety, and play, emphasizing the importance of testing and leading by example.
Safety and Play
Stefan emphasizes the ongoing nature of safety efforts, advocating for the phrase "safe enough" instead of "safe." He discusses the inherent risk in creation and learning, and how to foster an environment where individuals feel safe enough to take risks.
Responding to Mistakes in Play
Gretchen asks how to respond to situations where play goes wrong and someone gets hurt. Stefan uses the analogy of gorillas and babies to explain the importance of resilience and the presence of safety nets.
Key Takeaways
Each panelist offers a final takeaway: Georgina emphasizes the importance of containing and using emotions constructively; Stefan highlights the importance of personal safety in creating a safe group environment; and Ted reiterates the need for training in leadership and other soft skills.
Closing Remarks
Gretchen thanks the panelists and concludes the session.
So we've got just under 10 minutes for questions with these fabulous people.
I'm going to start with one, and then you can all start chasing the microphone and having some really good ones.
I'm going to sit on this seat though.
Good work.
I'm ready for the journey.
Oh.
Yours might be there.
I'm going to stand back here momentarily.
So we talked to Oh, my arm.
Is this working?
Yep.
There we go.
So we talked a lot about growing teams.
By numbers and by culture, and a lot of it alluded to having diverse teams, right?
Do we give a shit?
Should we have diverse teams?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Sorry.
We all have them.
Oh, you do too.
Yeah.
I think it's important because you get better products.
I still remember I was seeing a, video once of somebody who was looking at, they were in a men's, restroom and they were trying to use the automatic soap dispenser and it was, an African American and every time he put his hand in there, it didn't work and he had to take a paper towel, a white paper towel, put it under there so it would recognize the skin and then he could get the soap.
And you only get that if you have purely white people working on it.
If you have people with other lived experiences, you will get a better product because you'll take into those things into, account.
I have to agree very, strongly.
The, other way I think about it is, if you have, a diverse group of people, you're more likely to hear from everybody in, the group.
If you've got, we've talked previously about having one person who identifies as a woman and it's great having two on the stage right because it's like otherwise i'm the one that therefore represents all women's opinions and unless I am in an environment where I can speak up and share my lived experience.
I am less likely to do.
And then the end result of the product being better can't happen because I can't contribute in that way.
Can I throw some psychoanalytic nerd at you?
what G's describing there is that in any group, we, unconsciously put people in different archetypes, and so this is why it's not just enough to have a diversity of one, because that person is going to cop all projections for that archetype for that group.
So you actually have to make sure that if you're doing diversity, not that you just dip your toe in the water, that you go fully at it.
And I think at the core of the question, I, okay, there's another piece of nerd, is I talked to a doctoral candidate that's doing research in this question, and by all means, these answers are very true.
The products are better, the outcomes are better, but what she's doing a doctoral thesis on is proving that the fundamental feeling that groups need to be accepting of difference is an innate human thing that actually has a value in it, even if it's not related to the commodity or the thing that we produce and that is actually the reason why we should do it and those other reasons as well And sorry, I'm gonna say another thing because I feel really passionate about this I think at the core of the diversity question is actually okay so we build diverse teams, but when you've got them, how do you do that well?
Because if you are not prepared for that when you do the right thing and you build a diverse team, if you're not aware that's going to create different challenges, because as groups have evolved, in the way back, there wasn't diversity, because we were isolated groups that were developing how we thought about groups.
So we have to, we actually have to put some thought into what happens when we get these diverse teams, and how do we create a sense of unity in diversity.
Is that the safety circle in your pitch?
Yeah, it's that one.
One other quick thing is that, if aren't paying attention to it, you, the same way that you get tech debt if you just are trying to get supply, if you're just hiring and all you're hiring is geared towards a very specific cohort, you're going to end up with diversity debt.
And then the more you get into diversity debt, the harder it is to get to a diverse team.
A team of 10 men and trying to get a female to join it becomes difficult.
So then you end up taking the easy way out because you need to hire somebody.
Now you've got a team of 25 men and now trying to get somebody a diverse group and is even more difficult.
So start now.
Oh, I love that.
Have we got any audience questions?
Yes.
You talked about, you talked about someone who gets stuck in interviews a lot being penalized in a performance review later on.
I'm curious, do you have any tips for rewarding people for their performance as interviewers?
We, did because we basically treat it as a skill.
They got title promotions, they actually got to put that into their, LinkedIn if they wanted to.
That they were, got promoted to senior interviewer.
We actually gave away swag as part of it, and we made sure that kind of work was included in the evaluation.
So you've got the famous talk about glue work and how, that, that whole process tends to get ignored.
We made sure that all of that was in there.
And it wasn't just interviewing.
It was organizing the hackathons.
It was, conducting the tours for the UNSW students as they were coming for a worksite visit.
All of that gets counted.
In the performance review.
I had a question about play.
You talked about boundaries and safety.
When do you know you've got enough boundaries, you've got enough safety that it's time to play?
Do you want to go first or me?
I can go, I can go.
You go first.
I think.
All of those things it sounds like you do one after the other and you do need to set up boundaries, but the reality is all of us is in organisations at the moment or are about to join one that already exists and there's some amount of that happening.
So I think it's about testing and the thing about leading, gotta go first.
And part of that is that bringing, it's so clichéd, but I really mean it.
Bringing yourself to work and the way that Steph and I used to talk about my very different play style to Steph because I have said things like I hate games, like I'm not doing anything of that, that I feel like compulsory fun.
But in describing play like the how you enjoy the process of learning and enjoy interaction with people, I've been leading that way my whole life.
I'll be pressing mute and yelling at the dogs and laughing at the dogs and bringing a dog up and showing the whole, like just bringing what makes me, me and then [inaudible] goes into the room .
The thing is that if I then, if other people aren't doing it,that's the sign that I haven't done anything else properly yet.
I've really got to go back and look at those things in the boundary layer.
Yeah, the most playful leader that hated play.
Yeah.
That was my experience of you.
Can, you say the question again, so I can You, you talked about boundaries and safety, but like, when do you know it's time to play?
Ah, when do you know it's time to play?
So you talk about boundaries, and when do you know it's time to play?
Before play can happen, in a technical frame, safety and relationships have to be solid, so you have to be testing them all the time.
I'm going to answer your question a bit differently from what you asked, because I think it makes my brain go in a different direction.
Here's the thing, this is the truth.
When you do safety, it never ends.
You never, you, if you ever are like, we're safe now, you aren't, because you have started thinking that we're safe now.
And we know this because when you do an abseiling course, they're not like, all right, put on the carabiner, get up the cliff, now take it all off and you're safe now.
Yeah, like it's something that you constantly have to be doing all the time.
And and also want to say another thing.
Here is another truth.
I really want us to start using the phrase safe enough.
Not the word safe.
Because implicit in using the word safe is the idea that you are a hundred percent safe.
So it's the whole stack hat idea.
People have more accidents when they put a helmet on.
And safe enough means that you feel safe enough to take risks.
Teachers know this because you cannot make a classroom 100 percent safe because if you did, by definition, the person couldn't learn anything.
It would kill all learning, all creativity.
The act of creation is unsafe.
I wrote a poem.
You could have all turned around and said, that is horrible.
Yeah.
There's a risk in it, but do I feel safe enough to take the risk?
So the burden doesn't burn out my brain.
And that's the job that we're trying to create.
When is it the time to take play?
When you're looking at the group.
I can't explain this other than the magic.
You feel it.
You're like, ah, I think this could be a time to do this thing and then you'll make an offer and then the group might reject it.
That might hurt your feelings.
Legitimately, so you will have to go away with other leaders and go, I tried to do a thing and they all just thought I was an idiot.
Oh God.
It doesn't mean that you don't stop, you stop trying, but it's an instinct because you're testing to see if it's safe enough.
If you make an offer and they reject it, chances are, it's not safe enough to start the play yet.
Okay.
A parent would do.
Can I do a little follow on, Steph?
Let's say I, I think I've made it safe enough.
I set up this play and I, It's not I screw it up and I hurt someone or make it.
How do I what do I do then?
Ah, I can't give you a distinct answer because this is the other thing about this thing it is completely subjective to the moment that you're in doing it.
Like if someone said to me, how do I act good on stage?
I'd be like, I don't know.
You're probably gonna make a mistake but go back in your brain to what you do with young people when you play with them.
Do you sometimes play, go, I know I've done this.
Pick up the baby.
Whoa.
Whoa.
Oh gosh.
I just dropped the baby on the floor.
Now here's the thing about studying animals.
Here's a weird thing.
So in, gorillas, there's a moment where a mama gorilla will have their baby.
They'll protect it.
And then one day they'll just walk up to all the big man gorillas.
Put the baby in the middle of the group, and then walk away, and the only time they will come back is when, and then the man gorillas go, Oh baby!
Wah!
And the baby laughs and has fun, until eventually they do something that makes the baby cry, then the mum comes back in and picks up the baby.
What they think is happening is that we need to get the people resilient enough, the babies, the gorillas, resilient enough to try things and get knocked around, but then know that safety is there to get you when, you're needed.
So I don't know if I answered your question.
I think it was helpful.
Yes.
We don't have time for any more, but I've got the big microphone, so I still get to direct play.
What I've learned today is that we shouldn't throw babies.
Or use whiteboards for interviews.
But if each of you had one really quick of, yeah, sorry.
Certain types of interviews, like design systems is perfectly fine, just don't write code.
No code on whiteboards team, and don't give it to left handed people, it's unfair, but also a bit funny sometimes.
You could give that a go.
But if each of you had one quick takeaway to throw at the audience that wasn't more homework, or it can be homework actually, one quick takeaway each.
It is not your job to manage people's emotions, but it is part of your job to contain and hold them, and use them to make what you're doing better.
Oh, me.
You are, enough.
And that doesn't mean you don't have to work on your leadership skill.
But if you want to make safety in your group, you've got to make it safe for you first, because someone who is not safe cannot make it safe for someone else.
That was deep, Ted.
Recognize that a lot of the stuff we do is a learning skill.
As other people have mentioned, like train interviewers, train leaders, train people.
Train them, don't just assume that because they've been in the industry for X number of years that all of a sudden they magically acquired these, random skills that have absolutely nothing to do with what they've been doing for the last 10 years.
And there you have it, people.
Only minimal homework from this session.
But I would like to thank Ted from Purple Consulting and Steph and G from Playgrounded.