少数派の経験
This is Rainomoto's Podcast, The Creative Mindset.
Hi everyone, welcome to The Creative Mindset, a podcast about what the future holds at the
intersection of creativity and technology. I'm Rainomoto, the founding partner of I&CO,
a global innovation firm based in New York and Tokyo. Continuing from the last episode,
today's guest is Kevin Bethune, the author of the best-selling book, Reimagining Design,
and founder and chief creative officer of Dreams, Design, and Life, a think tank that delivers
design and innovation services using an emphatic, holistic approach. If you haven't listened to
part 1 of this conversation where we talked about how Kevin built an illustrious career spanning
engineering, business, consulting, and design. In part 2 of this conversation, I asked Kevin
a personal question, what were the challenges as a minority, a black individual in academic
and corporate America? So let's get started. Something that I sympathize very deeply in
your book is this idea of, as you wrote in your book, feeling like the other. I knew that phrase
obviously, but I don't, and the word minority being black, being Asian, being someone else,
not fitting in, what have you, but I really appreciated this articulation, this book is for
anybody who ever felt like the other. Because I don't think I've come across that articulation,
that expression, such a simple expression, but many of us, especially people who are from somewhere
else, geographically, ethnically, what have you, so I really deeply sympathize with that point.
But I wanted to get specific in terms of, say, situations, episodes, experiences that you've had,
and I'm sure you've had many, but to the extent that you feel comfortable sharing,
what being a person of color, a black person, and black engineer, or a designer, or professional in
general, and the context in which you worked, an engineering company, the very first one,
and you went to MBA, and you went to an athletic company, which I've been to that campus, there isn't
a lot of color, at least back then, like 20 years ago, there wasn't a lot of color, I have to say,
I have to say, there are athletes, top athletes that are represented might have a lot of color,
but not on campus, I'm sorry to say, let's say, and then consulting, there isn't a lot of color either.
Yeah, you have been feeling like the other throughout your career, so if I may,
what was, what is, and what was the hardest thing about feeling like the other?
There's been a few moments, standout moments, maybe I'll first focus on my experience, and then
in terms of what I observed in others being othered. At least when I went through my
engineering chapter, it's pretty like nuts and bolts, not to be cliche around mechanical
engineering to speak, but it was very like black and white, success looked like this,
your ability to get the job done or not, so it was pretty clear what the success criteria was,
so even if I encountered resistance, which I did, where people might have doubted how I showed up or
doubted my potential, but if I, as long as I could get the work done, I won respect, even from people
Nikeでの挑戦
that gave me initial ignorance or resistance, I won respect pretty quickly by just the sheer
nature of the work. When I got into the Nike environment, it was probably the most difficult
because it was less black and white. How you navigated such a matrix, such a complex matrix
of different departments and geographies and categories and the politics, the political
capital required to navigate across that spectrum of business areas could not be understated, and so
I wasn't born at Nike, my career didn't start at Nike, but when I'm in a situation where I'm
side hustling to learn as much as I can, I'm working a second job, working for free to,
for myself to learn and show that I can create this evidence that I have potential to at least
understand what to do in certain arenas, and when I'm holding up evidence and I'm applying for the
next job, hopefully trying to get closer to design and innovation, and I'm being told it's cute what
you're doing on the side, cute, but what you did at Nike before, this doesn't matter because this
place is hard, and granted they're talking to someone that has a nuclear background and the most
mission critical of product execution there is. You're telling that person that what they did
prior to Nike doesn't matter, and the last thing I'll say is what they told me is that if it's
between you and someone that started their career and they've been here for 10, 15 years prior,
we're going to pick that person every time. So really there's no place we see for you.
Was it purely based on your professional background, or do you think there was a degree
of skepticism because of the color of your skin? You can never definitively point to the
evidence of exactly that, but in the absence of constructive critique,
when you don't give me a clear sense of what the bar is, and I'm trying to hit the bar by
the side hustle that I'm doing, I'm holding up product, and I really appreciate those creative
mentors that I met that were brutally honest about what I didn't have yet as skills. They
showed me the portfolios. They showed me where you need to go to get the right type of learning.
I appreciated that so much. Yes, it was hard to hear the gaps that I don't have yet,
but I appreciated the respect that they had for me to be honest with what the success criteria is.
But when I encounter folks that are just like, we don't see you doing that,
and there's not a clear why, and they're not able to unpack for me
the clear bar of success or the road of what it takes, it's just we don't see you doing this.
So we're never going to pick you. It makes me wonder where is that motivation to resist coming
from? When I look at their teams, and I see none of me, and they're claiming to serve the
athlete over here, which in many cases are predominantly black and brown folks.
And I look in the team, and there's zero culture reflected in that team and their ability to serve
black and brown folks, and they're gatekeeping me from the opportunity. So what they say,
but also what they don't say. Speaks volumes. Do you think, and I'm not necessarily, because I've
バイアスと多様性の意識
worked with Nike for a long time, and I have a lot to thank for, for who I am today because of
partially because of my experience with Nike. I never worked at Nike, but I worked pretty closely
with Nike. So I definitely have a lot of respect and appreciation for that organization. And
taking a conversation slightly away from Nike, but just in corporate America in general,
that sense of either the lack of inclusion or either conscious or unconscious exclusion
of certain folks like you or me, let's say. But do you think that underlying nuances
of bias towards individuals, do you think that's changed, that's gotten better, that hasn't changed
or even worse? Growing up in a household of two working parents, you learn from your elders that
these patterns have existed before. And watching my dad's career, for example, play out, he worked
with the same employer for over 30 years. And he warned me, he warned his kids, there's a pendulum
and he is so right. There's a pendulum of concern for mitigating bias and championing inclusion.
And then it swings the other way against any idea of re-imagining or altering the existing
power structure. And I think we're in a climate right now, like the pendulum was the other way a
few years ago with the summer of the unfortunate murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and
the like. A couple of years later, you don't hear any companies really talking about social equity
and inclusion anymore. Even in his generation, he saw that pendulum swing this way. Every company
talking about diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, what have you. And then a few or five
or even decades later, nobody's talking about it. Back and forth. I've been in this country for now
over 25 years. And I downplayed my minority card. And I also didn't have to think as much
about my ethnicity and my origin story as much as I do now. Yeah. I think about it,
the fact that I'm Japanese, that I'm Asian, way more in the past five to say 10 years.
And the tipping point for me, and not to make this conversation about politics, but was 2016,
Obama to Trump. Oh, okay. Yeah. And then by the way, I don't think that was like
clear cutoff. I think it was gradual from 2016 on. And by saying, like you said, the summer of 2020,
George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, that was like the real tipping point.
And the rise of Asian American Pacific Islander hate crime.
Exactly. I never had to be aware of my ethnicity as much as I do now. And as much as I had to
since 2020-ish. But it started, I think, around in 2015 or 2016, precisely. What do you observe?
Unfortunately, I think for Black Americans, 2020 and the spike of awareness was not a surprise to
us. Because within our circles, within our communities, there are always these kind of
stories that don't get reported. Before even the rise of social media, we knew of these stories
happening. I can tell you stories from my own family where we had egregious assaults on our
property or on our person. Overt stuff, not just covert resistance, overt. And so many of these
ブラックコミュニティの視点
stories have not been told from a Black community perspective. So that when 2020 came around,
the world was finding out what Black people have been saying all along and weren't necessarily
believed. And from a covert angle within spaces where we spent a lot of time, the workplace,
corporate America, the global enterprises, what have you, all of a sudden people were
working up to the idea of, wow, my C-level is not reflective of society. There's like very
minimal Black and brown folks on our boards. Lack of Black and brown folks. And unfortunately,
for my Asian brothers and sisters, the paradigms of model minority tension, and they'll come to
bear where some of our demographics are played off of each other under largely white supremacist
systemic inequity and motivations and agendas. And again, any talk of disrupting the power
structure was met with, it's being met with overt resistance right now.
Just to look for some lights in this darkness, so to speak, are there or were there
advantages of being or feeling like the other? Yes. It's funny. The most diverse place I've
ever worked was being a creative co-founder of what became BCG Digital Ventures.
Oh, no way.
Now, granted, it was interesting and illuminating operating within the realm of
prestigious BCG, our parent company, and these prestigious relationships. But we were a bunch
of makers trying to spark what we called innovation or incubation of new businesses.
And so we were a ragtag group of misfits trying to make things, we were trying to build things.
And we didn't pretend as an early team to have all the answers. So we were constantly canvassing
the earth to find kindred entrepreneurial spirits that wanted to have the courage to jump into
BCG's landscape and build with us. So after a while of doing that, we didn't just go to the
same schools that maybe our parent company were used to going to. We were canvassing the earth.
I was finding kindred spirits on social media using Twitter a lot during the time to find
people that I felt could add to our toolkits, could add to our methodologies, could add to
our capabilities. And after years of building, I look back and it's the most diverse place
we've ever had because we looked on purpose for the best talent and we casted the net wider than
what was typical. So give me a couple of examples of these unexpected misfits. So what were the
signals that you were looking for on social media or Twitter? What made you go, oh, this person
looks interesting. What were the signals that you were looking for, either consciously or
subconsciously? Yeah, I think both subconsciously and consciously, like who is leading through
making? Who is leading through how they engaged particular target audiences of potential consumer
or people that BCG's clients are serving? Who already has credibility in that community or
in that landscape already? And what are they doing that's new and novel, whether it's techniques
around decolonization or future scenario planning or capabilities that maybe we didn't have
BCGのヴェンチャーズグループの成長
immediately in our coffer. You figure out, you follow the breadcrumb trails of thought leadership,
of ingenuity in particular communities around the planet that we were ultimately going to serve one
day because of BCG's expansive client roster. How do we find those people so that we're ready to be
nimble and agile and flexible to pivot into those emerging opportunities? Yeah. So when you say
makers, can you be even more specific? And if you can't name names, then what were some of the
individuals that you hired? Like one, we found a gentleman that's very good at speculative design
and he was a design technologist, built things, prototypes, not just regular prototypes,
design prototypes, but like speculative prototypes with Arduinos and open source
componentry. But he manages that in a very creative way. Another former colleague who
was originally from Japan, she was probably the most introverted person that you would ever meet,
very soft-spoken. But when you watch her work in the field, the delicate tact of unpacking with
people, their attitudes, motivations, inhibitions, they would spill the beans with her faster than
any researcher I've ever witnessed. So was she a researcher? She was an architect by prior training,
but got into design research and was very good at it, the best. And did you find her through Twitter
or how did you find her? So through just more communities that I was a part of, we were able to.
Oh, I see. But again, another person who's a prominent futurist on the speaker circuit now
with her work, I found her on Twitter and she's engaged here and there in the ecosystem with BCG.
So there's many examples. Wow. Wow. And then eventually, how many people did you end up having
in this Ventures group? So when I left, it was just a handful of us when we started, but after
seven years with that founding team, it was over a thousand people by the time I left
and one third of that was design. So to dig deeper on that topic, another powerful quote that you had
多様性とチームの成功
in the book was, there's only one of you. And very simple statement, but I think a lot of times,
even at our age and at my age, we forget that may be the greatest power that we have as individuals.
Yeah. There are specific examples where this mindset that there's only one of me,
that mindset became handy. I think one of the things that I've observed and what makes a
successful team over the years, especially one that's multidisciplinary and embarking
upon an innovation journey to make something new and novel, it's we are more than just our titles.
Like I'm living proof of that. To bring my full lived experience to the party,
it makes me hypersensitive to where people are being othered within the existing team,
as well as the demographics that we're claiming to serve. I can be more
sensitive to things that I don't understand and lean in closer. I've also seen the other side of
that coin. For example, I was in a workshop a couple of years ago. The room was a long room
of 30 people around a long conference table, reflective of one particular demographic
リーダーシップと多様性の重要性
that was dominant. And what was rewarded in the room was very much the alpha
kind of sensibility of leadership who had the loudest voice, got the influence,
got the attention of everyone. But there was one woman in that room, a black woman.
And I got to know her on some of the coffee breaks of this workshop. And I realized, oh,
wow, she's like super deep. And she's worked in some of the most incredible academic spaces.
I want to say maybe she went through Stanford and some other place, a couple of master's degrees,
a super credible experience prior to working at this place that she was in.
And during the workshop, though, I noticed behind the table, her hand was shaking underneath the
table, like trembling. But above the table surface, she was very stoic. And I recognize
that from my own experience in prior chapters where she was rehearsing in her mind what she
was about to contribute. And don't you know, whenever she did speak up, it was very just
in tune, relevant, relevant from her own lived experience and perspective, because the demographics
of target audience we were talking about, she was representative. She was that person that we were
talking about as the customer. But for her to speak up, I could feel the calories it took for
her to interject and to get her voice in. And unfortunately, maybe a quarter of the room might
have heard what she had to say. And it was the most thoughtful and intuitive and nuanced
perspectives that she was offering. But to have a fourth of the room maybe listen to it,
the three fourths were doing sidebar chatter and almost pretending like she didn't speak.
So the relevance to watch her go through that pain was very jarring for me. It seared into my memory.
And so that's why I coach teams to bring your full self to every conversation.
Is it really up to the leader?
Yes, I think there's a huge responsibility for those charged with leadership with the privilege
of leading to serve that team to make it a safe environment for different ways to people to
express themselves, to demonstrate leadership in different ways, not just the alpha archetype of
the biggest voice. Allow that person to come in with a prototype. Allow that person to get up at
the whiteboard and draw. Allow that person to interject maybe indirectly. Maybe they're not
the dominant one that's going to speak first, but make room for that second and third person to have
equal voice. Otherwise, the room might feel like it's on a particular alignment around someone's
agenda, but it might be isolated to just a few of the strongest voices.
Yeah. There are certain mental methods that you've developed to overcome in which you
manage tricky, difficult situations, feeling like the other.
Yeah. What going through those experiences taught me is how can I,
to the example you just gave of the CMO, how are my behaviors? How can I take personal
accountability in my leadership behaviors? Recognizing that leadership is a privilege,
right? And we have the opportunity to serve. And so if I encounter resistance now,
if it's a client partner or a stakeholder over here or there, it's like, what is my line of
sight to who we're serving ultimately? Who is the business supposed to serve? And then in turn,
how is the business serving the teammate's ability to serve that person? So there's a chain of
almost critical path, empathy and care and service that's necessary to satiate everyone's values,
everyone's value criteria. Anything is getting in the way of that. If someone's even directly
opposing me and not explaining why and forcing me to wonder where their motivation is coming from,
I'm always going to point to that sequence of critical path service that's required and say,
how is this behavior intrusive to that? I'm always going to speak to having a solution
orientation to whatever it is we're talking about, how is it helping those people we're
supposed to be serving? How are we helping our team feel empowered to do what it needs to do
to serve those people? If what we're talking about is noise against that, then I'm going to ask that
person who's opposing for evidence of why they're opposing. And if they're not able to give it,
then it's a different conversation. I'm going to be very direct with that person.
So if I'm always coming from a solution oriented perspective, from a service orientation in terms
of servant leadership behavior, it gives me a bit more layers of protection. And also my team
that are under my care, it gives everyone some levels of protection against unfounded opposition.
So it really comes down to asking constantly who are we serving? And like you said,
having a clear line of sight towards whom we serve. That's a really beautiful thought.
So that was part two of my conversation with Kevin Bethune, the author of bestselling book,
Reimagined Design, and founder and chief creative officer of Dreams, Design, and Life,
a think tank that delivers design and innovation services using an empathic holistic approach.
In part two of this conversation, I asked Kevin a personal question.
マイノリティとしての経験
What were the challenges as a minority, a black individual in academic and corporate America?
When I read his book, I was immediately struck by the fact that he made a point about being a black
individual and black designer and professional in this corporate America. Earlier in the book,
in the opening, he writes, I want this book to speak to those who have felt like the other
at any point in their journey. This quote really spoke to me because I felt exactly like this.
I've been feeling like the other for a long, long time. Personally, even before I came to this
country, I grew up in Japan, but in a countryside in Japan. As my family was from Tokyo and we moved
to the countryside when we were, my brother and I were two, because my dad moved us to the remote
village because he wanted to start a company. But because we were the only family in this village
from another, not just town, but from Tokyo, which was this gigantic cosmopolitan city,
and this village was a remote mountain village in a little town called Hidetakayama, we were seen
almost as a foreigner in Japan, even though we were Japanese. I then left Japan when I was 16,
went to Switzerland, went to an international high school, came to the U.S. when I was 18 to go to
college at the University of Michigan, and then eventually moved to New York City after I
graduated. But I've always felt from my early childhood like the other. So this phrase, I want
this book to speak to those who have felt like the other at any point in their journey, I immediately
felt seen and heard. At the end of the book, in the closing chapter of the book, he writes,
someone may disagree with my opinions, but they cannot take away the experiences that have made
me the person and professional that I am. Someone may disagree with my opinions, but they cannot
take away the experiences that have made me the person and professional that I am. This was a
simple but such a powerful statement because it can apply to anybody and it is a true statement
regardless of who you are and regardless of what you do. I can only imagine what kind of hardship
he has experienced. I happen to have spoken to a bunch of minority creative practitioners
throughout the course of this podcast, starting with somebody like Ian Spalter,
a black designer who's now based in Japan. He was the head of design at Instagram. He still
works at Meta in Japan. To John Jay, one of my creative icons, mentors, and the industry legend
who also works in Japan but also travels around the world to New York, to Europe, to all over the
place. Dr. John Maeda, an early indirect mentor of mine in design and technology. To Greg Hoffman,
the former CMO of Nike. Tim Allen, the former head of design at Airbnb. And now Kevin Bethune,
somebody who went from being an engineer early in his career to a business planner to a consultant
and a designer. And other folks like Paolo Antonelli, the senior curator of design at the
Museum of Modern Art, who's originally from Italy, moved to the United States. A few other individuals
that come to my mind, Judy Channing, who was the original CMO of Auberge. What lies underneath
the surface of these individuals is the quiet strength that they have. One trait that I've
observed among these individuals, and particularly people like Kevin, who is black, and I can only
imagine, but also I cannot imagine what type of hardship that he and other black individuals
have had to go through to get to the level and the position that they are in currently.
What is peculiar about these individuals is the way they do not talk about the hardship
and challenges immediately. When I ask them specifically about these challenges,
they do bring up certain episodes or moments, but they're not quick to use them as a badge of
honor, so to speak, or the experiences that they had that were so difficult. And hey, look at me,
how great I am overcoming those challenges. None of these individuals that I just mentioned
use those hardships as a shield. Rather, they rarely mention them unless I ask them specifically.
感情的知性の理解
Another thing that I've noticed as a common theme is how they understand other people like them
around them. I remember early on in my conversation with Ian, Ian Spalter, who's
also black, I worked with him, and he mentioned when he and I worked together almost 20 years ago
that there was a black boss above him and how Ian appreciated having a person of color as his boss
and how this individual behaved and didn't let the fact that he was a person of color
as a detriment or disadvantage. Everybody knew him, this boss, for who he was and is,
and there was something that Ian took away from this individual. Later on, when he was in a
position to manage other people, he noticed a young black designer struggling and empathized
the hardship, either direct or indirect challenges that Ian experienced as a younger designer,
being a black designer and not being recognized for the talent and skill. And he had to
have hard evidence to be able to demonstrate his value as a designer. And that kind of episode,
that kind of story is common among these individuals that I talked about. And in the
case of Kevin as well, the challenges that he faced starting, I'm sure even before his college days,
either directly or indirectly because black. So that takes me to my inspiration to live by
from Kevin Bethune today is the following. To have emotional intelligence, you have to know
and understand your emotions first. To have emotional intelligence, know and understand
your own emotions first. I appreciate the fact that all of these individuals, guests that I've
had, and particularly people like Kevin, Greg, Ian, Tim, and quite a few others, they have this
quiet strength in them and they really understand what others who are like them,
what those individuals are feeling like because they've gone through those situations themselves.
So emotional intelligence is a word, is a term that have been preached quite often in the past
decade or so. But behind it is it starts with you to have emotional intelligence. You have to know
and understand your emotions first. Today's inspiration to live by from Kevin Bethune
is to have emotional intelligence, know and understand your emotions first. If you like
our podcast, please follow us everywhere you are listening. And if you could leave us a five-star
rating, we'd be so grateful. If you have questions or comments, please send them via the link in the
show notes. I'm Reina Moro, and this is The Creative Mindset. See you next time.
