How responsibility can help us be better humans, companies, and societies, together with Sebi Tauciuc, Design Lead and former Social Responsibility Lead at Futurice
What would happen if your work was purposed for social impact? Is there a place for businesses that avoid social benefit altogether in modern society?
Even though responsibility presents itself differently across domains & professional levels, it remains a cornerstone at effectively standing up to global challenges. Done together with Sebi Tauciuc, Design Lead and former Social Responsibility Lead at Futurice.
Discover more from The Dot: https://thedotpodcast.simplecast.com/
Full interview via https://medium.com/the-dot-podcast/the-many-faces-of-responsibility-fa0d1b031f32
0.
Technologies are extremely powerful. We use them for fun, for work, for interaction with loved ones, but more importantly, for making decisions. We are being assisted even if we don’t consciously realise that. Sometimes, we are being manipulated without knowing that either.
But every technology starts with a problem-solving & creative process we call “design”. New innovations are being built by the people, for the people. In this process, we frequently run into interdisciplinary disagreements and skepticism around a simple question: what is considered sustainable? And why does sustainable thinking matter?
Well, for one, we can’t always track how our actions impact the world. That’s where our thinking & decision-making practice becomes critical because with the right thinking processes we can avoid or reduce harmful effects of our work. We are also naturally wired to act and think in certain ways to survive. These biases crawl into our decision-making every single day, and when left unaddressed, might create a cascade of short-term, untechnical and unjust decisions.
That’s why in the first season of The Dot, we’ll attempt to guide you through the complexity of sustainable decision-making. Buckle up - this journey might be shaky - but by the end, we’ll reach the new milestone, and hopefully a new mindset, too. Welcome to season 1 of The Dot. Enjoy your ride!
1.
On June 1, 2009, Air France flight 447 crashes in Atlantic Ocean, killing all 228 people on board. What caused it? A sudden stall? An inaction of pilots? The automation system in the cockpit?
Who is to be held accountable? Where does responsibility lie?
2.
My name is Anastasiia Kozina, and you're listening to The Dot, a podcast about building a sustainable mindset in design and tech.
My name is Anastasiia Kozina, and you're listening to The Dot, a podcast about building a sustainable mindset in design and tech. Let’s navigate complexity and address the unknowns - all for better practices in sustainable innovation.
For this episode, I'm proud to share the mic with Sebi Tauciuc (role). [We have a history working together, our collective masterpeace being the one and only Chilicorn chocolate [Sebi is a Lead Designer with a notch of Social Responsibility at Futurice, an international software creation company. - might be said by Sebi]]
3.
Let's get back to the plane crash we started with.
70-80% of airplane accidents occur as a result of human error. However, when looked at all factors involved in an airplane crash, one notices that a large portion of this is allocated to skill based error.
In the situation with plane crushes, the real reason is that in extreme conditions, especially if those occur during take-off or landing, pilots tend to experience degradation of manual flying skill due to a long-term use of an automated system.
Simply put, the more time pilot spends with a self-managed machine, the less skilled pilot becomes in manually handling it.
4.
The answer around responsibility isn't that simple, because we are looking at a systemic problem. It's manufacturer's responsibility to ensure that automated system responds correctly to rising conditions. It's organisational responsibility to train staff regularly to feel natural using a manual system. It's individual pilot's responsibility to ensure both of the above are addressed before lifting off for a new adventure. But for full responsibility to be achieved, all of these elements have to be equally addressed.
Technology and design decisions should be rooted at responsibility. Without responsibility at the core of our decision-making, there's rarely a sustainable result at the end.
Responsibility work, uh, to do it right. It can't be on the sidelines.
It's not enough.
This is the voice of Sebi Tauciuc, Design Lead & former Social Responsibility Lead from Futurice that has contributed his career to creating impactful digital services.
We have to understand now that that digital is shaping really everything. It's, it's a huge transformation to the world. Um, and we are, for instance, digital consultancies like us. We are driving that change, and that comes with a lot of responsibility as well, that that was not traditionally there. Uh, and, um, and now we're just beginning to understand that that.
How big it really is and how, how much our decisions are affecting right in the real life.
I think there's a lot of potential for, for good, and there's a lot of potential for bad as well with digital. And it's really in the end about. You know, decisions, what kind, what kind of decisions people make, what are, what kind of systems we have in place, what kind of policy policies we have in place and so on.
5.
We're living in a truly inspiring time today, and we see a lot of emerging trends around responsibility. We have reached the tipping points in planetary and societal boundaries alike. We nevertheless trust in our social systems, even though they start crambling. The world we are used to might not be there much longer.
There's an ongoing change in the world, and multiple crises emerge. Temporary disorders start taking place. The crises however call for more sustainable approaches that would deliver value to all stakeholders involved, including the whole society.
So we create our impact through the work that we do with our clients because we challenge them to be better versions of themselves maybe, or to explore new things. Um. And, and we, we impact the whole world by, by sharing tools that we create.
if I need, if I need a tool for solving this particular type of design challenge, maybe I will create a tool kit. And if I create a toolkit. I'm sure to share it with the world and making art, making open source
By default is not about sharing the tools I feel for myself and I feel for designers other either. Even though we can learn that, okay, sharing is, is useful.
by default it's finding meaningful work that, okay, is there, is there an organization that I can support with my skills and competence or, or can I find meaningful projects at work?
According to Harvard Business Review, environmental, social, and governance issues, also referred to as ESG, are going mainstream in the executive and investment community. The interest in ESG naturally means allocated responsibility in return for a long-term impact. We start observing responsibility as an element helps companies outperform in financial returns.
as at least we know, companies that do have a proper mission are likely to be more successful.
If you start, you know, thinking about sustainability and corporate responsibility just because you should, because someone said that you should and maybe it's good for business. I think that's going to show; it's not gonna really bring you that many results.
There's a quote from Jonathan Bailey, the head of ESG investing at Neuberger Berman. “Investors and the CEO create the space, but it is middle management that will create the products and services that serve both shareholders and society.” Jonathan couldn't be more right. The responsibility no longer lays in the hands of executives, and instead, it flattens through the organisational levels, and we see it more and more in modern design & tech companies.
Senior leadership who is from a different generation than, than the . The generations that are demanding this much more now that that would have to understand and listen to these voices and our understand that. Okay. This is something new that I need to adjust to and I need to change my leadership style and, and, and think a bit differently.
in the beginning when the company was small, the leadership found themselves. Having to make decisions that they felt they shouldn't be making
they wanted to build the kind of culture, they were kind of envisioning a, and the. Hierarchy and leadership style, they realized, okay, we can't make all these decisions. We have to find ways to give the this authority to, to the right people.
as a way to give people the means to make the right choices in day to day and also as a, as a way to free up, um, founders mind space for more important decisions.
6.
With organisations and businesses, there's a responsibility to make the world a better place. It's in their hands to ensure product safety and extended life-cycle, all the while advocating a vision on sustainability and ethics within. That includes fair work conditions and pay, safety and growth possibilities. Do no harm is the motto of a sustainable and responsible business.
we realized that if we want meaningful projects and we, if we want to impact through our work, we need to focus on what are we offering our clients and what kind of decisions we are making there.
for the projects we selected, we had evaluation criteria. So it wasn't, you know, just gut feeling. Even though that helped a lot. Oh, um, but, but for, for measuring the impact itself, in many cases, we had to use kind of evidence that we found
let's say we look at the company values side, what's the impact on brand value?
some newspaper articles mentioned us or, or maybe some people said this and that, those sorts of metrics for the impact on the world.
With design and tech specialists, there's a responsibility to filter out unethical and harmful decisions, all the while providing high value to all stakeholders involved. Those who are equipped with fair judgement, those who accept criticism, those that choose to stand up to the challenges that occur during product validation - those are the ones that stand a chance in a sustainable industry. Nevertheless, sometimes harm is done. But there's a difference between knowingly designing a weapon versus unknowingly incorporating bias or leave space for abuse in the product.
we too, I think, assume that, that, uh, all designers have this, um, you know, mission driven attitude, but, but it's not.
So it's a, it's a, it's a whole scale of how people see design work and the design profession.
Victor Papanek, a design philosopher and writer who advocated ecologically responsible design once said, "The only important thing about design is how it relates to people". Each of us is an individual, and as any individual, we have moral constraints.
it's also about the individual, and we shouldn't. Slip into thinking that we should have all that power and that we are up for the task.
I fear that we don't have, um, accountability that that comes, comes with, with the kind of responsibility that we have
we need to understand that we are creating, you know, the next society or like how society works through, through digital services, for example. That's a huge responsibility that, that we need to kind of step up to.
On top of this all we have governmental decisions and policies. They play a great part in sustainable movement due to the power of regulations. There's a debate whether regulations cause a positive change or if the positive change calls for regulations to appear though. Regardless, with the strong policy, privacy of individuals in the cyberspace has improved, ozone levels got restored, animals at the edge of extinction got recovered, and environmental harm is being overcompensated.
we do need some policy to regulate things like we see now with the big companies that there were clearly some failures there and the decisions made You know, may may be some wrong design decisions.
well we need kind of everyone to contribute.
7.
So, we are heading to a good place, right? Among other things, one thing can certainly go wrong.
Here we get back to stories about aircrafts. During World War II, bomber airplanes have been reinforced on their wings and tail - mainly because the bombers that returned showed that bullet pattern. This is called a survivorship bias - a logical error we humans experience when focusing on successful - or survival - elements, rather than focusing on learning from the failures - in this case bombers that didn't make it back.
Similarly in business, we might slip into focusing on the most responsible, most sustainable companies. We might reinforce them, praise them, make them iconic. But we shouldn't forget that there will always be companies that keep avoiding responsibility altogether.
Well, my take on that is that these values, like you said, they form the culture and the culture has to really touch the whole organization. And I think. If you start, you know, thinking about sustainability and corporate responsibility just because you should, because someone said that you should and maybe it's good for business. I think that's going to show it's, it's not gonna, it's not gonna really bring you that many results.
It's of course you can get to some level and maybe part of it is real. Part of it is just, you know. A bit of impact washing as we call it, but I really think that to get the best out of it, you, you need to be genuine. And I think in order to be genuine, to be honest, I think it has to start or like to touch the whole of Lee senior leadership.
Nothing happens in isolation. But with the government, businesses, and individuals sharing the same vision, positive change will be seen in no time.
8.
In existentialism, a branch of philosophy, the human experience and action are given the top priority. Soren Kirkegaard believed that every individual must find what's true for themselves, and adopt ethical responsibility in their lives. Jean Paul Sartre believed that there's no pre-determined human nature, and that the human essense is built with our everyday actions. He knew there's a concious awareness in everything we do.
To exist one must discover responsibility. I'd love to think that responsibility must be the first brick one puts down to face challenges and make sustainable decisions, too.
9.
My name is Anastasiia Kozina, and in this episode together with Sebi Taiciuc from Futurice we have gathered our comprehensive thoughts on responsibility. Thanks for being at The Dot. Till next time!
10. Credits
This episode was delivered with love by a small team of Ian Gaplichnik, technical producer and me, Anastasiia Kozina. Music by Yo La Tengo and Chad Crouch. Special thanks to our guest Sebi Tauciuc who made this episode special. Thanks for being at The Dot!
Remember to stay tuned with Apple & Google Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud, and follow The Dot Podcast on Social Media. New episodes from The Dot are available for your ears every other Monday.
11. Cliffhanger
I think emotions are very important because we can have all the knowledge we need for something. If we are not emotionally invested, we don't care. And then we don't act because it needs care to act. So I think this is also a great power that design has that somehow, there's always this. Um, emotional aspect as well as the intellectual one.
In our next episode, we’ll explore how emotions and empathy impact our work, our decisions, and our lives with Julia Lohmann, Award-winning Designer & Professor of Practice in Aalto University.
Make sure to be at The Dot! In your ears on Monday, February the 3rd.