Brainstorm Design 2023: Design for Good
Ben Sheppard, Partner, McKinsey & Company Teman Evans, Global Chief of Design, General Mills Moderated by: Nicholas Gordon, Editor, Asia, FORTUNE; Co-chair, Brainstorm Design
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00:00 Hey everyone, welcome back.
00:02 Design for Good is a non-profit alliance that brings together designers from around the world
00:06 with the shared goal of improving lives through human-centered design.
00:10 Today we're joined by two founders from that network who'll explain how they use design
00:14 to take on a host of wicked global problems related to water and sanitation.
00:19 Timon Evans is the Global Chief of Design at General Mills, where he oversees the design
00:23 of its diverse global portfolio, while Ben Shepard co-founded McKinsey Design,
00:27 which now comprises more than 450 designers.
00:31 Please welcome Ben and Timon to the stage.
00:33 So, well, welcome back Ben.
00:54 Welcome to our age for the first time today, Timon.
00:56 Ben, you know, first question to you.
00:58 Design for Good, you have hundreds of designers, over six months, expert meetings,
01:04 working sessions, presentations, all on their own time to solve these global social issues.
01:10 What's the story behind the formation of this alliance?
01:13 There is a poorly kept secret.
01:17 There is a group of chief design officers who get together every quarter, and this is off record.
01:24 It's a group which is done under Chatham House rules, and it's an opportunity to talk about
01:29 the most pressing topics of our time.
01:32 And we've had discussions on sustainability, on inclusivity, on growth, on artificial intelligence,
01:39 and just a couple of months ago.
01:40 And it was during one of the discussions on sustainability that we all sheepishly looked
01:47 at each other and smiled to say, have we all committed the same sin?
01:51 And the answer was an emphatic yes.
01:53 What we'd all done at some point in our careers was bring together a group of designers for a
01:59 two or three day hackathon and said, let's make the world a better place.
02:03 And there would be a huge amount of energy, a huge amount of pizza, and we'd come out with a
02:08 sense of wonderful achievement at the end of those three days.
02:11 But then fast forward a year, two years later, we'd ask ourselves the question,
02:16 have we made the world a better place?
02:18 And unfortunately, the answer was in many cases, no.
02:21 I think we've described it as design theater.
02:24 So we said, well, what would need to be different?
02:27 And we were able collectively to come up with a set of guiding principles.
02:32 Principles such as you would need two years, not two days.
02:37 Principles such as you would need to give the IP to the impacted community
02:41 rather than keep it in the organization.
02:43 Principles such as you would need to work from day one with a development organization
02:48 who truly understood the needs of these communities
02:52 and would be there for decades on to support implementation.
02:55 And we came up with a list of these guiding principles and said, well,
02:58 surely if not us, then who?
03:00 And a founding group of 10 alliance members came together,
03:05 including Tamar and General Mills to say, let's experiment, let's build this alliance
03:10 and together to see if we can build something that does have more impact.
03:14 So let's talk about these founding members.
03:16 General Mills is one of them.
03:18 You're not alone.
03:18 There's Nestle, PepsiCo, Philips, Lixil, Logitech, Microsoft.
03:22 I have a list here.
03:22 But what does the company get out of this?
03:26 Why does General Mills want to take part in Design for Good?
03:28 Well, I think that good piece is very important.
03:32 Maybe it's because our company logo has a big heart in it.
03:35 So we need to think about that.
03:38 But in our own organizational development,
03:41 we have positioned ourselves to what we call a force for good.
03:44 So usually we're talking about a sustainability mission
03:47 that deals with agriculture.
03:49 But there's also in General Mills history,
03:52 this fantastic story about how we were able to lean into an open source format
03:59 to make safety measures available to the entire industry to lift all ships.
04:03 So I felt that dovetailed nicely there.
04:05 But then also my designers would get the chance to
04:08 honestly get the type of career development
04:11 that even if I moved them around the org, it would take longer to work out.
04:16 Design has this myth of being created by this singular genius.
04:20 And it's not the case.
04:21 It's inherently collaborative.
04:23 I think we've reinforced that a few times today.
04:25 And this gives designers the chance to do that.
04:28 So your designers really want to be part of this program,
04:32 which again, all in their own time.
04:34 What are they getting out of this?
04:36 It was honestly the easiest pitch I've made.
04:38 For them, I think there is a hunger to collaborate with other designers.
04:45 So to just dangle the carrot that you'll get to work on a really interesting problem
04:50 with designers from other industries was interesting to them.
04:53 But I think they also thought there's something in their larger development.
04:56 They're like, I'm going to be able to first imagine a concept,
05:00 but then bring it to life and execute it in the world.
05:02 And that's something that never gets old as a designer.
05:05 But to do that more than in the space that we operate in
05:07 is in the categories we play in every day is also huge.
05:12 So speaking of that problem, Ben, next question to you.
05:15 Simple question, probably not a simple answer.
05:17 Why water?
05:19 Why focus on water and sanitation as your first big social problem to tackle?
05:23 So we were looking for a set of the most challenging problems of our time.
05:29 And the most universally accepted framework was the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
05:34 There's a set of 17 of them.
05:37 And the ambition for our alliance is that over time we address all 17.
05:41 We also decided it would be sensible to have focus.
05:45 And therefore, every two years to take one singular goal.
05:48 And goal number six, which is water and sanitation,
05:51 had a number of reasons why it made sense to start with.
05:55 Firstly, we were looking for a goal which was going to show the power of design
06:00 across physical design, digital design, service design.
06:04 And water and sanitation lends itself so well to that
06:06 because it touches on everything from education on menstruation products
06:12 to physical slab latrine toilets in Ghana.
06:14 The second reason we thought that it made sense
06:17 was that it was universal in its geographic coverage.
06:21 Whilst there are problems that need immediate help in Eastern Africa,
06:25 also in the United States and the United Kingdom,
06:28 there are problems in terms of water saving,
06:29 which could be touched by communities directly by the designers working and living there.
06:35 But I think the most important reason was the call for help.
06:37 So we're in the midst of COP at the moment.
06:40 COP 22 years ago, one of the most important goals coming out of it
06:45 was around water and sanitation.
06:46 So much so that the United Nations decided to host the first UN water conference
06:51 in almost 50 years, since 1977, last year.
06:56 And they asked us to say, could we use this alliance
07:00 to show you the power of private sector collaboration to make a difference on the goal?
07:05 So I'm reminded of a point you made in your first panel,
07:10 where you mentioned this healthcare company
07:12 that based all their conclusions off of unrepresentative data.
07:15 I'm also reminded of a conversation I had with an Indian AI researcher,
07:18 where she said, all these designers keep on making games to teach financial literacy,
07:22 but actually in rural India, no one has time to play these games.
07:25 So why do they keep on creating this solution?
07:28 But it feels like the problem of not listening to underprivileged, underrepresented voices
07:34 is an even bigger issue when talking about designing for social good.
07:38 And I wanted to kind of bring in Taman here.
07:41 What are the mistakes that happen?
07:44 What do we miss when we don't listen to these underrepresented,
07:48 underprivileged voices when designing for social good?
07:51 Well, there are a few pitfalls.
07:53 I think the first that I was very careful to mention with my team
07:58 is that we also don't want to develop a hero complex,
08:00 where I'm coming in to save these poor lost souls
08:04 and design is going to be the hero, the white knight.
08:06 But at the same time, absent that connection with an actual user,
08:12 sometimes you end up designing for yourself,
08:14 or you end up designing for the default, the middle.
08:17 And then when you do that, you kind of set design adrift to find its purpose.
08:21 And that's when honestly becomes aimless and much less effective.
08:24 We are open for questions.
08:27 If you have a question, please think of one.
08:29 But while you do, I want to go back to Ben.
08:31 I want to stay on this theme a little bit of follow-up accountability.
08:35 You mentioned earlier the concept of design theater.
08:38 As you said, I think there are lots of these social hackathons.
08:42 Everyone goes, they put lots of Post-it notes up,
08:44 lots of pizza, lots of caffeine, probably lots of alcohol afterwards.
08:48 But then there's no follow-through.
08:50 Nothing gets done.
08:51 How did you want to fix design?
08:54 Or how do you want to design design for good
08:56 to ensure that follow-through, to ensure that accountability,
09:00 to make sure that these projects actually happen in the real world?
09:03 So it goes back to those guiding principles.
09:06 What do we think needs to be done differently?
09:08 I think the development organization piece is possibly the singularly most important.
09:13 We've been in the fortunate position that 15 different NGOs,
09:18 charities who have been living and breathing this topic,
09:21 including my favorite, if I'm allowed to have a favorite,
09:25 the WTO, the World Toilet Organization,
09:27 led by Jack Sim, who made a movie, "The World's Number Two Man,"
09:30 a passionate advocate for the importance of water and sanitation.
09:34 But having people who have spent their entire lives understanding these
09:39 makes a big difference because in many cases,
09:41 they're the ones who are going to take on implementation.
09:44 I'll give you one example.
09:45 One of the teams is working with the Liberian Youth Parliament,
09:50 and they're trying to take away the stigma of menstruation.
09:55 And therefore, when we were talking to them about
09:57 if we could work with you to create educational materials,
10:00 how would you use them?
10:01 They already are thinking through impact in a five-year,
10:04 10-year, 20-year time frame,
10:05 and therefore finding a partner who can think through that was so important.
10:09 That being said, whilst we've got our guiding principles,
10:13 I think there's also humility that we may change.
10:15 We, for example, just increased the amount of time we have for implementation
10:18 for our ideas at the moment to make sure that as many cross the line as possible.
10:22 And I think the call of a spirit many of us have come into this alliance
10:26 is that we're building it together over the next two years, three years, four years.
10:29 As we test different ways of implementing, see what works, what doesn't work,
10:33 we're hoping that we might actually learn some lessons
10:35 which go beyond Design for Good
10:37 and are useful ripples that go out for other organizations
10:40 on how to organize this type of charitable activity.
10:43 I want to talk about useful ripples a bit more,
10:45 and I want to bring in Taman.
10:46 Are you learning any lessons from running Design for Good,
10:51 from the way that people are working,
10:52 that you want to kind of maybe bring back to General Mills?
10:55 Has this experience taught you anything about how you might want to
10:59 maybe fix things, change things at General Mills?
11:02 There was so much, and there continues to be so much learning.
11:06 Part of that is because when we stepped out into this endeavor,
11:10 we didn't burden the designers with too much infrastructure.
11:14 We wanted to make sure that they were free to use that design acumen
11:18 to attack this problem in a unique way.
11:21 That also meant they had to invent that way of working.
11:23 We realized that there's some infrastructure we needed to put in place.
11:26 For me alone, there's so much learning there
11:30 because as I bring initiatives into the mills,
11:32 that's what we call General Mills for those who are on the inside.
11:36 But as I bring those things in, I know that I can't simply just show up
11:40 as I'm going to boil the ocean.
11:41 If there isn't an infrastructure in place, a process in place,
11:44 Mauro talked about process and tools earlier today.
11:47 If you don't have that, then you're not setting up your efforts for success.
11:51 But what we also found that gave the designers this amazing chance
11:54 to start to imagine how they were going to crowdsource
11:57 those solutions and workarounds together.
11:59 We were observing, I think, as they worked and realized
12:01 there's some things we could hardwire into the next phase of the work
12:05 to make it that much easier and move that much faster in the next phases.
12:10 But it was learning across the board from them and for us.
12:13 I do want to ask, what was it like actually on the day
12:16 when they're all done and they're all presenting?
12:17 I know it's not done.
12:19 There's a lot of implementation work that has to happen after that.
12:21 But what was actually like on the day to see all these designers come forward
12:24 and present everything they've worked on for six months?
12:26 There is-- it's funny because you are standing in front of your CEO
12:31 and convincing them to come on this journey with you
12:34 and make this financial investment.
12:35 And you're hoping that you don't have to come back
12:37 with your hat in your hand later and explain that
12:40 you didn't get where you need to be.
12:42 So part of it wasn't relief, but there was a sense of pride
12:45 that they all exceeded expectations.
12:47 I think we were just hoping we would have a handful of concepts
12:51 that were remotely viable that we could sort of put out into the world
12:54 and start to work and develop.
12:55 There were so many.
12:57 And beyond that, there was this hunger, this interest
12:59 to continue the arc from the designers.
13:01 So I think that's a win on several different dimensions.
13:05 So there's this presentation.
13:07 But as I said, there's a lot of work that needs to happen.
13:09 What support is Designed for Good?
13:12 Are the companies providing to help these partner organizations?
13:15 Actually put these ideas into practice.
13:17 Ben, you can maybe talk a little more about that.
13:19 So the Sandy Spiker, who many of you know, former CEO of IDEO,
13:24 one of the trustees,
13:26 she describes Designed for Good as a network of networks.
13:28 And I think that's a great term.
13:30 What she means by that is there are a group of corporate members
13:35 who bring the designers and fund the central organization to run this.
13:40 There is a group of development organizations
13:43 who have the expertise in terms of having social impact.
13:46 We have the Royal College of Art, who's an academic partner,
13:49 who's realized the importance of training the designers
13:52 on how to have social impact.
13:53 And I think what we're discovering at the moment
13:55 is as we look into how we really help on implementations,
13:59 some of the organizations feel very competent.
14:02 Some of them actually need external implementation partners and others.
14:05 And therefore, one of the things we'll be looking into
14:07 over the next 24 months is as we expand the network,
14:11 what are the other specialist skills that we need to bring in?
14:14 And you'll forgive me, this is probably the sixth time
14:16 it's been said on stage today,
14:17 but I think what we probably realize is whilst it's less catchy,
14:21 probably the right term would be cross-functional working for good
14:24 rather than Designed for Good.
14:26 And whilst it is great that design has been the catalyst
14:29 to make this alliance happen,
14:30 the more that we get into implementation,
14:32 the more we're going to be embracing others
14:34 with non-design skill sets in
14:36 to help make sure that implementation is successful.
14:38 I want to make sure that we do answer any audience questions
14:41 if there are any.
14:43 But again, as we still wait,
14:45 you mentioned the coming months and years.
14:48 Where do you want Designed for Good to go?
14:50 Where do you want to be in four or five years' time?
14:55 And maybe you can go first, Tamar.
14:57 Well, I think there are a few things that interest me.
15:00 Of course, we want to take in many of these ideas
15:03 through the full cycle from concept to execution
15:05 and impact as many millions of lives as possible across the world.
15:10 I've also talked with teams about making sure
15:12 that that work is celebrated in many forums.
15:14 So I would love to see some of this work be celebrated
15:18 and storied at venues like CanLion and the Clios
15:24 that celebrate that.
15:26 First, it's an effort that speaks to the sense of betterment,
15:29 but also there is this corporate component as well.
15:32 I think that just elevates the story of the power of design.
15:35 But then beyond that, I want to see now this full cycle of leaders
15:39 who started out in these cohorts
15:42 go on to spread that into other organizations.
15:45 Design is a very powerful tool,
15:48 and the more storytelling we can do around how it can be effective,
15:51 how it can make actual change,
15:53 that's going to set all of us up
15:55 who take this on as our life's work for success.
15:59 And I know, Ben, when we talked about this,
16:01 I think for our interview earlier this last month,
16:04 you mentioned wanting to be like Burning Man,
16:06 building this community of designers.
16:09 Do you want designers to keep on talking about it,
16:11 keep on working on these problems over time?
16:13 That's exactly it, and I couldn't agree with Tawam more.
16:16 When we first set out, there was this dual mission,
16:20 partly around the millions of lives that we touch,
16:23 and the other around this community
16:24 who we were going to build this set of skills with.
16:26 And the reason we mentioned, "Wouldn't it be wonderful?"
16:30 It was Burning Man.
16:31 Should we set a formal board metric
16:34 of the first person to get a design for good tattoo?
16:36 Was because when you have something
16:40 where people can see the purpose,
16:41 they can see the direct implications
16:43 of their skills being brought to bear,
16:45 we hope that is going to lead to something
16:47 that goes beyond what feels like an extracurricular activity,
16:51 that becomes something that they simply can't shut up about,
16:54 but it's something that they look forward to every year,
16:56 a group of friends coming together to do something meaningful.
16:59 And if we get anywhere close to that Burning Man obsession,
17:02 then I think we're doing something right.
17:03 So I want to give both of you the opportunity
17:06 to answer our closing question.
17:08 So maybe Tawam, you first.
17:11 Let's say you get a six-month sabbatical
17:13 to work on a particular social problem
17:16 and really get in the weeds,
17:17 do all this same work that all of your designers did.
17:20 What's the social problem that you would like to focus on?
17:23 I think being an educator,
17:26 on top of the other hat that I wear
17:28 as the Chief Design Officer at General Mills,
17:32 that education piece is very important to me.
17:35 Anything that design can do
17:37 to further the education aims around the world,
17:40 I think that's what I would take that six months to work on,
17:42 and that can show up in several different ways.
17:44 Access to education,
17:46 the way that we start to improve the ability to uptake learning,
17:50 and that can be those who have either,
17:52 you know, come from traditional education backgrounds
17:55 or don't follow that traditional education track
17:57 but still want to make their, you know,
17:58 break that paper ceiling in companies.
18:00 That's what I'd love to take my time.
18:01 And you want to do that kind of in the US context
18:03 or in a global context?
18:04 Oh, globally.
18:05 Globally.
18:05 I think, you know, you think at home first,
18:08 but the true metric of success, the pressure test,
18:11 is if it can start to impact lives across the globe.
18:13 Yeah. And Ben, what about you?
18:15 If you had a six-month sabbatical
18:16 to work on your own social problem for six months,
18:20 what would you want to target?
18:23 The first thing that I'll slap my own wrist is
18:26 we've learned very quickly you can't do anything in six months,
18:28 so I would probably take a decade and do it properly.
18:30 But if I could at least start the ball rolling down the hill,
18:33 it wouldn't be a million miles away
18:37 from where we are all today on this empathy on AI.
18:39 I don't think it is hyperbole,
18:42 I've had it as fact to say this is a once-in-a-species moment.
18:44 There is never another moment
18:46 where a life form comes along
18:48 that surpasses us as homo sapiens in terms of intelligence.
18:52 I think that causes a lot of new questions
18:57 about who we are, about loneliness,
19:00 about our sense of community and belonging.
19:02 And I would probably take a very broad brief and say,
19:04 is there anything that we could start to do now
19:07 to bring ourselves together, to celebrate,
19:09 and to move us in the right direction?
19:11 That would be where I'd be looking.
19:12 Is there something you think that AI can unlock
19:14 in terms of our ability to solve some of these wicked problems,
19:17 really complicated problems?
19:18 Can AI unlock something in tackling those, you think?
19:22 Oh, for certain.
19:23 Yeah, and that's, I think, we're lucky we've had John Mader
19:27 as one of our trustees as well, who many of you will know
19:29 has been a voice of the importance
19:31 of bringing design and technology together.
19:33 I think, like we said this morning,
19:36 there is going to be this turning-on-the-tap moment
19:39 where suddenly, instead of us thinking about having 600 designers,
19:43 it's going to feel like we have 6 million,
19:45 where they can say, how can we take the extraordinary creative power
19:48 to create a set of solutions
19:50 that we simply would have never had before?
19:52 There's a lot of training that is needed to make that successful.
19:54 If we can get it right, it's absolutely game-changing.
19:57 Well, good luck in making sure these projects work in the real world.
20:01 Good luck with all the future social problems
20:03 you're going to tackle in future iterations of Design for Good.
20:06 Please join me in thanking Ben and Taman
20:09 for talking about the great work of Design for Good.
20:12 Thank you.
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