POSTED November 5, 2020
About our guest
Gage Mitchell is Principal & Creative Director at Modern Species, a strategic branding and responsible design agency in Seattle.
He spoke with Tim Yeadon, Principal & Creative Director of Clyde Golden.
Gage and Tim Talked About
What is responsible design and why it is important [00:29]
What power designers have to improve the world [1:08]
How to get your clients to choose sustainable options [5:24]
How to get the kind of work you are excited to do [7:14]
Hiring a business consultant [9:56]
How Gage niched as working with sustainable products [13:14]
Businesses that do well by doing good vs. non profits [14:45]
Budgeting yearly giving of money, resources, and time [18:21]
B Lab / B Corp [20:52]
Having goals beyond turning a profit [27:59]
Gentler marketing methods (the trapper method, marketing via facilitation, etc.) [35:52]
How to discuss social issues and current events with your team [38:10]
References
Podcast Transcript
Tim Yeadon (00:13):
Hi everybody, this is Tim. Today, I'm chatting with a fellow agency owner, Gage Mitchell. Gage is Principal and Creative Director at Modern Species, a strategic branding and responsible design agency here in Seattle. Welcome to Input Doc.
Gage Mitchell (00:26):
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Tim (00:29):
Oh absolutely. I guess, to get started, can you help me define and understand what is 'responsible design'?
Gage (00:35):
Sure. I mean, everyone might define it differently, but for me, I think of the fact that as designers, we have a lot of different powers. Some call them superpowers of creativity or other things like that. But I also think there's powers of influence, right? We work with clients and we help them decide form and function and materials and a bunch of things that all have different real world implications. And then we also influence downstream the culture of the places we live in or wherever our designs are disseminated.
So I feel like, personally, with power comes responsibility. And if you have the ability to make changes upstream, and influence people downstream, you should probably do that with the best interests of society and the world in mind. Rather than using that power for your own selfish reasons, like a villain in a comic book. You know, like all the heroes are the ones who are using their super power to help others rather than just themselves.
Tim (01:36):
Was there some sort of experience you had along the way that suggested to you that there was a better way to do this?
Gage (01:42):
You know, I think the better way has been growing, evolving over time, but I think the wrong way is what was more of the experience. I guess there's two quick stories for that. So prior to starting my own agency, I had worked in a string of smaller design agencies. Mostly gravitating towards branding type shops, but the last job I had was, you know, a great team, awesome people, clients were generally good, but it was stuff I didn't necessarily believe in.
One of the things that we were doing was branding for big multi-million dollar residential developments, but the cool part was that they had these endless budgets. So we could do all the print techniques we wanted on special papers with amazing finishes and just, go all in on whatever we wanted to create, because if we influenced somebody to buy that house, it was worth all that money.
So at one event where I had meticulously designed this beautiful brochure for this community, I went to the launch event where this amazing, kind of, free food and drinks and lots of cool stuff, touring the homes. I noticed that there's like a stack of brochures that I designed on the table and I'm all feeling proud of myself because I was a relatively new designer and I would see people pick those up, flip through it briefly and then toss it in the trash. (laughs) And that was like the first realization that I personally had, where I realized that by and large, what we do as graphic designers, a lot of time is design pretty trash. And that brochure was made of paper, it could have been recycled, but you know, I lived in a place that didn't really recycle much. But that was kind of a first realization that maybe there's, there's gotta be something more to this career than making pretty trash and just rich people richer.
And then another thing that happened is after getting a little bit disillusioned on that phase of my career, my then fiance and I, at the time, quit both of our jobs, sold everything we owned, got married and just went traveling for a little while to just take a break and refresh our minds on what we wanted to do with our lives. And one of the things we noticed while we were traveling around in countries like Cambodia, was that there was a lot of Western made stuff in stores and other places, but there was no kind of Western infrastructure to deal with that stuff. So for example, they would burn trash in their front yard rather than having a waste company come and pick it up and make it disappear for them.
And so it made it very obvious and in your face that this chip bag, like Frito-Lay or something, that came over from some other country into their country and they eat them because they're delicious. And then they throw them in a hole in their front yard and burn it. Felt like there had to be a better way. Some designer along the line, could've asked themselves, wait a minute, these chips are going to Cambodia and they don't have a waste management system, or, you know, heck, even in the U.S. They're going to the U.S. and they just ended up in a landfill? Is there something better we can do? And, you know, we've seen some evolution in packaging over the years, but, that was kind of one of the first things that popped into my mind is, if we are putting products out in the world or putting campaigns or whatever, out in the world, how often are we asking the right questions to make sure that whatever we're putting out in the world is doing more good than harm?
And those two ideas, when I got back into the country, made me think, you know, I want to find a way to do what I do for things I care about and in a way that I feel good about.
Tim (05:24):
Is it often a question of just giving more sustainable alternatives to clients that suggest this will work just as well?
Gage (05:34):
We tried that in the beginning. And, as you were asking, how did we kind of go down this path? It was all just a bunch of learning. We didn't know necessarily anything about sustainable design when we landed back in the country and started Modern Species, but you know, other people did. So we started reading books and going to conferences and whatever, and absorbing whatever we could and eventually develop some of our own thoughts on the process.
But one of the thoughts that we developed was when you are showing a client alternatives, like here's what you asked for, the unsustainable option, and here's the sustainable option. Maybe that sustainable option is more expensive, ideally it's cheaper. But, you're, you're putting them up as equal options for the client, letting them decide. So what we realized early on is if we only presented sustainable options, the sustainable choice was more likely to be chosen. Granted, we weren't only showing them the things that cost three times as much. We would show them, here's just switching out to sustainable materials, which might cost more because they're not made en masse as much. However, if we just change the size of this brochure by half an inch, we can actually save you 40% of your budget, and the whole thing will come in under budget, even though we use the more expensive material. So we would just find creative ways to only present the sustainable option. And that worked best I think, when we had full control over the production.
Tim (07:00):
And you found that there was a moment where as an agency, you could simply say, this is who we are, and this is what we do and if you work with us, these are the types of roads we're going to lead you down. And if you're headed another direction, we're probably not going with you.
Gage (07:14):
Yeah. I got some advice early on when we were starting the business, I think it was Frank Chimero. He had come to the town that we were in at the time, Madison, and was doing a talk. And I noticed that he just did all these like really fun, like almost selfish looking projects, but he somehow got paid to do them. So I asked him like, how did you build out a client roster or a project list of all just really fun stuff that you geek out about? And he said, well, whatever you put on your website is what you'll get. So don't put stuff on your website that you don't want to do because people will think you want to do that and they'll come and hire you for it. But if you just put the stuff on your website that you want to do, then you know, those people will find you.
So, I immediately went back probably that same night, or maybe the next morning and changed some of the copy on our website to say exactly what we wanted to do. And from that day forward, we started getting those types of clients and, you know, even if we didn't have a ton of experience in it, we'd find people who our values aligned and wanting to go on that journey with us. Just because they liked the rest of our work.
Tim (08:20):
Can you describe to me some of the tenants that are in it that are musts for you or things that you won't do? Like what is the test that you put a potential client through?
Gage (08:31):
So if it's a new client coming to us, it's you know, I've worked with business consultants to find the exact criteria of like size of client and, whether or not there's creative opportunities and so on and so forth. But if we're talking about the right fit, per se, it's usually down to perusing the brand's website to see what kind of ingredients they have, if we're doing like a food product or something like that. Or what kind of mission they list on their website, if they even have anything about sustainability on their page. Things like that to see if they already give a shit` to some degree about their impact in the world. And then hopefully I see something, but even if I don't, I'll still have a conversation with them and just kind of get a feel for their attitude.
Because sometimes people haven't made that leap yet, but want to … honestly want to. So I'm open to helping people dive into mission work in whatever way. So I'll basically if there's an opportunity to do things the right way, and it doesn't feel like Greenwashing or just taking advantage of something or just doing this one little thing, but they don't really care about anything else. Then we'll take the project on. But if we're going to be fighting them on decisions to make sustainable choices or make the right ethical choice the whole time, then you know, I'll let them go somewhere else.
Tim (09:49):
Okay. So there could be a trial period where you two get to know each other and you give it a shot and see how it goes.
Gage (09:54):
Mhmm. Sometimes yeah.
Tim (09:56):
You mentioned that you worked with a business consultant to help figure out your target client, et cetera. Can you tell me a little bit about that and how that went? Is that something that you would recommend or not?
Gage (10:10):
Sure I've always wanted to work with consultants, but every time I asked someone for referrals, they're like, Oh, you're not big enough yet to get a consultant or something like that. So I always put it off. But I finally just decided, you know, what, it's time. I just want someone else to bounce ideas off of, and to get some feedback from, because I had been running the company solo for a few years at that point. I started the company with a partner, she left to go pursue a PhD in psychology. And then after running the business by myself for a while, I realized I really missed that kind of bouncing ideas back and forth. So I just went ahead and hired a business consultant, Emily Ruth Cohen, if anyone's considering a consultant.
Tim (10:53):
What does she focus on?
Gage (10:55):
She focuses a lot on kind of like smaller niche design businesses, and specifically companies that have something unique about them. You're not just going out to get all the generic work. You have something to say, and you have a specific niche you're carving out for yourself. Partly because she believes that's the right way to do things. But also just because, you know, she has limited time, so you have to choose, you have to make some criteria.
So it seemed a fit for me. She worked with some people that I look up to like Louise Fili. So I decided, you know, let's give that a shot. And I started working with her to basically figure out from our messaging standpoint, what should we be saying? What shouldn't we be saying? Are we saying too much? Are we saying too little? And if we were to do some outreach, who should we be reaching out to? Here's kind of like our track record of our history with clients and stuff like that.
So she was really helping to find some criteria and really helping push me further. Because every time I would come back to her with some of my homework and say like, okay, here's what I think we are. Here's where I think we're going. She's like, Nope, go start over again. Like, that's not good enough yet, you got to get tighter. So it was really helpful to have someone pushing back in that way.
And then as I was in the middle of all of that, I also got into a business incubator program called 10,000 Small Businesses. I guess it's maybe more of an accelerator program, but they focus on helping fairly established small businesses. Like you have to have been in business for a certain amount of time and have certain revenue numbers, et cetera. But they help you go through this whole training program, almost like an MBA bootcamp kind of thing, to work on a growth plan.
And through there, I was kind of doing some overlapping work. So it was very helpful to get started with her and have an idea of where I wanted to focus and then going into this program and going through exercises and running things by my cohort to see what was sticking and what wasn't sticking.
So I would say, yes, if you can afford it, or maybe even if you can't afford it, try to find a way to like, get some outside opinions on where you're going with your business. Because otherwise you can get stuck in a bit of an echo chamber and not necessarily run dry on good ideas, like you have lots of good ideas, but too many good ideas maybe, and you don't know which ones to pursue.
Tim (13:14):
You've owned Modern Species for about eleven years. How long did it take you to niche?
Gage (13:22):
I guess we started off with something of a niche. It was just not super defined. Like I knew that we wanted to work with companies we believed in. And that happened to gravitate us towards things like health and wellness and sustainable food and whatever. And just going around networking groups and talking about those things ended up resulting in us getting some of those clients. So it wasn't like intentional as in, like, we're going to go after this industry. It was just like, we talked passionately about those things. Other people talk passionately about those things. And we found we had a connection and we decided to work together. So it started out that way. But I would say it was about two or three years in when we switched from just being kind of general.
We started out as Gage Mitchell Design, because we didn't really know what the thing was going to be yet. And then two or three years in, we switched to Modern Species and rebranded to focus on basically a sustainable design for responsible businesses or, you know, we've played with different ways of phrasing it. But more recently I've been tightening that up even more to just say, like, we focus on sustainable product branding. So we help companies that are doing, you know, we do some things outside of that, of course, but we help primarily sustainable products like food and beverage or personal care or clothing or whatever. We help them launch, evolve, and grow their brands.
Tim (14:45):
I've always been intrigued by businesses that do well by doing good versus simply being a nonprofit with a mission. And I would venture that Modern Species fits that description. Yes?
Gage (14:58):
Yeah.
Tim (15:00):
I’m curious if doing well by doing good, what metrics would you track to know if you are doing well by doing good?
Gage (15:07):
Yeah, that's interesting. Cause I, I have probably more experience running nonprofits than running for-profits just because of all the volunteering I've always done. However, after running this business for 11 years, I've started to find that balance. And I do think maybe part of what you're getting at is that sometimes if you're just doing the nonprofit, it's not going to necessarily have the same drivers, the same mechanisms, the same systems, processes, the same accountability, whatever as running a for-profit company. So there's different parameters there.
And I'd say, I personally liked the more like B Corp model than just pure non-profit, which does have its place in certain types of businesses. But the for-profit model I think is good because you're able to, ideally, better compete with the competition to pay good salaries and to offer great benefits and do a bunch of things that will allow you to really push the mission forward. And you're not as limited by like a board of directors or certain financial rules or different things like that. So you can still try to be competitive, but you also weave the mission into your business.
So for me, I guess, defining doing well by doing good- my personal way that I define that is making sure that I'm creating a place where people feel good about working. You know, they work on projects that are meaningful, and they work with the team that they like, and they grow as an individual during that process, or during the time working there and a company that can ideally afford to pay them a reasonable, ideally competitive salary, but at least a reasonable salary for wherever they live.
And then also I guess, helping the greater good as well, like feeling, feeling like we're making an impact as a company, while making a profit still. And that's always a little bit of a balance is the profit. And doing good because obviously when you're a do-gooder, you tend to want to give more of that money away. So that's the trick is finding that balance of you still have to be responsible with the way you run your business, but you also want to do good. So you have to set up different allocations for giving and have a clear idea of where you're going to commit your impact, whether that's donating your time, donating money, having certain certifications or focusing on a specific niche.
I think where we've struggled a little bit is trying to do all the things, like all the give-back stuff. Like working on mission-driven businesses, giving away tons of money, having all those certifications, paying people well, et cetera sometimes does like bring that margin real, real tight. So that's one of the things we're working on is trying to pick our lane a little bit more so that we can be more efficient with our doing good so that we can do well as well.
Tim (18:14):
Do you budget on a yearly basis things that you would give to or things that would impact the margin?
Gage (18:21):
Historically I always budgeted the financial giving. We've had different measures of that over time, but over the last few years, we've been 1% For The Planet members, which means we give 1 percent of gross revenue to causes that are within the 1% For The Plant network. We normally actually give above and beyond that because there's some things that we really want to give to that just aren't in that network, but that helps us to set a metric ahead of the year. You know, we know what we're projecting from a revenue standpoint. So we have an idea of how much money we're going to give away.
Where we haven't been as good, and I'll take full blame for, this is how much time we're giving away because I'm personally a volunteer addict, I believe in giving back to your community. And when I find a client or a company that has just this amazing mission, it's hard for me not to want to help them out as much as possible. Either like doing some of the work for free, giving them a discount or, you know, whatever, just trying to find a way to help them just cause I really want to help that mission. And I think that's another area where having a partner helps, you know, me, I'm the softie, that just wants to do all the things. And if all my bills can go away and do all of this work for free, but I can't afford to do that and I want to pay my employees.
So I'm working towards better criteria for what we will give away or how much we'll give away. One example I've seen that I really liked that I might model is companies like FireBelly who have a specific grant program that you can apply for. And they have a defined period of time and so on and so forth where they give that work away. But then everything else throughout the year, any requests that come in and they just refer them to that program.
Tim (20:00):
That's interesting. I always feel like I have a client or two who I just want to see succeed and I'm going to help them. And whether they have a product that I just agree with or there's a service or there's something they're doing with the community. And I'm always thinking to myself, I want to cover my costs, but I sure want to help these people.
But then in balance you have to have a group that is, I'm solving business problems and we're going to build them and it's going to be a successful enterprise. Let's put it that way. It just has to be. And even them, whoever that side is, you still sort of fall in love with your client and you're like, I just want to help you solve all of these problems. And I learned your business and I get into it. And I always use the phrase that I play for the love of the game and sometimes it gets me in trouble. But let's go do this and figure this thing out!
Gage (20:52):
(laughs) Exactly.
Tim (20:52):
Tell me a little bit about being a B Corp because I have considered this from day one. How long have you been a B Corp?
Gage (21:03):
I think we've been a B Corp for a little over two years now.
Tim (21:07):
How much time does that take? It felt like it was going to take a bit of my time to do this and to administer it.
Gage (21:12):
Yeah. So that was kind of what I was going to get into is that we've been a member for about two years. However, it's been on our minds pretty much since day one. I think at the beginning of our company launch, we kind of were going to B Corp events and trying to figure out what it takes to become one and so on and so forth. We'd heard about the movement and thought it made sense, but it does not only take a lot of time, but I think it's especially difficult sometimes for small businesses, which seems weird because when you're a big business, there's more stuff to track. But when you're a small business, you have so little to track, or so little in terms of like resources that you pull in or things that you put out and so on and so forth that it makes it hard to even register on the B Corp radar to some degree.
So we were always kind of dipping our toe, like going and checking out in the assessment and trying to decide when the right time to apply was. And once we finally just said, you know what, there's never going to be a perfect time. We're not, we're not going to all of a sudden overnight be like a hundred person company with tons of resources and a dedicated sustainability officer that can fill this out or whatever. So what I did to try to get over the hump because it does take a good amount of work is I just went ahead and hired a contractor to help fill out like 50-75% of the report. You know, asking me questions going along, but they could then do the menial stuff that I just never found time to do, like measure our trash. Measure, how much recycling we do. So that was really helpful to get us over the hump.
Tim (22:46):
Would you describe B Corp and what the program is?
Gage (22:50):
Oh sure. So B Corp is a, I think it's technically the company is B Labs, but they certify B Corporations which stands for benefit corporations. Some states have an actual entity type that you can register as, but what this bubbled up because there weren't a lot of those across the States it's kind of changed over time. But the idea is that you commit to your mission or your values more, or at least equally as you do commit to your shareholders, right? So most corporations that aren't B Corps, their number one priority is shareholder return value. That's why there's so much corporate greed in the world because they don't care about how the employees feel. They need to like turn a profit that quarter or else they're going to get fired by the board.
But what a B Corp does is it has you put in some rules into your, your bylaws, your organizing documents saying that you're going to care more about your mission or equally about your mission. And then you go through this assessment and fill out how you're actually doing as a business in various categories like community and economy and different things like that. And you get a score and you have to be a certain score in order to get passed as a B Corp certified company. And then with that score and you get a score in each of those categories, you have also an idea of where you want to improve. So we can identify, well, I'm pretty weak in community right now or whatever it is that your weak in. So I'll go through and try to over the next coming years, I'll improve those scores. And then you can focus on another category.
So it's both the certification, but also just kind of a method for making sure that you're following through on your promises, making sure that you're living up to your goals of being a mission-driven business. And I think what's beneficial about it is that it's a third party verification, right? So I can say on my website all day long, how sustainable and mission-driven I am, but without somebody saying, yep, we verified that they totally do all those things they say they're going to do, it's not always easy to build that trust.
So the B Lab has bubbled up to help give people that third party verification that is actually known to be quite rigorous, right? Like your first question was, how long did it take? Cause it does take a lot of work. Whereas there's these other certifications, that you fill out a quick survey, nobody checks your answers and you get your badge. This one's the opposite.
Tim (25:27):
I want to say like six months to a year in, I remember filling out the assessment and feeling like I was just graded so low that I was almost embarrassed to start the thing. But I suppose realistically, it's the point that you start with a benchmark and then incrementally you improve over time.
Gage (25:47):
Yeah. I think that's part of why they make the assessment for free because whether or not you're going to get a high enough score to be certified, they still want you to fill it out and they want you to know what the criteria are and give you something to work with to try to improve your business. And yeah, for us, like, even though we're mission driven, we're wind powered, we do basically everything that you would think they would want, we still registered really low, like on, we like got the basic minimum score because we're just this tiny business that doesn't manufacture anything.
That's one of the areas that I think was kind of flawed about it is that it seems very geared towards manufacturing businesses by which I mean, where are you getting all of your materials from and what are you doing with your outputs of the business? And are you controlling your, are you putting solar panels on your roof? But when you're a tiny service-based business, none of those things are a factor. So you can't get scores on those things. Rather than being like negative points where you're failing, you have to get positive points in those different areas. So if you don't do any of that, you just don't get those points. So I found it very difficult to be one of the best for the world type companies as a tiny little service-based business.
Tim (27:09):
Do you think you'll keep on with B Corp?
Gage (27:11):
I think so. Partly just because it fits our mission, you know, it is our community. A lot of our clients are B Corp's and whether we believe in the movement, you know, I've considered even switching to be a... Washington has a B Corp kind of entity. I've Considered doing that, or even like a co-op and being employee owned or something like that in the future. I would say it definitely takes a lot of time to set up and I'll admit that I haven't continued to like redo the assessment every six months or whatever to see how we're improving, because we are so small. It's like, we just don't have that kind of time. So that's one thing I would like to do more is stay on top of our score and, have a constant running list of things we want to be working on.
Tim (27:59):
I find that a lot of the agency owners I'm talking to are concerned about their team and their community and building a good place to work. We all want to do this and I know for me personally, I'm so focused on my clients and trying to run a business and working with my team that then I'll stop and I'll talk to you about something like this and I think I need to dedicate some time to this and I should budget a handful of hours over a period of time to focus and decide. Because I feel like a team needs something that's just beyond profit or even sharing profit that there's some sort of mission driven or there's some sort of feeling like we're moving towards a target together.
Gage (28:45):
For sure. I think especially creatives, you know? Because we tend to get emotional about the work, because there's no way to really connect empathetically with your community if you don't have some of those feelings yourself. Right? So we're constantly trying to make sure that we're in touch with the people we're trying to help with our work and putting our own ideas out there with it and being vulnerable. And we want to feel good about that work that we're putting out. And to be truly creative, you need to feel kind of like free and empowered and whatever. So it's especially I think important with creative people, but yeah, there's lots of studies out there that are showing even people who work in giant corporations with more technical jobs and they still wouldn't mind feeling good about what they do rather than taking home a paycheck. I think especially the younger generations are heading in that direction.
Tim (29:38):
I want to run an idea past you. I've considered this the beginning. So I'm pushing up on year four, and I have a small team. I had considered at the beginning of a year, the team decides on some sort of organization or some sort of non-profit and we would raise money for that nonprofit over the course of the year, based on overall revenue.
Gage (30:03):
Nice.
Tim (30:03):
And on a quarterly basis, at least the team could see where you're at. But I always felt like I was so small that like, when's the moment when you start that? And is there a moment that you're looking for that the business feels, where it feels sustainable enough that you think, well, we can go ahead and start this?
Gage (30:25):
The way I would answer that is I think the earlier you start things with like any mission-driven thing, especially ones that cost money, the earlier you start it, the easier it will be to continue or to do it in the first place. Because if you wait until you're a giant company, all of a sudden that percentage of revenue is going to look scary and maybe you didn't plan that into your budget. And it's going to be much harder to get you to launch that program when you're like a $30 million agency or something like that than it is when you're a $500,000 agency. That goes for like giving employees health benefits or doing give-back programs or anything else. The earlier you start, the less scary the numbers are and the more you can design your business model to accommodate those things.
So what I would do is, you know, go ahead and set that goal. You can start small. Like it doesn't have to be huge. You can start with just 1% of profits. So like a lot of people do rather than 1% of revenue, which is a bigger number, right? But just start with something you're comfortable with to test the waters, and you just budget it for that year. So, you know, yes, clients, sorry, sorry, put your earmuffs on. But what you have to do is just work that into your budget, work that into your rate of doing the work, right? So that's part of what they get for coming to you is that you're going to do something good with your money too, rather than just buying a yacht, you're going to put it somewhere good. So that doesn't mean, if your profit margin right now is 10% and you add another 50% and then give it all to charity, which you could do. Like maybe that would be a good PR move or something like that.
But I personally believe, or at least I like to try to stay affordable for clients. So instead of like aiming for a 30% profit margin or something like that, all maybe just aim for like 15, 20% and then give the other chunk of money away that I could have gotten. So I still try to keep my rates reasonable, but I give more of it away instead of padding my own salary or, you know, doing frivolous things with the company.
Tim (32:32):
I know you've been building a community called evolve. What is your goal with evolve?
Gage (32:38):
Yeah. So I'm, I'm a big collaborator. I've found that, I don't know if it's my extrovert-ness or what, but as soon as I found the power of collaboration I got addicted. So, since before I even started as a professional, I've been building communities and working with those communities on projects in whatever way. I gravitate towards the, for-good projects, of course, but regardless of what you're working on, I love the power of getting two people's ideas meshed together to make an idea that never would have come about. If those two ideas weren't combined. It's how innovation happens. It's how I become better as a professional, is by learning from other people, maybe outside of my industry, even, and pulling some of those ideas back into my industry. So it's hard to do those collaborations in your company sometimes because you're working on this client and you just need to get it done, and so it's easier to just do it with your core team. But when you're building community, it's easier to do collaborations because then you can build things that help everyone and not just your company.
Tim (33:49):
One thing I'm noticing is you are a part of many, many groups.
Gage (33:53):
A little too many.
Tim (33:54):
A little too many- and you run a business. And there was one other group you had mentioned called Common Cause Collective, is that connected to Evolve? What is this one?
Gage (34:04):
It's not. So, as I mentioned, I do a lot of community building with the design world. This is one of those kind of design-centric organizations. I've historically done just a ton of work with AIGA, the professional association for design. And usually my roles gravitate towards pushing the community towards mission driven stuff. And after I retired or as I was retiring from chapter leadership, I knew that there were groups of people I met that weren't always in AIGA membership, maybe they were IDSA or service design SDN, or, or they were in various different fields of design. But I didn't know of a group that was trying to connect all those different disciplines to work on impact stuff.
So some friends of mine who work in different fields of design, we were just getting together for coffee or beer and just talking about what it would be like to collaborate or to find ways to teach each other or whatever else this group could become. And we just said, screw it. Let's just launch something and see what the community wants. So we've started by launching some events, we've done different events series at like the Seattle design festival or our own independent things.
We brought in speakers, we've done workshops, we've kind of dipped their toes in the water. And then we ended up building kind of a core organizer team, that is currently putting ourselves through a transition design process to decide what future we want to bring about. And then what role do we play in bringing about that future? Like what interventions can we put in place to guide our community towards that future? So hopefully in the near future, we'll be able to launch that new mission, vision clarity on what we're doing. But the whole idea was just to bring people together from different disciplines to see what we could learn from each other and see if there's ways to collaborate.
Tim (35:52):
I'm hearing an arc in the types of organizations you're a member of. I feel like you're doing a lot of- I think it's coming from a good place because you enjoy it. But you're doing a lot of marketing via facilitation.
Gage (36:05):
Sort of. Yeah. In terms of marketing, I've always felt like more of what I describe as a trapper. Vegans, you know, put your ear muffs on. But like I like the idea of rather than going out and waiting in one spot and waiting for that deer to come by or whatever, and just like really targeting that deer, which probably is a really good method of new business, right? The hunting method.
I've always found myself as a little bit more of a trapper, which is like, I'll just kind of generally go out in the community. I'll kind of have an understanding of where the people I want to work with go, and I'll be part of that community. And I'll do a talk at this conference, or I'll put an article in this magazine or whatever. And it's just kind of like a little bit more passive, a little bit more casual. And eventually people will come along and put their foot in the trap. Which might be like they saw a talk and they went to my website and then they realized we're the perfect agency for them and they'll give us a call.
And I felt like that's a nicer, lower pressure way to put ourselves out there and to get the work. It is a longer term method. Like if you're doing the hunting, you can go out that day and know you're going to come back with some meat for the family. Right? But trapping method is like, you've gotta be comfortable waiting for years for that to pay off sometimes.
Tim (37:19):
You know, even before I started the podcast, I used to call people up. I've always done this, I call people up and I ask them 35 minutes of questions. Cause I've got questions. Because you have done things in life that I'm curious about. Whether that's starting the business or it's something to do with core competency of what we do, or like — how do you do this thing? Or when you bought health insurance for the first time, how did you decide? And this is how I've always figured things out as I went. And at a certain moment it just made sense to begin sharing some of these conversations because my notes would be so interesting. Like those alone, I go back and I read through those and it's just fascinating to chat with people and hear what they're up to.
Gage (38:04):
Yeah, exactly. For that exact reason is why I'm part of all these communities.
Tim (38:10):
One of my last questions for you, I'd like to hear your thoughts on how you discussed “Black Lives Matter” with your team. How to discuss racial inequality. This is something in my own team we've had conversations about and I'd love to hear your experiences.
Gage (38:29):
Yeah, I think for that it's about kind of having a culture of acceptance and vulnerability. Like a safe space, right? People feel comfortable to bring uncomfortable things up and know that the team will go there with them. And I think that often needs to get modeled from the top down, because people are afraid of losing their job or not getting a promotion or whatever else, you know, when you're kind of working in a company. But when you're running the company, you're not as afraid about losing your job. So it's kind of up to you to set the pace I think, not always, but most often.
So for Modern Species, we've always just been incredibly transparent with everything we do. Financially transparent, transparent about processes, about anything anyone wants to know about the company, we'll tell them. Both externally and internally. Just because we believe in helping others, like rising tide lifts all boats. But that also comes down to vulnerability. Like admitting mistakes, being able to have dialogue with your team members, and you know, diving into those conversations with them. And like, if you're doing a team review, like maybe you flip it around and have them review you. Just showing that you're open to criticism, you're open to ideas that can come from wherever. And having that culture as the groundwork, I think makes conversations like “Black Lives Matter” or anything else more accessible. So we start there.
But then beyond that, it's also been helpful for us to pull in outside facilitators, to come in and do some different exercises with us as a team. Because even with an open culture, you know, sometimes it can feel a little bit awkward for me to come in and like be facilitating a dialogue because like maybe there's pressure and the newer team members are like, “Ooh, I don't know what I'm allowed to say and what I'm not allowed to say.” But if an outside facilitator comes in and I'm being open and vulnerable and answering the same way anyone else does, that sets the pace for us to just have really honest dialogues. And, you know, I guess the third thing would be it's helpful that everyone on the team knows that this is a mission-driven company and that we probably do give a shit to some degree about all of these causes that are out there. So there's no feeling of like, “Ooh, am I in the right place where people will actually hear this message and want to do something about it?”
Tim (40:52):
Where did you find the facilitator?
Gage (40:54):
Luckily for me, I've been doing impact/sustainability driven work for a long time. So I've got a pretty big network. I know a lot of people working on things like racial equity and sustainability and other impact-based stuff. So I was able to just tap my network. For one of our recent sessions I'd pulled in one of my AIGA design for good collaborators, Lennie Mowris from Atlanta. She was already coming in for an AIGA talk and I just said, Hey, while you're here, could you facilitate something for my team? But we've also tapped other people through zoom calls or other things like that.
Tim (41:35):
Your facilitation was via a Zoom meeting with you and your team and the facilitator.
Gage (41:39):
That specific one was in-person. She was out here in Seattle already, but we're totally comfortable going the Zoom route too if we need to.
Tim (41:49):
Not that you need to list them, but did your team come up with action items afterwards?
Gage (41:55):
From that talk, I think it was mostly just about, we had some newer team members and it was about just like creating that safe space. So on that talk, we were doing like a privilege walk. I shouldn't say talk that exercise. We were doing a privilege walk and just kind of like starting a conversation about some of the things around equity. That one didn't specifically result in homework, but other things I've been talking to outside experts about is like, how do we evolve our hiring process for example, to be more equitable. And in order to do that, what do we need to change on our job descriptions? What do we need to change about the process and where do we need to change the places that we're looking for those employees? And those'll be more of like an action item. Kind of like, okay well, here's the places you need to reach out to. And here's the things you need to change.
Tim (42:47):
I think that bringing in a facilitator is really interesting because my team is only going to be so comfortable talking to me or having a conversation, with me leading a conversation when there's so many other weird layers involved in employee-boss relationships.
Gage (43:04):
Yeah. And you can try to ask one of your team members to lead it, but then they might be slightly uncomfortable with their dynamic, with their coworkers or with you. And so just having that unbiased third party person to come in and treat everyone equally.
Tim (43:17):
I would say one-to-one, they're all pretty fearless, but as a group, it's a very respectful group. And so a facilitator would be very interesting in that regard.
Gage (43:26):
Yeah. And you, as the boss could have a great relationship with each individual, but maybe those individuals don't have the best relationship or don't feel the most comfortable with each other sometimes, you know, unbeknownst to you or beknownst to you, whatever. But that can change the whole dynamic because if somebody doesn't want to say something out of fear for what that person will say about it, then that could ruin the whole conversation because nobody wants to go there.
But if it's an outside person saying it, and again, you demonstrate the vulnerability, I think that it helps move things forward. And you know, it's also about - there's a book called “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” that kind of talks about how avoiding conflict is not the goal. Having healthy conflict is the goal or the recipe for a great functional, productive team. So like letting people know that it's okay if we, you know, battle a little bit in this process, so long as we're doing it respectfully and with trust with each other. Creating a safe space to have that battle, knowing that tomorrow where you're going to come back and work and still high five each other.
Tim (44:27):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, often there's tension or people argue because they want peace. And it's when they stop arguing and they quit talking that they don't really care if they get peace. You know, so a little bit of tension is okay. You know, especially in the creative process in which there needs to be different ideas.
Gage (44:52):
Exactly, creative tension is where the best ideas come from.
Tim (44:57):
Well, thank you for chatting with me today Gage. I really appreciate it.
Gage (45:02):
Yeah it was fun to chat.
Tim (45:02):
You can learn more about Gage and Modern Species, at modernspecies.com. We'll also be posting this podcast as well as the transcript of our conversation on the Clyde Golden website. Thanks so much for your time Gage, I really appreciate it.
Gage (45:14):
Thank you. Have a good week.