The Least Among Us: Big Impacts from Marginalized Voices
Off all the great things to come out of the Generation X, teen movies are at the top. As a result, it’s hard to grow up in the 1980s and not be influenced by John Hughes films. They commented on the nature of social relationships in our adolescent world, as well as laid out the relationships between youth and adults. They also gave us role models to try to emulate. A hugely influential character in my life was Carl the Janitor from The Breakfast Club.
Carl’s role in the story is to provide a kind of folk wisdom and correcting the arrogance of others. You can see this arrogance in how he is mocked by a high school student, since he is nothing but a lowly janitor. To being made fun of, he responds:
You guys think I'm just some untouchable peasant? Serf? Peon? Well, maybe so. But following a broom around after shitheads like you for the last 8 years, I've learned a couple of things. I look through your letters. I look through your lockers. I listen to your conversations, you don't know that but I do. I am the eyes and ears of this institution, my friends.
The janitor, it turns out, is the eyes and ears of the high school, and really any institution. Rather than being the least among the staff and students, Carl is the most informed. In the quiet way that he does his job, his relatively unobtrusiveness, lies the key to his knowledge. He sees what goes on largely because he is not seen.
In thinking about Carl the Janitor, I started to think about all the other janitors, or custodial staff, that are currently working in hospitals. Much is being said and written about the heroism of nurses and doctors who are facing their own mortality in going to work every day. They are rightfully applauded for working the longest hours of their lives without adequate protection and support, and in many cases isolating from their families.
In an interview on MSNBC, Dr. Joshua Barocas of the Boston University School of Medicine said, “I am scared, but my community needs me.” Heroic words said by those doing heroic deeds. As much as front-line medical workers deserve to be seen as heroes, it is important to remember that heroes can come from any part of an organization, including those who are the least among us in terms of earnings, education, and status.
Over the summer, I was involved in an implementation project in a healthcare setting. The goal was to install a program to help hospital staff identify those who may be victims of human trafficking. Part of that program was to teach doctors, nurses, and social workers what kinds of suspicious behavior they could look for to identify these victims. An important topic that required input from a wide swath of the organization.
Initially left out of the task force discussions were the security guards, whose job it was to observe the ER waiting room and monitor for any problematic activity. The people’s whose were tasked with looking for suspicious activity. Ironically, in a program whose goal it was to identify suspicious activity, those who did this for their work were left out of the program planning. We quickly corrected that oversight and integrated them into the project team.
This experience made me wonder to what extent janitors are included in creating any crisis response teams within healthcare settings. Beyond that, to what extent are the parking lot attendants, the cafeteria staff, the receptionists, or anyone else that plays a role in a healthcare facility. And I don’t mean the managers or directors in charge of these parts of the organization. Rather, I mean specifically those people that are involved in doing the work.
John Doerr in the book “Measure what Matters” notes, “Connected companies are quicker companies. To grab a competitive advantage, both leaders and contributors need to link up horizontally, breaking through barriers” (p.89). Beyond the horizontal breakthroughs are the vertical integrations that are needed as well. Every part of the organization, at the every level, has the potential to contribute, especially in times of crisis. Through all my years of studying professions one things remains true: all work is knowledge work. If you ever watched the show Dirty Jobs, you would know that Mike Rowe concurs.
Thus, the task of the designer and leader is to find a way to coalesce those professional voices in order to capture the competencies and skills that exist in the organization. In a recent episode of Experience by Design podcast, we had the opportunity to talk with Shelley White and Meenakshi Verma-Agrawal from the Simmons University Masters of Public Health. One of the key points was when you design for the most marginalized voices, everyone benefits. If we put a participatory design lens on this point, we can say that when you design WITH the most marginalized voices, everyone benefits. This is because the biggest impacts can come from the most marginalized voices. It is through the integration of the marginalized and the central that a complete perspective can be formed.
This means that everyone can have something to contribute. The goal of leadership, as well as the experience designer, is to make sure that those voices are assembled in such a way that they can contribute equally. Each professional voice has a perspective on the organization that is unique to her or his position. Rather than prioritizing knowledge based on place in the organizational chart, prioritize knowledge based on what piece of the puzzle it is providing. All hands on deck moments mean all hands on deck. Don’t premature throw any of those hand overboard, or keep them below deck.
Steps for All Hands on Deck Experience Design
List ALL the potential stakeholders in your organization – What are all the functional units of work in your organization, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant? Create a list of those areas of work, making sure to include the least among you.
Inventory everyone on critical committees, looking for gaps in rank and function – Diversity and inclusion doesn’t just mean demographic diversity. It also means organizational diversity. Make sure as many areas as possible are represented.
Create a platform of open input regardless of position – Beyond diversity, we also need inclusion. Make it possible for these voices to contribute through creating a committee culture of openness. If you are an organization leader, have someone else run the committee, showing you are taking your lead from her/him/them. Encourage contributions from all quarters.
Encourage scrum meeting and knowledge sharing regardless of function – Scrum meetings in all your functional spaces can be a good idea to build workplace community, as well as to gather valuable insights from across the organization.
Have a mechanism for capturing innovations and ideas – Once you are generating ideas, you need to capture them. Cross-functional and inter-hierarchical committees can be a good way to start. Make sure people see their contributions making a different in ways large and small. And even if they are not used, acknowledge people’s contributions publicly. You can even put all ideas on a physical wall to show what people are offering, which is a great way to spur further innovation.
Appreciate all work as knowledge work. Regardless of the type of work being done, craftsmanship lies in the ability of those doing the work to make it look easy. Use the expertise you have across the organization to create innovations, especially in times of need. By designing solutions together, you will create a connected culture of ownership and openness needed in times of crisis.