Unlabeling the Future: Gender, Work & The Climate Challenge

This transcript was made in part by an automated service. In some areas it may contain errors. 

Jon: [00:00:00] Today’s episode of Breaks Some Dishes is brought to you by Gensler.

Welcome to Break some dishes, defying the rules to inspire design. I’m John Strasser.

Verda: I’m Virta Alexander. John. Today we have a special episode. I’m really excited, I feel so honored and privileged to have been asked by Gensler to come to their Midwest regional leaders retreats.

Jon: I I, I was flattered and super excited by it, I think, and it’s always more fun when we’re doing an episode or we’re doing something together.

It’s the energy is different. You know, you have that biochemical interaction that we don’t get when we’re doing these. Episodes online. So to have Gensler, uh, reach out and ask us to yeah, [00:01:00] continue a conversation. So for me, there were two compliments there. Number one, Gensler was reaching out to us. Number two, they were asking us to continue a conversation that we started in a previous episode,

Verda: and that was the episode with Amanda Schneider from Think Lab, where we put out there some of the stats of architects and interior designers and who’s.

Getting into the profession, who’s staying in the profession, who’s getting into leadership positions in the profession. And I think they really wanna understand how, how to get more women in their into leadership roles at Gensler. So I feel like we had, uh, an opportunity to make a difference, but we got to have a Amanda back too, and we all got to be in person.

It was pretty exciting. We sat up as a, a panel and we each had a topic, and then we interacted with the audience. It was great.

Jon: It was a lot of fun. It was, it was daunting, right? I was very much, um, I, I kind of had a couple of oh shit moments. Like, these are really smart people listening to us [00:02:00] right now. So, you know, try John, try not to say anything stupid and, um, you know, hopefully we survive that.

But the only, uh, challenge I think to the, the entire episode was an audio challenge. And I don’t want anybody from Gensler to think that we. Edited questions or, or removed questions. But there were times when our audience microphone cut out on us and you’ll, when you listen to the episode, you’ll see that sometimes we repeat the question and so it makes sense.

But there were times when we could not hear, uh, the question at all on our tape. And so there’s gonna be some unfortunate gaps there, you know. Our amazing producer, Rob Schulte, will help us through that fear, not,

Verda: yeah, I, I still think it’s a great episode overall. And let’s, let’s have a listen.

Jon: You know who I am already, uh, Verde and I, you know, we have a [00:03:00] podcast called Break Some Dishes. Uh, we actually started it, uh, we just started our sixth season and Amanda was one of our, uh, early guests. And to this day, one of the greatest compliments that Verta has ever given me was something along the lines of, oh my God, I can’t believe it’s been five years dragging this podcast on.

I That meant a lot to me when you said that. Um, that was great. So. Starting season six. And Eric did give you some background on why we’re here today, but we had a great conversation with Amanda. You know, we talked a little bit about Gen X, we talked a little bit about gender gaps. We talked a little bit about climate.

You know, it was, uh, it was probably, uh, equal parts depressing and inspiring all at the same time. Um, I don’t wanna take all the time here, um, with the introduction. So the format that we’re gonna kind of go with today is we’re each gonna sort of start our own little session with some, uh. Provocations, right.

Some observations and thoughts and then we’re gonna try to engage [00:04:00]you all, uh, a little bit in between each of our, um, each of our sections. So that’s Amanda, all of those.

Amanda: Perfect. Alright, well you’ve already, uh, heard my bio so I don’t need to repeat all of that. Um, but I’m not sure how many of you’re familiar with Think lab prior to walking in Show of hands.

Okay. So an easy connection is we do all the interior design giants of design work. So all the nerdy number crunching behind the scenes, uh, that is us. We predominantly work on behalf of the product side of the industry, but we’re doing a lot, uh, especially right now around Gen Z, uh, to really understand the future of this industry, what Gen Z is wanting, what they’re looking for from firms like you.

So I’m gonna try and bring some of that. Um, as we talk about our previous episode, there was a couple stats that went really viral. Uh, if you follow me on LinkedIn, I’m very active, uh, on LinkedIn and uh, we had a beautiful graphic that had a stat that said 87.5% of design students. That’s interior design.

Students are female. About 85% of the industry [00:05:00] is female. But as we look at the top layers of leadership, only around, uh, 40% is female. So that got over 15,000 views, which on a personal LinkedIn page is quite a lot. Saying that that really resonated, uh, with this industry. And Verta reminded me that architecture stats are even more stark.

I think it’s 50% of architecture students are women, but only 26% of licensed architects are women. So this is a topic that really resonated with our audience and we wanna bring that back to you. So my role in this conversation today is really going to be, um, kind of bringing some of the concepts of my TED Talk, uh, which was really around, uh, my struggles as a working mother in a world that didn’t feel built for me, combined with our Gen Z research, which is a lot of technical research, uh, that really looks at this industry and how Gen Z is gonna affect it.

And you’d be surprised how much, uh, that intersects. So with that, I’ll let Verta say a quick hello.

Verda: So, yes, uh. I, you got my introduction. I did [00:06:00] wanna say, if you haven’t already figured it out, that this season is about women, women in design, women breaking barriers, women making change, the change that we need to see in the world.

Uh, Eric said it that we mostly talk about climate change, but I had just, I, John knows, I do a bunch of research. I go down all these rabbit holes and I kind of see what draws me. And I started to see a connection between climate change and women and inequity and all these things. So now I’ve been down this.

This female rabbit hole that didn’t sound so great. She took me with her and John agreed to do a whole season. So our entire year this year is on women and we’ve already had Amanda, a couple of young industrial designers and older industrial designers. So kind of getting different, different generations perspectives on, on industrial design.

And we just recently had an architect, interior designer on that. We interviewed the, the episode hasn’t come out yet, so we are very excited to be here to, to do part two with Amanda and talk more stats and numbers. And I’m gonna, [00:07:00] I’m gonna look at leadership. I’m gonna round out this conversation and looking look at specifically at leadership and architecture and design.

John’s gonna queue up the middle with thinking about how the data gap, um, the gender data gap affects how we design in the world.

Amanda: Perfect. So I’m gonna kick off. I’m gonna go first with kind of a provocation and I wanna invite everyone to stand. So we’re gonna start with a little game. If anyone has watched my TED Talk, you know, this is the exact same way I started my TED Talk, but I’ve reframed it a little bit for this audience and for our audience that will be listening.

So, think about yourselves as an employer. Would you rather keep your current team exactly as it is forever? No turnover, no new faces, no fresh experiences from other companies? If you want this option, you’re gonna take a seat. Okay? So keep that in mind. Or would you rather welcome mostly new employees [00:08:00] Every single year you’d have an influx of fresh energy, new ideas, and deep experiences, but be caught in onboarding purgatory.

If so, you’re gonna remain standing. Option three. So if you know, would you rather, they’re kind of two awful options, right? Everyone’s remaining standing. Yeah. Okay. If we want that, if you want option two, which is onboarding purgatory, you’re gonna remain standing. Option one is your team Exactly as it is forever.

You’re gonna take a seat.

Verda: That’s a long time. Wow. I’m surprised.

Amanda: Is there another option? I know everyone, some are, some of you’re are doing, uh, exactly with their options. Some of you’re doing squats right now. This is what makes it a tough choice. Okay. We’ve got, I would say, I don’t know, 99% of the room is probably still standing.

So, uh, so we’re looking at, uh, recruiting, retaining, new talent. Right? All right, so y’all can take a seat. Um. It’s so interesting because [00:09:00] we did a version of this. If you’ve watched my Ted Talk, uh, we did a version of this. It was really tailored for the individual, and we asked, you know, would you rather stay at the same company, the same role you’re in right now for the rest of your career, or would you rather change jobs every year from now until you retire?

When we asked this, I know it’s another awful choice. Helen’s looking at me like, Ugh. Uh, it’s also a hard one when we do it with mixed age audiences. Typically, the majority of people would rather stay right where they are when we do this with predominantly Gen Z audiences. They would rather change jobs every year from now until they retire.

And I highlight this in my TED Talk as really kind of a big difference in how the youngest among us see this world. And I think it’s easy to look at them and say, well, they’re just disloyal. Right? They’re just disloyal and it’s a loyalty problem, and that’s what’s happening to us. But the truth is, while the average tenure of a Gen Z year is expected to be around two years, three months, anybody guess what the average tenure of a baby boomer is [00:10:00] right now?

So according to a recent career builder survey, 40

Jon: years,

Amanda: 40 years, 15. Eight years, three months. So my premise of this is maybe loyalty today isn’t measured in time served, but in trust earned. And right now I would challenge that there’s a trust gap and it’s growing. And uh, I spent yesterday we at Think lab, we modeled a new Gen Z cohort that is modeled after the Gucci Shadow Board concept, um, that I talk about in the Talk.

And it is a group of 12 nominated Gen Zs to really talk about the future of the industry, where there’s holes, where there’s gaps. And one of the key insights from yesterday’s day long sessions was, I feel. Like, I have a tie, I have loyalty, I have trust in you when you trust in me. And I think as we think about this trust gap, it’s really interesting as we hear about, you know, some of the shifts and changes that are happening around hybrid work, um, [00:11:00] that really are sending messages to kind of the youngest among us.

So with that, um, my goal today is to connect kind of this topic around women to business, your business, specifically our industry, how we recruit, retain, and think about upskilling. Because if tenure is going down, we probably have to think about some of our apprenticeship models, maybe a little bit differently than we have in the past.

Um, so I wanna think about how our firms, how our industry recruit and retain business for the future. And then John and Verta are gonna kind of take us deeper exploring how these patterns show up in design, in leadership, and the deeper systems that will shape who gets seen, heard, and supported. So that brings me to this.

I’m gonna read you a quick letter that I wrote to all future employers. This really blends a lot of the research and a lot of the concepts. So I’m gonna read this to you and then we’re gonna ask you to kind of respond to it and see what it provokes for you and then we’ll go on with the conversation.

So, dear Future employers, we’re still thinking about work through Norms built for a very [00:12:00] different time. A time when the default worker was assumed to be male, often white and free from responsibilities outside of the office. A time when technology wasn’t blending work and life so much. The world has changed, but many of our structures have not.

We often worry that AI is biased, rightfully so, but AI is only as biased as the people who trained it. Until we correct our assumptions, we’ll keep building systems, both digital and human, that reflect the same, outdated defaults. The Pause the Pandemic created was in some ways awful and in other ways, an unexpected gift, an invitation to reimagine how work could work.

So now we get to choose will we build something better or return to the familiar simply because it’s easy at Think lab. We’ve spent the past few years deeply researching Gen Z, listening to what they want from work, and in many cases, what they’re asking for isn’t radical. In fact, it’s surprisingly familiar.

If you’ve watched my TED Talk, you know, I share a deeply personal story [00:13:00] about my struggles as a working mom, navigating a system that didn’t feel built for me. What surprised me most in our Gen Z research was just how much their expert expectations echoed my own. Only they’re articulating them earlier, louder, and with far less apology.

So here are three things we’ve learned from Gen Z that can help you attract not only younger talent, but working parents, the neurodiverse, and many other others. Number one, they want flexibility not just in where they work, but when. In fact, a lot of future forum research shows that people prefer more flexibility in when they work than actually where they work.

Number two, they want transparency, uh, for Gen Z, it’s not just about pay, but really about expectations, trade-offs, and what success really looks like at your company. And then it’s on them to decide if they’re ready to sign up for that or not. And number three, they want inclusion. Not just in words, but in structures that allow their voices to shape the future.

So when I couldn’t [00:14:00] find, uh, a workplace that worked for me, I built one. Um, I built and scaled a company, eventually selling it to Sandow, the parent company of a lot of media brands, you know and love. Uh, and that model ended up working not just for moms, but for a wide variety of others. My perspective is when we redesign how we think about some of these structures from new perspectives, we can improve it for many.

So this letter is a chance to pause and ask, are we designing work for tomorrow’s talent or yesterday’s assumptions? Because ironically, as we free people from a physical office, in some ways, we’ve put even more pressure on the office to perform, to foster connection, reflect our values, and to justify showing up.

It’s no small task and it can’t be solved by design alone or policy alone. It requires rethinking our deepest assumptions about how work should work and for whom. So while the title of this episode and this conversation today is Unlabeling Unlabeling the Future, I hope in the next 30 minutes or so we can pause to label what’s [00:15:00] outdated so we can build what’s next.

So that’s my letter and I would love to hear what that provokes for you guys. It resonates. He said it resonates. And I think especially as we think about maybe faster turnover, how we have to recruit, how we have to think about retaining, how we have to think about upskilling, how we have to think about frequent onboarding.

You know, I think all of this is really important. Go ahead. I

Q&A: think it resonates across multiple sectors also. I mean, it’s, it’s tempting to think about this in terms of workplace as an office, but as we look at our, you know, our industries, education, healthcare, et cetera, it’s even, I think, more critical in terms of designing for tomorrow’s work that, of yesterday’s assumptions with some of these institutions, you know, deeply entrenched in, uh, what I might call history and yesterday’s assumptions as what they may consider foundational to their brand.

So, um. You know, we need to be pushing on this not just to around work in the traditional sense, but around these other [00:16:00] industries. Mm-hmm. Or a statement.

Amanda: And I love that. And I think it’s really exciting for our industry because I look at, you know, all this conversation we’re gonna have here today, not only how does that affect your firm, we’re standing here Gensler today, but also the effect your firm can have on all of these clients that you work with.

It feels like a real butterfly moment, a real ripple effect. Who

Q&A: else? I would agree. I think it resonates. Uh, one of the things that I’ve found with our Gen Z staffers, uh, a lot of conversations I’ve found success when they feel that they’re part of solutions, right? Uh, they have great ideas. Uh, sometimes they can be all the way wrong,

Music: right?

Mm-hmm.

Q&A: At least they are always actively trying to think about something new. They often come up with ideas that we would not think of. At least I’m the gens, I know. Mm-hmm. But at least. They’re continuing to push. Mm-hmm. And they appreciate being able to be led. They just wanna be heard. Mm-hmm. So what I [00:17:00] literally was sending a message to my staff to organize individual settings with some of my newer staff next week.

’cause we, they have to be heard much more than, quite frankly, a lot of my peers did. They just kind of were, we went up in a corner and did our job and that was it. Right. We can recognize that way, but I think with this particular generation, it’s even more of an issue. Uh, with Gen Alpha, uh, they are constantly pushing and they want to, because they have access to so much energy, uh, and information, uh, they always have ideas.

They, they want to talk. Mm-hmm. And so I think we have to just acknowledge that. And find ways to work with. Mm-hmm.

Music: Yeah.

Amanda: And I think having structures to help them feel heard. You know, I spent this day yesterday with this cohort of ours of Gen Zers, and it was this very, uh, yin yang. We asked them questions about mentors and what made them feel a part of a group.

What made them, what was a moment where someone was helping them become the designer they want to be or grow in their confidence or [00:18:00]grow in skillset, or grow in their vision that they had for their own future. Every single story told by 12 people yesterday had to do with, when someone has confidence in me, I grow confidence in myself.

Q&A: I love what you’re saying. I think that that is actually like classically leadership beyond capability. And I also think we have to rethink our reward structure. And what I mean by that is that it means actually saying no less. Mm-hmm. And it means that if someone brings it every day, you know, in the office, what it means is that you have to play out much.

Like if you went to a great educational program. A study abroad program, you’ve got to let them join you. I, at a young age, you’ve gotta let them join whatever, you know, industry events or external events they want to join. And I think we’ve got so accustomed to actually equity and I think we really gotta take a look at the value proposition of what are they giving.

Because if they’re giving so much, I think we [00:19:00] have to adjust what they’re getting.

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Jon: Mm-hmm.

Music: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: Yeah. And I think one of the real challenges, no one ever says like, I don’t wanna reward good behavior. I don’t wanna develop these people. We’re all under a challenge and pressure of time and burnout.

Right. And, uh, I remember in our original Gen Z research, um, it was, um, one of the leaders said, I used to spend 20 of my 25% of my time mentoring and coaching. Now I’m over 33% of my time mentoring and coaching, and I’m at a risk of burnout. So I think it’s a real opportunity for us to get intentional. Not only, you know, what do we have to do as leaders, but how do we take some of that weight off of ourselves and put it onto them in structured ways?

Right. We don’t wanna like leave it totally unstructured to, to allow them to contribute to this as well.

Jon: Yeah. I think what Todds said, it really makes a lot of sense because I think we, we get stuck in our lanes. And then, you know, a, a younger colleague comes in with all these new ideas and we immediately feel like we have to box them [00:20:00] into these lanes mm-hmm.

And keep them in their place because they don’t have the experience. And so therefore they couldn’t possibly have the knowledge. You know, and this, I mean, I don’t know if anybody else thinks about this, but the fact that our generations now have different personalities, always, like I can’t get my head wrapped over it.

’cause I don’t remember ever labeling generations and assigning generational personality until like, just recently. You know? So it’s a bizarre concept to me.

Amanda: Yeah. So I wanna, I wanna respond to that real quick. Um, because I think the way that we’ve studied generations, ’cause it really came up with the millennials, right?

And, uh, telling you millennials in the room, like, I’m sorry, because we did it totally wrong. We, we said, this is what millennials want, you know, and, and really stereotyped them. And when you listen to a lot of what millennials want. It’s really what a lot of us want as well. Right? And, and I think this is how we’ve approached this generational research is really looking across generations.

So when we studied Gen Z, we didn’t only [00:21:00] talk to Gen Z, we looked at how things were trending across all generations. That can kind of give us a clue into gradually evolving perceptions that are somewhat true maybe for this group, a little bit more true for this group, a little bit more true for this group and maybe a lot more true for the final group, right?

And so we’re looking at those trend lines across generations and I actually, I’m pleased to announce I just got a book deal with Wiley. So my book is forthcoming. I know. Very exciting. Um, it will launch in June of 2026. That’s gonna talk about 10 trend lines across all generations that are what the world is asking for, but found through generational research because the youngest among us.

It’s not new. In fact, one of the lines I say in my, in my TED talk is, uh, we were talking about hybrid work and one of the Gen Zs said permission to speak freely. He said, I’m sick of people talking about how hybrid is hard. It’s not hard, it’s just how we work. This is really a change management issue for you old people, like, you know, like terrible, right?

But to them it is not change, it’s just the air they breathe. Like a fish [00:22:00]doesn’t know it’s in water, it’s just swimming. So by looking at the most extreme, but looking for these trend lines that benefit all of us, like, I think that’s where generational research is effective. Not in stereotyping.

Q&A: I don’t understand how we’re labeling a generation and how they’re gonna work when they’re only in their twenties.

Mm-hmm. And I’m wondering what your research are you looking into? What does that mean when they’re 30, 40? Like do you know what I, ’cause when I was 20, I had changed jobs 10 times. Yeah. I’ve been at this job for 22 years. So if you had done my generation baby boomers when I was 28, I would fit pretty much what Gen C looks like now.

So I’m just curious

Amanda: what this means for the future. Yes. Odd question. No, it’s not an odd question. And we’re actually even starting to look at Gen Alpha, so, um, we do have to move on also. So I will say, uh, our whole next season of my podcast, design Nerds Anonymous is called Tomorrow’s Impact. And it’s really, look, it’s unpacking the same question with generational experts.

Um, I’ve done [00:23:00] one huge study on generations and, and I can talk to you more offline about kind of how we’ve done that and how we extrapolate. But I have, um, some of the foremost experts on Gen Alpha who are really extrapolating out there and they’re talking about exactly how they’re doing it. So I would invite you to follow my podcast.

Designers Anonymous will be unpacking that, but with that I’m gonna pass along so we don’t lose too much time on my favorite topic.

Verda: Yeah, and we can come back to this topic. We’ll have hopefully more time for conversation at the end, but we wanted to shift into Women in Design. I think a lot of your leadership comments.

Comments already are already dovetailing right into what John and I wanna talk about. So when we talked with Amanda back in February, March, she had tasked us with reading this book called Invisible Women, the Data Gender Gap. I always forget the data bias. Data bias in a

Amanda: World Design for men.

Verda: Thank you John.

Amanda: It’s maddening. I couldn’t even finish it. So

Verda: we both finished it and it’s informed our, what we’re going to present to you all. John was especially astounded by this fact that the, the debt, this we’re how we’re designing without. [00:24:00] Consideration for half of, not even the minority of the population, but half of the population women, is really informing from urban planning to just the things that we use in our daily lives.

And John, yeah. John wanted to expand on that and then I will expand on leadership.

Jon: Yeah. It is a maddening book. I, I felt like every chapter I’d be like, what? No, we, we don’t do that. And then I would think about it. I’m like, wow, actually that’s what’s happening. You know? And, and I think for me, you know, the trigger point was just the very simple fact that Verti just said that when you really look closely, we really aren’t accounting for half the population in the way that we design things.

Right. I, you know, I raised three daughters and a son. And, and so, you know, I raised my three daughters that, hey, you know, everything’s on the table. You can do whatever you wanna do. Right. We’re, you know, we’re probably in pretty good shape with [00:25:00] gender equality. And I remember when my oldest daughter, uh, you know, went to school, she’s a PA and she came home and she had cut her hair, right.

And my wife was like, why did you cut your hair? ’cause she had this beautiful, long blonde hair. She was like, I just didn’t feel like anybody was taking me seriously, you know, with long blonde hair. And I thought, wow, that’s, you know, that’s kind of crazy. But it must be an isolated incident because we’re, you know, we really, we’re treating women equally now, right?

That’s where we’re at. Um, but then as I read this book, you know, and, um, discovered things like, like, you know, we’re still. Designing the inside of automobiles with seats that are designed for male passengers. And, and Wow. What a, what a funky coincidence that more women are injured in car accidents because the car seats and the headrests don’t match up with them the way they should.

And wow, what a revelation that women really aren’t just smaller, lighter [00:26:00] versions of men, but they’re physiologically and anatomically different. And so things like seat belts probably need to be considered for women because women move a seatbelt out of the way where it’s more comfortable. And I was on vacation with my wife a few weeks ago, and we walked by two security guards, and my wife has to suffer through whatever Verta and I are talking about, because I’m always going, you know what Verta told me, or, you know, Verta and I are talking about this.

And she’s like, oh, okay. So we walk by two security guards and they both have body cams, right? And. Clearly that they’re wearing the same body cam. And I can see this woman is pull, as she’s walking, she’s rear. And I say to my wife, I go, look at that. Poor woman has gotta wear that body cam. That is clearly not designed for a woman.

Right? And so we just assume that women are going to figure it out and they’re okay because, you know, you made the decision to join a profession that’s predominantly male. So you’re gonna have to wear gear [00:27:00] that’s designed for men and just wear the small size, right? And same with military gear, and same with construction equipment.

And the same for safety equipment. And I think that, you know, when I realized that the default is the white male, right? That’s the, that’s the default. Everything we do is designed to accommodate a white male. When I realized that, I was like, wow, you know, that’s really, uh, that’s really eye-opening. And, and they even talk about something called a pink tax.

Have you guys heard of a pink tax? A pink tax is actually a situation where a woman has to pay more for an item because they’re buying the women’s version. Right? And another version of a pink tax is, you know, when women travel at night and they don’t feel as safe taking public transportation, they take an Uber.

So where they could have paid, you know, a dollar 50 for a subway ride, now they’re paying $15 for an Uber because they didn’t feel safe [00:28:00] in the subway. So that’s a pink tax. And my um, second daughter who’s an engineer said, oh yeah, there’s also something called shrink it and pink it. Have you guys heard of that?

So that’s terminology. If you’re gonna design a women’s version of this, just shrink it and pink it. Right? Which is kind of crazy, right? But here we are in 2025 and that’s what we’re talking about. And so, you know, one of the things that I wanted to throw at the group real quickly today is, you know, this gender, um.

Stereotype. It’s really putting, uh, women at risk. And I wanted to just bring out a couple of examples. One of them is public transportation, right? So is public transportation really even safe for women today? Knowing what we know? And although women occupy only 47% of the labor force, 55%, um, of public transportation users are women.

And, um, transportation is based on males travel habits. Okay? In a couple of different ways. Women typically travel more. [00:29:00] During non-peak hours because they dominate, uh, retail, healthcare and education, which are not typical nine to five jobs, which means they’re, they’re at stations in the off peak when there aren’t as many people, when they’re not as well lit, when pathways to the stations are not as well illuminated.

And so they are, um, at higher risk. And according to the New York Times, um, women are the predominant victims of New York subway crimes. Right? Um, they’re also three times more likely to be taking kids to school. Right. And 80% more likely to trip chain. So trip chaining is if I’m a male and I’m on public transportation, I’m getting on the bus, I’m going to my stop and I’m getting off that stop going into work.

So it’s just a quick e and that’s the way fares at and routes are designed. Uh, trip chaining is if you’re, um, you know, most women are in charge of childcare. They are in charge [00:30:00] of elder care. And so what they’re doing is they’re getting on the, they’re getting on the bus with their kids and they’re dropping ’em off at school.

Then they’re getting back on that bus. They’re gonna run a couple of errands, right? And then they’re gonna get back on that bus and they’re gonna go maybe visit a parent or pick up a prescription. And so they’re on and off that public transportation quite a bit. And so, uh, the routes and the faires don’t accommodate that.

There aren’t family fairs, there aren’t ramps for strollers, right? They’re getting, try getting a, uh, a stroller through a, uh, a turnstile, for example, right? I look at subway stops and the steps and I’m like, what do you do? Like if you have a stroller, right? But, you know, we don’t think about that. Or an Uber, when was the last time anybody raise your hand if you were in an Uber that had a car seat?

Right? I mean, we just, I think assume that, um, that’s not our problem, right? Um, and so that’s a big, women are at risk with climate change, right? So according to gender snapshot, uh, 2024 report [00:31:00] by 2050, climate change may push up to 158 million more women and girls into poverty. That 16 million more than the total number of.

Men and boys. So 158 million. Think about that for, we don’t account for women when things are going well, right? So it stands to reason that in the face of disaster, uh, we’re gonna fail to do so as well. Right? Climate change is making our world five times more dangerous than it was 40 years ago. We had 743 natural disasters in the seventies, and in the first decade of 2000, we had almost 3,500, right?

So the world is a more dangerous place in the presence of conflict and natural disasters for women. Um, maternal mortality is two and a half times higher in areas of conflict or post-conflict. Uh, food and water scarcity affect women more. Climate migration affects women more. Uh, we [00:32:00] see a lot more gender-based violence, uh, during times of natural disaster and conflict.

Um. Shelters, for example, are not designed for women. They’re never segregated. I don’t know. We all remember after Hurricane Katrina where everybody took shelter in the Superdome, and we’ve probably all heard the stories of how women were assaulted and raped in the Superdome. Uh, because it wasn’t segregated, it wasn’t well lit, it was not designed for women to take shelter.

Um, and we don’t do a whole lot better after the storm either. Um, we don’t take female voices into consideration. And it’s the female voices that are talking about and thinking about community, right? An example of this is after Hurricane Andrew Miami created, we Will Rebuild, which was a re redevelopment scheme.

Unfortunately, it was mostly men, a bunch of Miami insiders, and it focused on commercial rebuild and did not [00:33:00] take into consideration, it was focused on skyscrapers and a new knights, uh, a new, uh, chamber of Commerce facility, things like that. And it didn’t take into consideration the fact that the community needed nursery schools, clinics, health centers, and smaller, informal workspaces that are all more relevant to women and community.

Right. Um, after Hurricane Katrina, 30,000 people were displaced, right? And we did not listen to the voice of African-American women. And as a result, four large housing projects, which just needed to be cleaned, right, were completely raised right? And when they redeveloped, they only provided. 706 public housing units for a community that used to have over 4,500.

Right. So that’s all I have to say about it. I don’t wanna overtalk my time either. I know Verta has a lot to say. You are you gonna say something? You I was just gonna say,

Amanda: now you see why I stopped reading this book? [00:34:00] I expect it’s wildly depressing. Oh yeah. I like

Jon: every chapter. I’d be like, you’ve got to be kidding me.

Like, we’re not doing that. But so it, it, you know, for me being a, a white male in the room, um, you know, you, once your awareness. Is tweaked. You can’t unt tweak it. You know, it’s like, it is there, it is the elephant in the room. We all need to be able to talk about it and talk about addressing it. And you know, we’re talking about listening to the voices of these younger generations.

We have to remember that there’s another voice in the room that we haven’t been listening to for a very long time. And I think the one, um, question or the provocation that I had for the group was, um. Was this, how do you connect the need for gender equity with broader global challenges like climate resistance?

And do you all feel pressure to account for climate change in your work? Right. There’s a lot there, but, um, anyway, throwing that out to the room. How you doing? Good. How are you doing?

Q&A: Thank [00:35:00] you. Yeah, no, I mean the, the stats are, are, are crazy. Um, so we have stats inside Gensler that I also thought were, were pretty interesting.

Um, and what we, what we found a couple years ago was that out of 110 architectural designers, there were nine who were women, which seems. Sort of crazy, right? These people, they get trained as architects and come here and, uh, tried to figure out why this was the case. And so I remember back to a staffing, um, uh, meeting that we had, and there were two people in the staffing meeting that were, we were talking about.

There was an opportunity, an architecture, and there was an opportunity in interiors. And what was interesting was there were two people up for the job. One’s name was Nolan. You guys all know Nolan, and you know Maria. And Maria was chosen to take the interiors job. And Nolan was chosen to take the architecture job.

They had the same portfolios. [00:36:00] They were just starting. They were, they were interns with us and they both went to architecture school and no one said anything. We all just sort of said, oh, of course Maria should be the interiors person. And of course Nolan should take the architecture position. And so that kind of, and I won’t, it’s not even unconscious bias at that point.

It’s just so culturally ingrained in our heads that that should be the case. And so now you understand why the stats are the way they are, and. Marie’s doing great. It’s not like it’s, it’s not a horrible travesty, but it’s still kind of weird that, that we sort of pushed her into that. And it was just a staffing meeting.

It’s as, it’s as innocuous as that. And so just wanted to sort of put that out there.

Verda: You’re, you’re taking all my points. You’re gonna, oh, sorry. You’re gonna have to stop talking.

Q&A: Okay. I’m, I’m done. I’m done.

Verda: No, uh, no. Uh, we actually interviewed an, an industrial designer duo, young duo, and then somebody from human Scale who’d been in the industry for many years.

And they both talked about industrial design being similar to architecture being thought of as more [00:37:00] of a hard, um, hard science type of thing, like engineering and interior design being seen as soft. And sure enough, the numbers definitely, um, align with that type of thinking.

Jon: Today’s episode of Breaks and Dishes is brought to you by Gensler. At Gensler, the value of our work stems from its positive impact on the human experience. We’re a dynamic and collaborative design firm, United Creativity, research and innovation to create impactful cutting edge solutions for our clients.

Verda: I wanna spend this last section talking about, because of this data gap, we need more women. Making decisions in [00:38:00] decision making positions, which means we need more women in leadership positions. And we’ve been making improvements for sure in architecture and design, but we need to make even more. And so I’m gonna break down a little bit of the issues around why we don’t have a lot of women in leader in leadership positions and how we could maybe have more, and I’m gonna start with, um, the, the word gender and sex.

We’ve had probably heard way too many this word way too many times in the media recently. And I think we all have, are, are be or have understood probably for a while now that gender is a social construct and it’s, it’s learned. We all teach it. Everybody, our, our culture, men and women, we all teach these gender roles to our children from a very young age.

And we need, and, and the reason I think. Even though we understand this, I just wanna touch on it briefly, is that we can’t fix gender inequality unless we understand how it starts. And from this book, kind of, kind of the starkest parts of this book was, well, actually, before I get into that, [00:39:00] I, I wanna do a quick, can I get two volunteers?

Just raise your hands. Okay. And one more, got a customer. Oh, ready? Okay. Okay. Okay. Think of a college professor. Think of a K to 12 school teacher. You have a vision in your mind? Sure. What’s his or her name? Bill. Okay. College professor’s. Bill, what’s your K through twelves name?

Q&A: I don’t even remember their last names.

Is that her?

Verda: No. No. Just anybody. First name. First name there. Theresa. Okay. Mm-hmm. It worked female. Right? We think of a nurse, female. We think of a college professor, a scientist male, and sure enough kids when they’re small, like five or six years old, when they’re in kindergarten, they’re drawing if, if they’re asked to draw, and this was a study, asked to draw a scientist, 50 50.

They draw Drew men and women scientists kind of equally. Within a couple years they were drawing more and more men. By the age 14, they were drawing [00:40:00] significantly like two to one more male scientists than female scientists and young girls at age four to five, they think they’re as smart as anything that they can do anything by seven or eight.

They’re already doubting themselves. They’re trying to pull away from games or activities that require intelligence or coordination and things like that. It’s, it’s, it’s so striking how I, I mean, I, I just was so struck by that stat just how, how just within a few years, girls start to doubt themselves and it’s.

It’s nothing that we’re doing wrong, it’s just how we,

Jon: did you feel like you knew that as you were reading it, you’re like, oh, okay, that makes sense. Or were you really genuinely surprised?

Verda: I guess it, it never put it to words. And I think there’s so many things that, that go unsaid and, and until you put it to words, and I guess that’s what I’m trying to do here, right?

Um, uh, not to pick on men, but you know, in thinking about reviews, right? Um, a 2016 study, male biology students [00:41:00] consistently overrated their male peers, um, and underrated, better performing females, whereas the women rated them pretty much in line. So there’s, there’s, there’s all of that and it’s, again, it’s not, it’s, it’s just this, this gender bias that is just embedded in us, right?

In architecture, only two of the top world’s, top a hundred firms are headed by women. So we need to change that, right. Gensler is co-led, from what I understand. I was looking at a 2024 report. Yeah. Great. Yeah, which is pretty cool. That’s awesome. Yeah. Gender has probably, I mean, Gensler, Gensler is, has helping to, to fix that number.

So Amanda talked about flexibility and this, um, this, our model of an ideal worker is completely outdated. And, you know, we’re think, we think of an, of the perfect worker as being unencumbered always available and aggressively competitive. This is typically a man. [00:42:00] 70% of people who work 50 hours or more are men.

And this, this site was surprised by, I didn’t realize, 80. Plus 80% or more women are, are single parents. And, and we talk, we’ve talked a lot about this domestic inequality where women do take on more of the household chores and child rearing and elder care

Jon: and get less leisure time

Verda: and have less leisure time than men, even when the men are working 50 hours or, or more.

I don’t know how that, I don’t know how that math computes. Right. Um, women faced structural and cultural penalties for asserting power. They can be seen as cold. We see this in politics. We see this in business. Um, also the more feminine you appear, this was, this was also in the book. Um, the, the, the less credible they, they seem in leadership and in like in STEM industries.

Right. Uh, so remember Jane’s,

Jon: how she dressed,

Verda: right. We had, um, Jane Abernathy from Human Scale on de Designer. And, go ahead, John.

Jon: Yeah. Jane [00:43:00] said that she purposefully dressed in a more masculine way so that her, she could be heard and she actually took voice lessons. Because she wanted to be able to project with more authority.

Verda: Think of the pants suits that women wear in politics, right? Yeah. Um, so despite progress, half of the top firms, I’m talking a hundred top architecture firms, I got these stats from DZ in 2022, so I’m hoping this is, this is better. Half of the top firms have zero women in senior roles. So this brings me to my last point.

And I changed this on the plane because I, I knew there was something wrong with it. I, I, I was, I was gonna lead with traits that are labeled feminine, like collaboration, empathy, long-term thinking is what we need more of in leadership. And, and I’m like, but then I’m just reinforcing the stereo, the gender stereotypes.

Right. And John even was looking at, um, [00:44:00] when we first were researching this, you wanted to see if women, women led companies. Uh, performed better, right? Mm-hmm. We’re more profitable, right? And to me, this is, this is the business case model of gender equity. Like how, like how can we, by bringing in women, by, by, um, embracing these traits that we think we need in business that we think women have, our, our firms will perform better.

Oh, that’s okay. You can leave it. Um, our, our firms will perform better. We’ll have more profitable. And it is pro, probably true, but it’s more true because there’s more diversity in the leadership than, than these specific, these traits that are specifically labeled feminine. Right. And so I wanna, I want us to, to kind of think more broadly that we all have these types of traits.

We’re all, we’re a highly collaborative species. We’ve always been, it’s why we’ve had so, so much success on this planet, unfortunately, to the detriment of some other [00:45:00] species. But, you know, we’ve, we’ve always collaborated and I’m. I was struck by this quote when we started thinking about this presentation, uh, by a political theorist.

It says to manage this world, climate, ai, all the disorder that’s happening, right? Right. In this moment, we are going to have to learn to collaborate as a species to a degree that we have never collaborated before. And I think that applies to business and everything, right? And I think it means really thinking, not thinking in terms of these binary boxes, but how, what we can all bring to the table.

It’s not about women, women leading a firm being better, but it’s about coming together and having these, a diverse table, that being the better scenario, and that leading to better collaboration, right?

Jon: Yeah. And if that’s even a, um, an appropriate metric, right? Like, well, if we can show that women on the board lead to a better [00:46:00] performance on Wall Street, then let’s do it.

Like that makes sense, right? But otherwise we don’t need to, right? I mean, like, that’s the, you know, that’s the either or there. So,

Verda: yeah. Yeah. So, and, and I got some of that, that thinking from a book that’s coming out called Patriarchy, inky by Cordelia, fine. And she was, she was breaking down kind of the, the, the problems with DEI and, and it’s, it’s, it’s DEI when it’s looked at as a business case proposition versus as a value proposition.

Like we just need to do it because it is the right thing to do because we need women, we need all the voices that we’re designing our world for in the room, right? So if we wanna lead into the future, we have to unlabel the way we assign value between hard, soft architecture and tears, masculine, feminine, default, and other, right?

And, um. We, we need to do this because we need to, we need to figure out how we’re gonna survive. And that’s how this all comes back to, to climate change and, and all the issues that are being exasperated [00:47:00] by it.

Jon: Yeah. Yeah. I think when we first started the podcast, we were talking about sustainability, but it was a very simple conversation, right?

We were worried about ocean bound plastic, and we were worried about things that were very, I think, obvious, you know, we were talking about solutions. Now we’re realizing that, I mean, social equity is really a big part of sustainability. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a very big part of it. So the conversation around climate has just gotten a lot more sophisticated.

Music: Yeah.

Verda: Yeah. And I think we’re in, we’re in a very strange moment right now, and we we’re hearing a lot about this idea of masculine energy, that we need more of that in our workplace. And I, I feel like there’s a bit of this, this backlash moment, so it’s e even more of a, a. Of a time where we need to be aware of what’s happening and how we can, how we can level the play playing field.

All right. So we wanna open this up to, to [00:48:00] you all for a conversation. I had a question, but I really feel like maybe just, just a general, like what does this all spark for you? What kind of connections are you guys making here?

Q&A: Um, Virta, I love what you said about, uh, like identifying some of these themes that are really important for kind of the business case of our companies, like the, you know, these different qualities or attributes like across genders that really make companies thrive and continue to be innovative.

Um, and I was thinking about a story. This is actually a story that, uh, my husband told me. So my husband. As many people know, he’s a physician and he does a lot of research and he goes to a lot of conferences and there was some conference that he was at recently and there’s a long standing, uh, night where the women of, you know, these women physicians, um, they get together and they have like, you know, this women’s [00:49:00] networking, you know, thing.

So what that, what what happens is, I mean, that’s all, that’s all great. That happens a lot, right? Where there are a lot of women networking groups and women’s leadership initiatives and the women all get together. Um, and in this instance, and this has happened year after year. All the men just organically get together and they go out to dinner and they, that’s where the research projects for the next year.

Again, there’s nothing like formally, you know, in place to do this, but the men all talk about like, oh, hey, I’m working on this project and like, you should be a part of this. And so what ends up happening is that some of the top research ends up with basically all men. Um, and this is, I mean, in my opinion is like self-inflicted by the women.

Mm-hmm. So I think, uh, it, and I, you know, I should, I should be more generous. I mean, I think like there’s a cause for why the women got together in the first place, but as we’re thinking about [00:50:00] solutions to what everything that you’ve all laid out, I, I love this theme of saying like, it’s not about kind of setting up these.

Sort of either or, or theirs and ours or hers and his, um, you know, kind of juxtapositions. But rather how can we sort of look at the diverse spectrum of how we, uh, stack our companies to be the most diverse talent, the talent that is gonna make us the best in how we are serving our clients and serving our talent and, and designing for a future world.

Amanda: I love that you brought this up, and this is something that we talked about a little bit in the first round of this podcast. Um. You know, one of the interesting things in the first part of the book that I got through talked about, you know, women would never have gotten the right to vote, had men not voted for them to get the right to vote.

And I think about, um, some work that we did on behalf of a, a nonprofit, uh, during, when all the George Floyd was happening in 2020, that was around [00:51:00] diversity and how we kind of raise more diverse voices. And one of the things that came up, um, from that work was we have to stop labeling. This is the unlabeling I think that we’re getting to, because what happens when we have a diversity conversation and we put it in conference room d.

Down the hall, the people who show up are not the people who need to hear that message. Right. So how do we have a future conversation that’s on the main stage? How do we make sure to bring some of these conversations to the main stage rather than putting them in conference room D.

Jon: Yeah. It should be baked.

And we talk about that with sustainability too. You know, there’s, there’s all these conferences you go to and there’s always a couple of rooms where somebody’s talking about, you know, green design or green design initiatives, right. And it’s like the same 20 people that go to those sessions. Mm-hmm. And you know, why is it that baked into design?

So whenever you’re talking about design, well of course you’re talking about climate in the same conversation. I and I, we talked about, you know, we have green build and then we have NeoCon. [00:52:00] Well, you know, why do we have to have a special green conference? Why can’t NeoCon encompass everything that happens at Green Build?

Because, you know, we shouldn’t, shouldn’t draw that line of demarcation between the two conversations.

Q&A: Thank you three for being here. It’s, uh, you know, a early Friday morning and kind of after a long week, beautiful day outside. It’s kinda the end of the week and you’ve got my mind really churning now, so thank you for that.

Um, when you mentioned the top architectural firms, um, led by women, I’m thinking of two women led firms in Chicago. One is Studio Gang with Jeannie Gang, another is Carol Ross Marney. Um, and I had a chance a few months ago to talk to Carol about, about gender, about women in architecture. And her position was, and I’m kind of wondering how the Gen Z would weigh into this comment, she said, I just wanna be known as a really good architect.

It it’s not gender related. And, and so, you know, don’t elevate me because I’m a [00:53:00] woman. Elevate me because I’m a good architect. And that’s what she’s trying to instill in her. You know, very diverse, very, uh, um, you know, multi-disciplined firm. And, uh, so I, I’m wondering how does the unlabeling. Tie into the Gen Z.

Mm-hmm. And I’m kind of thinking about the pronouns and how that’s played in, and do you have any thoughts on nuances in that?

Amanda: Yeah, I think it’s hard because in some ways we’re saying do both, right? Like we have to label it to call attention to it, but then we wanna unlabel it to not call attention to it.

And so this is the oxymoron that we’re stuck in. I think what we have to do is find new ways to look at things, because then if we can’t, we’re stuck in our own perspective. And maybe that’s females, maybe that’s diversity, maybe that’s Gen Z. There’s a lot of different lenses. But I think until we force ourselves into some of those lenses, we can’t, you know, privilege is invisible.

And we all have privilege in some way. Maybe it’s economic, maybe it’s gender, maybe it’s race, maybe it’s, you know, there’s a [00:54:00] number of different things that it can be. So until we try to see the world through someone else’s lens, I don’t think that, that we can be successful. So I think,

Jon: yeah, we talked about it when we had the founders are proud, studio, um, join us for an episode, and they, they were on the fence with, do we call ourselves a female owned, um, design firm, or do we call ourselves just, you know, prowl studio?

And I said, no, you have to call yourselves a female owned business because if you don’t, the assumption is gonna be that you’re a male of business. And so you owe it yourselves to have a little distinction that unless you don’t want to have that, you know, but that’ll be the assumption,

Verda: I think until.

Until, uh, we really, until we have true equity, we really, and, and, and one of the problems is we define leadership in this way that I think is much more like, I don’t know, here’s an exercise. Imagine a leader, [00:55:00] like whatever, a, an important leader or a hero. What, who, what’s the first person that comes to mind?

I’m, I’m playing around with this. Um, for a future episode, this woman is creating a card deck of 52 heroes. And she asked me, what are your heroes? And I was having such a hard time thinking of thinking of women heroes. And I was just Virginia Wolf. I was just listening to a podcast where Virginia Wolf was talking about, I’m, I couldn’t possibly be a hero because I don’t have the courage.

Because it takes, for a woman, it takes so much more. You have to stand up to all these biases in our society and then, and then not be struck down and then persevere to the other side, to, to really make a difference in the world. And that’s what we, that’s. Who we see as our heroes and our leaders. And so I think it’s really about a structural redefinition of what a leader, what a good leader is.

Q&A: I just wanted to say one thing. We just went through a leadership transition in Chicago, and Megan actually took a role that I had occupied for, um, many [00:56:00] years with Brian. We co-led Chicago, right? And d where’s d Dee actually leads our Minneapolis office. Cheryl actually co-leads our Columbus office. And one thing that I think was very interesting for us to see, right, is that when, when you make a change.

Actually it’s balanced and there’s equity there. People get really excited because they see themselves actually being able to step into those roles. And I think the energy that’s achieved by that affects a lot of things. And Heidi did a great presentation yesterday in our Gallup scores and Dee and Bill, uh, which is right there, bill, um, have the highest Gallup scores of all of our offices in the region.

And one thing that I think would be really interesting would be that if you take a balanced leadership team, right, male, female, diverse, whatever you wanna look at is actually that balanced leadership. Does that mean that people are heard more in different ways? They have more opportunities to [00:57:00]connect.

And I think it would be really interesting for us to study this as a firm because engagement is more important now than ever. People will trade engagement for salary. And so that to me is a currency that we really have to think about.

Amanda: And I think the gentleman right in front of you had a question here.

I’ve seen you raise your hands.

Q&A: It wasn’t a question at all, it was a comment. So my wife and I have had this conversation innumerable times. First of all, uh, shout out to all the spouses that have to deal with nerd, you know, other spouses that talk about stuff they don’t wanna talk about all the time.

’cause they listen. Uh, my wife, um, she has three Ivy League degrees from Cornell. Right? She, and they’re in engineering and in business and she’s a black woman and she dealt with bias the entire time. Right. And I’m not even, we don’t have enough time to go through the rabbit hole of being a black and woman.

That’s a whole different conversation. Yes. Uh, but she, you know, had to deal with coming out of grad school and earning 20% less. Right. Uh, she had [00:58:00] to deal when she decided to start a business, going to lenders all across the country with this phenomenal idea, but was hard to get funding and then watching hair-brained ideas by white guys get funded all the time.

Right. Eventually she got funded. It was a phenomenal business that had a 15 year run cited by Forbes and Ernst and Young, and we sold it and everybody’s happy. But it was a struggle. Right. To your point about you’re watching your children, I have a daughter who’s amazing, got straight A’s all the elementary school, got to middle school and was like, you know, I don’t know if I can do math.

Even though she had been getting AIDS all until she was 12, and then she becomes 13 and has concerns. And so it’s things about how we have to really intentionally understand and acknowledge it, and then we have to be brave enough to make decisions about it. Right? So I think it comes down to, uh, if you have a chance, if you’re in a hiring position and you get a man [00:59:00]with uh, uh, uh, you know, the same credentials as the woman, choose the woman, be bold, see what happens, right?

Because one of the things I’ve found, and I’ve, I’ve talked to people about this and, and, uh, I’ve talked to Heidi about it probably more than I probably should have. But I know that if, if there’s a woman and if there’s a man, if there’s a black woman, if there’s a black man, they can’t fail the same kinds of ways.

It’s just a fact. And we have to own that and we have to acknowledge it, right? And so I think we will do better if we acknowledge it. And I, and I would push back on Unlabeling. ’cause I think we have to embrace the labels that exist and then honor them, right? And so my wife and I, we’ve had this conversation because she, at first blanched at, you know, identifying herself as a woman-owned business, da da da.

And I was like, no, you need to not only honor it, but elevate it so people know what a successful woman-owned business can be like. I also think that’s a generational piece where the, um, the older women I know are like, [01:00:00]no, I’ve paid my dues. It’s all about, you know. Look at me as a designer and look at who I am.

Like you were saying for Carol, but I think that’s a different way of thinking. ’cause that’s how they had to come up through the world. They had to come up wearing the suit. They had to come up. She has short hair, right? They had to like really like bring it to, to win it. And actually when we’re saying, oh, we love that Megan’s there in this huge elevator role, you’re right.

We could see ourselves, you know, in that future. But also I would encourage us as a team and as a studio, to really bring people up in the small wins too. It’s not always like, who’s the next female CEO? Sometimes it’s like, well, who’s even going to that conference? So they have that opportunity to be at that dinner.

Who’s gonna be the ops in our studio that can eventually run our studio? Yeah. We need to look at it that way versus. Who’s the next CEO only. Mm-hmm.

Amanda: Yeah. And some of the women aren’t necessarily gonna be the ones to volunteer too. I’ll say, you know, I’ve interviewed a lot of men and women on my podcast and 90% of the time the men are like, no, it’s good.

I’m good. I don’t need, the women are like, can I listen to [01:01:00] that before it goes live? Inevitably. Like it’s a really, like, yeah.

Q&A: Um, this is all great and love the conversation. Um, I can’t just sit here and I know we’re talking about gender. Um, I need to bring up the L-G-B-T-Q community in this discussion.

Both Todd and I are proud to be gay and we’re running this region. Um, I’m on the board of directors of this company. This company is always, it was the first company to offer insurance coverage to. Um, significant others, and Art Gensler was always leading the charge. Being a San Francisco based firm, um, our, our focus is really great, but it could be a lot better.

And I just wanna raise that for, you know, and we’re continually looking at opportunities for the community, LB, lgbtq plus community, um, even in the face of what’s going on from the executive branch of the [01:02:00] government right now. So, sorry to politicize it a little bit, but I have to. No, I think it’s totally off.

Have to have to bring into the discussion.

Verda: Yeah, and we just focused on women, but we, you know, diversity in all its forms for sure. And

Amanda: I think that that’s a really important thing too though, because I think where we’ve all landed, regardless of our different perspectives is that what one of benefits, one group benefits many and we have to be able to talk about these things, you know?

And I think it’s one reason I’ve love this Gen Z research so much because it’s all, it’s much easier for me to be like, Hey, this is what they need. You wanna recruit future talent, this is what they need than it is to feel like this is what I need. So it’s easier to fight on behalf of someone else than it is to kind of own your own vulnerabilities.

And I think that just like we needed men to vote, to give women the right to vote, we need people to advocate for L-G-B-T-Q. We need men to advocate for women. We need to advocate for a lot of people that black women maybe don’t look like black men, black women. Yes. Go ahead.

Q&A: No, I appreciate, um, all the comments.

And Amanda, I think you said it, um, with [01:03:00] response to one of the questions, it’s almost like you have to label it to unlabel it, right? Um, and same to what Antoine’s saying, and Ken, I think we have to acknowledge people’s differences. The L-G-B-T-Q community, we need to acknowledge the black community. We need to acknowledge the, you know, the Asian community.

And we need to elevate and highlight and say like, we see you, your voices are heard, your voices are important at the table. And when we label it and, and intentionally plan for that, we bring those voices into the room. And so I, I think it’s a mind shift when we talk about inclusion overall because, you know, when we have those conferences and we’ve got, you know, people naturally human instincts to kind of merge to the, your kind, right?

The people that you feel most comfortable with. So that’s gonna happen, but we need to change our mindsets to think about. But who’s not here today? And like, who, who, what other voices can we bring into this really great conversation that we’re having? Um, and [01:04:00] we talked about that at the super meeting as well, where Antoine is like, man, like we’re all like, you know, gen Xers, you know, boomers, and you know, maybe we need to get some millennials in this room and hear from them what are their thoughts.

And so I do think you have to label and really be intentional about seeing people for where they are in their life and their journeys and from their backgrounds and experiences to work on. Like bringing all those voices together so that we can have a future where, where there are no labels and people are, that’s just how we think, but we don’t think like that as a society, right?

So this is the work that needs to be done. Yeah. It’s like a absolutely use

Jon: label to build our awareness and, and, and stay organized in our thoughts. I think it’s, it’s thoughtful and it makes sense.

Amanda: Maybe we need to change the title of this podcast, labeling, labeling to Unlabel. Right, right. But I, I read a book recently that said, uh, we have to be careful that we don’t pave the jungle.

And what that meant, it was talking about for our children, like to make sure we’re giving them a clear path to walk, [01:05:00] but not letting them fight through any of the weeds, any of the challenges. And I think sometimes by Unlabeling too far, we’re paving the jungle might feel easier, but it’s not gonna be easier in the long run.

Q&A: Yeah. Promise to be quick. And I’m sorry I skipped you, Jim, but, um, got a lot to say around this subject in general, but it’s been interesting, uh, coming off of the, uh, ULI conference that was take that, uh, took place this week. I know Megan, uh, and Randy and others were there and the transition that’s been happening through ULI, you know, if you go back 25 years ago, you know, even our profession was not basically allowed to be part of, uh, the organization.

It was basically dominated by brokers, by developers, uh, by bankers, all white. All male, predominantly male, if not all male, and certainly men of a certain age. You know, now we get to an organization that, you know, I’ll come out and say it. That was kind of almost kind of co-led by our co-chair, Diane, for the past, uh, uh, two years.

Uh, Christina Raspy, who’s, uh, [01:06:00] head of real estate for Apple, and another very powerful woman in Los Angeles, uh, Claire. Uh, they actually were the search firm or the search group to find a, a new CEO, which just took, uh, just got, uh, placed and announced last year. Another woman. It’s been great. However, there’s this very strong undercurrent within ULI of big donors who are complaining that they have a new C or DEI hire.

As a white woman led by DEI, women who made the decision. And there is this strong undercurrent of resistance to that. And even what you said earlier, I think about having a side room, if you will, there was a lounge for DEI lounge, you know, for black brown women and Latino gay and lesbian people who don’t normally get together to gather, you know, to really kind of understand how they can network in business, you know, work or do business together.

So. In short, the whole idea of kind of de labeling, you know, uh, [01:07:00]we’re not there yet. You know, if you go back 10 years, which feels like a generation ago, you know, when Obama got elected, oh, are we in this post-racial society? You know, and I don’t wanna speak for 23 million black folks, but we knew that we weren’t there, you know, and a good percentage of the country probably realized that, but we thought we were in this kind of false kind of epiphany.

No, we are not there yet to start, you know, removing, whether it’s labels or whatnot, we still got a ways to go. Okay. Um, so my perspective’s a little different in a lot of ways because even though I am a white male, uh, I am an architect and interiors part of the business, which is primarily dominated by women and to migrate.

Benefit, frankly. Um, majority of my career, my bosses have been women, majority of my mentors in my life have been women. So I think it’s really important that, uh, and I’m just glad, I’m proud of that. The other thing I think that’s interesting is that I’ve always been a champion of women in business, women in our, in our profession.

Uh, and recognizing that scales are skewed. I understand that. I think our [01:08:00] profession understands that particularly this firm understands it really, really well. Could we do better? Absolutely. And I think our efforts are well intended and have brought great fruit. I just leave everyone with a thought of, and this is.

It’s interesting you bring these topics up because to some degree to my ear, they are somewhat obvious and I think clear. Um, I would, I’m gonna send a note to all the principles here in a second, but, um, there’s a great documentary called This Changes Everything. Have you guys seen this in 2018? I’d highly recommend you guys watch this.

It’s, um, I’m a big fan. A lot of us know this. I’m a big fan of the movie industry and movies is, um, a documentary about women in the, uh, movie industry. And in 2018, or just shortly less, the documentary came out. When the movie Thumb and Louise came out, the headlines were, this changes everything. Women are now in charge or in place in Hollywood.

And because the movie was a blockbuster hit and it featured two female leads, and the thought was, this changes everything now now’s, now it’s gonna be male dominated in front and behind the camera. But then it didn’t happen. And they talk about why, but they also go through the data. There’s a great section about [01:09:00] it where the head of Fox Studios suddenly realize that a woman can lead a franchise, A woman can lead a blockbuster summer movie, which three four never thought to be possible.

And they did data. They found that women-led movies actually. Per, uh, opportunity made more money than the men, boys. And so I highly recommend, I’m gonna send it all to you guys to watch. This says a great documentary called This Ditch is Everything, but it talks about women behind the scenes in front of the camera, behind it.

And, uh, Reese with a spoon and her, uh, development and her work. Now we have Shonda Land. She sees really great women taking lead and trying to change the dynamics and realizing that they can compete toe to toe with any other male dominated. Perception. In fact, most many times they beat it. So I just encourage you all to see it.

It’s a fantastic, uh, documentary about a lot of what we talked about today.

Jon: Well, thank you guys for letting us, uh, have a few minutes of your day today. It was a lot of fun.

Verda: Yeah. And we are making strides and especially in leadership, not so much maybe in, um, pay equity and things like that, but in the architecture and design industry, just in the last [01:10:00] decade, we’ve gone from maybe 10% leaders to over 20%.

And, and, and at Gensler especially, your numbers are almost at 40 or 50%. So I think you guys are part of, part of why we’re moving so quickly in that direction, but we need to keep going. Thank you.

Q&A: And, and thank you all. This was like

Verda: John, I loved all the perspectives. I loved Amanda talking about. Gen Z and all of that. And then I talked about leadership and all of, and oh no, actually you came in with our, you know, our, our homework that had man had had given us. Yeah. The book that we both read now, that has a lot. There is so much in that book to unpack and you focused on just design and how, how when we don’t have women at the table, design [01:11:00] doesn’t necessarily focus on women.

Design is incomplete. Yep. And then I came back, kind of rounded out the conversation with women in leadership and I think we had so many great comments. Like you said, that was a very smart room. Filled with smart people and, uh, they kept us on our toes. But it was a, it was a great episode. They, and I

Jon: loved some of the storytelling of, we, I mean, some of the anecdotes that, uh, the leadership shared with us that were relative, uh, and relevant to what we were talking about, uh, was really eyeopening.

Right? So

Verda: just getting out of our studio and out of our own heads and actually interacting, I felt like I was, I was on the ground with like, really in the trenches.

Jon: Yeah. And super high kudos to the leadership team at Gensler for having the courage to say, Hey, let’s, let’s have this conversation. Let’s put it front and center.[01:12:00]

And let’s talk about it and let’s kick it around. I’m super impressed, uh, by Eric and Ken and Todd and you know, that whole team that we had an opportunity to interact with, they were amazing.

Verda: And Gensler is such a force in our industry that, you know, if they’re trying to make change, they, they can absolutely lead the way.

And that’s very exciting to me. Yeah,

Jon: great conversation. Super happy to have been able to do it in front of Gensler and to, and to get the band back together with Amanda again too.

Verda: Yeah, that was super fun. I love Amanda. She’s so smart. I know. We’ll have to come up with another excuse to get her back on our podcast.

Jon: Ah, she may be too smart. We don’t wanna hang out with too many smart people for it. Anyway, good stuff, man. Another good episode. We’re on a roll.

Verda: Thanks. Thanks again everyone for tuning in. Yes, thanks to Gensler for joining us today. We’d love to hear about the issues that you’d like us to address. Be sure to let us know by leaving a [01:13:00] positive review Wherever you listen to podcasts,

Jon: break Some Dishes is a Surround podcast by Sandal Design Group.

Thanks to the team behind the scenes. This episode is produced by Rob Schulte and edited

Verda: by Rob Adler. Thanks to Master and Dynamic for the official headphones of the Surround Network. You can hear other podcasts like [email protected].

Jon: Today’s episode of Break Some Dishes was brought to you by Gensler.