Jenny Dannstedt: Designing culture with kindness and feedback

Pauline Bertry 0:13

Hi Jenny, welcome to the den, how are you?

jenny dannstedt 0:16

Hello Pauline. So nice to be here. I'm very, very good.

Pauline Bertry 0:20

Cool. So Jenny, as you know, I like to start those conversations with asking people to tell me a little bit about their story, their journey, the past, the present and the future. So I'm very curious to learn a bit more about your path that got you where you are.

jenny dannstedt 0:41

Well, I started as a behavioral scientist by training, and after that I joined the trend of being a US designer in the mid-90s, putting people in the center. And back then the field was very new, it barely existed,

Pauline Bertry 0:59

Hmm.

jenny dannstedt 1:00

and nobody talked about user experience. so but I've been working as a consultant almost my whole career. And the drive has always been the same to solve complex problems, new creative solutions and create something that is good both for for the society and for the planet. and the last 10 years before I started in Antrope, I was in Doberman. And that taught me a lot about how to run and build a company together with your people, and that everyone can contribute and how important that is to understand yourself alongside with others, like group dynamics and feedback, and personal growth. And as a behavior scientist, I understood how critical that is for building a business. And then I moved to Anthrope, and I've been here 10 years as a design lead. building up our service design offer. and service design has over the years grown into a much more strategic tool. design thinking became the base for thinking in systems and system change and business development, the revenue, innovation. And helping companies through transformation in different ways. And I'm still here today. And Antropy is a great place for that. I have learned enormous in this time here. And also sustainability runs through much of what we do. And it's hard to think of something that is more meaningful.

Pauline Bertry 2:38

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 2:39

So really it's a gradual shift. not a single yump jump from UX through service design to more strategic work.

Pauline Bertry 2:48

I see. And I mean, I'm also very interested into learning because I mean, you spent your whole career in consulting, right? Or like the majority

jenny dannstedt 2:59

Yeah.

Pauline Bertry 3:00

of your career. How did the people side of the industry evolved since you since you first started?

jenny dannstedt 3:08

you mean the people side when it comes to how you create a culture and

Pauline Bertry 3:13

Yeah, exactly. Like how the companies as groups of people changed.

jenny dannstedt 3:20

Well when I started in Doberman that was a really big learning from that time that is that it's super important to use your people to build a culture that are really going to be strong because I think If you're just driven towards money and becoming bigger and expanding, that is going to create one kind kind of culture. But where I come from, the hyper island cul culture, I didn't go to Hyper Island, but I've been schooled into that thinking. your staff is your biggest assets, and they have a a really powerful tool to use them to co create the company and to to create really strong culture and I think I really believed in that and I also took that to Anthrope to to start that culture here as well.

Pauline Bertry 4:14

Yeah. And then, I mean, could you tell me a bit more about your kind of major insights? Like what worked, what didn't when you were doing this for the first time at Doberman and how your approach then changed now at Anthrop? So what are the things that you tried that worked and you... took them with you, what are the things that tried that didn't work and you decided to leave them there? And what are the new things that you are now implementing as you continue building Anthropoculture?

jenny dannstedt 4:50

Well I think that in Doberman it's a very strong feedback culture. it's a very strong feeling of building the company together that you discuss all the big questions together as a group, almost like you know collective

Pauline Bertry 5:09

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 5:10

force and that's super. but what I learned when I came to Anthrope, is that it's so important to not just have those methods but also to include that with empathy, empathy and kindness. That kindness is a so important tool. and well it could be in Doberman as well, but here in Anthrope we really found out that that you want something That you don't just give feedback to someone to criticize or to hurt

Pauline Bertry 5:40

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 5:41

someone. You do it in a very kind way, to help that person to get further on to the next step or because you really care. and it doesn't mean it ha it's not straight feedback because feedback could be very, you know, hard in some way, you know, it could be very hard to hear.

Pauline Bertry 5:58

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 5:59

it has to be delivered with with some kind of love. So that is something that I really learned. And it's going to to strengthen the relations between you and the other person if you add that extra layer of kindness.

Pauline Bertry 6:17

I mean, love the word kind per se a lot because there is often a framing that feedback is a gift. So there is always a framing that feedback is a gift. But I think there is very wrong perception, or like often there is a very wrong perception of this framing because... people think that like, feedback is a gift. So you can just give it to anyone in any form or shape and that the person should be grateful. And for me, it's like, if you give feedback, this means one, you give it to someone that you genuinely care about. Two, you make sure the gift gets received and lands and you need to be kind in order to do this. Like I haven't had this training in my head before, but I like how you are talking. And I'm also curious a bit about learning from your experience, kind of building this feedback culture, because I think for like very long time, it wasn't necessarily a thing, right? In the society, I think we just started talking about feedback in multiple organizations in maybe like last

jenny dannstedt 7:29

Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 7:30

five or seven years. And it's not. It's also something that is not natural to people. So

jenny dannstedt 7:36

Yeah.

Pauline Bertry 7:36

how, like, how are you solving that? How are you helping your team and your people learn the skillset?

jenny dannstedt 7:43

Well, in Anthrope we do have a very outspoken outspoken way to say that we are we have a feedback culture and but because

Pauline Bertry 7:52

Mm.

jenny dannstedt 7:53

it's not going to happen by

Pauline Bertry 7:56

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 7:56

itself. It's a muscle that you train as if you do it a lot, you're going to get better just to deliver feedback and also to to receive feedback. so We are working with that as a whole group and also in all our teams that we work in. So I think we also have different forms, like we have a skill set so you can use different exercises depending on where you are in you know the team is going to mature.

Pauline Bertry 8:26

Mm-hmm.

jenny dannstedt 8:27

From not knowing each other to a well-performing team. And

Pauline Bertry 8:33

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 8:33

I think you need different things during those phases. So we also have exercises to get to know each other in the beginning, we

Pauline Bertry 8:43

Mmm.

jenny dannstedt 8:43

have exercises to take care of problems or frictions that is going to happen, and also questions for a mature team that is more about understanding Why are we working as good as we do, and how can we handle conflicts during the way? And this is not just that we do together with people that work in Anthropy, also involve our clients. So even if they don't want to, they they are going to get a little dose of this as well.

Pauline Bertry 9:15

I mean, that's, that's very good. If you have something working internally, that's the best thing you can bring to your clients. think. But, I mean, when people tell me stories about something very special they have in their teams, I always like asking about, like what's their favorite thing in there. So what is your, like, what is your favorite exercise? or like, think that. groups do together at different stages. Like one,

jenny dannstedt 9:43

Yeah.

Pauline Bertry 9:43

two, three favorite things.

jenny dannstedt 9:45

Well I like exercises that opens up the arena. the arena is a space

Pauline Bertry 9:52

Yeah?

jenny dannstedt 9:53

between two people or well a people and a group and it's about how much you show about yourself. So it's about making that space bigger that I can I'm I'm willing to show more about myself. And then it's about people letting you know things that you didn't know about yourself to make my s my understanding about myself much better. So I like exercises that opens up in different ways that I understand things about myself. how I work together with other persons, how the way I act is going to land in another person's life or how I am perceived but other by other persons but also things that open up so I can be more personal and it's not about that I have to show everything about my personal life, just that I'm willing to show more of myself in different ways

Pauline Bertry 10:56

Can you give me an example?

jenny dannstedt 10:58

Well the most simple thing is that you have regular check ins and it could but with questions that can open up something. with a more mature team, you can have a check in question that is about well, when was the last time that you were crying? And maybe you or tell me about some something about your childhood. so it doesn't have to be something about your work, it could be also something personal, but you don't do that with a very young team. you have to build trust first before you can open

Pauline Bertry 11:31

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 11:32

up that. And also feedback, different kinds of feedback exercises that let us explore our relation work relationship. and to package that in in different ways and to have regular check ins when it comes to feedback as well.

Pauline Bertry 11:48

And I would love also to learn a little bit about kind of letting people in this culture because, I mean, tell me if my assumption is wrong, but I definitely assume you have certain people who are like at a managerial or lead level who grew up in the company.

jenny dannstedt 12:08

Mm.

Pauline Bertry 12:08

For them, most likely it's a pretty natural kind of... part of the culture and the transition. But what happens when you hire people from outside in? How do you kind of onboard them into all of the elements that you've built?

jenny dannstedt 12:31

well, we do have an onboarding program, but that's just the information. What's going to happen is that you need to be on board in the culture, right? So what we have is a few times during the years we have these exploration days where we meet and we are talking about our culture. we are forming ourselves as a group. And you lo also learn about yourself. So I think that's a good way to start this journey. And also as a senior you also have a responsibility, of course, to introduce the juniors into this way of working when in the first projects. and well As I said, it's a muscle that you have to train. And sometimes you can feel really uncomfortable if you haven't met

Pauline Bertry 13:19

Mm-hmm.

jenny dannstedt 13:20

this before. So you can't just start with the toughest questions or the toughest exercises. It has to be built up. And also we realized that it's not for everyone actually. Some people are always going to feel uncomfortable with sharing things about themselves or to give another person feedback. I think it's also a personality, a question of personality, how open you you are as a person and it's then it's going to be harder.

Pauline Bertry 13:50

So what happens then? If someone is not comfortable with the culture that, and I mean, it's a general question, it's not anthrop, anthrop-specific, but what's the way to kind of continue the relationship with a person who is very different from the culture that, that you are trying to build? Not necessarily bad person, but I mean, someone who is different.

jenny dannstedt 14:16

Yeah, well I I think that we had some people who started here and thought that here in Anthrope we have a different culture. Maybe they're coming from somewhere else before they landed here. but they didn't last here for a very long time. So a a few people I think they actually didn't fit in and I think that's okay because not all companies has to be for for everyone. if you're a carrierist and you want to you know take the big strategic steps toward becoming a boss then you shouldn't be here for instance and also if you're a really against to get feedback or to accept a kindness culture then I think that you will realise after a while that you fit somewhere else much better.

Pauline Bertry 15:09

I have a very kind of tricky, let's say question to follow up on that. So I'm coming from a culture which is, mean, I wouldn't say McKinsey is a competitive culture, but it's the culture where like go run, kind of become a big boss. And I think the feedback is used as a tool to basically help you get there. So the objective is that, at least that's the way how I always saw it, is I have people around me who are my crowd, who are cheering for me, and I do the same for people around me as well, and they give me feedback to help me grow and achieve next level and get promoted,

jenny dannstedt 15:57

You would.

Pauline Bertry 15:59

et cetera. I understand from what from the story that you're telling me is that the Anthropoculture is very different. And it's more about like being together, a sustainable kind of future, also like based on the work that you're doing. So what's the deep meaning behind this feedback culture that you guys are building? So what does it help you achieve?

jenny dannstedt 16:26

Well it helping us achieve growing as persons and

Pauline Bertry 16:32

Hmm?

jenny dannstedt 16:33

helping us achieve growing as designers. So I think that for us it's a way of getting better at what we do. Because it's not always the skill that is the work. To co-create together with clients, to get a bond with clients so they get brave and can take big decisions. it's about change management in the organization. So it's about understanding people. And if you

Pauline Bertry 17:10

Mm-hmm.

jenny dannstedt 17:10

don't understand yourself, it's very hard to understand how others is going to react. The more stories you hear, maybe you hear you think I'm in the frame I'm I'm a normal person, but when you hear stories from other persons, you realize there's so many different flavors of people. And

Pauline Bertry 17:29

Of course.

jenny dannstedt 17:31

I need to make sure that all of these people, or a a big majority of these people, are on the movement together that you are going to create fo because when we're working with transformation is always hard. You know, it's it's going to meet resistance and it's going to be you know a lot of work before before you work in a new way or

Pauline Bertry 17:53

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 17:54

have reshaped your business in different ways. So the knowledge about yourself and other personality types is critical. I think for doing your job because it's not about designing elements or do you know

Pauline Bertry 18:12

Of course.

jenny dannstedt 18:13

new business offer. It's about making people on the same to transform themselves in a different dire in a new direction.

Pauline Bertry 18:22

So at Antrop, the feedback culture is all about like helping people around you get to know yourself better. Is that a fair summary?

jenny dannstedt 18:33

It's one way. It's one way. We also have feedback about work. we call it design triad. We have three people

Pauline Bertry 18:41

Mm-hmm.

jenny dannstedt 18:42

that get together like every other week or once a month, and it's your little triade team. and then that you're showing your work for your colleagues. so you get feedback of your work. And that's what another way of growing as a designer.

Pauline Bertry 19:00

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 19:01

So then you have instead of two eyes, you have six eyes on what you do.

Pauline Bertry 19:05

Hmm.

jenny dannstedt 19:06

So you can get help from your colleagues to get better in different ways. So that's another way of to use feedback but on your skills

Pauline Bertry 19:15

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 19:16

connected to your design.

Pauline Bertry 19:18

I love it. Based on all this culture that you're building, I also know you have a very kind of special way of

jenny dannstedt 19:28

Okay.

Pauline Bertry 19:30

thinking about Anthrop's strategy and future, both

jenny dannstedt 19:35

Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 19:36

in terms of, I assume, client work and talent strategy. And I would love to learn more on that.

jenny dannstedt 19:44

Hmm, yeah. the last years I've been working a lot with Foresight as one strategic tool, together with my whole toolbox. But we are working with that in Antrop to prepare for the future and make better decisions today. So it's not about predicting exactly what is going to happen in the future. but it helps us understand which trends and forces that are going to affect us, which signals that could grow into something big, and it helps us through the noise to see which scenarios that are more most likely and which ones could hit us hardest if they happen. So we can get ready. And so foresight is really you know a broad tool that I use together with design thinking and business thinking and system thinking. And it can work both on single questions and just a few years horizon, and it can it can also be used in big transformation programs where we're thinking decades ahead. so now when the industry is changing so fast and we realise that if we don't look ahead ourselves in anthrop,

Pauline Bertry 20:59

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 21:00

we're simply going to get left behind. we do it in two steps. first we do horizon scans a couple of times a year. And then we gather the whole agency and they come to we come together and we look at who do we want to be in 2030, for instance. And we have really ambitious and we have themes like the design agency of the future or the circular economy of the future. How can we as designers help to you know close that gap? So everyone gets a homework, and the homework is to look at your everyday life and your client work. And everyone gets the assignment to note anything strange or surprising. What do we see today that wasn't here two years ago? And from that, everyone is presenting and we do scenarios with help of AI, and then the whole team reacts to these scenarios. How likely is this going to happen in in five years? Waccinians are already pointing this way and what kind of opportunities a risk does this open up for us? And then the most provoking and scary and exciting horizon scans we take further into expeditions. And that's focus projects where we we don't just do small tweaks of our business business. We are trying to pushing as hard as possible the questions as far as we dare to think completely different. And it's a safe space, and we are allowed to fail and everything and learn from it. And here is why it matters. because if we can keep reinventing ourselves, we can also help our clients to face the future. So that's that's our belief when it comes to this.

Pauline Bertry 22:56

I love it. And I have two specific questions where I would love to spend a bit more time on. So the first one, you said that you do the scenarios with AI. How does it work?

jenny dannstedt 23:12

well AI is a tool. It's never going to do the hard work for us. But it

Pauline Bertry 23:17

Of course.

jenny dannstedt 23:18

helps us to see new angles that maybe we haven't been thinking about. so it's about finding uncertainties. Where where do we have big uncertainties? how the future is going to look like. If we look at some, I mean some things we know. How is the demography going to look like in the future, for instance?

Pauline Bertry 23:38

Hmm. Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 23:41

But we have big uncertainties when it comes to what kind of role is AI going to lead

Pauline Bertry 23:46

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 23:47

us into. one of the themes that we had last time. so AI help us to find to to explore. many trends together with each other and to find out what kind of different futures could possibly be there around the corner and also to help us to understand how it could impact our business in different ways

Pauline Bertry 24:13

And so you said that everyone gets a homework. So I assume every person in the organization, go

jenny dannstedt 24:19

Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 24:20

and they do for a week or a few days, they do some kind of diary type of exercise. And

jenny dannstedt 24:25

Yeah. Exactly. Mm-hmm. Mm.

Pauline Bertry 24:28

then do you have a session together where you feed all of those observations to?

jenny dannstedt 24:34

Yeah.

Pauline Bertry 24:35

to a prompt or like I'm very interested in mechanics also because I love the exercise and I think it would be very beneficial for a lot of your peers outside of Antrop.

jenny dannstedt 24:49

So what we do is that we are collecting all these trends and signals from our employees. But we also have help of AI to do the horizon scanning because it could also be something that is very new or small or that could have very big impact that we we don't collect. so we have all these signals and trends. And then we do a selection to see okay which of these is most tickling. what which of these signals could give us really interesting opportunities and also what is big threats. so if those trends or signals are growing even bigger, it could be a really hard time for us. So we need to do a scanning here to see which of these signals and trends that we're going to work further with in two scenarios.

Pauline Bertry 25:40

Hmm

jenny dannstedt 25:40

And when we have like four or five scenarios, then we we look at them and see, okay, what kind of different futures do we need to prepare for? And what kind of what can we contribute in in different scenarios as consultants. what kind of competence do we need? How could our business look like? How do we work with our clients? And then we can do backtracking to see how do we need to prepare in different ways.

Pauline Bertry 26:07

my god, I love this so much. I mean, sorry, I will ask you a lot of follow ups here. so you said you do it every two to three months or?

jenny dannstedt 26:18

No, well, we had ambition to do this like four times a year.

Pauline Bertry 26:21

Okay.

jenny dannstedt 26:22

But in in real life, it's like two years. two times a year. Yeah,

Pauline Bertry 26:27

to Dan's ear.

jenny dannstedt 26:29

because we realize it took a lot of time. And in six months

Pauline Bertry 26:33

Yeah, of course.

jenny dannstedt 26:35

is still we still had new singles. When we take the most provoking and scary and exciting scans and we make focus projects where we're not making this small twigs of the business and we are making new business offers and we are reshaping ourselves in different ways. And a couple of years, as I told you, we had an AI track, for instance. And that led us to start hiring design designers with AI skills, AI

Pauline Bertry 27:06

Mm.

jenny dannstedt 27:06

engineers. And we also built more focused AI offerings. And we were rebuilding several classic UX steps from the ground and up, like research analysis. We use AI a lot for that now. And also in Foresight, we use AI for. catch weak signals and suggestion errors and so on. And also of course in prototyping. But the what I mean is we didn't just decide let's get better in AI as a some vague goal

Pauline Bertry 27:38

Hmm.

jenny dannstedt 27:39

that we saw where it was heading and we were rebuilt our hiring, our offer and our way of working around that before clients were asking for it in Scale.

Pauline Bertry 27:53

And, I mean, so this means that in your time at Antrop, you've done this at least like 15 to 20 times the exercise.

jenny dannstedt 28:03

No, we started three years ago to

Pauline Bertry 28:08

okay.

jenny dannstedt 28:08

do this on ourselves. I've been doing this for my clients for a long time, but on

Pauline Bertry 28:15

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 28:15

our own basis just for three years. And and that's a pity that we didn't start earlier because I think that that could have helped us through difficult times for the COVID situation, for instance.

Pauline Bertry 28:28

COVID.

jenny dannstedt 28:29

We could handle that in a different way if we were using foresight on ourselves.

Pauline Bertry 28:33

And I have a question. So, then what are the craziest scenarios you came up with through this time running this on yourselves?

jenny dannstedt 28:50

Take this example from the last time we were using AI. Then

Pauline Bertry 28:54

Mm-hmm.

jenny dannstedt 28:55

we're thinking: okay, if AI is taking over more of the classic craft. What kind of roles are we going to get? We're going to get maybe a design creator, someone who directs AI, who doesn't do the work itself but directs AI through the whole production chain. instead of doing the work by hand. How what kind of role could that be? And everyone's like, no, I don't want to don't I don't want to work with that. I don't want just to direct AI. I hope that's not not going to happen. But maybe you know it could be really a scenario. Or the auditor who reviews And signa off AI-driven interfaces and follow up rules and that thinks stay etikal, for instance. That could also

Pauline Bertry 29:53

Hmm.

jenny dannstedt 29:54

be like one track and one new roll that could appear. Or it could also be more Roles connecting to like a space designer. We we've seen that

Pauline Bertry 30:07

Hmm.

jenny dannstedt 30:08

field have haven't grown the way we thought. So that could also be a next level. Who builds experience beyond the screen? Voice and room and light and movement. We are very much into the screen, but we think that could be a growing field. So it's not really crazy ideas, it's more about thinking where. It could lead us.

Pauline Bertry 30:29

And by the way, that was one of the questions I also wanted to kind of spend a bit of time on because I think like when I studied design, I mean, we were already kind of closer to the screen, but I

jenny dannstedt 30:47

Yeah.

Pauline Bertry 30:47

was still studying like global experience angle. I think people who studied before me, They were

jenny dannstedt 30:55

Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 30:55

even more into the broader CX topics. People who came after me, they were very much focused on the screen experience, sometimes even app versus desktop,

jenny dannstedt 31:07

Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 31:09

the specialization that you were discussing in the beginning. And I'm curious, now that... AI, mean, Gen.E.I. specifically is changing so much the interaction between a designer and their work in digital. How is the physical, the service part of the design will evolve? Do you have a view on that?

jenny dannstedt 31:37

well I don't have an example how you use voice and things like that, but I'm thinking of one project I did that was very physical and about the future was a project that we did together with HSPM called Living a Day in Year twenty fifty. And then

Pauline Bertry 31:55

very nice.

jenny dannstedt 31:56

we were building a full-size apartment in HSP Living Lab in Gothenburg. And was based based on real research from IPCC and the Swedish defense research agency. And it was showing what everyday life could look like if we fail to slow down climate change. so we used that. Physical space for people to perceive the future in different ways. So, decision makers and politicians who walk through this room I think that they reacted in a completely different way than they would if we showed something on the screen.

Pauline Bertry 32:40

the slides, yeah.

jenny dannstedt 32:42

So I think that more physical experience could be one branch for the future, but for something else. Maybe not as a service, but to make people think differently or discuss the future or discuss a very important subject. to to start to It was interesting because in this project vi had a researcher because we wanted to know what kind of impacts could one of this physical experience have. And we discovered that people were acting totally different after having a physical experience in a much broader way than if

Pauline Bertry 33:22

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 33:22

you just a digital service. So yeah,

Pauline Bertry 33:24

Because it makes you emotional, I think.

jenny dannstedt 33:27

it makes you emotional and you understand things in a deeper way. You you

Pauline Bertry 33:32

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 33:32

use your brain in in a creative way, I think. So you it's not about that people wanted to change their behaviors. They they also found a much broader spectra of how they could do that after this experience. Because

Pauline Bertry 33:48

Hmm.

jenny dannstedt 33:49

you open up something. Ha ha ha.

Pauline Bertry 33:51

I love it. how like all those elements that we kind of discussed, the feedback culture, the foresight, like the physical experience, et cetera, that when we were preparing for the conversation, you also mentioned that basically all of the tools that you were using with clients, you were also applying internally to

jenny dannstedt 34:17

Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 34:17

kind of help people grow and evolve and become better designers,

jenny dannstedt 34:22

No.

Pauline Bertry 34:22

et cetera. Like what are the, like what are your, we discussed a lot on feedback of course, but what are your favorite things that you've kind of built internally to help people grow? Maybe from like the foresight examples, et cetera, that you would recommend every company to implement.

jenny dannstedt 34:51

Well, I think the foresight is a very powerful tool to open up also the views on your own career and your own possibilities ahead. If you have a very tough scenario, it could be really tough to realise that you probably need to reshape your own business and or you realize that your role that you have today might not. exist anymore or it might look completely different. But it can also become a driving force to push and tackle the change that you need to make and discover new areas that broaden how you know what you know and how you do today. So I think foresight could be really an eye-opener to to new possibilities in the future and We discussed when we talked before, we we discussed

Pauline Bertry 35:49

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 35:49

also the question that that how could juniors become a part of the market again because we see that

Pauline Bertry 35:56

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 35:57

recruitment pyramid looks a little bit different now. we don't hire

Pauline Bertry 36:02

Very tough.

jenny dannstedt 36:02

juniors as much as we did. We have senior people and people in mid-level, but juniors are very you know there's so many Reasons why we don't hire juniors. but when I was thinking about this question bef before this talk, I'm thinking that when you look into the future, it's going to be so many more different roles that we can see today. roles that are not shaped yet. and of course they're going to be part of our our everyday life. And I think that juniors could bring something new to the table that we as seniors and mid levels w won't even think about as a as a new

Pauline Bertry 36:50

Hmm.

jenny dannstedt 36:51

knowledge or a new role. So I think that could be a possibility for us to in the future to have more juniors, but in totally different areas than that are ta established today.

Pauline Bertry 37:05

Yeah, that's also my thought as well, because I think what I observed when I talked to consulting boutiques and agencies, often they have a very established core group of people, like mid-level senior people who are great at their roles, but they're also very busy. And even

jenny dannstedt 37:30

Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 37:30

the AI angle.

jenny dannstedt 37:33

Mm.

Pauline Bertry 37:33

Like most of them, of course, they played with chat GPT, they played with cloud design, but it's rare still that there is a scalable effort to bring this to client work, at least from the conversations that I had so far. And I think an interesting addition, like a lot of junior talent bring, is that they grew up with those tools. Like they were

jenny dannstedt 37:59

Thank you

Pauline Bertry 37:59

studying with the... cloud design and love of art, et cetera. So like it's almost an opportunity to bring in the capability that is not existing internally that is very much needed. And it is almost becoming like an exchange.

jenny dannstedt 38:20

Yeah, I totally agree with you. And sometimes we get the question is AI the reason that agencies are cutting unions? And it yes, it is one of the reasons, but it's not the whole picture. one challenge is that we have much more complexity now in our projects also and it could be hard for us to invest you know. years before a junior can fully contribute. So every ro role has also gotten more, I mean it has gotten harder and it demands

Pauline Bertry 39:00

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 39:01

more and at every level. So it's a really tough nut to to crack. And I do think that we in the industry have a responsibility to include juniors more. But It could also be solutions on a society level, like politicians make it cheaper to hire juniors, or as we talk about earlier, that the new courses at the university that are put together maybe should be you know on different topics. I think the it could be one key there. I I was reading about what China is doing right now, for example.

Pauline Bertry 39:42

Mmm.

jenny dannstedt 39:43

They completely changed their university works to match the future needs. So they over 12,000 programs have been cut out and replaced with 10,000 new programs in AI and green tech and other high tech fields. So maybe we also need to reinvent the education system.

Pauline Bertry 40:07

Yeah. I mean, I always give France as a pretty good example there because I mean, of course, nothing is perfect, but I think they really did a huge effort there. And I personally think it's a very good, it's quite a success. So, I mean, of course, as everywhere in the world, when you study, you can get like an internship. That's a very normal thing. But what they implemented is a program which is like, it's called Alternance

jenny dannstedt 40:42

Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 40:42

or like it's basically an extended internship. So when you enter your master, you have in parallel your study, like your school as a university, and you have an employer where like every two to three weeks, depending on the schedule or like. every three days during a working week, you spend time on the actual workplace and you work and you get paid for it. You don't get paid crazy money, you are paid like for Paris,

jenny dannstedt 41:22

Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 41:23

not a huge salary, but for any other city in France, you

jenny dannstedt 41:27

Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 41:27

can survive on it pretty well. And then what happens after that is that by the time you are out of the master's program, you've had at least two years of experience. Not the perfect one, not the ideal one, but still the real one within like a long duration. And I think it helps a lot to increase this gap with...

jenny dannstedt 41:58

That is something really that could be done at the society level, that our politicians could make happen, I think.

Pauline Bertry 42:07

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 42:08

and yeah, it could really be be one way to tackle this problem problem.

Pauline Bertry 42:15

I love it. I know I told you last question, but I have the last, last question.

jenny dannstedt 42:21

Okay.

Pauline Bertry 42:22

What is the banner behind you saying? The Poster

jenny dannstedt 42:28

The poster behind me saying

Pauline Bertry 42:30

Yeah.

jenny dannstedt 42:31

we want to design a more sustainable and fair world for our children. So this

Pauline Bertry 42:38

I love it!

jenny dannstedt 42:39

yeah, so this is a mantra for Anthrope, which I really believed in and is really one of my driving forces. And I think that's why I s I stayed here for 10 years. Because I really think that I am able to contribute to that vision, this future vision that we have.

Pauline Bertry 43:01

So cool, I I asked it more out of curiosity, but I think it's such a great closing line. Let's design a better world for our children, I love it.

jenny dannstedt 43:12

Yes. Let's do it. Thank you.

Pauline Bertry 43:15

Let's do it. Thank you so much, Danny. Thank you for your time. Great conversation. Bye bye.