Good Design Just Works. Literally.
Design thinking can bring your business to new heights!

Open the Pod Bay Doors, ChatGPT!
Generative A.I. can improve novice & low-skill worker productivity

WFH Will (Not) Set You Free
Work flexibility doesn't necessarily increase job fulfillment

What if we told you that research into the challenges and opportunities posed by remote work existed long before the pandemic shuttered the world's doors? In a Forbes article, Miriam Grobman dives into the story of Sarah Aviram, who back in 2018 was permitted a year of remote work by her company in order to research exactly that. Initially, Aviram loved it: meetings in Vietnam, after-work trips to the beach in Mexico, and more! Having felt uninspired at her job prior to the transition, this was exactly what she'd wanted when she'd approached her company with the proposition to work remotely. Freedom at last!

... That is, until the honeymoon phase wore off. As it turned out, being able to work from anywhere was only a band-aid for not being motivated and fulfilled by her work itself. During the year after this revelation, Grobman did research on remote workers and published a book on the topic right as the pandemic began. In it, she describes the six motivators that drive our career decisions and our sense of fulfillment at work: money, identity, routines, growth, impact, and joy. She asserts that the most fulfilled people prioritize the latter three and minimize the pressures related to the former three.

Of course, that's easier said than done, but progress is a marathon and not a sprint. A good first step is for managers and employees to reflect on and discuss to find the real causes of disengagement at work. For example, what skills or capabilities do you want to develop? What rewards work best for you? What routines do you have that don’t serve your goals or the team's goals? Grobman provides these questions and more as a starting point for understanding and improving our relationships with work.

Here at Menlo, we obviously have a strong focus on the last of Grobman's six motivators in particular: joy. As a company, we want to give opportunities to our team to do work they find meaningful and empower our team members to seek out opportunities for growth, too. We also want our work to feel meaningful in the way that it serves our clients and end users! How does your company empower employees to find meaning in what they do?

The Toyota Way

Author: Jeffrey K. Liker

Recommended by: Dan Roman, Menlo Software Developer

If you’ve ever heard the term “lean” come up in conversation or during a meeting with your peers, you may have also heard Toyota brought up in the same conversation. Before reading this book I had heard of lean and the Toyota Way, but it wasn’t until after starting to read it that I learned how intimately linked the two philosophies are. In contrast to a more dry style like Edward Deming, Liker does a good job of weaving the narrative history of Toyota itself in with the conceptual elements of the Toyota Production System (TPS).

Having worked with teams both internal and external to Menlo on improving their process and culture, I believe there is a great deal of power in the philosophies of TPS. The importance of genba (going and seeing the work) is a core theme in the book; I have come to value the quality and quantity of insight you can get by just watching a team work. This is in addition to the relationships you inevitably build with those doing the work. The TPS emphasis on visual management is also one I find critical for any team. The profound ability for visual and interactive management artifacts to provide value and insight to anyone on the spectrum of experience is part of the reason I find myself coming back to them for any team I am a member of.

Finally, Toyota clearly is part of the first set of pioneers in the business value of joy, as laced throughout the book is an emphasis on people and their relationships. I was worried the book would just espouse all the technical elements of the Toyota system but was glad to see such a profound emphasis placed on the importance of the human beings doing the work. It reminded me of Delivering Happiness (the story of Zappos), Outward Mindset (the story of collections agency CFS2), and of Menlo itself. While a substantial read, The Toyota Way is a great read for anyone looking for reliable principles to guide the way they perceive and change their environment of work.

Get a copy for yourself here!

This month, we want YOU to be a part of our experiment! With the dates for our next public High-Tech Anthropology® Workshop finalized, we decided to experiment with a name to help people who aren't as familiar with Menlo understand what the workshop is all about. Currently, we have changed the name from "High-Tech Anthropology® Workshop: The Menlo Way" to "High-Tech Anthropology® Workshop: Designing User-Centered Solutions". However, we had some other name contenders that could be just as good, or better. If you'd like to be a part of our final workshop name decision, you can fill out the survey below! 

Does the name "High-Tech Anthropology® Workshop: Designing User-Centered Solutions" accurately convey how you'd picture learning our HTA practice or do you prefer one of the other names below? Click on the name you prefer to vote! 

High-Tech Anthropology® Workshop: Designing User-Centered Solutions

High-Tech Anthropology® Workshop: Human Centered Design the Menlo Way 

High-Tech Anthropology® Workshop: Menlo's Unique Approach to Design Thinking 

High-Tech Anthropology® Workshop: Striking the Balance Between User and Business Goals Striking the Balance Between User and Business Goals 

These names are okay, but I think you could still do better