Applying Design Thinking to People Operations with Iain Roberts, Airbnb
episode
“HR Heretics” | How CPOs, CHROs, Founders, and Boards Build High Performing Companies
20 min
2 speakers
6 chapters
transcribed 15 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
How did Iain Roberts transition from a designer at IDEO to Airbnb’s Global Head of Employee Experience?
For today's Essential Heretics 101 feature, we interview Ian Roberts, Airbnb's global head of employee experience, discussing his transition from design to HR leadership and applying design thinking to organizational structure and employee experience.
What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of HR Heretics. Today we have Ian Roberts on the show. And Ian, you have a very interesting background. You're a designer by trade. You worked at IDO for like 15, 20 years, something like that. You ended up working at Ford for a little while. Mostly you were operating on the product and design side. And then in 2023, you joined Airbnb to lead people and culture. Can you help us understand like how does one go from a design background? Into leading people in culture at Airbnb. Been a journey, but
I think if I go all the way back, right, I remember parent-teacher conversation and uh my aunt teacher said to my mom and dad, everything needs to be designed. And that idea of everything needs to be designed. Kind of like stuck with me for the last 30 years of my career, right? The first half of my pre my of my time as a designer, I spent a lot of time designing the stuff, right? Designing the product or the service or the digital experience that they were trying to ship out into the world. And then the second half of my career in the design profession was asking the question, why is it so difficult? For organizations to get those new ideas through themselves and out into the world. And so for that second decade, I spent much more time.
Designing how organizations work. And actually figuring out how they can get new ideas through their structures to deliver new growth and new innovation out into the world.
I love that everything needs to be designed. Like what does that mean in in your head?
It means the Things don't happen by accident, right? It means that we're constantly shaping the environment and the systems around us. At the end of the day, it is a conscious act of shaping people, systems, and technology to try and get the outcome that you want.
Why does Iain believe “everything needs to be designed” – and how does that philosophy shape people operations?
Airbnb is just seven thousand people, right? All we have is seven thousand people. And so the design effort here is designing the system of the right people. working on the right things in the right way in the right organizational structures. That's the entire ball game. It's a massive and in a huge design challenge and one that I'm incredibly privileged to have the opportunity to work
on.
So
let's talk a little bit about Brian's comments regarding founder mode. So my read was essentially the traditional advice when you hire an executive is you hire that person and then you just get out of their way and you let them operate. Brian's view on that traditional advice is that it's broken. And it's broken because They can be off doing stuff that you're not aware of and you're misaligned with. And so Brian's also talked a little bit about. Being in the details. Do I have that right?
It's a much debated topic. Right. And I think it has been a much misinterpreted topic. Right. I think one of the things Brian talks about is this idea that leadership should be defined in in its presence, not in its absence. And for me, what I found in working with Brian is he leads like a designer. Right. What does that mean? It means he is highly collaborative in the way that he wants to work through problems. Right? Because innately in design is this idea of interdisciplinary collaboration, teams always being better at getting to the outcome that you want than any one individual. And that can be Challenging to some people. Right, who are used to being given the autonomy and the mandate to go off and do the thing and bring back the answer.
Whereas actually how I found Brian really wants to work is he genuinely wants to roll up his sleeves and sit down next to you and work through problems together. And that's what it means to be in the details. And so the idea, Nolan, of like frequent iteration touch points that you're talking about. That's a design practice as well. It's called prototyping and iterating.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
How did Iain Roberts transition from a designer at IDEO to Airbnb’s Global Head of Employee Experience?
0:13–2:26
2
Why does Iain believe “everything needs to be designed” – and how does that philosophy shape people operations?
2:26–6:38
3
What is “Founder Mode” leadership and how does collaborative design replace traditional executive hands‑off?
6:38–10:57
4
How does Airbnb use a single product‑roadmap‑style strategy to align 7,000 employees around shared goals?
10:57–14:56
5
In what ways can you prototype and iterate on human‑experience policies the same way you would a product?
14:56–20:19
6
How does the “Live‑and‑Work‑Anywhere” policy get continuously prototyped and improved?
20:19–20:52
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from “HR Heretics” | How CPOs, CHROs, Founders, and Boards Build High Performing Companies
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