Q&A WITH CATHY AND RUDY: What makes us laugh？

Q: What makes you laugh and enjoy your job?

Rudy: One of the simplest and easiest ways to create laughter and joy is the difference and similarities in culture. Moments of bonding are created by Chinese team members who point out differences and similarities between the various cultures in our office. We often learn that we are very much the same. After all, people are people.

Q: Give me an example.

Rudy: You can have a good laugh at Chinese men with their bellies hanging out on a hot summer day. You might see similar things in a lot of other cultures, but no matter what, a big belly is always funny. Seeing a guy rubbing his belly on the corner is always a wonderful simple laugh.

Cathy:My kids make me laugh. I wrote down what my son answered when I asked him “What do you think I do at work?” I keep it right here on my desk. He said I drink beer, look at the computer, am busy, write, do stuff, drive car and spank bottoms. It makes me laugh.

A note like that on your desk can make you laugh.

Rudy: Another one for me is eating habits. We have a lot of fun and laughter around sharing food, eating habits and discussions about how much or how little people eat. Those conversations are a great place to find bonds. People also bring a lot of the strangest foods from their hometown to share with others. They are so proud.

Cathy: Whenever anyone travels for business or fun, they have to bring food back to the kitchen area for everyone to try. It's a CBi tradition.

Q: Do people here play pranks on one another?

Rudy: Not really. We do have squirt guns in the office. If someone is too loud or too forceful, they can be squirted for bad behavior. We create a very free environment. It is less about fun and more about a lot of freedom.

Cathy: I enjoy the opportunity to exchange ideas with thought leaders around the world. We are very luck to expose our team to so many interesting people inside and outside design.

Rudy: We are in an interesting place to be open to invite people in to participate in what we do. It helps everyone evolve and grow.

Cathy: Look outside our office at our map. We have our guests sign the wall (when we remember to ask them to do it). We are very international. Look at how many signatures we have from all over the world.

Q: Your office space is fun. Very open. Did you spend a lot of time thinking about the layout of the place?

Rudy: We did. We engaged the team as well. We are constantly modifying the space to bring a better work environment. We recently added some brighter lights to create more vibrance.

Cathy: We designed the ground floor welcome desk on a funky angle so people wouldn’t put too much stuff on it.

Q: How about team building?

Cathy: We make pizzas and dumplings from scratch in the kitchen. Since we also run cafes and bars, there are often beer and wine tastings from suppliers. We even had a Cinco de Mayo party once we figured out what it was. The team does a lot of things like karaoke on their own because they like each other. We organize things in the office around culture and food. We like to do things that stretch our team with knowledge sharing. Every project that finishes we share the learnings with all departments. At team meetings, we do mini-pechakuchas to share ideas and present topics. Not just senior staff but even the junior members contribute.

We also do white space projects for interns who are working on their thesis to help advance their career and build teamwork. They also do these projects in the community for social enterprises and startup companies. Two of our team members were in the remote area of Changdong (do I have this city right?) on a research project for 8-10 days and it changed their life.

Q: What about the jams?

Rudy: They are a lot of fun. They are community-based. We invite clients and peers who are not in our industry to participate. It teaches people the types of problems that can be hashed out in this setting. It also reminds us where we should introduce fun in our client work. We get more serious about our day-to-day work and jams teach us to incorporate more of this jam thinking into the routine client processes.

Q: What else makes you laugh?

Rudy: We go to places that are very different from where we are at in Shanghai. We like to go to places where cultures and societies are unique to get out of our environment.

Cathy: We create opportunities to travel. We try to tie our professional and fun activities together. For example, I was invited to go to New Orleans to give a speech so we combined it with a detour trip to Cuba. Soon, I will go to New Zealand and I am looking forward to it.