sNAPAshots: Natalie Muyres

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Transcript

0:00
[NAPA Logo]

Welcome to sNAPAshots conversations with practicing professional and applied anthropologists. Let’s meet our next guest Natalie Muyers.

Natalie Muyres 0:21
Hi, I’m Natalie Myers, and I’m in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I’m a practicing anthropologist. I’m an independent consultant. So I have my own organization called Natalie Myers consulting. And as a practicing anthropologist, I identify as a organizational and design anthropologist.

Interviewer 0:40
How did you get interested in anthropology?

Natalie Muyres 0:43
I was a really inquisitive kid and spent my allowance on things like this mail order Time Life books about lost civilizations and history. I collected issues of National Geographic on primatology and human evolution. I was really fascinated with ancient Egypt and wanted to learn how to read hieroglyphics. So I guess without knowing it at the time, I was curious about all the subfields of anthropology, and I decided I wanted to be an anthropologist and I was a teenager, and there was no other major I wanted to study in university besides anthropology, I went to the University of Calgary and got a bachelor of science and anthropology with a minor in archaeology, and then a master’s degree in applied anthropology. And beyond the academic education, I’ve spent the last 15 years or so just engaged in ongoing personal studies and culture and human and social development. Today, I would say my subfields of practice are organizational and design anthropology. My work is predominantly focused on leading complex change. And whether it’s organizational changes, technology related changes, or systems change. My experience, I think, and my education strongly support my work. I’d also add that my personal interests continue to be wide ranging. Today, I find myself drawn to a variety of articles and topics in the other subfields. So I keep learning. I think there’s just so much to learn about the human experience from anthropology, I appreciate that.

Interviewer 2:12
How has the anthropological perspective or training enhanced your contribution to your workplace?

Natalie Muyres 2:19
I was thinking about this, and I had a work colleague once tell me years ago that I was like the Jane Goodall of business. And I, I love that, because it meant that my observation skills were valued as an important tool and contribution to the work that we were doing together. And people call it to me today, as well. So I like that, I think the ability to observe and listen and inquire has served me quite well in a variety of work settings. After my undergrad, I was really fortunate to work 11 years with one of the most admired companies in Canada, for their organizational culture. And there, I was able to apply my research skills, but also see how culture was translated into the workplace and into customer experience. These were quite formative years for me, because I didn’t know it at the time. But I was really honing my skills as an anthropologist, while leading employee and customer experience projects. I’ve been a consultant for 15 years now. And my training as an anthropologist enables me to adapt to many organizational environments I work in first by observing and asking questions of the people that I’m working with. I always joke that it seems like when I’m embedded in organizations, I normally become the complaint and the secrets desk. And maybe I should call this the EMIC desk. employees feel quite comfortable sharing their experiences with me. And this is a great complement to my approach, I think. So I’d like to think also that this is because of my ethics and the confidentiality that I bring to the role, and also my ability to recognize the patterns in their feedback and use it to construct and constructively to influence change. So I think I’ve been able to contribute in a few different ways as an anthropologist.

Interviewer 4:07
What types of industry challenges do you get to help solve with this anthropological lens?

Natalie Muyres 4:13
My career, much of it has been supporting medium to large organizations to implement change, like organizational structure changes or technology and process transformations. And each initiative has had a cultural component to it. The clients that I’ve worked with have been quite deliberate about either maintaining the culture through change, or shifting the culture to meet the needs of customers or even employees in different ways. So I’ve been fortunate to work in a number of industries and in domains that provide me the ability to see the unique cultural attributes and to see patterns across them. Today, my work has mostly been centered in the not-for-profit community, and specifically working in anti human trafficking. So not quite an industry challenge but uh, wicked social issue that human trafficking is. I’ve been leading industry wide education programs attempting to embed the issue of human trafficking into safety cultures like in industries and aviation and commercial trucking to help improve the overall awareness of human trafficking in Canada, as well as leading a number of other key initiatives that lead to awareness and education. Most recently, I’ve been leading a project the last two years to design a data solution to bring together multiple stakeholders across the province of Alberta to share their data on human trafficking. And this has included frontline agencies and law enforcement. This new data sharing tool, which we call a data portal, will help tell a more complete story about human trafficking, one that actually represents more accurately the needs of victims and survivors of human trafficking. So I guess the regardless of the industry that I’m working in, my work, I would say has centered around stakeholder engagement and collaboration. I work with complex change and diverse groups of stakeholders with unique needs and concerns. So having an anthropological perspective has helped me facilitate this work in complex work. And by building relationships and collaborating. It’s brought people together to design and implement solutions that you know, hopefully has a higher likelihood of adoption and being maintained.

Interviewer 6:26
What was one thing about anthropology that nobody told you as a student?

Natalie Muyres 6:31
I got a bachelor of science and anthropology with a minor in archaeology. And my initial interests were primatology, and forensic anthropology. And after my undergrad, I went on to have a great career outside of academia, applying both my research skills and anthropological lenses, my anthropological lens, in organizations. But during my undergrad, I didn’t know practicing anthropology existed outside of academia, if it was talked about, there wasn’t anything that stood out to me as an opportunity to work outside academia, the path was really clear it was go to grad school, work at a university and conduct research outside of academia, be it medical anthropology, cultural or forensic anthropology, each of the fields required academic affiliations. And at the time, the academic path didn’t interest me. And frankly, as a first generation scholar, the academic world was really unfamiliar to me. And I didn’t understand it as a career option. And so I certainly had no… and at the time, I certainly had no idea that anthropologists were working in organizations, I really wish I would have, I would have known that. I discovered that on my own in my self studies in the years after, when I was an undergraduate, I wish I had more insight into the world of anthropology outside of academia, just in generally, especially the practice, again, working in organizations. But honestly, going back to graduate school, after having a career has been incredibly meaningful, and I don’t regret it, and don’t regret not doing it sooner. I’ve been really fortunate to apply my career experience to my graduate studies. But I’ve also been really grateful to apply my graduate studies to the complex work in anti human trafficking, because my graduate work today has made an important contribution to improving our understanding of human trafficking in Alberta. So although I didn’t learn about practicing in university, I think it would have changed the trajectory of of my life. But I also really appreciate having come back to it later in life.

Interviewer 8:37
What advice would you like to pass on to future anthropologists seeking roles in professional fields?

Natalie Muyres 8:44
I think the first is to develop your own value proposition. So most organizations, they don’t have a good understanding of the value of anthropology, they don’t really know understand what anthropology is, and I believe practicing and applied anthropologists we need to change that narrative, and educate our clients and educate the public on the value of anthropology, so that it becomes generally understood. I’ve spoken to a few practicing anthropologists in Canada that don’t identify themselves as anthropologists, and this might be because they don’t feel credible, working outside of academia, or just the general lack of understanding, I hope to change this, I hope to continue to work to change this together as a community. Related to that, I would say start your work by asking your client, how can you help or asking potential clients how you can help, ask them what they’re struggling with the most, what keeps them up at night, and how they think that you might be able to help after they get to know you. Anthropology has a unique opportunity to solve complex issues or the wicked problems that we’re facing today. And I think we have the methods and skills to understand not only the issue, but the possible solutions by working in the field with those who are most affected by by the issues. Practically speaking, a great class that I tip took on articulating your findings and research. That’s really important learn to do it in a succinct way and in an impactful way. All the depth of research can be utilized to answer questions and have conversations. But in organizations, especially work moves fast, and being able to find a storyline and present it in a way that effectively speaks directly to the challenge and how to solve it is really important. Research, I think presents it in an actionable way, and is what I try to do. And it’s going to enable effective decision making in organizations as well as validate the benefit and value of anthropology organizations think about return on investment. And so by demonstrating actionable value, leaders will start to look at anthropologists more often to support complex work. And lastly, something that I did that I’m incredibly grateful for is get a mentor the NAPA mentorship program was a really important part of my journey as an anthropologist and will continue to be I know and network, go to conferences, visit the Career Expo ask questions, connect with others in your field. I’m constantly learning and I really appreciate learning from others in this way.

Interviewer 11:14
Thank you, Natalie, for sharing your experience as a practicing organizational and design anthropologists. For more snapshots find this at practicing anthropology.org Meta, LinkedIn and Twitter. Join Napa at the careers expo November 17. In Toronto, Canada. See you there.

Natalie Muyres 11:36
[Outtakes] Yeah, much of my career has been, I don’t want to start off with Yeah. Take to you got to say the expo because and honestly that was part of my experience. I decided I didn’t go to them before and I went and I was so welcome. All right, take two. Hi everyone doing the editing. Thanks for all the work you’re doing.

Credits 12:04
PRODUCED BY
Niel Tashima
Cathleen Crain
Joshua Liggett

DIRECTED BY
Reshama Damle
Suanna Crowley

MUSIC BY
by Tokyo music walker “Slowly”

CREATIVE ASST.
Juana Lozano

Many Thanks
to NAPA’s
Governing Council
for supporting
sNAPAshots

Conversations with
Practicing,
Professional,
and Applied
Anthropologists

NAPA is a
section of the
American
Anthropological
Association

Join us in person
at the Careers Expo
in Toronto, CA
November 17
2023!

NAPA is seeking
volunteers to join the
sNAPAshots project.
We’d love to hear
from YOU!

Contact us at:
ntashima@
ltgassociates.com

12:04
[NAPA Logo]

Interviewer 12:06
sNAPAshots

Transcribed by https://otter.ai