How to use Design Thinking in career and life design – the basics…
I come from a culture where we share stories and chat, sometimes around the fireside. It’s through the sharing of our stories that we learn about each other – who we really are, what makes us tick and how our experiences have shaped us. And of course, it creates human connection.
This is a friendly invitation to a fireside chat to share a few stories and take a trip down memory lane with my Design Thinking goggles on. We’d love to hear more about your experiences and how they have brought you to where you are now and what you are working towards changing and evolving in your career and life, so don’t hestiate to call or be in touch on maria@disegno.life.
Meantime, Polly where is that kettle!
What do Haiti, Tayto crisps and Design Thinking have in common? Now that’s a multi-layered question!
I am a licensed Career Coach and trained Design Thinker who is currently inhabiting a certain chapter of my middle years in South East Asia. Something about this chapter in time and geographical location has taken me to contemplate a number of things, most notably…why have I never been to Haiti, my lifetime love of Tayto crisps and what is it about Design Thinking that really works?
More of Haiti and Tayto crisps later. For now, I’d love you to join me on a reverse drive down the highway of my life thus far. It will be an intrepid adventure to spot elements of Design Thinking in the story of this irish woman’s journey (me!) from Clare to Here (that’s the title of an Irish ballad by the way!)
Design Thinking is a mindset with related practical processes which have been scientifically proven to deliver on results, every time. From its roots at Stanford University, led by Profs. Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, with whom I trained, Design Thinking has evolved from the business world of Silicon valley into a career and life approach which is simple, thoughtful and very effective.
In applying Design Thinking to career and life planning we encourage you to adopt the following mindsets:
- Be curious – ask questions, lots of them. Be willing to learn and know that curiosity and possibility exist on flip sides of the same coin.
- Try stuff – bring your ideas to life even in the simplest way possible. Designers build their way forward. They don’t think their way forward.
- Reframe problems – expand out your possibilities when you get stuck. Look at your challenge from another angle.
- Know it’s a process – Life can be a journey of 5 steps forward, 10 steps back and sometimes a bit of a sideways shimmy! It’s a process of learning, trying, doing and taking steps – always taking steps. Design thinking highlights the value of reflecting in order to facilitate learning but alongside that, as a process, it has a strong bias to action.
Underlying a Design Thinkers mindset are a number of nifty processes which are practical and action-oriented in their delivery. These are some of the processes that we work through with clients as we guide them through the process of designing their next phase of career or life…
- Understand your work view and life view – what makes you tick? What do you believe in?
- Create your compass – know your direction of travel. What career and life options do you want to explore and make real? Choose one, or perhaps a combination, but then act on it.
- Prototyping – trying stuff in the smallest form that you can initially. Get that internship, shadow the exec, take on a short term project, experience living in that new city. Do, observe, learn and refine your model.
- Build a design team – who is in your support gang? Create a team of supporters , maybe ex-colleagues, members of your community and extended network, who will help and proactively support you en route.
- Have a bias to action – keep taking steps. It’s the delivery of your daily micro-ambitions that take you where you want to go.
- Know that it’s a process – recognise that it’s a journey. Track and celebrate the wins, big and small. It takes time, patience, resilience and a process to track as you go…
We are adding our own one here – sorry Stanford. Have fun!!
When I observe my own stories which include the bit about Haiti and crisps, I see snippets of Design Thinking woven through the fabric of my experiences. I have had a think and a reflective, sometimes funny write about it (well funny for me at least!!). For the purpose of these fireside chats, I will take one element of Design Thinking and expand through the example of a chapter from my own experience, just by way of illustration. I will also talk about how we work with Design Thinking concepts now with our Disegno.life members.
This is not a shiny Insta-licious, Facebook fabulous view into a life perfectly lived but a toe in the water look at how we can apply Design Thinking to ease up and facilitate those big transitions – a new career, a work redesign, creating a new life plan…whatever your quest may be.
l have enjoyed the journey down memory lane. I hope you do too and that it takes you forward in your desire to design the career and life that you want.
Check out the next blog to see why we love Tayto crisps and our travel plans to Haiti…!