10 Ways to Know You Are on the Path to Becoming a Design Thinker
Design thinking is all about emergence. It is about change and growth, both personally and organizationally. Here is some of what we have noticed along the path of this wondrous, challenging, and ultimately delightful journey.
1. You do not cling to your own ideas- you simply let them go and delightfully watch what they become.
2. You find that the more you walk in others’ shoes, the more comfortable you become in your own.
3. You are able to linger comfortably in the zone of ambiguity where you feel okay with not immediately knowing the answer to the problem you are trying to solve.
4. You have moved from agreeing that failure is a way to learn and to grow to celebrating failure as a way to learn and to grow.
5. You are able to joyfully wander far off the path of the known as you imagine new possibilities.
6. You understand the difference between cooperation and collaboration.
7. You feel a new sense of resonance between how you approached the world as a child and the way you approach your work and life today.
8. You are confident that you possess the skills, knowledge, resourcefulness,
and resiliency to identify the problems that are worth solving in the world.
9. You find yourself making continuous connections between what you see in your everyday life and how they support design thinking mindsets.
10. Your go-to way of being is doing — a strong bias towards action — as you face and embrace the challenges of your everyday life.
Thanks, Linda. I completely agree with your thoughts. It is also about taking the time to make sure that the problem you are solving is the right problem. And lingering in ambiguity often makes people uncomfortable in a get it done environment.
Consultant
8 年Maureen—thanks for sharing these reflections. I especially appreciate #3 “You are able to linger comfortably in the zone of ambiguity where you feel okay with not immediately knowing the answer to the problem you are trying to solve.” Sometimes it can feel like you aren’t being decisive or are keeping things or people from moving along when it’s really about needing more time for a clear path to emerge. Maybe what can help in these moments is to communicate and let folks know that you aren’t avoiding decision-making but not yet at the point of clarity on how to move forward.