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Hi, friend,

It's hard to really know what to say at times like these - the news of the Russian attack on Ukraine has left me feeling sad, scared and helpless. As a team lead, it's dissonant to move from 'ok now we've checked in about impending nuclear threat, on to journey mapping!' I'm trying to remember that many people have a lot on their minds and extend as much grace and humanity as possible.

I personally struggle with doom scrolling and feeling overwhelmed. Some ways I've been trying to focus on more constructive things include:

Practical ways to help - like donating to organizations supporting on the ground in Ukraine.
Getting informed from alternative perspectives, like exploring this reading list from independent Pluto Press, and remembering that much of the mainstream coverage tends to be Western-centric.
The importance of continuing to fight for cleaner and more sustainable energy sources - we need to divest from oil and gas.
Remembering that taking care of ourselves, one another and those around us, being in community is vital work - being global citizens also means being local citizens.

When these types of world events unfold, it can feel frankly kind of odd to send out this newsletter. I hope that this week's edition will offer food for thought and self reflection towards a gentler, more aware practice as a designer, if that feels nourishing right now 💕

Q. How can we use self-awareness as a tool to become more effective as service designers?

I believe that self awareness is a crucial tool for any designer, and human beings in general! For this edition's question, I've invited Antonio Starnino to share some wisdom. I've always admired Antonio's thoughtful approach to service design, and most especially the lens he brings from his organizational theory and coaching work. Take it away Antonio!

an illustration of a head with a brain and a pause button below

First - a Check In

As you are reading this take a moment to pause.

Where are you coming in from right now (rushing through tasks, winding down)? What is your current state of mind (present or distracted) and your mood at this moment?
How are you feeling (tired, tense or relaxed)? How are you physically (your posture, your breathing)?
What drew you to this newsletter? What is your intention as you read this? What are you expecting? How do you think this might help some of your future goals?

Now whether you engaged with some, all or maybe none of these questions, their intention stems from what I believe to be one of my most important personal learnings as a designer – that the path to becoming more effective practitioners is to develop not just our skills, tools, methodologies, but our understanding of ourselves. How we understand, grow and take care of ourselves, so we can show up for our work in a way that matters to us.

Why Self Awareness Matters for Service Designers

As designers, I like to say we have a tendency toward the ‘external’ – solving various challenges whether they be business, social, organizational through design interventions and advocating for people who use what we design. While the value that we bring in can be immeasurable, when we focus so deeply on that which exists outside of us, we can lose sight of the ‘internal’.

Some ways this might show up for us as designers are:

In our design process: Why we choose the frameworks, methods or approaches that we use are all based on our own internal state, who we listen to, our own values, patterns, triggers, and biases that are within us but oftentimes, not in our purview of awareness.
In our physical/mental state: When we are out of touch with ourselves we might not notice when we are pushing our physical and mental states too far. Moving towards states of burnout, resisting rest and not setting proper boundaries with our work.
In our outcomes: Bill O’Brien, ex-CEO of Hanover Insurance when he was asked about leading transformational change in his own company he stated: “the success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor”. As we develop our capacity for self-awareness we are developing our capacity to become better, more effective practitioners because, in essence, we take care of the only constant in our work as service designers, ourselves.

Making Self Awareness Tangible - A Framework

Of course, all this can leave us with an important query, this is nice in theory but what does self-awareness actually look like in practice? A model that I refer to in my work, is the concept of “self-as-instrument” by organizational academic Charlie Seashore, who defines it as: “the link between our personal potential and the world of change”. In describing its importance for practitioners (here he references consultants but it applies equally to designers) he states:

"Perhaps the most powerful instrument we have in helping our clients navigate change is ourselves. Our ability to use ourselves potently relies in large part on the level of awareness we have about the impact we make, and our ability to make choices to direct and modify that impact."

In essence, designers are well suited for this, because it essentially asks us to redirect and apply our capacity for sense-making, finding connections, and open exploration to ourselves. Developing what Schön calls a reflective practice so that we can notice and shift our behaviours at the moment or at least over time.

Jamison, Auron and Schechtman built on this concept and created an actionable framework. It consists of an outer and inner dimension.

A three sided triangle of what I see, what I know and what I do, with three levels - functionality at the base, followed by efficiency and mastery

Self awareness framework consisting of an inner and outer dimension.

The Outer Dimension - Three Core Competencies

The outer dimension consists of three core competencies:

What I ‘see’: Our ability to notice. we take in our environment and what we are witnessing at the moment. This requires being present, aware, drawing on our active listening skills, connecting to what we are feeling. Here a principle from Adriene Maree Brown’s Emergent Strategy is brought to the forefront “what we pay attention to grows”. As designers there might be certain sensibilities we have to notice interactions in the moment of an interview, facilitating a workshop, or synthesizing data. However, seeing also means recognizing patterns in ourselves. For example, in our check-in, I asked questions that developed your ability to notice yourself and your state. read in a project.
What I know: draws on our experience, learned theories, mental models and intuition. As service designers, we know about our craft (e.g. how to create and facilitate a customer journey map). We also have knowledge about ourselves, our passions, interests, opinions and behaviours, our values, motivations, and social identities.
What I do: for executing a range of behavioural action choices. It's the action based on what we see and what we know. Indicating behavioural flexibility, a repertoire of skills, and action alternatives. The key is to be able to shift in the moment to ensure we are able to act in congruence with what we value and feel might be best.

The Inner Dimension - Three Levels of Development

The inner dimension lists the levels of development we progress through as we develop these core competencies.

Functionality: "how to do it". If we are doing it right, we follow a material technique or concept (ex: skilled facilitator). The first times we shift a behaviour we notice or try to adopt a new personal skill, it might be clumsy. It's those early stages that if we can push through we can see ourselves get better at it.
Efficiency: marked by increased flow, and less concentration. Less challenging, and we are sense-making at the moment, higher confidence. We are no longer afraid to try out behaviours, however, it takes energy, we still need to be aware or else we risk slipping into old behaviours or patterns
Mastery: Means fully integrated, opened up self-awareness, ego-free for professional work. Effortless action, we find ourselves doing our new behaviours more automatically, as they become more ingrained habits.

A three step process with defining a vision, listing desired and future behaviours, and then the know, see, do cycle

Building self awareness through three key steps

Steps to Self Awareness in Practice

I’ve explored the importance of self-awareness for designers and given a framework that can help you make sense of it in your day-to-day. How do we now make this actionable for us as practitioners? Beyond service design, part of the work that I do is as a design leadership coach, supporting people and teams who find themselves in transition. We can take these principles from coaching we can put into practice here (inspired by Intentional Change Theory):

Note: you might want to get a journal or something to write in for this part!

1. Define and visualize a personal objective or goal

As you might have noticed in order to be able to put your self-as-instrument model into effective action it helps by understanding and focusing on what you want. This might mean becoming more effective in your role either in facilitation, research, prototyping. It might also mean taking care of yourself as a practitioner like setting boundaries, being more assertive, introducing self-care practices (meditation, exercise, rest).

What would it look like if you achieved it?
How would you be different?
What would be different around you?

2. List desired behaviours and current barriers

With an objective and vision in mind take the time to create a list that will act as your basis for practice:

What behaviours and mindsets do you need to work on to bring you closer to your objective?
What situations does this need to come up in?
Are there any people in your life or work that can help you in achieving these behaviours?

Now thinking of today, list those current barriers in order to get a sense of what you need to pay attention to:

Which current behaviours and mindsets hold you back from that objective?
Are there any people in your life or work that tend to be involved when you think about these barriers?

3. Develop your capacity by Seeing, Knowing, and Doing!

As we come back to our framework, we can take this list and put it into practice. The easiest way is to take a week or two to notice our behaviours in action:

When it comes up, how do we feel in those situations?
Was what we thought held us back really that? Is there anything else?

As you do so you will understand, and build your knowledge base around these behaviours and mindsets to be able to address them at the moment. Reflect back on these situations through daily or weekly journaling practice. Do research on your behaviours and learn more

Where they might stem from? do they have a name?
Are there any particular situations? Any particular people?
How have others have dealt with them?

Finally, take a conscious act of behaving in a different way. Start slow in a prepared space. A mistake we can make is to try to jump too far too fast into new behaviours or actions and in doing so we may become discouraged when we aren’t as good or as effective as we hoped we would be.

Take your time, notice what happens and journal about it. In doing so you recognize that the framework becomes more of a circle. As we take action, we notice and see more, which increases what we know about ourselves.

Important note: Relationships form important support in this goal, don’t be afraid to tell others about what you are doing, they may be able to support you in practicing these actions or at the minimum provide you with the appreciation that's often needed to keep going.

4. Finally, celebrate!

Change is hard in general, and self-change is perhaps the hardest, so you are deserving of a reward and appreciation throughout!

Resources

If you want to learn more a few resources that might support you are:

If you have access to the service design touchpoint you can read the original article that inspired this post.
If you want to extend this work and principles I wrote about above with a broader UX community I highly recommend checking out HmntyCntrd founded by Vivian Castillo.
There is also solidarity between this work and the growing efforts to decolonize design and make it a more trauma-responsive practice. That is why as a community I also suggest you look at Design Justice Network and the work of Rachel Dietkus.
A strong theme in this work is developing your emotional intelligence as a designer, that's why I recommend the courses and podcast of Rachel Weissman and DesignToBe.
For a more personal understanding of self-as-instrument, I recommend this blog post by development coach Akasha, who speaks to how he has integrated the concept in his life and career.

Thank you!

I hope this newsletter finds some use for you. I wanted to thank Linn for giving me the space and platform to share this out with you, and my collaborator Laura Wesley who co-wrote a Touchpoint article that inspired me to write this newsletter.

For those of you who feel they might need additional support and help to put this into practice, I am available to coach design leaders who are facing complex personal and professional challenges. If you might be interested you can contact me and we can have a short discovery call to discuss further.

See you at Blend 2022, March 12th!

I'm looking forward to speaking at Blend 2022, sharing tactical examples of creating a more accessible and inclusive design process on several projects. The line up is awesome, I'm personally super excited to hear Kelly Riback-Small talk about living and designing according to our values. The conference is fully virtual, with $20 students tickets and $35 for industry members.

Till next time,
Linn