Introspection for Design Thinking: A Toolkit

• Introspection is an important practice for any designer or problem-solver.
• Connecting to ourselves makes connecting to others more powerful.
• This article provides a set of tools to help with the core components of introspection.

For the past five years, I have been a strong advocate of Design Thinking. The main reason for my enthusiasm is because I believe that Design Thinking offers a set of tools that ask us to stop and think. It makes us conscious of each phase of problem-solving so we can tackle challenges and answer needs with true empathy, testing ideas, and learning by doing.

I introduced introspection in my previous writing as a component that I felt was needed to enhance Design Thinking. While I previously presented introspection as a great addition that would help youth and children work through personal growth, developing self-awareness, and improving their problem-solving skills, I also find introspection to be a helpful, and even necessary, step for any designer or change agent. We are never too old or too experienced to stop and take stock of our thoughts, feelings, biases, and values. Being connected to ourselves makes us better connected to others and the challenges we are trying to address.
This is why I decided to provide a set of suggested tools and examples of how introspection can be used as an opening step to Design Thinking (or problem-solving in general).

Understanding Our Identity

Life experiences, culture, and personal values form a major part of our identity. These components drive our actions and inform our responses to people and events. In Design Thinking, our identity can either support or hinder empathy when connecting to others. Imagine meeting aliens from another planet, they tell us about gravity on their world and how it is so much weaker than on earth that everyone just floats around. It is easy to say that we are practicing empathy to understand them better. We can try to visualize it, try to relate to it through some personal experiences, even try and replicate it to see how it feels like to float. No matter what we do, we will never be able to truly and fully empathize with their lived experiences. We can’t recreate or experience being born in that environment, being raised in that community, or developing our identity through that paradigm. This example applies to everyone we encounter. As we strive to solve problems and address challenges in a way that improves lives, we attempt empathy regardless of how hard it is to let go of personal opinions. One way to increase our capacity for empathy is to reduce our biases by understanding ourselves better. Building a clear map of who we are, what we think, and why we do the things we do.
A great tool provided by Facing History and Ourselves is the Starburst Identity Chart. This is a tool that helps us brainstorm our own identities from different perspectives.

Using the tool, we write our names in the middle of the circle. We then begin writing keywords or phrases at the ends of arrows pointing outwards that describe what we consider to be core aspects of our identity. As for the arrows pointing inward, we have to think of how others would describe us. As with all tools, the chart provides guidelines to help us think about these concepts but is in no way a constraint. We can add as many arrows as we want and use the tool in a way that we are comfortable with. That said, being honest and authentic with ourselves is a key to gaining real value from such tools.
Some areas of identity to think about are Race, Religion, Occupation (e.g. Engineer, Artist, Student, unemployed, etc.), Family, Traits (e.g. athletic, artistic, analytical, creative, funny, etc.), Activities (e.g. sports, cooking, comic books, playing music, etc.), Health, and Socio-economic background (e.g. wealthy, middle-class, financially struggling, etc.).
It is usually recommended to use this tool privately so we are comfortable digging deeper into our identity. Even in workshops or group work, sharing the contents of this reflection should be optional.

Mapping Personal Priorities

The world is full of possibilities and challenges to tackle and solve. It is easy to get carried away and try to solve every problem at once, but an effective intervention can only succeed with focus and dedication. Understanding our personal priorities and ensuring that our work aligns with our interests, values, and strengths is important. One way to think about our personal interests and what we consider to be a priority over others is to use a matrix.

Reflecting on different aspects of our lives, each of us can give a score out of five that demonstrates the level of interest we have for each of the areas. We can customize the matrix to reflect the different aspects of our own life so we can make better use of this tool. Having a numerical rating of our priorities is not the end goal, those priorities will even change over time. However, being honest with ourselves and aware of our personal priorities can help us focus on what brings joy to our lives so we can better help others.

Setting Personal Goals

Simon Sinek popularized the ‘Why Statement' with his Golden Circle. When trying to understand ourselves and our personal goals, it is inevitable to come across the Why Statement because it is the reason that drives our actions, the purpose or belief that pushes us forward, and in its simplest form the sentence that tells the world who we are and what we want to do. An example of how we can write our contribution and the impact it will have can look like this: To provide people with access to knowledge so that they can feel empowered to change the world. OR Create a creative space for my family so they can grow to their full potential.

Using a simple template like this one can help us reflect on our purpose(s) and develop our understanding of how we see ourselves and our place in the world, preparing us to move into how we can achieve this purpose. I mention purpose(s) because while organizations might have one overarching ‘Why Statement’, I believe that people can have more than one. These purposes can be as personal as bringing joy to the family or as globally ambitious as achieving world peace.

Exploring Personal Power

It is important to take one last stop and explore our own capabilities after building a map of our identity, our values, biases, goals, and priorities. Understanding what resources, skills, and abilities we have so we can focus on the places where we can make the most impact. One tool that I find useful is what I call the ‘Spheres of Impact’. In this tool, we outline what we are trying to achieve and then begin to see where we have the immediate power to create impact, where we only have the power to influence change, and where we do not have power at all.

For example, if we wanted to stop producing plastic waste, we can make that decision for ourselves, we might even be able to make it into a rule at our company, but we cannot force others outside of those spaces into making the change, we can only influence them through campaigns, discussions, and other methods of persuasion. If we think of the entire community, we might not have the power to change behaviour at all.
Having this understanding enables us to (1) focus on where we can make the most impact and (2) work on expanding our spheres of impact further. This might include running for office, creating a nonprofit to reach more people, protesting to change the law, and many other ways to increase our spheres of impact.

In Closing, Introspection is a powerful step for any designer, problem solver, or change agent trying to make a difference and there are practical tools to practice introspection. The tools mentioned here are in no way exhaustive and there are many more contemplative practices and tools to check in on our emotional state, explore our identity, and stay connected to our constantly evolving selves. It is important to remember that we cannot effectively change the world and be connected to others if we are not connected to ourselves.