How to shape Minds and influence your Past — My experience with Krishnesh Mehta.
A tall man with sharp features, who could have easily replaced Jeremy Brett in the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, both in acting and poise. Unlike Sherlock, he is the Professor of Design Epiphany, in the world. He was one of the pioneering professors of Strategic Design Managment (SDM) course at National Institute of Design. A course that later got picked up by the likes of ISDI and Parsons, in their own ways.
The question, therefore, should not be, what is “Strategic Design Managment”, we will get to that later, but rather how is it taught?
In the design studio of Strategic Design Management, a Masters-level course whose first co-ordinator was Krishnesh, the things are quite different. He leads the students into being comfortable in uncertainty and understand things right at their core, seeing things for what they are and accepting other’s perceptions of it. Not just a 360-degree view of it, but in his words a “4 by 3 Pi r cube” view of a situation ( holistic and multiple perspectives).
Without using the proverbial “carrot and stick” method of teaching, which involves using tactics such as attendance compulsion, assignment submission standards and ranking students into mediocrity, he chose the path of Love and adamantly so. We even had a class conducted by him on Love, getting deep into scientific, spiritual, philosophical, Bollywood and playful kinds of it. And in this corporate competitive world, don't we all seek Love more than “employee engagement activities”?
While he has imparted knowledge and is, therefore, a Guru, I believe that in my class, he was my friend first. Posing tough questions, and letting young ones like myself and my batchmates into exploring emotions & feelings, without any spoonfeeding… but mysterious hints were dropped and one or another game was always afoot. Then collecting us at the end of the semester with an interesting Jury. What is this Jury? National Institute of Design at its commencement staunchly opposed examinations of any sort but eventually had to settle down for semester end Juries. A time wherein our work is displayed and a dialogue is conducted on the research, approach, and design process, and overall growth displayed by the student in their disciplines.
But when the course involves dealing with strategies and sculpting perceptions ( of the user, customer, citizen, audience, etc.), what work could we show? Posters, untested frameworks, a metaphorical representation of an idea which we tangible-ise using untaught skills…
Or
We could keep ourselves for presentation; show the complexities, contradictions and crevices of our mind, and the beauty with which it could turn problems into solutions beyond the brief ( at half the production cost and one-fourth the effort and one -eight the time, assured! ).
Often designers resort to an artistic approach when faced with decisions in an ambiguous situation. We might end up trying to post-rationalize our pre-determined biases, and use an incomplete/inaccurate design process to try a build a justifiable story behind them. The challenge here is how not to opt for the easy way out, but actually drop our habits from the past, including but not limited to, our biases, judgements and prejudices. And in this lies the key to self-improvement. I think this is a good glimpse into the soul SDM, more can be read on the link.
So to summarize, a single thought that evolved over 20+ years ( with some breaks ) of Krishnesh’s tenure as faculty of NID, was how to design a course which is lead essentially in a fear-free way, making students creative, their minds fertile and make them courageous that they have no fear of losing( how does one teach courage? ). And if you look at graduates of SDM, who have studied with him ( he reads twice as much as a class does ) are now leading startups, consultancies and MNCs into the uncertain terrains through their perseverance, Emotional quotient and Insights ( to name a few).
But now the times have gotten sour, and Krishnesh has resigned from NID. Students across the 3 campuses, feel a loss. But who do they express this loss to? Was it his personal decision ? or was it office politics? or a decision without choice? Or a circumstantially forced one? Even students who have met him for a brief interaction feel the lack and void. While NID has taught us to question, the resulting drop in the talent of faculty has made us feel numb.
While I am still in touch with my friend, I am hurt that his name is maligned. And I have interacted with many who feel the same. I have possible theories and tears for my juniors, who ask “what happened?”, all I say is what I have been made to realize by him, “If you ask, the right questions… the answers will come to you, in one form or another”.
Another lesson taught is to end on a good note. So here is the mail he sent on 14th January 2017 for an Open Elective that he conducted ( his open elective’s demand can be summarized by the transmuted movie title: Gone in 1.8 seconds), by the title Into the time machine.
The mail read:
“Thanks for choosing to be INTO THE TIME MACHINE…..this is your mission specialist signing in…we all log in at 10.00 am in SLA 2 classroom at NID paldi campus on 16th Jan……
hope the travel is exciting and bon voyage…”
Here are some of my seniors and colleagues views on the issue :
Not me- the story of K by Harshit Sinha
The Lotus Truth by Satya Joshi
The K of Knowledge by Mandrila Biswas
My Journey Driven by K from the neocortex towards the limbic brain — by Vishwanath G Shirodkar
Standing by Krishnesh — by Shruti Prabhu
Design Education — The Story of K — by Tarannum Bano
Knowing Design: Learning to Love — by Swastika Dash
Boundless Love to Krishnesh by Chandan S
If you would like to reach out to me or know more about him: mail me at saurabh [at] creatyst [dot] com.
