Shaping the many layers of your unique mix
Some early thinking relating to the different paces of self-strategy
I’ve been working on a talk over the past couple of weeks while curating this Designed Transitions publication. This is me combining these interests for the benefit of others.
The talk was around Shaping your Future Self.
Post talk energy channelled into this post
As I write this, I am recovering from the emotional turmoil of delivering a talk. Last Friday, I was standing in my home office, delivering it online to Adobe Design Mix 22 in Noida, near New Delhi. It was an event primarily for Adobe India and Eastern European employees, as well as attendees from some local communities.
The lack of feedback and technical lag made it so much harder to connect. So I’m maybe not as hyped about the talk as I usually am. Still, I think there is something worth sharing about some of the new, albeit raw, thinking that has emerged. And I would love more feedback to refine it further.
I was initially hesitant to talk about technology
I was initially hesitant to accept the invitation. There seemed to be an emerging technology focus and an explicit theme around ‘Tectonic Shifts’.
I have spent most of my career working in emerging technology. Helping organizations consider potential futures. Usually navigating the tensions of human and commercial perspectives. But I rarely talk about this experience in public outside of my IxDA London curation. Instead, I mostly talk about the people behind technological progress and taming.
I didn’t have much time to prepare something completely different. That said, I liked the challenge of connecting my previous work to the theme, and the event name itself.
And so, I want to share some of the new and emerging thinking that I shared in my talk. I can imagine it will change over time, but it’s the first new (non-client) model or framework I have created for a while as I try to focus on completing my Shaping Design book — which is full of models and frameworks.
This is an opportunity to get some early thinking out there, and I’d love to hear your feedback… so go easy.
Warning! Flaky metaphors and models coming. Imperfect, as I love them that way.
Personal pace layers
You may be familiar with Stewart Brand’s Pace Layers, elaborated from Frank Duffy’s Shearing Layers. A model for explaining how certain things change more frequently than others. It can be applied to buildings, society, the world and yourself.
In fact, Richard Rutter did a version for design careers. Nice one Richard.
For me, this felt related to tectonic shifts. As I understand them, they are slow moving and often intangible. With a mix of small and large tangible impacts, like volcanoes, earthquakes, and new geographies.
I decided to run with that theme and dig into thinking around geological tectonic shifts. With a little googling I found some interesting analogues to things I often talk about and some recent learning about my own deeper change.
Perceiving the layers of our own personal planets
For the conference, and my own interests I decided to connect ‘tectonic shifts’, pace layers and ‘design mix’. While I believe there is some value, I’ve already begun to uncover some of the flaws. I am sure that feedback from the community will tell me more.
So, here goes:
The different layers of our personal planets
Atmosphere: Culture, societies, industries
Imagine the atmosphere, changing frequently like weather. This is the realm of hype, rhetoric, titles, roles, and demands from life and others.
Land: Technologies
The land is where we build technology. Products. Services. Infrastructure. These are the manifestations of our ideas and efforts to share with others.
Sea: Technical skills, fields of practice and methods
The sea is the ever-changing and multi-depth world of technical skills, methods and fields of practice. Tangible and key to manifesting our technologies. Building worlds around humanity.
Crust: Foundational skills
The crust is where our foundational skills live. The things we may have learned (or not) at school that we often forget about and yet continue to develop, or leave to atrophy. Reading, writing, talking, listening, sketching, structuring, abstracting and (critical) thinking.
Mantle: Experiences, Personas and Soft skills
The mantle is where our key experiences shape the personas we wear to represent ourselves in different situations, and use soft (difficult, human, interpersonal and team) skills to adapt to others.
Outer core: Values, qualities and behaviours
The outer core is where our values, qualities and behaviours lie. These are representations of self, and where we may show our differences to others.
Inner core: Passions, purpose and true self
The inner core is where our passions, purpose and true self lie. Harder to get to, but the intangible stuff that drives us.
An imperfect model of personal layers
Have I lost you yet?
Regardless of whether the metaphor holds, the notion of layers is common in relation to brands (with their onions) and the concept of peeling back layers is often used in coaching and self-help.
Whether it’s accurate or sufficient enough is a valid question, but I think it could still be useful. I hope it is for you.
In this model, the expression materialises from self, directed by purpose, through passions and the various levels of skills into technologies.
Different layers of self change — different paces, tangibility and malleability
The outer layers of self change more frequently and are more tangible to yourself and others. The inner layers often less so. As a result, the outer layers are easier to grasp and understand. Greater grokability towards the surface. The inner layers, demand harder self-discovery and reflection work to really understand yourself. You can do a few workshops or canvases to help, but it may take far longer, after initial prodding, to understand and become comfortable with what lies beneath and within.
Deeper change takes time. It can help to prod and probe with a canvas or tool, but for some, it helps to ease off the pressure.
Which layers are you most connected to? And how can your perception guide your paths forwards?
And so how did I move between my own work and tectonic shifts?
I spent the bulk of the presentation talking through my ‘Shaping Design’ work, including workshops I’ve run over the years and the various models and tools I have developed. You can read more about those in the Shaping Design Medium series. I’ll share some pictures below. The point with these tools is to prod and probe people’s self perceptions of many different layers and lenses of self.
Personal note: I have been struggling to resolve tensions I have with structured probes and the often slower self-discovery necessary for deeper change. This is one of my key excuses for not completing my book as I also develop as an executive coach in parallel.
What are the most important qualities of a modern day designer?
In the session itself, I asked a question through Mentimeter. It’s a question I asked to over 1,200 people over the years.
It’s super interesting because designers know how important these deeper qualities, values, behaviours and softer skills are. ChatGPT even knows this. And yet we still focus on technical skills and technologies most of the time. The outer, and more tangible layers.
Resolving tensions and finding your spark
I finished the presentation by building up a model of common tensions for designers that I describe briefly below.
Hi-tech (emerging) solutions vs human needs
Often there are ‘magpies’ with shiny object syndrome. Jumping onto the newest tech bandwagon and expressing their identity through the lens of being a mobile, VR, AI designer. On the other side, you get folks focused purely on human needs. Fighting against the ‘inhumane’ pursuit .f new technology fixes for our worlds.
Business vs society
Many practitioners focus on the business sides of things, but more and more of late you will find people trying to make greater societal impact.
Individual vs group working preference
Many design disciplines developed through individuals working by themselves, learning from others by sometimes working together. But there are also many designers happier working in groups with others.
Observing (and facilitating) vs executing
Some people in the design field love to make and execute. Others like to be curious, ask questions and observe. This often goes beyond UI designer vs User Researcher.
What if they weren’t tensions but spectrums?
When faced with these tensions, I like to instead reframe them as spectrums. You can take dimensions as poles to map differently against. Asking different questions and overlaying your maps to give new insight.
- How much time/attention do you spend on each?
- How much do you enjoy or get satisfaction from working with each?
- What does your org, society or the world need?
Look at the deltas, reflect on what they mean to you. Then, decide what you want to do about it.
I closed my talk with a message about finding ways to connect to the different layers of self, especially your passions.
I used one of my favourite quotes of recent years from Alexander Den Heijer to close the talk. It was brought to my attention in one of Vivianne Castillo’s talks and helped me close the loop connecting the new personal planet metaphor with the message of finding your own path forwards.
Discovering your deeper layers takes time
Despite me making the point a few times through the presentation, I really want to reinforce it here.
No matter how many books, courses, workshops or tools you engage with to explore your many layers, it can take longer than you might like.
My own experience over the past 5+ years has shown me how hard it is for me to nail my niche, define my purpose, and actively work towards it.
I have done a lot of self work recently. Working with various coaches. Working with a therapist. Attending various workshops. Reading various books. Listening to loads of podcasts.
They’ve all helped in different ways. But deeper self discovery can take time. It’s so easy to get pulled along with other peoples’ narratives. Or pulled along with your own ‘life scripts’. It can help to critically assess the fit for you.
Be careful of quick fixes for your new path
Through my work as a coach I have observed impatience to make quicker transitions. Coachees and prospective coachees sometimes want to find their next perfect step. To find their perfect path. All within a 3 month window, or even shorter. After a career usually lasting 10–20 years, that’s a lot to ask of yourself.
Take some time, relieve the pressure to get it right
It can take time to get enough perspective on yourself. To pluck up the courage to get the feedback you need. To experiment with different paths. To feel it out. To see what resonates with others and the wider world. But ultimately ensure it resonates for you.
Use tools, but make sure you reflect afterwards
Use the many tools and models out there. But make sure you combine it with your own slower reflection. Sure, you can make a quick decision that feels right. But know that it doesn’t have to define you and your final path.
Feedback please…
Much of the above are pretty early tangible representations of what I have been thinking about over the past few years. It has been forced to fit into the container of a particular event. I know it is imperfect, but I do believe in sharing to help others, and to help gather feedback to improve it for myself so I can improve it others.
I would love to hear what you think. Drop me a line. Add a comment. Maybe arrange a chat in the new year.
Special thanks to Brian Hoadley for reviewing an early draft, checking it was on-brief, and doing some much needed copy-editing.
