Designing Relationships
Design is a form of personal development
I believe design is an emotional and creative way to improve people’s lives and create more connection between them.
“A good designer is a bit of a journalist, a detective, a psychiatrist and an artist.” — I cannot retrieve the name of the person who mentioned this statement first but will add it as soon as I find it!
What do design and personal development have in common? Well, in both cases, you need to listen carefully to the person that you are serving — whether it is you or someone else — in order to provide the most valuable project and advice. As a designer, I believe I am accountable for my impact on citizens’ daily lives, with the intention and actions of improving these lives as well as fostering quality relationships between people. Each and every one of us has to play their part, being responsible for our own development, in order to tend towards harmony.
Harmony is a subtle alignment between the self, the others, and the environment (personal definition).
Amongst creatives and authors I feel inspired by, some of them already wrote workbooks that help people finding their way thanks to design. Julia Cameron, for instance, in her famous workbook The Artist’s Way, offers readers practices to let our creative side emerge. Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett, is also a resource that comes in very handy when in need for clarity in our lives.
At the end of the day, designing our lives means getting closer to harmony. Each time we clarify a goal, get rid of relationships that do not enrich us anymore and spend more time with the people and energy we love, we are taking a step towards harmony.
Everything can be designed: a deeper focus on designing relationships
We often hear that behind every product or service we interact with, there is a designer. Everything is designed indeed — but is there a designer behind everything? Design can mean “creating”, and innovation can mean “improving”. No matter how life and relationships form; no matter if some of us believe in chance, science, religion or in a little bit of all of that. Our role might very well be to try and improve situations, regardless of whether we created them in the first place or not.
I feel dedicated to designing these intangible, precious and emotional ties between human beings called relationships. These complex, interwoven and subtle ties connect the self, the others, and the environment. It is part of the designer’s mission to organize and look after all these ties. I often feel like I should take a psychology training on top of my designer’s practice, to go deeper into humans’ brains!
Good relationships and good network can be critical to the success or failure of a project. In some countries, a verbal agreement — the relationship — proves to be more reliable than a written contrat (see Erin Meyer’s work on international management and her book The Culture Map). Whether it is for business or for leisure, I believe we can all benefit from curating and polishing our relationships in every circle (self, others and environment).
Let’s dig more into both professional (clients, coworkers) and personal (love life, personal goals) contexts and take a look at which tools can be applied to help each relationship.
Designing relationships in a professional context
On a professional level, when planning a workshop, I always take into account these two dimensions:
- project-oriented perspective: this is the one the client is paying for and know that they are paying for it. It goes all the way from framing strategic context, making the right decisions, delivering content, building these wireframes, testing these prototypes, to writing and presenting these insightful reports.
- relation-oriented perspective: most of the time, the client does not know that designing relationships is also part of a good design service package
- Politics. Dealing with hidden agendas, conflicts of interest and soothing relationships
- Collaboration. Spotting un-cooperative, defensive behaviors and organizing the space or groups to enable collaboration
- Ethics. Making sure the ethical mindset of each workshop participant blossoms. An activity I like to use is called Servant Leadership (I use the French version of the tool that was brought to my attention by management coach Chrysoline Barbant).
Designing relationships in a personal context
Even though professional and personal sphere can be mixed sometimes, here are some examples of relationships with others and with yourself that could be helped by design approach:
- Friendship. Working your way towards harmony also means putting yourself in a positive, creative energy. Therefore, you need to identify your allies! Who is always cheering you up? Who is happy for you when you achieve success? On the contrary: who is draining your energy? Who does not see you as capable as you are?
- Couple/Family. Are there any tensions holding you back? Are you all aligned? How can you take your relationship to the next level? You can use the speedboat canvas to help better define the future.
- Personal goals. May it be a career change, or improved personal branding — this tool can help you shed the light on your strengths and see what you need to develop! I adapted the Johari window published by 99U.
In the end, personal development means tending toward life improvement — and design is just a tool.
Are the tools and practices well-spread within your organization?
What is your vision about mixing personal development and design?
I am a Design Strategist fascinated by the tremendous possibilities of life, and especially fostering quality relationships with the self, the others, and the environment. I am intrigued about personal development and anthropology.
