How design constraints can drive creativity and focus
Responding to a challenge with self-reflection and procrastination
A few weeks ago, I met with the city manager in my agency seeking general advice. We chatted about my goals, I pitched a few projects I wanted to work on and all-in, we met for about 35 minutes.
Before I left his office, he challenged me to answer five, reflective questions about myself. He wanted me to share my answers with my department head and ultimately, him; the big boss.
So, naturally, since I did the work, I might as well post it on the internet.
The Five Questions
- What are my values and vision statement? [technically, two separate questions, but we’ll let him slide]
- What type of leader am I?
- Describe myself as a critical thinker.
- Describe myself as a creative thinker.
- What are my technical skills?
Not exactly my favorite color [blue]. This was going to take some thought.
After staring at a blank page for a few days [*cough* weeks *cough*] and having a lengthy, incoherent, multiple-paragraph vision statement as first draft. I needed to rethink this.
It was a place to start but the assignment felt too broad and open-ended, I needed to give myself parameters.
It is through mistakes that you actually can grow. You have to get bad in order to get good. — Paula Scher
I decided put the answers of these questions into a front and back tri-fold. This was in effort to drive brevity and clarity.
Plus, it let me endlessly tinker with the design of the tri-fold instead of the content of my answers. But I was reminded:
Design cannot rescue failed content. — Edward E. Tufte
I could have probably edited this forever, but sometimes you have to be done.
Below is what I shared with the bosses.
More importantly than their reaction, the exercise helped clarify what I valued. It gave me confidence to trust these values and helped drive some difficult decisions.
It is illuminating how little you think about what you think until you think about it.
