I’ve written on the topic of self awareness as part of Designers’ qualities before, namely on the article “Designer and Enduring Brand Qualities”. Some of those reflections also informed what became the article on “Myopia in Design”. Needless to say, this is a subject matter that pops up frequently, and one that is worth devoting some attention to. As I’ve mentioned in the previously referred articles, the 5 principles of Long Lasting brands is a topic that I believe attests to the durability of brand statements, but it is something that should also be applicable to Designers as they carve their own career path in the professional world. Those qualities are Self Awareness, being Principled, Deliberate, Focused and Adaptive. While all these qualities walk hand in hand with each other, this brief article will detail examples of how a lack of self awareness can be detrimental to someone’s career, and just as importantly, to a team’s success. It’s of paramount importance that Designers understand the fact that the Product Design discipline is in reality a team effort. Everyone that is on that journey has a part to play, and they all have a significant importance in making sure the goals that are established, and what is being proposed gets to its finished line with success, one that is measured according to different parameters that the group has agreed upon. Self awareness isn’t a quality that should be practiced by Designers alone, ideally it is a quality that anyone should aspire to have. However and for the sake of this article, the examples I’m going to provide are demonstrative of the unbalances it causes (and for that matter, self awareness is according to wikipedia “…is how an individual consciously knows and understands their own character, feelings, motives, and desires. There are two broad categories of self-awareness: internal self-awareness and external self-awareness”).

Isolation — Being self aware in Design typically means that a professional realizes what they can effectively do, what are their opportunities for growth, and just as importantly, how they communicate/collaborate/relate to others on their team. As I mentioned previously, Product Design and Design Journeys are a collective effort, one where Designers function as a catalyst and alchemist, bringing together different ingredients and skillsets, all with the goal to craft a journey that is sensical, juggling multiple threads of information, points of view, ultimately delivering a product that pierces through the convergence of the trifecta of: business needs, client’s desirability and impeccable usability. In order for a Designer to reach this effectiveness, this person has to be able to be ingrained in the efforts that are taking place, essentially cooperating/collaborating with different team members as they work through challenges, research endeavors, unexpected findings, all of which have an impact on what is being crafted.

In the past I worked with Designers who avoided socializing their work and process with Product and Development teams. These professionals would work insularly, consume requirements directly from a tool such as Jira, and procure the solution for those problems, on their own terms, without discussing much about their reasoning, research, or what was leading them in a particular direction. This invariably led to friction, constant friction in fact, since the solutions didn’t meet the criteria defined in the requirements. Since these professionals isolated themselves constantly, by the time they shared their output with their peers, a considerable amount of time had already been spent, which once more would have to be burned through, since the solutions invariably omitted many of the requirements needed. One can easily ask if the problem was rooted in poorly written user stories, or lack of communication, or even lack of accountability. And those are in fact possible scenarios. However, as a self aware Designer, one has to realize that if indeed there are issues with requirements, or the general direction of a feature, collaborating with your peers, understanding the research that sustains those stories, the technical feasibility of those same stories, are all factors which can and will impact the solutioning process. Isolating one self in Product Design is non-sensical, since developing concepts in a vacuum is contrary to the principles of Design Thinking and Human Centered Design itself: only by testing, showcasing and validating what is being produced, can an idea truly crystalize into a product that has room to grow. Needless to say this behavior had to be course corrected, which in itself isn’t a problem. A journey is always going to have its challenges. However, the Design Professionals were resistant to change, and that in itself was a problem, as was their lack of self awareness, their lack of understanding of what their role was, and how much it impacted the success of the entire journey.

Ego — I’ve written about the topic of Ego in the past. We all have ego, it plays its part in shaping who we are as individuals. However, when left unchecked, with say self awareness, it becomes more of a liability than a healthy statement. I’ve worked with Design professionals where their main and constant focus was their own impact and point of view on the Product Design journey. The solution, the team, and even the clients themselves, were supporting actors for whatever story they were crafting (and starring) in their universe.

The goal of this article is not to pass judgement on how people behave and how they choose to lead their careers. Its goal is to reinstate that when someone is indeed self aware, that doesn’t equate with someone’s experience and insight being seconded to anyone else’s: it means that a Designer, that particular professional, has the awareness to realize everyone’s point of view is valid, and if positioned properly, everyone’s insights can have a part to play (and sometimes that may be no part at all). But the Designer has to be aware enough, to understand how to position all the points of view, avoiding falling into the traps of considering his/her experience as the sole moment or nugget of truth. Because it isn’t. When ego is left unchecked, the output of these journeys are typically products that demonstrate someone’s interpretation of what a good product solution is, as opposed to something that actually solves the problems that were actually identified to begin with.

Good Intentions — I’ve also had the opportunity to work with very skilled professionals who always demonstrated the best of intentions when it came to the adoption of a sensical Design process. They understood the process, the necessity of convergence of team work, but when it was time to make their own contributions, they invariably were blinded by what they considered to be the bestest practices, those tried and tested tasks they had done before, which in essence may have worked for them in the past (and may not be quite as effective in other situations). However they failed to realize, that each case is indeed a unique one, no matter how many common denominators there are, and while some processes can be emulated, at least to a certain extent, they can never be entirely replicated since teams are different, problems are different, the overall context has shifted. This lack of self awareness prevented these professionals from realizing that while possessing the best of intentions, the way they were solving a particular problem was in reality causing a different set of problems for the rest of the team. The challenge here included educating these professionals who find themselves on this particular path, since they may not realize that for all their good intentions, they’re in reality sabotaging the work of the collective. Once more, having self awareness, allows for professionals in the Design field to take situations for what they are, and not for what they expect them to be. And on that note, adjust what needs to be adjusted, so the team’s needs, and ultimately what they client experiences, to actually resonate, and not be a demonstration of what they consider to be a uniquely solid and distinct point of view.

Self awareness is, to reinstate once more, a quality that anyone should aim to achieve in their lives. It allows us to ground ourselves, and have a clear realization of who we are. For Designers, it’s an essential quality, since much of what we do is a balance of understanding different factors, mixing layers of inputs and making sure we’re distilling a solid essence to be consumed by users. It is an alchemist’s job, but one that becomes the most effective, the more your client realizes how clear and organically attuned to their needs it actually is.

Carl Jung wrote on the topic of self awareness:

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”