Leading for Creativity @ IDEO U
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design–mind is a collection of ever-changing and growing mindsets, used to navigate everyday design challenges.
This project emerged while studying creative collaboration and leading for creativity at IDEO U.
The following key visuals are used as a graphic reminder and a projection of the mindsets.
Mindset 01 → Listen
Listen carefully.
Get to know whom you’re designing for and collaborating with. Listen to their ideas, worries and wishes.
Outcome
Understand and acknowledge the struggles and lookout for opportunities.
visual 01 – listen
Mindset 02 → Look out for alternatives
Keep looking beyond the first solution.
Stay vigilant for new opportunities to approach the same problem.
How are they different? How do they compare?
Outcome
Offer new perspectives and be ready to walk different paths.
visual 02 – look out for alternatives
Mindset 03 → Trust
Contribute to the creation of a safe space where everyone is welcome.
Foster a culture of curiosity; ‘not knowing’ something is an opportunity to explore instead of a reason to be ashamed.
Outcome
Open and honest conversations.
visual 03 – trust
Mindset 04 → Share your knowledge
Showcase your skills, teach others how you do it and talk about the process.
It will help others grow and boost your know-how forward.
Outcome
Knowledge is more valuable when it becomes part of the community.
visual 04 – share your knowledge
Mindset 05 → Visibility
Speak up.
Talk about what you are doing, how you are doing it and why you are doing it.
Show the importance of your work and pay attention to how it influence others and how can you make it part of your motive.
Outcome
Build a design culture
visual 05 – visibility
Mindset 06→ Systems
Capture and analyze patterns. Look for repetitions.
Design in components.
Make it worth the effort and come up with tools that can be used across the team.
Outcome
Create systems and flexible toolkits.
visual 06 – systems
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Memory
Coming up with this mindsets was a casual exercise of observation, analysis and self-reflection.
During one and a half month I reflected on friends, family and professionals that had a great impact in my life. I took the time to identify the values that made them stand out to me.
As I worked through the exercise I started to question concepts such as leadership, collaboration, communication.
Challenge
Observations
There is one person that comes to mind when thinking about leadership: Luis Suárez / @elsua.
Luis has been a key in my professional life to unlock many of the mindsets that are driving me to move forward with my professional life.
Recalling my conversations and experiences with Luis I started sketching and noting down quotes, thoughts and ideas…
sketch of @elsua
With the goal of creating a tool to keep the mindsets present I started to draft visual artifacts:
After this initial approach and using the feedback received from IDEO U students I iterated.
These 6 mindsets are the first draft of a project that I expect to keep updating in the future.
/ Thanks for reading.
Luis Suárez for the being a main inspiration on this project.
Photographers from shots used from Unsplash.