💎 Friday Gems #3 (Pygmalion Effect, 10 Rules for Creatives, Designing as Navigating Whitewaters)
Three ideas to help you unleash your potential 🚀
Happy first Friday of the year!
You know those moments when you learn about a word and then keep noticing it everywhere? Yeah, that's what happened to me with the Pygmalion Effect phenomenon. I read about it in a newsletter and then started seeing videos about it pop up, so I had to share it with you. It is a fascinating and powerful effect that we use to propel us toward our goals. Learning about the 10 Rules for Creatives by Corita Kent was a good pep talk to remind us to consider everything as an experiment and to focus on our work instead of getting lost in the evaluation of it. Lastly, a new way of thinking about design and the analogy of designing as navigating whitewater. The world we live in is constantly changing, we need a new approach to solving the challenges as designers.
It's time to break free from all the noise and boost the signal with insights to help you unleash your creative potential.
Let's do it!
Today's Gems
💎 Pygmalion Effect
The expectations others have of us can significantly influence our performance. This is a dangerously powerful phenomenon that affects us mostly subconsciously. It can help us push ourselves harder because we want to meet the high expectations of others and help us believe we can achieve success. This also means that when others don't have high expectations of us, it can negatively affect our performance.
Behavioral psychologist Robert Rosenthal first examined this effect in 1973. He identified four factors that need to be in place for the Pygmalion Effect to occur:
Climate - Are we in an environment that is supportive of us?
Input - The actual support we receive from others who believe in us
Output - We will receive more opportunities to respond and engage
Feedback - We will receive better feedback
Basically, whether it is our manager, parent, or teacher, the impressions they have of us matter. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The better impression they have, the higher likelihood there will be of us rising up to the expectations.
In turn, our expectations can also influence others, so maintaining positive expectations of others can help them feel supported and help them perform to the best of their abilities.
💎 10 Rules for Creatives by Corita Kent
As I begin to create the manifesto for Low Fidelity, I came across a list of rules for creatives by the artist, educator, and advocate for social justice, Corita Kent (1918-1986). Corita was a Roman Catholic nun who lived in Los Angeles and taught art at LA's Immaculate Heart Covenant in 1967. Corita Kent created serigraphs, screenprints, on the topics of poverty, racism, war, and social justice.
“Love the moment. Flowers grow out of dark moments. Therefore, each moment is vital. It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each, is to succeed.” ~ Corita Kent
A few of the rules that stand out for me are:
RULE FOUR: Consider everything an experiment.
RULE SIX: Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there’s only make.
RULE SEVEN: The only rule is work.
Which rules stand out for you? Let me know in the comments.
💎 Skills Matter: Designing as navigating whitewater
Gone are the days of spending massive amounts of time addressing a single facet of a challenge and then moving on to the next in a linear, step-by-step approach. Our current reality is dynamic and in flux, so we need a new set of tools to tackle the ever-changing and increasingly complex world we live and work in.
The authors of the book Design Unbound: Designing for Emergence in a White Water World present an appropriate analogy for our times, designing as navigating whitewater. Just as a kayaker needs a unique set of tools and skills to navigate the ever-changing and rough whitewater, so do we as problem solvers need a new set of tools to navigate today's hyper-connected, rapidly changing, and radically contingent white water world.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful weekend.
Your Gem Collector,
Rizwan 💎⚒️💜