💎 Friday Gems (40-hr Trap, Real Skills, The Mindful Designer, Designerly Inventory, and much more!)
Hi there,
Saturday is the new Friday, ok, maybe not, sorry for the delay in posting this week’s Friday Gems, but here it is.
Also, I’m starting a new permanent section in this issue called “The Mindful Designer” in which I share a gem to help bring more awareness, understanding, and mindfulness into our design practice so we can make a positive impact in the world around us.
Also Also, a few prompts for you:
What did you think of this issue?
What do you hope to see in the next one?
Hit reply and let me know. I read every response. Thanks! 💜
On to the gems!
In this week’s edition:
Ways of Working: Ditching the 40-Hour Trap
Keeping It Real: Let’s stop calling them “soft skills” — and call them “real skills” instead
⚡️Announcing a new section - The Mindful Designer: A Designerly Inventory
Wisdom: How to survive being online
Ways of Working
💎 Ditching the 40-Hour Trap
If you have ever been micro-managed, you know that feeling of dread that comes over you as you arrive at work not a second later than 9am and not leaving a second earlier than 5pm or not being out of your seat for too long and making sure the boss is hearing you type away to show that you are busy working every minute of the day.
Companies often think micromanagement and overwork will get the most out of their employees.
Hopefully you haven’t experienced those types of horrible workplaces that don’t trust you to make the right choices and suck the creative soul right out of you.
There is a better approach, to treat people like adults by:
Giving them autonomy to decide how and when they work best
Focusing on results, not hours worked
Respecting boundaries and recognizing that rest fuels better work
This is where the Results-Only Work Framework (ROWE), which is a management strategy where employees are measured by the results they produce instead of the hours they work shines.
At its core,ROWE is about trust, accountability, and prioritizing impact over busywork
Yes, there are drawbacks and risks if not implemented correctly. If the employees don’t have clear goals to meet or if they have an unrealistic workload which is why
a ROWE approach thrives when paired with clearly defined expectations and communication standards to avoid burnout.
It’s time to shift the focus from meaningless metrics such as hours worked to help employees deliver the best work possible, which is a more human-centered approach. ✊🏽
Source: Marissa Goldberg in Remotely Interesting
Keeping It Real
💎 Let’s stop calling them “soft skills” — and call them “real skills” instead
We give too little respect to the other skills when we call them “soft” and imply that they’re optional. What actually separates thriving organizations from struggling ones are the difficult-to-measure attitudes, processes and perceptions of the people who do the work.
I love this idea by Seth Godin to change our approach to “soft-skills” as if they are nice to have and that vocational skills such as graphic design, marketing, and research are all that matter.
But we let ourselves off the hook when it comes to decision-making, eager participation, dancing with fear, speaking with authority, working in teams, seeing the truth, speaking the truth, inspiring others, doing more than we’re asked, caring and being willing to change things. We underinvest in this training, fearful that these things are innate and can’t be taught.
Instead let’s call them “real skills” because these are interpersonal skills and leadership skills, skills that we don’t get degrees in and can’t easily be measured.
Imagine welcoming a new team member who is charismatic, driven, inspiring, with deep-listening skills and with patience.
It’s time to keep it real. ✊🏽
Source: Seth Godin in Ideas.Ted.com
Announcing a new permanent section in this newsletter called The Mindful Designer, in which I will share ideas and insights to help designers bring more awareness, curiosity, critical thinking, creativity, and mindfulness into their work, their discipline, and within themselves so they can live a more fulfilling life.
💜 A Designerly Inventory
Most importantly, the list is not to be seen as a definitive “how to” guide—design libraries are already filled with these. Instead, it should be read as a series of prompts to spark conversations, help designers challenge the unquestionable truths in their discipline, and to think more critically about what they do to make the world a better, and at times, a worse place.
Danah Abdulla, is a Palestinian-Canadian designer, educator and researcher who focuses on new narratives and practices in design that push the disciplinary boundaries and definitions of the design discipline.
Danah created an inventory of things designers should think about in order for them to know, to spark conversations, to help designers challenge the unquestionable truths in their disciplines, to think more critically about what they do to make the world a better or worse place, to become aware, to know themselves, and from my point of view, to become a mindful designer.
Here are a few of the points Danah makes:
#8. Hospitality - As designers we focus on the needs of people but instead of dictating an approach from a “self-absorbed designerly way” can we approach the people we design for with understanding and a “caring ear”.
#34. Design’s unintended consequences - As designers we need to acknowledge that the designs we create have real world social, economic, and political repercussions. We must work hard to reduce any negative effects. To help us remember this point is, as Tony Fry, a design theorist said, “that everything designed goes on designing”.
#36. How design perpetuates bias, inequalities and racial violence - When we lack input from diverse voices in our design process, or when we design products that fit our taste because “we” want it and that “we would use”, “the burden tends to fall disproportionately on women, on children or the elderly, or on the petite or oversized, in addition to those with physical disabilities, both visible and invisible—anyone who is “not average.””
Pick up Danah’s book Designerly ways of knowing: a working inventory of things a designer should know to read all of the ways we can be more aware and mindful as designers.
Source: Danah Abdulla in Futuress.org
Wisdom
💎 How to survive being online
Am I telling you to bury your head in the sand? Far from it. I am telling you to moderate your exposure to the bullshit. Your retweet or reskeet or repost is not going to save democracy. Your hot take on some idiot’s confirmation hearing is, at most, freaking out your friends. And if you want to remain on social media, as I will be, do your best to separate the signal from the noise. Follow people who are engaged in your community, follow people who are engaged in helping others [..] And yes, follow some trusted news sources, and double check their shit with a second news source.
But the people spreading panic to generate attention for themselves? Be they elected idiots, or oligarchs, or regular folks like me and you—block at will.
Sometimes you gotta listen to the radio and trust the DJ.
That’s it for this week’s gems! See you next time!
Curiosity will save us,
