{"id":16378,"date":"2018-11-05T08:51:33","date_gmt":"2018-11-05T08:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marvel7077.wpengine.com\/?p=16378"},"modified":"2020-12-14T08:32:29","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T08:32:29","slug":"the-key-to-unlocking-design-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/blog\/the-key-to-unlocking-design-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"The Key to Unlocking Design\u00a0Skills"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is self-awareness?<\/em> It\u2019s the old Socrates saying: \u201cknow thyself.\u201d It\u2019s the ability to see who we are clearly, to know our strengths and weaknesses and understand how we fit into the world.<\/p>\n

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How would one evaluate self-awareness? <\/em>Let\u2019s dive deeper into what self-awareness means. The phrase \u201cknow thyself\u201d doesn\u2019t actually come from Socrates; it\u2019s an inscription among many others at the Temple of Apollo. What Socrates built on top of this was linked to Plato\u2019s theory of reminiscence, in that he believed that everyone has knowledge\u2014it\u2019s just about the ability to recollect that knowledge. This is where we get the Socratic method, from one\u2019s own conversation with her own soul.<\/p>\n

In theory then, self-reflection and internal questioning should lend an excellent path to self-awareness, right, if it\u2019s about me<\/em> knowing me<\/em>?<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like you to put Socrates in the back of your head as we dig deeper.<\/p>\n

Tasha Eurich is a organizational psychologist and researcher who\u2019s done a lot of work in the business world around self-awareness and professional development. She\u2019s an accomplished author and has a TEDx talk<\/a> on self-awareness that\u2019s really eye-opening.<\/p>\n

What Tasha proposes is that people who are self-aware not only believe that they are through self-assessment, but also people who know them assess them in the same way.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What that means is that if I think I\u2019m self-aware, I need someone: my boss, a colleague, a friend, my husband\u2026 someone<\/em> to corroborate with me.<\/p>\n

In the study that Dr. Eurich and her team ran, the data showed that while 95% of folks surveyed thought they were self-aware, but only 10\u201315% actually were. That\u2019s pretty shocking, especially if we\u2019re wondering if we\u2019d be one of those ten.<\/p>\n

I would highly recommend watching her talk, but I\u2019ll summarize for you. The reason we\u2019re assessing ourselves incorrectly is that we\u2019re relying on introspection to evaluate ourselves, and the way we introspect is faulty.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThinking about ourselves is not related to knowing ourselves.\u201d
\n\u2014Tasha Eurich<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n

The problem with introspection is that as we\u2019re asking \u201cwhy\u201d to understand ourselves and the world around us, and in doing so it\u2019s incredibly easy to invent answers that feel true but are often very wrong. Things are hidden from our view, or often our consciousness. We can\u2019t self-evaluate accurately without adding our own bias, our own worldview, and our own \u201ctruth.\u201d And these things aren\u2019t facts.<\/p>\n

People who are self-aware ask what instead of why.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s put this in a really practical example. Let\u2019s say I got in a fight with my husband \u2014 and this is sheerly hypothetical, because obviously we never fight \u2014 and I\u2019m reflecting on what went wrong. I can choose one of two routes.<\/p>\n

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One route is I can ask why. Why<\/em> did I respond in that way? Why<\/em> is he being like this? Why<\/em> do we keep getting in the same argument?<\/p>\n

The other route involves asking what. What<\/em> happened that caused the argument? What<\/em> did I do to escalate it? What<\/em> could either of us do differently next time?<\/p>\n

You can see the difference to the two. In all of the whys, I can frankly make stuff up. Why<\/em> is he being like this? Because he doesn\u2019t care about me. Because he\u2019s mad at me for loading the dishwasher wrong. Because he\u2019s inflexible.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019m doing here is I\u2019m fabricating. I\u2019m making up things that I\u2019m not confident in, but they make up reasonable-to-me answers to my why<\/em> question, and they make me feel better to have an answer than not to have any.<\/p>\n

But in the whats, I can objectively and practically evaluate what happened, with facts.<\/p>\n

What<\/em> caused the argument? I took over the nightly cooking, and told him he was doing it wrong.<\/p>\n

Okay.<\/em><\/p>\n

What<\/em> did I do to escalate it? Well, I said he never does anything around the house.<\/p>\n

Whoops.<\/em><\/p>\n

What<\/em> could I do differently next time?<\/p>\n

Now you can see the difference between a why<\/em> and a what<\/em> in introspection. Whats move us forward. Whys move us backward. And please note, I\u2019m not saying we should never ask why; why is an excellent way to probe deeper and learn about thoughts and behaviors. What I\u2019m suggesting is that when we\u2019re evaluating ourselves and those around us and the things close to us, take the opportunities that could be whys, and see if you can translate them into whats. Today, we\u2019ll call this \u201cwhat-over-why.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve now got two key pieces to self-awareness. Those people who are self-aware first assess themselves in the same way as someone who knows them well<\/strong>, and they ask what over why<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Using these two things, let\u2019s go over about how self-awareness affects design skills<\/a>, and then we\u2019ll address how we evaluate self-awareness.<\/p>\n

How self-awareness is interlocked with design\u00a0skills<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s first talk through the skills that self-awareness can unlock. There are many, but I\u2019d like to focus on three that immediately build upon each other from self-awareness practices: curiosity, authenticity, and flexibility. To get at these skills, we\u2019ll want to pair dual assessment with what-over-why.<\/p>\n

Curiosity<\/h2>\n

If we agree that self-awareness requires a complementary assessment from someone who knows us, think of what that process looked like. We had to be curious<\/em> if we were self-aware. We had to ask<\/em> someone to assess us, and we had to come to understand and believe what that assessment means. We had to be curious<\/em> to check our evaluations against the other person\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Why is curiosity important in design?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When we desire to learn new things or new ways of doing things, we\u2019re better problem solvers. We lay out and explore problems before offering solutions. We talk to people instead of answering questions ourselves. We use evidence over conjecture.<\/p>\n

Take for example my friend and former colleague Evan. Evan is a UX designer, and one of the most curious people I know. He\u2019s always digging in to learn more and compare perspectives. He seeks knowledge and understanding through inquiry to inform his design decision-making.<\/p>\n

To do this, he asks things like what <\/em>happened or what <\/em>could I do differently rather than why <\/em>did this happen or why <\/em>isn\u2019t this good enough. He brings others in to compare perspectives rather than going it alone.<\/p>\n

Because of his what-over-why and dual assessment habits \u2014 combined with his curiosity - he\u2019s an excellent researcher, product strategist, and generative designer.<\/p>\n

Authenticity<\/h2>\n

What about authenticity? Authentic people are confident; they know themselves. They are who they are, to themselves and to others. This stems from self-awareness.<\/p>\n

Why is authenticity important in design?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When a designer is able to really be themselves and show themselves truthfully and honestly to teammates and leaders, it leads to great culture, where people feel safe to be themselves and to project their work.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go back to Evan. He\u2019s someone who used to really keep to himself. He\u2019s introverted, and leads a very private life. He is a warm, caring, and kind human being, and a superb designer.<\/p>\n

The challenge was, when he started on the team, his teammates couldn\u2019t see this. What they saw was a standoffish, egotistical teammate. They saw his curiosity as accusatory.<\/p>\n

Evan knew something wasn\u2019t right and made a decisive move to change this. He started by using his curiosity. He asked for feedback from his manager and from his peers. He asked things like: what <\/em>are your impressions of me? and what <\/em>could I be doing differently?<\/p>\n

From this, he learned that his teammates needed to know more about his strategic thinking, and that he had a tendency to cut people off. He had to leverage the tools that lead to self-awareness \u2014 what-over-why and dual assessment habits \u2014 and combine it with curiosity to find out how to be more authentic.<\/p>\n

His move towards self-awareness significantly changed the dynamic of the team. He began to see himself how others saw him and made a few behavior modifications, which encouraged others to follow the same pursuit. His authenticity built the foundation for a psychologically safe team environment, where feedback is given honestly and received openly. And that team is thriving now.<\/p>\n

Flexibility<\/h2>\n

If we\u2019re self-aware like Evan, we\u2019ve asked for feedback. We also are keenly aware of how others see us, since it\u2019s now the way we see ourselves. We likely had to flex our behavior or understanding based on the results.<\/p>\n

Why is flexibility important in design?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Design process and critique points to all of this. Flexible designers adapt as necessary based on new information, feedback, or perspective. They take feedback well\u2014think about design critique, or stakeholder feedback or user interviews\u2014and respond to it. They\u2019re iterative, and are always looking for improvements.<\/p>\n

Take for example, Julie. Julie is a product designer on my team who\u2019s self-aware, curious, and authentic, which has allowed her to be incredibly flexible.<\/p>\n

She asks for feedback, and incorporates it into her design work. Her last launch went through twelve painstaking pivots and iterations because she valued the feedback that allowed her to modify.<\/p>\n

She leads with question like what <\/em>could be improved upon rather than why<\/em> is this not working, and she\u2019s brought in multiple designers to hash out directions and evaluate them together.<\/p>\n

Because of her what-over-why and dual assessment habits\u2014combined with her curiosity, authenticity, and flexibility\u2014she\u2019s a favorite of not only teammates, but cross-functional leaders and stakeholders. She effectively negotiates by seeking to understand multiples needs and values, and she flexes deliverables to maximize results for all parties.<\/p>\n

It probably goes with out saying, but both Evan and Julie are best in class and have some solid skills under their belts. Their work is exceptional, their teammates like them\u2014they\u2019re going places. The common thread? A path towards self-awareness.<\/p>\n

How we evaluate self-awareness<\/h2>\n

We want self-aware people on our teams. As we\u2019re hiring folks, mentoring and developing them, how do we gauge self-awareness?<\/p>\n

Bringing candidates in<\/h2>\n

As we\u2019re building teams, it would be awesome if every person we hired started off with self-awareness, right? How might we evaluate self awareness in the interviewing process?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Evaluating self-awareness isn\u2019t about looking just at self-awareness as a singular skill check box (are you self-aware or not); it\u2019s about evaluating other facets and skills and comparing notes. From that we extract self-awareness.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say I\u2019m hiring for a junior product designer.<\/p>\n

I know I want baseline end-to-end skills, and I\u2019ve established that we have six skills valuable to my team, one of them being self-awareness.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the interview process, I want to collect evidence of these skills. I don\u2019t want the process to be too draining or redundant, because I care deeply about candidate experience. So I want to arrange a panel with an agenda that covers all of these skills effectively.<\/p>\n

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For example, I might have one teammate or multiple teammates conduct a portfolio review where we gauge all of the core skills and soft skills, and I may have another conduct a background interview where they specifically look at soft skills through behavioral questions.<\/p>\n

In the interview, each interviewer will be equipped with both a guide and a rubric that they\u2019ve familiarized themselves with. The rubric will have our skills, the skill descriptions, and a simple scale assessment. After their sessions, each interviewer will step back and write targeted feedback against that rubric, very simply, with the examples they have \u2014 what did they just see and hear?<\/p>\n

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We also want to zero in on how the candidate answered questions. Do they do so with evidence, referring to whats? Do they hypothesize frequently where evidence could have been found, instead relying on whys? Are they using what-over-why whenever possible?<\/p>\n

When we as interviewers come together, we\u2019ll lay down our observations against each others and look for themes and patterns. For those of you who conduct user research, this is pretty easy for you; first we observe, and then we synthesize.<\/p>\n

That synthesis is super important in interviewing, where we can see patterns that point to a lack of or strength in self-awareness:<\/p>\n