Marc Rettig, Fit Associates
– A fable: The Shoemaker and the Strategist; shoemaker thrives on connection (dance and real people), strategist thrives on control (march and abstractions)
– Hugh Dubberly, Dubberly Design, dubberly.com; wonderful conceptual models; “the creative process” poster; observe->reflect->make (loop)
– design = observation, reflection, and making
– design culture: values conversation, dialogue, open attention; quality of attention determines the quality of result
– culture = essential driving story, myth of your existance; identity, values, relationships, explanations
– culture->structure and process->form
– design culture vs design capacity; capacity = knowledge, tools, resources, processes, etc, a practice that produces better results; shift to iterative is a fundamental shift in capacity
– capacity in a closed culture = “that isn’t us”; observe orange, encounter closed culture, make a better blue; organization is unchanged by design experience; design must engage the culture to have meaningful results
– revenue, profits, competitivenes, even innovation are not enough to serve a culture of design; they are inwardly focused; you repeat your own patterns while the world changes around you
– judgement is the enemy of open observation; conquer it by moving your attention outside your normal center of attention; wonder
– cynicism is the enemy of wonder; conquer it by moving your center of attention outside of yourself, but as part of something bigger; letting go
– fear is the enemy of letting go; conquer it by moving your center of attention to a gathering of a great many possibilities
– design capacity in an open culture = “what do we need to become?”: observe orange, encounter open culture, we do blue but let’s work with orange; explore the possibilities
– design culture: after ever project, something in the culture has changed
– convene diversity and power as best you can (relates to observational research and collaboration story that led to redesigning their quality process)
– doing design together opens culture; “design is scary damn stuff”
– organizational becoming = systemic, participatory, emergent (trying something now); get the “other” in the same room and de-abstract it; document our bubble together, immerse together, give people time for reflection, facilitate great dialog
– Berkana prototypes; participatory narrative, open space technology, dialogic leadership, ritual dissent, intuitive methods: theater and art, conflict styles and NVC, match appropriate to complexity, etc.
– this stuff (driving cultural change) is personal, it’s hard; if you are lost, you’ve started; pay attention, be open
– Shoemaker and strategist conclusion: go into the village together, and other villages, realize they’d been clinging to their own stories, excited because they are asking new questions, they try experiments, and some are successful, they can’t wait to see what happens
