Intuition or Design Thinking?

Twenty years ago I remember hearing the saying, “Once a designer, always a designer”. Professionals, both freshly graduated and those nearing retirement, would tell me, “I’ll never retire. I’ll keep designing, but just at a slower pace.” There was a strong sense of fulfillment and passion in the way they said it; the master craftsperson’s love of what they do.

However, in the past few years, what I’ve been hearing instead is alarming. Young designers who have only been working in the industry for a few years have a short term view of their design careers, expressing their exhaustion and need to focus on side projects to stay sane. One young designer summarised how she felt about the situation perfectly when saying, “I don’t want to do this (design) for too long. I’m investing my salary in shares and in venture capital so I can get out of it after five years and do something else.” And the designers who are still working in their profession after 15-20 years would say, “Design used to be more creative then.” Looking to the left of me, I’d see leading software developers who joined me in the design process risk burnout, telling me, “I have to do something else. I’m training in another profession. It’s just getting harder.” To the right of me, I’d hear my manager remind me, “Don’t risk getting burnt out. I went through the same as what you’re going through and ended up in hospital with a heart attack. I had to take a break from the design industry for a while.” Then he went on to explain his path of return during those gap years. Hearing that didn’t prevent me from taking myself to hospital one day either, scared that I too was experiencing a heart attack. The doctors couldn’t find anything on me and said it was muscular tension. Not being satisfied with this superficial answer, I sought deeper meaning from a healer and began to see the cause was purely energetic. More on these conversations later.

Like the senior designers, I too remember Design being more fun. So what happened? What made Design so dangerously unfulfilling?

In the industry, there was a gradual but drastic switch from working with intuition to justification; to justify why we are doing every single step in the creative process to prove a design valid. Let me explain and tell the story of what I observed as I reclaimed my true way of living and being creative.

Before I do, let’s pause for a moment to consider Oxford Languages’ definition of what intuition truly means, appreciating the juxtaposition within the definition.

The ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning. Example: “We shall allow our intuition to guide us."

Did you see how in this sentence, the definition juxtaposes what is true intuition with the complete contrast of what it is not? The “need for conscious reasoning” is the absolute killer of intuition.

Today’s way of professional Design has shifted to read more like the reverse:

Conscious reasoning without the ability to understand something instinctively. (Read as: to avoid understanding something instinctively)

The brief story I opened this blog post with I’m is only a summary, the tip of the iceberg. The destructive ramifications to persons and businesses worldwide are unfathomable. The corrupted outcomes are inescapable when you consider the implications in your own life first.

My process of realisation always starts with looking at how I’m living my life first. Each time I reclaim my true playful way of working with intuition, I also see with clarity the next piece of emotional baggage that’s holding me back. I see an unhelpful approach to life and work that I need to shed. In that moment, I then widen my view to realise how the same flawed thinking has also fooled colleagues, companies, and entire industries that designers serve, not to mention its impact on the rest of our planet. As designers, the way we work is very public and it does have an impact on the environment.

By emotional baggage, I specifically mean:

• Past hurts that make me reactive to situations because I judge those situations as being the same old scenario as before, instead of observing what’s new about them, what’s presenting itself and seeing the opportunity to heal that hurt that is colouring the situation.

• Ideals, beliefs and pictures of how life and work should be.

• Methods and processes I cling to for job security and to fit in with the people around me, instead of being in the wonderment of what is emerging and needed of me to do next.

Emotional baggage plays an important role that stops us from working with intuition.

However, these are all easy to recognise because we experience grappling with them. What lays invisible at the core is something that happens in the speed of a little thought; “But why?”. It’s so fast we don’t see it. It’s what’s given birth to a whole way of doing design, a movement called Design Thinking, also known as Human Centred Design.

That little “but why” is a type of questioning that is a second guessing of what we already felt impulsed to do. That way of doubting what’s next is born out of a need to know why we are selecting a design method. That need to know develops a feeling of insecurity in the body, and that pent up tension develops into stress, exhaustion, burnout and eventually illness if left unaddressed. Another way to describe the harm we are enduring is that we are mandated by the way Design Thinking is taught, to doubt ourselves. Ironically, the industry sells Design Thinking as a method that builds Creative Confidence when in fact it’s destroying it. It’s suppressing an innate creative ability that was and remains always there, present, on tap, waiting for us to return to use it.

Needing to know why we are selecting a Design Thinking method can also cost months or even years of delay in product development, if not lead to the death of a project and bankruptcy, due to unnecessary extensive effort. What I observed is that when I doubt what I sensed I needed to do next in the design process, or doubt an amazing idea for a product that’s taken everything the company and customer needs into consideration perfectly, it often feels too simple, too brilliant, too innovative for anyone to handle and so in fear of being rejected and not being trusted in my senior role, I choose to follow the textbook way of doing design by mapping out an extensive list of research methods that will give our team the evidence to prove that the original idea of a product design is going to work.

How many teams do we see worldwide promoting on social media and in the office how incredibly hard the team had to work to meet a deadline at the cost of their own health and late nights, or that they asked for an extension on the project?

From my experience, intuition doesn’t always give the reason “why” right away, before I take action, unless I get a vision of the design and product strategy in its entirety. Often it only delivers the “why” after I executed what I felt to do, and sometimes never if I have experienced tension and therefore not been sensitive to receive a greater understanding. But when I do receive the “why”, it is deeply enriching beyond what any finances and job security can provide, to support me evolving (growing). Instead of giving the “why” immediately, intuition offers me to enjoy the experience of working and be in the wonderment in the moment of what is unfolding before my very eyes, so that I stay observant and attentive to my task, while remaining alert and sensitive to everything and everyone around me in a way that fills me with a calming assuredness and inner confidence, like “I’ve got this. I feel mature, and an inner sense of authority.” In short, needing to know makes us delay by relying on effortful methods plucked from a ‘trusted’ source outside ourselves (like a textbook) and stay insecure. In complete contrast, resourcing intuition supports us remain calm and focused, while enriching us with enjoying what we’re doing in the moment and experiencing deeper realisations that drop in when we’re calm and ready to receive them, often after we feel a task is done or we’ve observed a situation take place.

You may see it played out in detective TV series like Sherlock Holmes, where we follow the detective go about doing things and ask questions that seem to have no practical logic. At the end, the mystery of the whole crime scene seems suddenly “elementary my dear”. It may seem totally hilarious when we view the detective’s process like that, and that is because the process is meant to be hilarious. Designing is meant to be fun! When I am innovating, I often giggle and laugh because I am astounded by how brilliantly simple the design ideas I receive are. To me, giggling is now a marker that I’m on the right track.