One morning several years ago, I suddenly felt like I had reached a plateau in my career, and for the first time, struggled to know what the next step was. This, after a lifelong pursuit of the concrete goal of becoming a physician. Like many, I had taken the straight and narrow path from high school to graduate school, to medical school with the aim to get into the best post-graduate training programs that I could…as if there was a defined, universal best. At the end of that very long training, I found myself on the edge of a proverbial cliff. I had to make the transition to the real-world job market and find the best job. But I didn’t know what best was or even how to think about it. And so, I did what many of us do, I asked those around me for advice. What I got was a potpourri of different opinions, with the common thread involving being at the right place at the right time as some sort of opportunity opens. Although that is all well and good, it is not an organizing concept that is usable when one is trying to figure out what to do with one’s life.
Fast forward to 15 years later, I am in the middle of moderating a session for junior faculty, introducing them to the concept of design thinking as a tool to help sort out one’s career. During the break one of the participants came up to me and started talking about the wall that he had hit in his career and didn’t know what to do next. He had expected that those senior to him, including his department chair would have his best interest in mind and help mentor him, but he found that this was not occurring. He expressed surprise, as this was a department in which he was a trainee, so he figured that he would continue to receive the same mentorship that he had before. He was stuck and did not know how to navigate his way forward. Perhaps the common trap is that the training structures that many of us go through give the illusion of a clear and concrete path with a tangible reward at the end of the road. But this is a fallacy.
The turning point for me came several years ago when I was a first-time scholar at the Harvard Macy Institute’s Leading Innovations in Healthcare and Education program where I was first introduced to the concept of design thinking. I was initially reluctant as it sounded like it was related to complicated physics or engineering principles. But the deeper that I dove the more I realized that it is anything but that. It is a framework in which to approach complicated problems where there is no single best solution. When I got back to my home institution, I was challenged by a colleague to engage in these concepts and present them in a workshop. Through this, I discovered that design thinking could not only be used to design a product or service, but it could be applied to designing one’s own life and career.
Design thinking forces one to consider a meta-approach to career and life problems. It is a way to put oneself in the position of builder and designer of one’s own career. It provides the concepts needed to put a problem into design form and then frames the problem in a way that generative solutions may be obtained. Once a problem is framed in the right way, the right questions may be asked in order to solve it.
The great ninja move in design thinking is the process of reframing. When attempting to reframe there are several important steps in the process. First, it is important to try and distill the personal biases out of the problem itself. The problem is not “my coworker is disengaged.” The problem reframed is that “my coworker is not a good communicator who makes decisions that affect my workday in a non-transparent manner.” In reframing the problem, elements are drawn out that can be approached in a problem-solving manner. Next, it is important to avoid common pitfalls which can immediately grind things to a halt. Work from the Stanford Design lab defines two types of common problems to avoid.
- Gravity problems: These are problems framed in an impossible way, like trying to say, “if only I did not have to account for the force of gravity,” or “if only there was not a building in the way I could walk the straight line from point A to point B.” Beware of these problems, as they are not design problems, and therefore by definition, not solvable.
- Anchoring problems: These are problems in which one builds a non-viable solution into the problem itself. For example: “If only I had the money to build a tennis court, I could play tennis.” This obscures the ability to solve the true problem, which is, “How can I create the opportunity to play tennis?” and not, “How do I make enough money to build a tennis court?” Beware of “if only” thinking. In the design thinking world, this is a harbinger of going down a non-solvable solution pathway.
Thinking back to the design session that I was moderating, my main words of encouragement to my junior colleague were to consider using design thinking as a tool to take control of his situation, and work on the skill of reframing as a start. As a result, the conversation went from “If only my senior colleagues were looking out for my career” to a reframe of “How I might schedule some regular time with my senior colleagues each month to check in and talk about career goals.” Although this approach is not a panacea, it can at least be a small step, or a compass to help navigate the nebulous and unclear reality of the professional world, and life.
Did you know that the Harvard Macy Institute Community Blog has had more than 400 posts? Previous blog posts have explored topics including embracing project management strategies, using design thinking to build a community of practice, and empathy development.
Michael Levy
