Your purpose is the cause or belief that drives us all. Knowing this helps designers choose the right projects to work on.
Take inspiration from the work of Simon Sinek to develop your own 'why statement'. Through a series of activities, you will explore the idea of The Golden Circle and how it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired.
Start by looking at the three tabs below.
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Simon Sinek presents a simple but powerful model for how leaders inspire action, starting with a golden circle and the question "Why?" His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright brothers**.**
{% embed url="https://youtu.be/qp0HIF3SfI4" %}
{% embed url="https://simonsinek.com/find-your-why-book-resources" %} {% endtab %}
{% tab title="Aim" %} Our aim is for to students develop a set of values and design principles personal to them which can becomes a manifesto and guide for their work.
Designers need to be able to articulate what they are interested in - to identify a specialism or approach that is individual to them.
This activity is on of several in a journey of self discovery
This is championed in the recent Design Council report:
“We need to change the narrative about what designers do, creating expectations that designers can challenge a brief in service of the planet and support the organisations they work with to imagine more hopeful futures” Beyond Net Zero, Design Council 2021
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{% tab title="To Do" %}
- Watch Simon Sinek's TED talk
- Complete the Branding activity
- Complete the Personal Position activity {% endtab %} {% endtabs %}
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{% tab title="DEFINITION" %} Sinek says people are inspired by a sense of purpose (or "Why"), and that this should come first when communicating, before "How" and "What". Sinek calls this triad the golden circle, a diagram of a bullseye (or concentric circles or onion diagram) with
- "Why" in the innermost circle (representing people's motives or purposes), surrounded by a ring labelled
- "How" (representing people's processes or methods), enclosed in a ring labelled
- "What" (representing results or outcomes).
He speculates about the biological factors behind this structure, such as the limbic system. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Start_with_Why) {% endtab %} {% endtabs %}
The first part of this workshop asks students to take a n example company (in the example below we have used Open Desk), look at their online presence and analyse what their Why, How and What might be.
{% tabs %} {% tab title="WHAT" %} Open Desk sells beautiful cnc cut plywood office furniture
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{% tab title="HOW" %} Open Desk connect customers to local makers with their own CNC machines
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{% tab title="WHY" %} Open Desk wants to change the way furniture is made to reduce the impact of mass manufacturing and shipping worldwide.
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In this Miro board activity, students are invited to visit the websites of brands and distributed design projects to identify their 'Why' or their brand mission statement.
{% embed url="https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_lnuESMM=?invite_link_id=420476557527" %} copy the content into your own miro board to edit {% endembed %}
The Japanese have the term “ikigai,” which can be translated to mean “a reason for being.” This is anything that gives a deep sense of purpose to a person’s life and makes it worthwhile. It is what you get up for every morning.
By finding it you will be able to answer: why are you a designer? What are your interests? what do you care about? How does that manifest? By knowing how to articulate your personal position it will help you choose a worthwhile topics for projects.
This miro asks you to fill in three circles to help you find your why, by thinking back to times you were happy and fulfilled in childhood, life and work you will get a sense of what your why statement could be.
When these three circles are filled in it helps to talk it through with a friend.
Recall what you liked to do when you were a kid, for example what was your happiest memory of your childhood?
What task at work would you do for free if you didn’t need the paycheck? What’s usually the reason why people thank you? Observe what people ask of you when they come to you for help.
Think back to the activities you did that made you forget about the passage of time. If you were given the chance to do something you love and not worry about money, what would it be?
Simon Senik provides us with a template to use as we draft our WHY Statement:
TO ____ SO THAT ____.
The first blank is your contribution — the contribution you make to the lives others through your WHY. And the second blank represents the impact of your contribution.
Here’s how Simon Sinek expresses his WHY:
“To inspire people to do the things that inspire them so that, together, we can change our world.”
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