career problems? try design thinking.

Let’s face it, we all have career problems. Think back to your first job… you’re 14 years old, working at Subway and your manager catches you sneakily eating the frozen cookies in the freezer room (and of course this happened to Shelley!)

As the years go by, we encounter new and more complex problems. From landing a new job, changing careers, to working with a difficult manager. These are challenges we will all face in our career. So how can we solve them? 

Ben Crothers, a designer, strategist, creative, and all-around good guy, uses design thinking to solve complex problems every day. Ben joins us on my millennial career to show us how we can use design thinking to solve career problems.  

So Ben, what is design thinking?

Design thinking is a mindset and a process that solves problems – all sorts of problems – by developing empathy and understanding for the people involved in that problem space, and taking an iterative approach to generating and testing lots of ideas to solve that problem. 

What makes it special is that anyone – not just designers – can apply it. You don’t need fancy software and a black turtleneck sweater to do it. It distils tricks and techniques that designers have been using since the 60s, to make them easier to do, and get results. Personally, I really like it because it’s a great way to invite lots of perspectives in on a problem space, to help solve it together. 

How can we use design thinking to solve our career problems?

Great question! Rather than treating a product (say, a chair or a website) as the object of design, you treat your career as the object of design. What this means is that you see your career in terms of its value to you and to those around you. Here’s where I find the Japanese concept of Ikigai really helpful (pronounced ‘icky guy’). Ikigai loosely translates as your reason for being, and helps you to plot value to you and others in four ways: doing what you love, doing what you’re good at, doing what the world needs, and doing what you can get paid for.

Look at the work you do right now through these four lenses. How much do you enjoy it? How good at it are you? How much does your team, or your organisation, or your customers need it? And are you getting paid enough? I’ve found this a useful way to step back and analyse my own work at different times in my career and think about which parts I want to dial up or down. 

It’s important to know that the aim is not to ‘score highly’ in all four areas at once. Despite what a lot of people might say, it incredibly rare to do that. That’s not what this is for. The aim is to help you analyse what you find most fulfilling and where you’re at right now. Remember, that when your circumstances change, the way you spread your energy around these four areas will change too.

Design thinking is great at distilling the problem that needs to be solved, and for whom. This gives us focus. So, when thinking about what to focus on in your career, you can think about: what problem does someone in the world (team, organisation, customers, community) need solving? Would I be good at solving that? Would I enjoy it? Would I get paid enough for it?

One career problem that people often encounter is should I be a manager or individual contributor, what’s your thoughts on that?

Oh, I’ve wrestled with this one a lot! I’ve been in the situation several times where I’ve been promoted to my level of incompetence! In other words, I was promoted to a lead/manager position, thinking that’s what I wanted… and then I felt completely out of my depth. 

There are two lessons I learned the hard way. The first is to think more about the impact you want to have, rather than the job role itself, and optimise for that. When you look at ‘manager/individual contributor’ roles through this lens of impact, you see that it’s OK to become a manager, and then go back to being an individual contributor. It’s OK to stay an individual contributor, and go deep in the craft of that job. It’s OK to be an individual contributor in a huge organisation, and then go to a new job as a manager in a tiny start-up. Because it’s more about the impact you want to have.

The second lesson I learned is that most of the skills you cultivate to be a great individual contributor won’t help you be a great manager. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but it’s the right pill, if you want to set yourself up for success. If you want to move into a management role, be prepared to invest in training and mentoring. A great first step is to do a strengths finder survey, like the High 5 Test. It helps you make the distinction between your vocational skills and lifelong strengths. It’s your strengths that will get you through.

Bottom line? Be ambitious about the impact you want to have, not the job role.

The career ladder is a source of many problems for people. How do you navigate it?

I might be being cheeky here, but apart from specific professions like medicine, law, teaching and so on, I don’t think there is a ladder anymore. Thinking of a career as a ladder makes you assume it’s kinda one way, up and down, and that’s just not true.

Instead, I think of it like a jungle gym. Hear me out on this one. On a jungle gym you can go up and down the ‘rungs’ on that ladder, but you can also go left and right onto other ‘ropes and holds’. You can swing across to a whole other part of this crazy weird world of work if you really want to! Job changes, promotions and opportunities don’t always have to be in a straight line. 

A lot of problems about career ladders are about the ‘glass ceiling’, so thinking of your career as a jungle gym can help you think about adjacent opportunities around that ceiling. I’ve been in a situation where there was a complete permafrost ceiling between my ambitions and the upper echelons of management. I really suck at playing office politics, and I knew I was never going to have the impact I wanted to have at that organisation. So, I left and grew my own facilitation business to take hold of those opportunities that I was prevented from taking hold of before. I’m really glad I swung out on that other rope, because that move is turning out pretty good so far.

ditch the ladder!

It’s obvious that design thinking can help to solve all kinds of problems. So next time you’re stuck on the career ladder, or you find the glass ceiling is killing your vibe, ditch the ladder!  Instead try the jungle gym. Experiment with new opportunities. Take sideways steps. And of course, consider those four lenses.  Ask yourself, what do I enjoy?, What am I good at? Would I get paid enough for? And what problem does someone in the world need solving? To start solving your career problems, and become more intentional about the impact you want to have, listen to the full episode here. 

For more about Ben Crothers, check out his business Bright Pilots or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Article Authors: Emily Bowen, Ben Crothers, Shelley Johnson.