Eiffel Over

Tag: empathy

  • Preaching to the unconverted

    Cognitive dissonance is when we know something to be true but we don’t act as if it is true.

    In the built environment sector, the cognitive dissonance is that the living world knows how to operate complex systems much more effectively than engineers (and other humans) do. And yet, the living world is not revered and not held as a reference point.

    Imagine if the opposite were true, if we held deep reverence for the most sophisticated of operating system on the planet, this respect would be reflected in:

    • The stories we tell about new ideas and innovation.
    • The design references we put on the wall or use as inspiration.
    • The metrics we track to measure successful outcomes.
    • The way we relate to and engage with living systems.
    • The way we make design decisions.

    In short, deep respect for the living world would be reflected in our culture, which is another word for ‘how things get done’.

    But we know this isn’t the case. 

    Of course, we know the important, long-term work is to shift the culture in engineering and construction to see humans as part of a larger web of life. This is the work of changing paradigms and goals, which Donella Meadows tells us are the highest points of leverage in a system. Movements like Engineers Declare are doing great work at this level.

    But the reality is that most organisations in our sector do not have an ecocentric culture. We have the opportunity to influence people every day, but only if we can help them with the challenges they face. 

    The goal of regenerative design is for humans and the living world to survive, thrive and coevolve. But this isn’t the goal of most people running projects today. Their goals are usually much more occupied with the present: budgets, deadlines, dwindling resources and growing uncertainty. 

    This isn’t a criticism, but an observation. 

    So we need to find a bridge, a way to meet people where they are, tools that help tackle the challenges of today in ways that are compatible with a thriving future. A language that translates into both today’s conversations and tomorrow’s. 

    If we can use a shared language, we can start to close this cognitive dissonance, not by telling people they are wrong, but by meeting people and projects where they are.

    This work is about earning trust, building empathy, finding common ground and helping people do their jobs today in a way that sets the foundations for systems change tomorrow.

  • Designers as insiders

    This post has moved.
    It now lives on the Constructivist blog: read the updated version →

    Eiffel Over is now my stage for engineering-related clowning, singing, dancing and writing — you’ll find my professional writing on design and regenerative thinking over at Constructivist.

    Yesterday I said designers are outsiders. Here’s the tricky part: we are also insiders. 

    That’s because we need to earn the right to work with the people we are designing with and for.

    Being an insider means we are trusted and that we are in an empathetic relationship with the people we are seeking to influence.

    Just as being an outsider takes work, so does the trust and empathy building process of being an insider. But if we can’t convince people to move with us, our ideas may be good for nothing. 

  • Machine work

    Inputs

    Outputs

    KPIs

    Tools

    Models

    Performance

    Quantitative analysis

    Scaling up

    Accelerator

    Dashboard

    Timesheet

    Human resources 

    Bottom line 

    When we think of our work as the work of a machine, then is it any surprise that the incredible machines that we have built will one day starting doing it for us.

    But we do ourselves a disservice if we only think of ourselves in machine terms. If we leave out empathy, care, collective knowledge, grounded understanding of place, knowing that is not describable in words, trust, passion, play… then we are not bringing our whole selves to the work we need to do. 

    There are so many more ways of knowing than the knowledge we can enter into a computer. Let the computers do the computational part – they will be very good at it – and let us step into our wider intelligence as engineers (and other humans).

    This blog post was inspired by Reinventing Organizations, by Frederic Laloux. 

  • New developments in ‘i’

    Engineers have announced today some astounding new breakthroughs in their latest version of i.

    • Empathy – the ability to see the world from the perspective of another. To have a genuine, shared sense of pain. This ability is developed through twenty-year long training process called ‘childhood and adolescence’.
    • Embodied cognition – a way to develop understanding that emerges through the unique physical characteristics of each ‘i’ and how it moves through and experiences the world.
    • Music – audio signals organised into patterns and created by individual or groups of ‘i’s to communicate information that can’t be captured in a .txt file.
    • Culture – a collective intelligence that emerges when several i operating systems do things together.
    • Gut-feeling – a parallel processor providing checks and balances against the logic board.
    • Sleep – a remarkable sub-routine that both repairs the operating system and identifies new patterns.
    • Love – a higher order circuit that guides priorisation, builds system resilience and provides additional energy when resources are low.

    This technology is completely free and open-source.