Friday, December 16, 2016

Designer Approach to Solving Human Problems






                                     From our August visit to Belfast, Northern Ireland 

Lately, I've been reading lots of blogs on retirement and transitions in an effort to locate myself in what feels like a new time and place or phas even though I've been retired for
more than two years and in my new community just as long.

I've been enjoying the excellent site brainpickings.org with it emphasis on creativity and
ideas, writing, and reading -- activities that feed one's soul. I've continued to peruse 


favorites such intentionalretirement.com  and eretirements.com because each offers thoughtful, useful information. As I've been reading and pondering, I have found myself returning to the September post "Calling all Retirees" on Retired Syd's blog (retiredsyd.typepad.com). One of her readers, Walter openly commented on his dissatisfaction with retirement, how he feels lost, unhappy and unsure there is a retirement 
for him. Syd put out a call to her readers for their thoughts on what might be helpful to Walter.  While I empathized and sympathized with Walter's  dilemma, I wasn't so clear that 
suggestions from others would help him solve his problem. 

The more I pondered Walter's situation, the more I came to think that he and I share the same problem. In my blog reading and researching, I happened upon the ideas Bill Burnett and Dave Evans put forth on their web site designingyour.life and in their book (one I think Walter should read) of the same name based on their wildly popular Stanford University 
course.

 Why do I think Walter and I share the same problem? Because our problems are human 
problems. Retirement or pre-retirement is similar to any other life phase in that it can toss a 
crisis or two in the way, unwanted, undesired road blocks, challenges, dilemmas, barriers, 
and disease like cancer.









                                     Just two of my favorite photos from safari in SA 


The retirement R and I planned for our "Go Go Years" has been shelved, we hope 
temporarily because he has cancer. After too many months of PSA tests, biopsies, more 
high tech biopsies, MRIs, CT and body scans, more conversations with physicians about 
potency, nerve sparing procedures, and continence or incontinence then I thought I'd 
participate in over my lifetime, we are traveling the path from cancer diagnosis to best 
treatment which in this case will be -- surgery and then recovery.

Did we take a wrong turn on the retirement bliss highway?

Nope. This is just life and life is full of human problems. While I am a retired therapist trained to think about human issues in all kinds of ways, Burnett and Evans' "think like a designer" approach resonated with me. Some problems are static problems, like how to build a bridge or a house that are solved and then you are finished. Those are concrete kinds of problems. But life problems are "wicked problems," (a rather sinister term) that are not static, not solved one time and you are finished, but require an adaptable, flexible approach to solving for the solution criteria keep changing. 
I'll add that the criteria probably change with new situations and with age.

The solution criteria for my problem have changed and I suspect the solution criteria also 
changed for Walter.

For a complete explanation of Burnett and Evans' approach check out their book, blog, web 
site and/or You Tube presentations. But in brief, the two of them suggest thinking and acting 
like designers to solve nonstatic "wicked" problems by using three ideas -- get curious, talk to people, and try stuff. This last point, try stuff, is enormously important because action 
rather than pondering is rewarded and yields an outcome.

My point is that life is not static -- it is changeable, active, moving, variable with solution 
criteria that keep changing; even so, we must figure out how to go forward. Simple to state 
yet possibly complex to do.

Happy holidays.
                                              Botanic gardens in Singapore 

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