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In co-design we try to adopt the following ways of being and doing to improve the way we all work together. Here are six mindsets to be mindful of as we step into this way of working.
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Episode Transcript
Co-design Mindsets
In co-design we try to adopt the following ways of being and doing to improve the way we all work together. Here are six mindsets to be mindful of as we step into this way of working.
Curiosity
Radical openness, an unwavering and lifelong desire to discover more.
Curiosity involves questioning, wondering and asking more; it can sometimes feel different to expertise, where we depend on our existing expert knowledge and skills instead of questioning.
We could use our knowledge and expertise to avoid curiosity, but we intentionally do the opposite.
To change the policies, programmes and services we design and deliver, we need to stay ever curious, challenge our current knowledge and thinking. Creativity is born of curiosity.
How to be curious
Begin with questions, not solutions
Dig deeper, never assume we know ‘enough’
Redefine our understanding of ‘expert’
Ask more questions, in new kinds of ways
Talk with people with views and experiences different from your own
Make space for ‘different truths’ and world views
Question how your values unconsciously shape what you do
Soften the need to be right
Celebrate others championing curiosity
Dull our own expectations, views, values
Being in the Grey
Being comfortable with ambiguity,
not being sure, not knowing what comes next.
Rather than presuming problems are clear cut and the solutions are obvious, accept that we live in a complex, uncertain world. The frustration we feel with drawn out planning can lead all of us to leap to conclusions and rushed solutions.
Time spent asking the right questions, being curious, and unpacking what we find can lead to deep and powerful insights and solutions.
How to be in the grey
Flip ‘expertise’ on its head
Take on a beginner’s mindset
Gain new insights / perspectives / solutions
Avoid leaping to typical or obvious solutions
Avoid premature simplification or jumping to assumptions
Pause and explore what our discomfort about uncertainty is about
Be comfortable in not knowing, not having the answers, not being sure
Learning by Doing
Trying things out with people, learning what works, adjusting what doesn’t.
We favour prototyping (rapid cycles of learning) as a method to help us quickly evaluate and discard ideas that don’t work and keep building on ideas that work. Involves making, trying, refining to make ideas tangible.
Shouldn’t be confused with piloting. By the time we get to piloting a service or programme, we should be sure about it and have tested our assumptions thoroughly.
How to learn by doing
Try things on a small and often incomplete scale
Discard ideas that don’t work
Test ideas without attachment
Favour making and doing over talking or having meetings
Encourage action in moments of inaction (e.g. get away from the boardroom table)
Test out and challenge assumptions
Collaborate and learn with others
Pause from doing, to honestly reflect
Energy, Passion & Hope
We need to be aware that co-design work is not always easy, and we will need to invest effort into maintaining spirits & commitment.
Some people will find co-design energising and exciting. But many people will be challenged by change, co-design processes, letting go of certainty and control, cognitive dissonance and hearing discomforting, painful lived experiences. We know it’s necessary to attend to these challenges. We make space to notice and attend to disconnections and to re-energise the group. We support people to connect with their passions and hopes.
Maintaining energy & hope
Investing time into activities that energise the group, and keep it cohesive, respectful, equitable and effective.
Noticing the impacts of challenging work, ideas and issues, and as needed, slowing down to attend to these.
Creating separate spaces for different members (eg, consumers, clinicians, carers) to gather and unpack what’s difficult, and bring it back to the group.
Ensuring everyone has access to discipline specific supervision, including consumer perspective supervision.
Discovering and holding to shared and different hopes in the group, bringing the group back to these.
There may be times when people in the group disconnect sharply. We see these as opportunities to reconnect more strongly - and support this with respectful & reciprocal listening.
Power
In a co-design we need to understand that power imbalance is often the biggest blocker of authentic participation and creativity.
We notice the different power held by people in our groups, including power that rests in certain roles, disciplines, hierarchies, and types of privilege. We take advice from those with the least power and privilege, to help us create spaces where power is more balanced. We creatively use many strategies to address power.
We know that treating people equally is likely to result in unequal outcomes. Instead, we move towards equity and social justice.
Noticing and balancing power
We consider power in our processes, and also in the composition of our groups, because having more of the most disadvantaged group is a practical way to address power (and safety). We never have just one consumer in any group.
We notice if power is becoming imbalanced, by being alert to tokenism, exclusion and silencing, and seeking regular advice from consumers on power.
We invest time and effort to support those with power and privilege to notice and understand it.
We encourage and support those with power to practice letting go of power so that others may take it up.
People are the Experts in their own lives
People know their lives best.
Too often, we speak about people but not with them. We assume we understand their needs and make important (and often costly, and sometimes harmful) decisions based on those assumptions. We need to identify and test our assumptions of people’s needs, with them. We need to carefully and respectfully listen to people speak about their own needs and ideas, including people with challenging messages that may feel hard to hear.
When people's needs and values are at the heart of solutions intended to serve them, they're far more likely to actually work.
Valuing Lived Experience
Value different kinds of expertise and ‘evidence’
Privilege the people at the heart of the issue - those who experience the problem most directly (usually consumers)
Welcome challenging voices and pay attention to lived experience that feels hard to hear
Encounter and embrace different world views
Be willing to be changed by what you hear
Challenge long-held power dynamics between ‘experts by profession’ and ‘experts by experience’. Embrace consumer perspective expertise and critical thinking.
Provide authentic opportunities for people with lived experience to create, test, refine, implement and lead.
