Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 Design in confidence was the dummy Stephanie assessor, creative coach, speaker, and facilitator.
Speaker 0 00:00:10 In this episode, I will talk about understanding where the limits to your creative confidence come from. I'm making this episode because in confidence, many times I felt that an environment who was putting limits on myself, but environment, I mean society, family, or the place I used to work. But other times I felt that the limits, whether actually I found the after the weekend, they were telling me from myself. And what I want to share with you is how mindfulness and design help me make this distinction between the time where these limits were coming from the culture I was in and from myself, because this brought me a lot of times to blame it all on myself and unfairly undermined market confidence, or to blame it all on others, worsening or thirdly, the relationship towards my employer or my manager. If you struggle with these two, whether you are a lead of a team or not, I hope you will find useful whether wishing you up early in my career about the distinction between the limits we put ourselves and those that others put on us.
Speaker 0 00:01:27 I'm going to start doing this with a metaphor that my father told me once in an experiment, a scientist plays a number of fleas in a glass jar, and they quickly jump out. He then put the fleece back into the jar and place a glass lid. Over the top. The fleas began jumping, uh, hitting the glass lid, falling back down into the jar. After a while the scientist remove the glass lid. But by the time the fleece learned that they were able to jump higher than the jar. They limited themselves in. If the limit was removed, they couldn't believe that they could jump higher outside of the jar. Also what's interesting is that they knew baby fleas were imitating that parent's behavior. They could understand that they could jump outside the jar. So why I bring up this story? Because our ability job is our creative confidence. They lead all the rules, values, and behaviors that are incentivized or incentivize in our community, whether it's a family, a team organization, industrial society. And yes, it's true. Sometime those limits that lid is there, but sometime it isn't
Speaker 0 00:02:43 Us children. We have the critic confidence to just do things. And as grownups, we start to be aware of all the limits that tell us what we cannot do that because we are not allowed or because we are not able like people that tell us that I'm not creative, but children show us how well we're creative. That'd because they are naive. They don't know the rules or the limits. This makes them confident of being able to imagine things in different ways of doing new things, of learning by trying and growing and changing. But then when we grew up, societies, jars come in, that teaches us what is possible and what's not. And this limits sometime they are explicit like rules. And sometimes they aren't. They're invisible. Like the example that we see from others, like it happened to the baby fleas that they could not jump outside of the jar except probably miserable limits.
Speaker 0 00:03:40 Maybe asset touch on other episodes, not having creative or design or innovation in a job title. Sometimes you see a demographic because there might be a lack of a demographic group in a sector because you don't see many female doctors. You think that you cannot be a female doctor. Then there are with organization the celebrate on any specific type of behaviors. An example of that might be extroverted or loud. The bulls people compared to those, the introverted or shy, or a little bit more reserved, they might think that their behavior is not really welcomed. What were the example of invisible limits is when our organization doesn't have a clear policy or how to ask for a salary review, for example, or a promotion that doesn't create an environment where you are sure where they are allowed or not to ask for those things. Let's look at all this more in detail.
Speaker 0 00:04:44 So let's start with when you are part of a team and you're not a leader, I'm not suggesting to break the law or to remove any sorts of limits, but we, to be aware of the limits, if they exist in the system, try to work within the limits or try to push them so they can change the system. So for example, Rosa parks sat where she wasn't allowed to sit to change the system. But if they exist only in your head into work within you, push herself and trying to change yourself. And then the hopper with a lot of women who were the first in their profession, of course I'm referring to all the cultures, but that was allowed, there was no specific rule that was not allowing that profession to women. So how do you understand if the limits of that or not? Well, you do that by trying, you need to try to jump higher and see what happens. Sometimes you will see that the lead is there. Other times you see that you can break the lead. And other times you see that the lead is not there at all.
Speaker 0 00:06:00 I have a really privileged life compared to Rosa parks and many women bar, take your show. You're my example for my little problems in my life. That happened when I was applying for jobs, I still wasn't able to do, but asking for pay rise or promotions when starting my freelance career or when I wanted to write a blog. But the best example is speaking at conferences. I always want to do it, but I always thought that there were probably rules to identify and pull some people who they needed to contact you. Or there is probably a process that you have to follow. And whatever, only this year I tried and he's one of the biggest regrets of my life. I hope I've done that much more in the past and that, because I found out that sometimes there are no rules, anyone can apply other times yesterday stuff, process, and some specific criteria that you have to meet and then may happen or not.
Speaker 0 00:06:55 But that's okay. At least you try it also sometimes going beyond limits, you won't be a problem. Being creative means thinking outside the box means imagining of going beyond those limits and probably means thinking of Santee that has MP3 yet by anyone it's normal, that whoever is above you or came before you as a thought buddy yet. So if you thought about it, maybe there's not been a decision or whether you're thinking about it, it's allowed or not. There for example happens. If you apply for a job, they might have written a job spec of things that you have to do, but they maybe they didn't think a thing that you might do. So the father is not there. It doesn't mean that you're not allowed to do it. They just think that you could be able to do that thing in a company. So I suggested there to be creative. And if you hire in a leadership position, you remember that you have the responsibility of clarifying where the ladies, because removing, it might not be enough, but all the things I've just said. Now my let's talk more about this. As we said, like the fleas that don't jump higher, then a remove the lid is normal. That people that go used to previously limits need more encouragement.
Speaker 0 00:08:24 So as a leader, you're going to have to deal with invisible limits. So for example, if you want to change the culture of the workplace, you need to deal with the limits that the previous cultures was creating in people. So for example, no matter how you might stand for quality, there are gender bias, agenda, fairness outside of your company. So people that will come inside might have those in that mind. So for example, in projects or workshop, I led, and if I was to be as welcoming of people to chicken, often, it wasn't enough that because there was always invisible limits, the undermine the confidence when they participate to activities, for example, the presence of someone paid more, or someone be more vocal than others, or they just feel it don't fit in. Well, for example, they come from a culture where they are not allowed to fail, to say things in meetings.
Speaker 0 00:09:20 So it's important to always make clear limits and behaviors. You want to see a good example of that is the dress code. When you start in a company, you don't know what you're meant to wear, and sometimes there's not clarified a desk quite hard to understand what the limits are. So imagine something simple like there, Bob applied to many things in your company, like being able to share ideas on how to improve your organization. Well, taking the time to learn something new. So you can do your job better, or being able to ask for help or to help another team and collaborate with them. You need to be aware of what are the invisible limits that live in your company to make people feel they can or cannot do things so that you can be in control by making them as visible as possible. It's normally not.
Speaker 0 00:10:07 Everything's allowed people know that, but keep in mind that the, my thing, that there are more limits than what you think any sorts of important to not see this in black and white, but see this in shades of gray, it's important that you clarify was yes, it's forbidden. What is tolerated? What is welcome? What is incentivized and what is expected by someone? This allow people to understand what they must and must not do what they should, what they should not do and what they can and cannot do. And this opens them up to wonder what they might do, which is where creativity, liens and accept the surprise that you're going to get. Because of course, you're going to see a behavior that in future, you might forbid tolerate welcome incentivize, but expect, but in future, no retroactively, otherwise people are going to be punished because they've been creative, but don't expect the creative writing rules summer is going to be enough.
Speaker 0 00:11:15 A critic culture based on trust, takes time. And it's built with the habits of the people around them. At some point of heartbeats, uh, talking openly about problems, reward them specific behaviors, promoting examples from the outside. But most of our leading by example, and you can not expect to have one solution for everyone. People are different and society treats them differently, living in them or not, and undermining their confidence. So it's your responsibility. As a leader manager, facilitator, to create an equitable creative environment via understanding how different people need to get fit in different ways so that they can feel confident.
Speaker 0 00:12:04 And let me know how you inspire an equitable creative culture or how you find the strength to go beyond the limits of your creative confidence. Well, if you have any questions, go to design and confidence.com there, you can see how to contact me, but also find links to relevant resources and people. I found this fighting for this and other talks. I don't mind the what to talk about here does not a percent, any of my former or current employees, but sometimes you might find that the deserve at least a thank you. And if you found this aspiring, please leave a review and share this podcast. Tell people why you think this podcast help your creative confidence, become something else, a safe space to talk about these topics and to find support in building that confidence. Because if you got this far, I'm sure you're a great listener, which I thank you for. And now it's time for me to shut up so that you can listen to your own thoughts. After this episode, having Amanda does thank yourself, put the time to spend, to learn and grow.
