A new twist in the path
Working my way down South Kaibob Trail, Grand Canyon National Park, April 2022. Photo: Michelle Hobbs
Inspired by family trips to Montreal, where there’s a juxtaposition of classic and modern architectural design, I cultivated a reverence for refinement and detail at an early age. By choosing to practice graphic design right after college, I chose the challenge and safety of delivering a polished product. In my experience, the practice of it was a somewhat lonely one, though I also received a lot of praise for my designs and found success in the field.
Yet something was missing. At work, I looked to my employers and management for guidance, hoping that leadership would be able to guide me towards the full experience I was seeking. I also tried starting my own agency, freelancing, and moving into corporate environments… but I never felt I was as successful as I should have been.
I doubted myself. I never gave myself enough credit. I thought the missing piece was within me, and not in my chosen line of work.
I began to feel siloed. As long as I completed an project to satisfaction, my job was to move on to the next. While I loved (still love) design, I was waiting for permission from others. I was living a life by default and, ironically, not by design.
Three years ago, after a stint as an in-house creative director, I began looking for the next step in my design career. I was approached by a friend to consult on design thinking workshops where instead of delivering just a graphic design, the outputs were things like project plans, marketing strategies, and products. Though I didn’t know a lot about it, I felt a pull towards this way of working. After a lifetime of attention to detail, workshops allowed me to veer from perfection and move towards creativity, collaboration, and a willingness, perhaps even an expectation, to fail and fail fast.
Failure went from being a fear, to something I sought out, as an indicator that the workshops I was co-designing and co-facilitating were a success.
I learned as I went, though I still worried about departing completely from graphic design. The lightbulb went off after I was passed over for a promotion at my then job. So, I took a leap and left. I committed to being more intentional with my choices. I stopped waiting for permission.
I started talking to people about design workshops and my excitement and passion for it grew. Though people knew me first and foremost as a designer, they also reflected back to me that I was a good thought partner too, and that I was always one to ask critical questions. Being in a silo for much of my life, due to the inherent nature of my line of work, I never realized that the missing piece I had been seeking was not within me, but rather a sincere desire to be in collaboration with others, to be part of a greater design.
So, I am still doing design, but this is how I am doing it now:
Instead of working within a silo, I broke out of my own and now help companies to eliminate them altogether.
I am no longer solely responsible for a mere deliverable, but rather I guide teams towards their own creative solutions, leading to a multitude of concrete results.
Once led by my own perfectionism and a habit of making the “safe” choice, I’ve embraced the natural human tendency towards messiness, and leveraged it to help teams navigate change and thrive.
And above all, I’ve committed fully to living a life by design rather than by default, and to creating environments in which others can do the same in the ways that they work, and ultimately in the ways they think, behave, and take action.