It happens all the time
Designers don’t seem to talk much about small‑scale relationship‑building. When we do, it’s through a framework, with a digital whiteboard, in a workshop – and my soul exits my body.
I spent this week planning how we propose to work with teams. I’m aiming for something that builds trust and keeps things light.
Loose working relationships between partner organisations and teams are fundamental to how we work in government. A bit of friendly piggybacking. Build some trust, get some work done.
Killing it with close inspection
Good informal partnerships are mutually beneficial ways of working with organisational overhead kept to a workable minimum. Replacing trust with formality is a good way to kill goodwill and momentum.
It works just like a need
I’m aware that I’m a designer who works most comfortably at a level of remove from the user. I like my users spherical and in a vacuum. A predictable set of behaviours and motivations, boiled down to some user needs.
I find it hard to resist doing this with the people I work with too. As long as the work makes sense to me, everything should fall into place. I abstract them into a set of interests and incentives. Abstracting people is necessary for dealing with scale and guaranteed to burn your relationships with a handful of colleagues.
Present company expect it
I don’t hate spending time on warming people up, finding the benefit we are both working towards and ultimately building trust. But I do find it easy to think of this as the work to do the work, less important and more intangible.
I can look back at times where I’ve not done this work and then been frustrated or surprised the project I’ve been driving hasn’t made the progress I expected.
And blow the Marxism to pieces
The people we’re working with are how we get work to happen. Building trust takes time. Showing people that we understand their needs and have the capability to deliver on our (however loose) commitments is the only way these informal relationships work.
Keeping these relationships human is the work and the joy. The shape of the relationship shapes the work. While it’s informal, it’s mutual. The relationship dies when the organisation absorbs it.