Categories: Field Notes

What a Designer taught me about Experience

What if experience is not about what you know?

Recently, I sat down with Industrial Designer Philippe Guichard for a conversation on On Experience.

Given I’m a former architect, we naturally talked about design and creativity. Plus, we talked about ego, failure, culture and comic books. But the biggest insight I took away wasn’t really about design at all; it was about experience.

Like many people, I grew up thinking experience was primarily about knowledge. This explained why resumes of senior professionals always look so impressive. They had long lists of projects, roles, and education. And the longer you work, the more you know, right?

But in talking with Philippe, I started to realise something different.

Knowing and Seeing

Perhaps experience is not about accumulating more knowledge, but instead, it changes what we see.

Philippe notices things that I walk past every day. He’s looking at the shape of a handle, measuring the size of a chair with his legs, questioning the intention behind a switch, counting the clicks it takes to get on a Zoom call and studying the lights on the ceiling.

Philippe is looking at how products influence our behaviour and the relationship between people, objects and environments.

But what’s really interesting… Most of the time, he’s doing this without even thinking about it. This is a way of seeing the world that has become automatic to him. As a designer, he can’t help but see these things.

It’s not because he’s smarter than the rest of us (he might be); and it’s not because he’s better at paying attention (although his meditation training must help); it’s because years of experience have trained his perception.

When a designer walks into a room, they see a world richer in detail because they have more distinctions available to them.

And the more I thought about this, the more I realised this isn’t unique to designers.

Shark Attacks, Coaches and Mindfulness

Last week, I wrote about a shark attack at Coogee Beach. A surf lifesaver on a paddle board went to help an injured swimmer. The interesting part wasn’t that he had experienced a shark attack before. He hadn’t. The interesting part was that he recognised what mattered in that moment. He thought ‘rescue’ not ‘shark’ because that’s what he’d been trained to see.

Like in countless other situations, the event was new, but he was able to spot what mattered the most. It’s the same as:

An experienced coach who hears a new problem but notices a familiar pattern.
An anthropologist who notices cultural behaviours that others take for granted.
A mindfulness practitioner who notices thoughts and reactions that pass unseen for most people.

In every case, experience changes what becomes visible.

The Change in Our Perception

And this makes me wonder whether we’ve misunderstood experience. Perhaps experience isn’t primarily about memory or knowledge. It’s not really about what we’ve lived or what we know. Instead, the real value of experience is that it changes our perception.

In a world that is constantly changing, this is hugely important. As leaders, we’re constantly facing new challenges, working with new clients, using new tech, solving new problems and facing new situations. There’s not much in our work that is an exact replay of what we’ve seen before.

Despite this, our experience remains valuable, something we can turn to navigate our way through life and work. And that’s because our experience is not a library of answers; instead, it’s a way of seeing. Further, by noticing more, we automatically create more possibilities for action.

This was one of many insights that emerged from my conversation with Philippe Guichard.

If you’re interested in how experience shapes the way we see the world, you can listen to or watch the full conversation here.

And, here’s a question for you to consider: What has your experience taught you to notice that others often miss?

(Take some time to reflect on this. Your answer decides the value you provide to the people you work with.)

More Field Notes

This is Field Note #2. Field Notes are observations from my ongoing enquiry into experience. To learn more about how to make the most of your experience, read these posts next: