Thoughts

Reflections on design, business, and culture

Hydrologic Inspiration from the American Southwest

 
 

Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. — Lao Tzu

 

On a recent summer getaway, I visited several National Parks and other historic and essential landmarks in the American Southwest, such as Antelope Canyon, pictured above. As a simple kid from the vast cornfields of Indiana, the terrain was nothing like I had ever experienced anywhere across the United States or abroad. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Sometimes, it felt otherwordly, like someone had dropped me onto a new planet.

The consistent element between most places we visited (whether various arches, canyons, hoodoos, etc.) is how water had shaped the rock. And how after years of shaping, its effects are so unique that they’ve become tourist destinations for many to experience their unique beauty.

Visiting site after site, I began to ask myself how being more like water could help brands and cultures create lasting experiences. As I marveled at these destinations, I jotted down several ideas and a handful of questions. (Maybe a future post will spring from the below, but here they are as I captured them.)

Water is adaptable

  • Every brand, culture, or experience is different, and I can’t bring preconceived notions, ideas, or solutions to a problem. Constantly challenge assumptions because I don’t know what is around the bend, even if it feels familiar. Watch out for lookalike behavior(s) in organizations.

  • Embrace the walls. Constraint gives direction — the banks of a river guide without holding the water back. Friction is essential in this equation.

  • Water moves things. How can I flow through different parts of a project, process, or organization, collecting and connecting information, insights, or people along the way? How can I enable others to do the same?

  • In what ways can brands, cultures, and experiences be more adaptable?

Water is consistent

  • The rock wasn’t eroded overnight—it’s taken hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years. How do I consistently stick to what I know is true and continually guide the process and people when ambiguity surrounds me? When I feel like giving up? When the seasons of life or the project change?

  • The water is always moving. Sometimes it’s raging, and other times it’s a trickle. There is space for both; I should recognize when either is needed and react appropriately.

  • How can brands, cultures, and experiences be more consistent? How can they consistently elevate what’s most important so that it becomes integral to a brand and its culture?

Water is life-giving

  • Just as water has the power to shape rock, it also has the softness to sustain life.

  • It’s nearly impossible for things to survive without water. For centuries, all living things have needed and sought water for survival. How can brands, cultures, and experiences be more life-giving and essential for survival?

  • How can I view and position design as life-giving? How can I make the need and value of design more transparent so that it’s seen as an organizational-sustaining element? How do we open additional eyes to this truth?

Water can be life-taking

  • Flash floods have taken lives and have displaced roads, trees, and ways of life.

  • I believe in the power of design for good. But, like anything, when uncontrolled, it can destroy.

  • How can I better be attuned to my decisions and solutions to avoid using design to create problematic, violent, or oppressive solutions? What are the guardrails we should erect before starting a project?

 

I can only hope that after years of being adaptable, consistent, and striving to use design for life-giving, not life-taking solutions, I can overcome that which is rigid and hard and co-create positive, lasting experiences for people similar to the ones that I had in seeing the breathtaking terrain of the American Southwest.