Classroom, Teacher Chryssa Gagosi Classroom, Teacher Chryssa Gagosi

On “taste,” now hiring

Some design job listings now ask, without irony, for an arbiter of taste. I read one aloud in class. A student asked what everyone in the room was thinking: “Can you actually learn that? Or do you just have it?” It is the question I am asked most often, in different costumes. “Is design talent?” “Am I visual enough?” “Some people just see it, right?” And it usually comes from the students who are most worried that they don’t. For years I gave a diplomatic answer. I am now prepared to give a less diplomatic one.

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Teachings, UX, Design Thinking, Critical Thinking, Leadership Chryssa Gagosi Teachings, UX, Design Thinking, Critical Thinking, Leadership Chryssa Gagosi

The moment I look for in every leadership workshop

The most resistant person in any workshop I have ever run has never been the most junior person in the room.

It is almost always the most senior position.

This is not because senior leaders are not intelligent. But because they have spent years being the person with answers, a workshop asks them, for a few hours, to be the person with questions. This is a very different posture. For some people, it is genuinely threatening.

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