Drawing from Bruce Mau Design.

I want to start Monday with a little perspective.

While online last night, I re-read An Incomplete Manifesto For Growth by design icon Bruce Mau. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. And if you have, I recommend re-reading it. It’s a quick read and very good.

His site describes it like this:

Written in 1998, the Incomplete Manifesto is an articulation of statements exemplifying Bruce Mau’s beliefs, strategies and motivations. Collectively, they are how we approach every project.

I’m personally working on Number 32.

Listen carefully. Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.

When I was younger I was very good listener. I would listen to my friends’ or coworkers’ ideas on a subject, stew on them a bit, and then usually form a competent opinion on the matter. Now that I’m older (not old,older), I feel like I’ve lost that skill. So much of my day is spent answering questions, giving instructions or following direction that I rarely, honestly listen to anyone or their ideas. When I’m “listening” I’m really just pausing, waiting for my turn to talk. I’m trying to change that.

So lately, I’ve been listening more. Like when my wife read the first draft of this post and told me she was bored, I listened. She was right. Like when my youngest son wanted to fix the workbench in our garage a certain way, I listened. He was right. Or when my Creative Director pushed back on my crappy ideas around brochure project, I listened. He was right.

I’m finding when I genuinely listen to my family and friends, I almost always learn something new. When I genuinely listen to our clients, I almost always do better work. When I genuinely listen to my coworkers, I hear the whispers of new ideas–and I love new ideas.

Winston Churchill said, “It takes courage to stand up and speak; it also takes courage to sit down and listen.” With this blog I’m trying to do a little of both.

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