GRATITUDE...a word often forgotten in the context of organisations and academia ... but a pillar to CHANGE processes!

Most of the time we think that a set of words are only from our personal universe, family or if we want, of our individual and intimate forum ...

Words like Passion, Friendship, Gratitude, Fellowship or even Honesty are some examples of concepts that are far removed from the day to day of organisations and companies ... Why?

I think that, in our professional context, we try to defend ourselves from exposing emotions or even exposing ourselves to disappointments. On the one hand, we live daily with people we do not know, on the other hand, we try not to create too many expectations that can later be defrauded and in this way limit our action and our relational motivation.

But the reality is, it is exactly in our professional context that we spend most of our time in our lives! If this is so why do we want limits to the expression of our basic "being"! We are emotional beings and built of affections, that seek "integration, acceptance and recognition" in a constant way! We also feel good and full of our existence when "we integrate, accept and recognise the" Other. "

However we have been taught that we should not mix "emotions with business", society itself thus induces and stimulates!

I ask myself, forcing the human being to have behaviours that are inhibiting their nature will be the most intelligent way to build the organisations of the present and the future!

But I wonder if it is just the rules, the hierarchies, the order that will inspire the co-workers to do their best, to evolve and to feel the Organisation as their own?

The reflection is simple ... We no longer live in the Industrial Age, in "repetition" and "quantity" ... We live in the Age of Oneness, Altruism, Collaboration and Creativity!

While designing, both the organisations and the Academy have to CHANGE and few are actually doing it!

CHANGE in this case means on your base unit question:

Manifesto - What is My / Our Role in the World of Today and the Future ?;

Mentality - Am I willing to change my belief system, values and attitude?

Method - Can I question what I do, how I do it and essentially why I do it?

Movement - Am I willing to Do, to risk and to learn while I do?

Mobility - Am I willing to get out of Comfort, Structure and Certainty and continually seek Uncertainty, Discomfort or Adapt Me?

My point is that we need to make Organisations more focused on human and "emotional" factors to achieve this transformation! And for this the key word and the central feature of the process of change is, for me, the word GRATITUDE! Top-down and Bottom-up (we often forget that gratitude MUST also exist also from the bottom up!).

In my personal case and after a Year of true CHANGE, from comfort and certainty to uncertainty, from the known to the unknown, I AM GRATEFUL! I explain why:

Manifesto - I came to an academic organisation that re-built itself exactly having as a pillar a very strong Manifesto: Design a new formative offer in Design oriented to a society of the present and of the future, centered on the search for the individuality and Uniqueness of each one of the their students and where teachers guide the search and decoding of information and knowledge in a personalised way to the Creative Being that each one of them is building! It is from polishing the best of each student that we help to draw a "whole" better!

Mentality - I am in a team of people who want together and with a deep respect for each one of us, re-think and re-found themselves, and in that way open to help students adapt to new practices and new ways of learning in Design!

Method - It is one of the founding assumptions of the new DELLI Design Course that we are all willing to CHANGE and constantly question our processes and our rational ones, many based on very rich life and teaching experiences, but which are now only very relevant variables in the re-construction oriented to the present and future of the Teaching and the Practice of DESIGN!

Movement - Yes we risk together, we learn from the positives and inducers of improvement and as we make the change, we improve, adapt and take new risks!

Mobility - DELLI is the natural space to provoke discomfort, guide projects and research for uncertainty and for Experimentalism. So we are always in the process of adaptation and adjustment.

I have found in the DELLI management team the right people who base their leadership on these assumptions, who know that in order to create and maintain a course that is the state of the art of Design Education, they have to focus everything on the emotional dynamics with the faculty and with students, to be able to focus the entire process of teaching learning in the "BEING" rather than "KNOWING" ... is only possible in this way!

Finally, to say that GRATITUDE in organisations and in the Academy is not only expressed when everything turns out. More important GRATITUDE must exist when there are still points to improve or problems to solve! It is exactly there that GRATITUDE is fundamental to recognize the ability to DO, take Risks and learn from the process and the ERROR!

Most of the Leaders are trained to be GRATEFUL for the positives and the NOT GRATEFUL for the less successful attempts and thus they LOSE the respect and the motivation of the teams! THEREFORE I am grateful to DELLI for encouraging and accepting to thank the attempt not only the final result of it! ...

THIS GRATITUDE in the teaching of DESIGN is seen in the details so I share the details of the second semester of DELLI that demonstrate our Gratitude for the Attempts and the Process of our students!

Américo Mateus - HEAD OF RESEARCH DELLI - Design Lusófona Lisboa and VICE-DIRECTOR of HEI-LAB - Digital Human Environments Interactions - ULHT