Design known through pain

Today was not an easy day: a series of meetings with clients fell through, some ran late, and some just didn't run very well.

In the heat of it all - appointments disintegrating, screaming through roundabouts in the car, getting lost out the back of a golf course - the only thing you feel is the 'pain'.

You're thinking about face lost with clients, about the cost the businesses wear (theirs and ours) when appointments don't work out, about your inability to be fully present to your clients because your mind is already out in the carpark and heading for the next [rescheduled] meeting.

I don't have too many days like these. And when I do, they remind me of why most days on the job are pretty enjoyable. They help me appreciate why we work the way we do in our particular business.

But in even the thick of days like these, 'design' moments can emerge. Pieces come together. The last two meetings of the day, followed by a 4 o'clock lunch at Nando's with their famous Peri Peri sauce, redeemed some of the train wreck. Some good stuff 'clicked' in the last three hours of the day.

To reframe the old C.S. Lewis aphorism, pain is not always a bad thing; sometimes it is a megaphone reminding us of design - whether that design is our own, or the design of another ...