You're navigating a Sustainable Design career. What skills will help you effectively manage up?

Communication is an important skill for career growth in any field. When it comes to convoluted fields like sustainable design it becomes a must. You don't just need to bridge the differences between business and design but also incorporate the importance of sustainability into them. Finding common languages and common grounds is a must....

Sustainability usually falls off through the accumulation of different misses in different interconnected stages. Systems thinking helps you understand how all the different cogs are connected to the machine. This understanding and approach can then help you notice and mitigate different problems keeping the whole system in mind....

Seeing the big picture and anticipating the ripple effects of design decisions on the environment, economy, and society is crucial. This holistic approach not only aligns with an organization's goals but also drives sustainability objectives. By demonstrating systems thinking, we can help upper management appreciate the long-term benefits of sustainable design, which often extend far beyond immediate financial gains.

Not all of us are visionaries and that is where systems come in handy. Taking the environment, society and economic effects in account and a need to understand the sustainable design you need to communicate this with a clear description, pictures and charts to establish interconnectedness.

Sustainability ain't a department-specific metric. It is dependent on multiple different departments contributing together. Hence encouraging and managing the collaboration between the different departments is key....

While soft skills are important for growth in any career, technical skills are the entry point. Without the right technical skills, you won't be considered to handle any sustainable design project. Hence before anything else, you need to know what you're talking about....

Indudablemente que en cualquier circunstancia la inteligencia emocional será el mejor soporte para poder llevar a cabo cualquier misión. En general en el diseño se requiere mucha madurez, porque en algunos momentos no será posible convencer a los demás, por más que puedan ser argumentos con lógica y demostrables, porque es posible que algún criterio se interpondrá; no obstante, eso no deberá desanimarte, sino que todo lo contrario, en ese momento aceptar, y luego sin enojarse, esperar otro momento para plantearlo, salvo que ya se haya pasado a etapa de desarrollo, en cuyo caso habrá que demostrar que en uno es capaz de negociar.