What do I bring to the table?

I am more than a degree, a resume, a CV. I am a human with unique skills and life experiences.

Photo by Yifei Wong on Unsplash

This past week in class, we looked at a case study on Mouvmat, from the Age-Well Epic Summer Institute. A transdisciplinary team (including our instructor) came together to co-design a product to increase physical fitness in older adults. One of the questions that was posed to the class was what would we bring to a transdisciplinary team?

What would I bring to that team? What do I bring to the table?

My mind immediately goes to my academic background and work experiences, as those are the traditional identifiers that we use to indicate what we bring to the table. But when I reflect on the skills and attributes that I think I can offer to a team, that's not what comes to my mind. I think about my interpersonal skills and my lived experiences. My ability to listen to other people's stories and ideas and empathize and shift the perspective of others. I bring energy and motivation to a team. I am very determined and try to encourage those around me. Mediating conflict, finding the middle ground between parties that are unable to see eye to eye.

Being a caretaker for my mom, I have been a witness to her lived experiences and barriers that she's encountered, in comparison to how easily it was for me as an able bodied person to navigate the situation. Throughout this program and this course, I'm starting to recognize the value of those lived experiences and interpersonal skills/characteristics that exist outside of academia or the workplace.

I am adaptable and resilient. When something doesn't go according to plan, I am able to pivot, make a new plan, start over, adjust, and move forward. I am writing these things down to remind myself what I am able to offer a team, beyond my academic/professional background. When stepping into a space as an "inclusive designer" I have loads of insecurities due to my diverse and non-traditional design background. But after listening to this case study, and the challenges and process that they went through in order to develop this product, I see the areas in which I would have something to offer, or unique skills that would contribute to the overall goal of the team. So the question that I pose to myself moving forward, how can I incorporate those interpersonal skills into my professional skills? How do I bring those to the table and apply them in a constructive manner when co-designing in a transdisciplinary team?