Designing Your Legacy With the Intent of Usefulness [Part 2]

This is the second blog in a 10-part series examining how to apply Dieter Rams’ principles of good design to your legacy.

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The second principle in Dieter Rams’ list of good design principles is that effective design makes a product useful. However, as we design our legacy, we have a slightly different outlook. Our legacy is not a product—at least not merchandise. As Jacob Marley admonished Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol,

Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.

How do we fortify our relationships with others? First, we need to prioritize service to others. A prime example is a situation where a person discloses bad news. Our instinct is to say “I’m sorry”. Yet, we have not articulated what is the cause of our sorrow. Furthermore, we have placed the emphasis on our contributions as opposed to the needs of the grieving individual. We need to reframe the situation from “how can I help” to “what is the need and how can I supply it”. 

We do this by acknowledging the individual and his current state. We need to align our perspectives with his. Currently, the person’s identity is driven by pain. We need to address the person with this in mind. Once we have established contact in this manner, then we can progress to our expressions of sorrow and offer assistance. By keeping in the mind the needs of others over our desires to be helpful, we have become useful.