Connor Lowe
I’m an experienced leader and designer based on Bowen Island. I’ve spent the last 20 years inspiring positive change in and out of organizations.
What I do
Leadership
I help people recognize and emphasize their unique strengths. I form and lead strong, healthy, and motivated high performing teams.
Design
My practice blends deep knowledge of fundamentals with a broad knowledge of history and culture. I define ambitious outcomes, communicate them clearly, and connect them to immediate realities.
Links
Books, essays, and other things that have informed my perspective.
Name
Author
Lao Tzu — Stephen Mitchell Translation
Ed Catmull, Amy Wallace
Carlo Rovelli
Seth Godin
W. David Marx
Deyan Sudjic
Michael Pollan
Colin Bryar, Bill Carr
Peter Merholz & Kristin Skinner
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
Marcus Aurelius
Michael H. Goldhaber
Yurval Noah Harari
Yurval Noah Harari
Steve Diller, Nathan Shedroff, Darrl Rhea
Venkatesh Rao
Norman Cousins
Andy Weir
Stewart Brand
Paul Graham
Marco Spies
Oliver Reichenstein
Paul Graham
Sep Kamvar and Jonathan Harris
Eric S. Raymond
Leonard Koren
Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur
Kenya Hara
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
Bill Moggridge
Kurt Hanks, Larry Belliston
Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar
Robert Bringhurst
Paul Hawken, L. Hunter Lovins, Amory B. Lovins
United Nations
Background
I've never been able to hold a linear view of my life. Management coaching taught me I need to define my purpose and goals but singular outcomes feel limiting, like I'd be pulled along by my goals rather than on a frontier of my own. For some reason, since a young age I've been compelled by the idea of a "renaissance person." Perhaps inspired by feeling like an outcast while growing up in small town Saskatchewan. I was in pursuit of a professional hockey career, but still wanted to be smart, and still wanted to be an artist. This wasn't like my peers.
The way in which many careers are made is through specialization. We're asked to simplify our narrative. Pick something and stick to it for 10,000 hours.
"But we must take care when we use metrics. … Once we decide on them, they have a habit of setting the agenda. As the old adage goes, what gets measured gets managed."
— Sep Kamvar
It wasn't until recently I recognized I had by living by the maxim: pursue maximal interestingness. Throughout my life I've veered toward the path of uniqueness — doing things my way. Leading with my heart and trying my best to take advantage of what life gives me. While this can make life complicated, I look back and see richness and vibrance.
Perhaps that's why I'm so drawn to design. There are no walls around design; it's a magnificent tool for value making that's unbounded by status quo. We work with the status quo in order to understand it, but it's another input, just like everything else.
Good design happens when it emerges from diversity. Good design doesn't happen in a silo. Good design happens when it's exposed to the world, in one way or another. Good design finds balance under tension, it works in the in-between space, balancing extremes. Form vs function, and so on. The best design leads to outsized long term value.
My Beliefs
Design can be applied to anything to add value.
Ideas cannot be owned and value is created by building.
Trust is the foundation for collaboration.
Stories are the glue of our species.
Everyone has the ability to do anything. Some people are better at some things that others.
My operating model:
Be hard on the work, be easy on each other.
People are more important than places.
Cultures are made up of individuals.
Don't optimize too early.
Lead by inspiring, support through systems.
Make it real.
We not me.
Species scale.
Anyone that's worked with me will have examples of me using these principles. They are born out of a constant pursuit of scaling creative, collaborative teams.
Still from Who Wants to Be an Amerikan — Aaron Beckum (2007)