In his book The Ten Faces of Innovation, Tom Kelley describes the key personas of innovators, and "experience architect" is among them.  We at Leadership+Design would argue that being an "experience architect" or "experience designer" is also one of the key qualities of any successful school leader.  Think of all of the experiences you design everyday for your teams, for your faculty and staff, for parents and for students (either directly or indirectly).  The more you claim that role and really explore what it means to design those experiences, the more intentional and the more impactful those experiences will become.

This issue of the Monthly Recharge is devoted to experience design and how the school leader can reframe his or her role to think about the humans for whom he or she designs those experiences.  If it suddenly sounds daunting and exhausting that every administrative team meeting and faculty meeting need to be a highly curated and beautifully designed experiences, well, you are right -that might not be possible - at least at first.  But the more you see yourself in this role, the more you will realize that being an experience designer is, like many elements of leadership, simply a set of behaviors and mindsets that you can learn and practice. 

Start small and take on this role and mindset with the planning of one team meeting this month.  Just once, picture yourself designing that meeting for the members of the team in mind.  How will you meet their needs? How will you make that meeting enjoyable and productive for them?  What would make that meeting extra special? How can you surprise and delight that group? It's April, and what do they need as they head into the last six weeks of school?

If doing this at work stills seems too risky and you want a longer on-ramp and easier crowd, consider trying on the role with your own family by planning a Saturday excursion or even a family dinner.  Just approach the event with the mindset that you are designing the event with the user - your partner, your children, or a friend in mind -  and keep them at the center of your design.  And use some of the tips in the articles below to guide your thinking.  Most importantly, have some fun with this role.  It should be fun - in large part because if you do it well, your users will derive a tremendous amount of joy from the experience you design.

And speaking of experiences.  We have a few pretty amazing L+D experiences coming up this spring and summer, all of which are detailed in the sidebar and also on our website.  Check out upcoming summer programs - both Trailblazer (at Watershed School, Boulder, CO, June 27-30) and Wonder Women!  (at Head-Royce School, Oakland, CA July 10-13) - for yourselves and your teams and L+D Summer in Seattle and NOLA.   

Warmly,

Carla Silver

Executive Director, Leadership+Design

I know a lot about schools.  I know almost nothing about pizza.  Of course, I have eaten pizza, and have even produced something resembling pizza in my own kitchen, but when I was invited to design a four day management team retreat for 30 pizza restaurant managers, I thought to myself,  "not my wheelhouse."

 

But the team retreat was in Maui, so I said yes anyway.

 

I justified this "business trip" to my resentful family by reminding them that in my role as "Experience Designer" I would have a rare opportunity and challenge to design something for an unfamiliar user and deepen my skills. That was n

ot just rhetoric.  I work almost exclusively in an industry where I have spent my whole life.  It is easy to lose the "beginner's mindset" that designers need to adopt, when the subject matter is so familiar.  I went to school.  I work with schools.  My children are in school.  My husband runs a school.  I am sure you get the point. Sometimes it's good to get out of what we know. The prospect of designing for a diverse group of pizza managers - who ranged in age from 20- 40 and who did not resemble the average independent school leader in any way - was absolutely thrilling and a little terrifying.

 

Fortunately, the experience had container and a purpose, which provided some

creative constraints and built my confidence.  This wasn't a boondoggle; there was real work to be done.  Over the previous months, I had worked with Chuck Hammers, the entrepreneurial owner of Pizza My Heart, a local chain of pizza restaurants, to articulate a set of core values for the organization.  The values work was familiar to me - it is something I do with schools and school leaders all the time. Pizza My Heart is a values-driven business, and in working with the leadership team of the organization and with Chuck, the values emerged easily and with some word-smithing, we were able to articulate the five core values that drove the company from top to bottom.  The values: Make it Real, Build Family, Trust in Karma, Add Extra to Ordinary, and Create Surprises. 

 

Now, here was the design challenge for the Maui retreat: "How could we ensure an experience that will allow the diverse team of managers to deeply understand, embody and demonstrate - to live and breathe, not just communicate - the five core values in their work at PMH."  We formed a design team that included Chuck, Allison, a member of the management team, and Don, the PMH branding and creative director.  Combined, we made up a team that brought diverse expertise, familiarity with the people and organization, and our unique superpowers to the group.  Our goal was to be sure that by the time the managers returned to their work in their stores, they would know and exhibit these values, and be able to convey them to their fellow employees and customers alike.

 

I would love to detail the entire process of this collaboration and provide the complete itinerary of events, but that is a story for a much longer article. Suffice it to say, what ensued was several months of design work as we sought to understand our users, explore possibilities and consider the most impactful ways these managers could experience the five core values.

 

I know that in our nonprofit school cultures with prudent budgets we simply can't take our whole staff or even our leadership teams to Hawaii, but that doesn't matter. The top three lessons I learned about successful user experience design don't need to be implemented through expensive trips or lengthy planning processes.  All that memorable and transformative experiences require is empathy for the user, intentionality, a little creativity and these three ingredients:

 

Experiences should be multi-sensory.  The experiences we designed were powerful, transformational, and memorable in part because we drew on multiple senses. We were inte ntional in the meals we set-up, including a community lunch at an organic farm where everything was fresh and home-cooked. We had the group do yoga on the beach, watch videos, play in the ocean, and we set up a series of physical and intellectual challenges.  The ability to touch all five senses allows the experience to be visceral and felt at multiple levels.  Consider the food you serve, the music you play, the physicality of your experiences, and consider how even a day of professional development might include intentional multi-sensory experiences for your staff.

 

Experiences should delight.  Who wouldn't be delighted to be

 taken to Maui for four days?  It is even more delightful when you think you are going to Las Vegas, but a series of word puzzles reveals a Hawaiian adventure instead.  In illustrating the core value "Create Surprises", Chuck thought it would be only fitting to surprise his team with the Maui trip.  We worried a bit that some managers might feel unsettled by this significant change in expectations, including a long flight over water, but our concerns were unwarranted.  Throughout the week we surprised and delighted the managers with little touches that were not expensive, but just fun and unexpected.  Sometimes delight can come from persevering through a hard and uncomfortable situation - so don't shy away from experiences that might push people out of their comfort zones a bit.  Allow people to delight in their own achievements.

 

Experiences should be emotional.  Everyone - even 20- something pizza managers who might seem tough on the outside - wants to connect to others on an authentic emotional level.  This experience, indeed, had a lot of "heart".  The videos Don created depicted customer and employee testimonials about every single member of the team, which connected every participant to the experience.  There was one poignant moment where a former manager, who had suffered severe brain trauma in a car accident, appeared on one of the videos just to say how much she loved and missed everyone.  There was not a dry eye in the house.  We provided numerous opportunities for adult play and laughter.  There is something about making space for shared joy and shared sadness that humans want and need.  Being vulnerable with another person builds trust, understanding and loyalty - all of the things we want and need in a successful team.

 

If you are in a leadership role in a school, you are a designer of experience for others.  In fact, the teams you lead are often the most direct recipients, and also co-creators, of the experiences you design.  Even weekly team meetings when viewed as valuable experiences can intentionally build trust, understanding and loyalty over time, if they are approached intentionally with some of the above characteristics in mind.