Nurturing the Teacher-Learner Archetype

Quicksand’s Learning & Development Program

A few years back, Quicksand met to discuss a roadmap for the future. This was during our 10th anniversary celebrations and we set out to strategically think about what we wanted the next 10 years of the Quicksand practice to look like, and what steps we would need to take in order to ensure these plans came to fruition. One aspect that emerged was the need to create a reciprocal atmosphere of teaching and learning in order to both build internal capacities for the work we do and to keep studio members engaged through a system that fosters continued education and individual evolution and growth.

During a breakout session at the Quicksand company offsite in Coorg.

Our theory, which admittedly is not entirely unique to our practice, is that individual growth will by extension lead to organizational growth. Quicksand’s practice is predicated on celebrating the serendipities that arise for multi-disciplinary collaboration; our individual interests have always driven the collective efforts of the studio, most specifically with respect to the personal and client-facing projects that we take on. The passions and pursuits of any one individual can inspire or provoke others, and as more individuals with their own perspectives, biases, opinions, and expertise explore things collectively, the more we reinforce this multi-disciplinary ethos of the studio.

These collaborations have always emerged organically at the studio, and this speaks volumes to the kind of personalities that a space like Quicksand caters to and draws in, with curiosity being arguably the chief trait shared amongst all of us. Our physical spaces are set up to foster these interactions with open floor plans, comfortable nooks to chat over chai, and dedicated project rooms for people to brainstorm together over whatever the challenge du jour may be. However, we felt that this ad hoc approach needed to be complemented with a bit more formal structure to be even more impactful, especially as the studio continued to grow in terms of number of employees and the amount of client-facing projects we took on. That being said, we consciously sought to keep these activities informal and project-based to help ensure continued engagement by the participants. We feel that this makes our approach somewhat unique to the rigid structures that other organizations employ to meet their identified L&D needs, if they have such systems in place at all.

Enjoying sundowners at the rooftop bar and garden at the Bangalore studio.

With this in mind, we set about developing a framework for our learning and development activities, and spent a good deal of time actively experimenting with different approaches. What has emerged is essentially a phase-wise engagement that is self-perpetuating: new hires are taken through the system as learners and evolve into teachers as they grow into their roles at Quicksand and new studio members join after them. The approach we have adopted has essentially four distinct yet interconnected modules:

1. On-boarding: this is the first step of the L&D journey and begins on a new hire’s first day. We have curated a reading list of studio-created content and external resources to help demystify our approach to human-centered design and frame Quicksand’s unique place in the larger design ecosystem. This is coupled with modules specific to certain aspects of our practice (e.g., business development, communications, strategy, research, etc.) that are conversation-based and led by senior studio members. Following this, new hires are assigned a group project that seeks to simulate the experiences they will soon have on client-facing projects. Everyone at Quicksand is required to have some capacity in photo and video documentation, interviewing people, structuring and executing a research plan, and succinctly communicating research findings; these initial group projects allow the new hires to practice these skills and affords senior staff the opportunity to evaluate individual skill levels in a far more transparent manner than reviewing someone’s CV and work samples. Our Bangalore team was recently given one week to work together in documenting the neighborhood around our studio. With that as their only mandate, they produced this microsite. It’s always an amazing and rewarding experience to see where people take things.
2. Mentoring: conversations with senior staff happen as and when needed, but we also build in a 30-minute session each week with all relatively new studio members to help ensure any nagging questions are answered and any stress or concerns assuaged as early as possible. Mentees are tasked with creating a roadmap for their future, most specifically in identifying the skills they want to develop and in articulating where they envision adding value to our practice in both the short and long term. This allows us to mobilize resources in a manner that meets individual and organizational needs.
3. Personal Projects: evolving from the mentoring sessions, these are individual activities that are meant to develop the skills that each individual has identified as critical for their own development. These projects are at the individual’s discretion, but are intended to tie back, even in a very tertiary manner, to the skills they will need to be successful in their role at Quicksand. For example, I identified a need to improve my graphic design skills so I spent one month watching tutorials and spending an hour a day practicing. The unexpected and unintended result was a children’s book I wrote and illustrated for my nieces and nephews. You just never know what may emerge!
4. Studio-supported Initiatives/Labs: the final carrot in the L&D universe, these engagements are made available to those who have spent some time at Quicksand. These are potentially revenue-generating activities that are supported by the studio financially, or with studio manpower, or both. It is truly fascinating to see how each individual capitalizes on this opportunity, whether through an app, a video game, a photography collective, or even a restaurant! Pay a visit to our Labs page to check out some of the self-initiated work the studio has done thus far.

The Duet App, one of our incubated projects.

Investing time and energy into our staff is the best way we feel to create the learner-teacher archetype we hope to develop in each of us. It affords us the opportunity to engage with each other in a more intimate manner which fosters personal connections that lead to more unified teams and, by extension, more impactful work for our clients. It creates uniformity in our articulation of our process, nurtures a greater sense of community, and provides each individual with a platform of expression and growth that ideally will lead to greater engagement and commitment. We learn from each other through this process, which changes the dynamic a bit: this is not a one-way rote instruction but rather a reciprocal learning opportunity that benefits all those involved.

Selvan working on a recent individual project to up-skill in using Aurdino

The workplace dynamic is ever-changing, and keeping pace with it means engaging with employees and colleagues in a more inclusive and nurturing manner than in years past. Again, our theory is that by fostering individual growth we will facilitate organizational growth through a sense of community and collaboration. Thus far, our grand experiment has been paying dividends that support this belief, and we are excited to see how this continues to evolve moving forward.

What are your thoughts on organizational learning and development? How do we balance the needs of individual learning needs with the immediate realities of organizational growth? How can the two become more seamless and integrated? What examples do you think best typify best-in-class approaches to this? Is this something you wish your company would offer? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please reach out and start a conversation with us.