ReDesign Culture…The Serious Business of Laughter

I have been sitting at my work table (not desk for this designer!) for the past 30 minutes…furrowed brow, shallow breathing, the internal deadline clock ticking away the moments as I try to land on the “just right” topic for this week’s post. The ongoing challenge to be “concrete” in the midst of transition weighs heavily…today’s “concrete” concept is tomorrow’s better idea, but at some point, we do have to land. Back to the furrowed brow, the planning of a Top Ten List for Design Culture…Concrete Version…and from the learning space next door comes laughter. Laughter? It’s only 1:00 in the afternoon on a Monday, for heaven’s sake. Who’s laughing???

In this space is the collection of those who are taking time to do during the work day learning focused on Design Thinking. The refresher course, led by our design coach, Hi Howard (Front Range BOCES), is inspiring and instructing leaders to take the leap into facilitating design opportunities at the drop of the hat. And they are laughing.

Which brings me to the obvious design question, “How can we inspire, invigorate and instruct students, teachers and leaders using creativity, joy AND concrete step-by-step instruction?” is it possible?

Before launching into this question (and it’s a quick brush because the research is OVERWHELMING! Want productivity? Desire collaboration? Got a vision to transform learning? Laugh…play…get into your right brain!), here are some concrete resources for design thinking, specifically for education:

RESOURCE 1: Straight from the D School at Stanford (The horse’s mouth…referring to last week’s blog…): “An Educator’s Guide to Design Thinking” https://dschool.stanford.edu/sandbox/groups/k12/wiki/14340/attachments/e55cd/teacher%20takeaway.pdf?sessionID=70b0d3e3fb269079a401db58594877724b09f98e

RESOURCE 2: Ideo’s (our mother ship) Guide for Educators (get the point that this isn’t that far off?? The resources are rich and powerful and concrete!). http://www.designthinkingforeducators.com p.s. There is a great workbook that is a word document to walk you through the steps of design!

RESOURCE 3: CRASH COURSE! The DSchool undoes itself with this virtual learning experience that is FREE! and FUN! http://dschool.stanford.edu/dgift/ Haven’t made it to a Design Thinking session in APS? Get thee to this site! Bring a small group of colleagues and PLAY! Contact our Professional Learning Director, Bev Clemmons (BACLEMMONS@aps.k12.co.us), to let her know you are leading/taking this course. You can apply for professional learning units through her office.

Just hitting on this briefly…because laughter will rarely come into your office while reading a blog…nor will it come in isolation. Siloes are ineffectual for too many reasons, laughter and creativity being two big ones (Siloes = Default Thinking = Adam Grant = Thank you!).

Need a reason to stop with the tension and exhausted ways of doing work? Here are 8 things I learned from lifehack.org:

1. They start with enthusiasm. Are you (and your team) EXCITED about the work? About the community? Energy begets creativity…and more energy. Look around. Notice the level of enthusiasm. How can you design meetings, learning, interactions (we call collides) so that you spark enthusiasm today?
2. They know what they’re looking for. Clear vision…shared goals. When the Teaching and Learning team gets together, we generate energy and creativity and collaboration because we are doggedly committed to transforming student learning. Can we get more focused and more concrete? Absolutely…BUT we are committed to being different in our work together on behalf of our users — the students. This helps when things are tense and the challenges are mounting.
3. Teams know and communicate with bosses. Relationship…that’s the bottom line.
4. Flexible working. When…where…how. It’s all up for change. The team is currently finding times to work down at the “collision bar” that is in the hub of our support team structure. We are having the best colliding conversations with directors and team members. All of them users…all of them sources of great inspiration (Support team members — if you’re reading this…come on over and play on the MCSquares!)

The article goes on to talk about no Facebook during work…playing and outside work hours fun as a team. Nothing earth shaking, but all essential in the pursuit of fun, creative, joy-filled work days. ReDesign culture is hard work (I think I may be over-emphasizing this fact these days…the hard work of transition, communication and transformation is like no other work I’ve encountered!), and it’s essential work. If we are going to change the narrative of our district on behalf of our students learning differently and our teachers designing engaging learning experiences for each and every one of them, then we have to get serious about laughter.

Design Challenge: How can we intentionally create and sustain work environments that induce laughter…joy…creativity…applause?