Three Things We Learned in April
Design Culture is a community where learning is THE energy source and empathy is THE oxygen. This month has been a whirlwind of learning from each other, from knowledgeable designers and from extreme users (those who can’t get enough…and those who can’t figure us out). In my personal homage to genius, I’m trying to remember where I got this byline idea…and I can’t find the original source. So if you sent out a blog, tweet or email with this same title…thank you! I promise to keep my eyes open and credit you in the very next blog post!
LESSON #1 : Default Thinking is the challenge for designers.
Adam Grant gave us courage to keep designing with his words from, Originals. Grant’s book is foundational in developing a new way of considering how the established culture will struggle against originals…against design as a way of thinking and working, rather than a program that will solve the ills of education in our case. Default thinking is automatic responses to challenges, questions, and data. Originals (aka designers) may find themselves having to work diligently at empathy when interacting and responding to the questioning default thinkers toss back at prototypes and opportunities.
Justifying the default system serves a soothing function. It’s an emotional painkiller: If the world is supposed to be this way, we don’t need to be dissatisfied with it. But acquiescence also robs us of the moral outrage to stand against injustice and the creative will to consider alternative ways that the world could work.” Originals
Got this GREAT video from Kim Herman, an unbelievably talented educator in Douglas County schools. Kim’s instructional leadership brought her site to a new level of thinking and designing. She made me remember that default thinking just won’t get us to the work we must do together in service to students. Watch this and consider the implications!
LESSON #2: GROWTH MINDSET is the atmospheric element for DESIGN
Growth mindset is another way to counteract and consider default thinking. Carol Dweck’s seminal work, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, provides the atmospheric element for design and originals to flourish.
Every time we’ve hit a wall within our own thinking, our team or our system, this is sure to pop up. This gives me EMPATHY when I encounter resistance to rethinking the way we are going about our work.
LESSON #3: FAIL FORWARD
The Teaching and Learning Team spent time at Castle Rock Middle School where principal Lee-Ann Hayen is designing with her amazing staff a way to make learning a design experience for all students. Within 15 minutes of entering the building, our team was holding signs for a music video designed by a team of students as part of their Innov8 time on Thursday mornings. As we started to leave the room, Hayen smiled and said, “We have no idea how this will work, but if students fail forward, it’s all part of the experience.” Students learning from failing FORWARD.
That day my mailbox offered me one of my favorite sights, the new edition of Harvard Business Review. Here’s the cover:
No mistake. This is a message I need to remember: Design culture thrives on EMPATHY and FAILING FORWARD. Prototypes are never “failures”…they are powerful opportunities for learning from our users. Imagine a work or learning culture where failure was a LEARNING OPPORTUNITY…where risk was lauded…where landing on your feet or landing on your head were both ways to figure out something new?
Default Thinking….Growth Mindset…Failing Forward…ingredients for a powerful month of learning in the APS ReDesign culture.
