Maya Angelou once wrote that "You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." I think she got that right. Great leaders, like great designers and great thinkers, operate in the realm of creativity.
I have been struck of late with this notion of leading with a designer's mindset. What are the opportunities when we approach problems of public policy, education, and social change with the playful, yet disciplined, mind of a designer? IDEO and design-thinking provide some intriguing answers to this question that begin with empathy, understanding the lived experience of those for whom a service or solution is designed to serve. And that changes everything.
It is the very heart and soul of sound design, to approach the work of planning and design with humility and rich, juicy questions that demand that we seek first to deeply understand the needs, thoughts, and experiences of those that a solutions id designed to impact.
While we have historically applied this mindset to the design of a better thingamabob or widget, this simple, yet elegant, approach is uniquely powerful when applied to real problems that we face in America’s schools.
How do we improve schools so that historically underserved students have access, opportunity, and support to excel? How do we scaffold and support students who are experiencing homelessness or are in the foster care system? How do we reimagine school schedules in ways that increase access and opportunity for students? How do we structure (and fund) quality instruction in the arts that engages, inspires, and challenges young minds?
Questions like these that are front of mind for me invite deep reflection, humble inquiry, and empathic design to identify solutions that work in the real world that make a difference in the lives of children and youth. Too often we have been guilty of bringing our “strategic planning” models out of their dusty binders to guide us in forming committees and soliciting expert advice. And don’t get me wrong, those things are useful — when paired with a mindset that is grounded first in deeply understanding the lived experience of the other.
From that simple, yet profound, starting point emerges better questions, the kind of questions worthy of our most creative, inclusive, and rigorous thinking and design. And then we set about tinkering, prototyping, and modifying until the right solutions emerge.
The designer Lindo Leader wrote that "I strive for two things in design: simplicity and clarity. Great design is born of those two things." So are great solutions in our shared social spaces and in public policy. And to achieve that, we must first embrace the designing mind and double down on the kind of humility that is grounded in deeply understand another’s lived experience. It is from that wellspring that our best solutions emerge for changing the conditions of learning for all children and youth.
Photograph, “Blue Origami Crane with White Stripes,” Anacostia Community Museum; Smithsonian Institution, CCO.