Mindset Matters

Image by nugroho dwi hartawan from Pixabay

I’m a design thinker. 

I also happen to serve in one of the most difficult jobs to have during a global pandemic--School Superintendent.

How are these two facts related and who really cares? Good questions. Hang with me for a second. 

If you google Erik Burmeister + Design Thinking you’ll see a handful of references in which I’m included or have written. (Don’t bother doing it, though, it’s not that interesting...and not the point.)

Suffice to say, I remain a big fan and know a thing or two about design thinking. It certainly doesn’t hurt to have two of the preeminent Design Labs in our own backyard--IDEO and the Stanford d.school, both of which include excellent education design hubs under their umbrellas. 

Unless you shun popular culture, organizational fads, and academic thought, you’ve no doubt heard the “design thinking” buzzword at some point in the last several years. While the term is well known, not everyone understands what it is or how it would apply to education.

Still with me? Good. Keep hanging in. 

As a School Superintendent in a global pandemic, my job has changed completely. 

What I have experienced as a Superintendent for the four years previous…
What I was trained to do…
What I studied for the four college degrees I possess...
What topics I researched and wrote about for years in preparation for this important civic responsibility…
All of it...
...had nothing to do with what has been required of me and the thousands of School Superintendents across this nation the last 12 months. 

We aren’t the only ones. This is true for many professionals. 

And yet, as I look back on the last 12 months (almost to the day), with all appropriate humility and with all contextual consideration, I can feel pretty proud of where the district I lead is today compared to so many districts across our county. 

And look, I’m just one person in a sea of individuals who made our success possible. However, it’s not lost on our small community that we can claim all of the following: 

• One of the few districts that met every other week in public over the summer to create reopening plans for a myriad of scenarios before we even knew what August was going to look like. 
• One of the first districts in California to submit a comprehensive reopening plan amidst easily the most chaotic period of the pandemic--a plan that is nearly entirely still in effect seven months later and “aging well.” 
• The first district in the SF Bay Area and one of the first in all of California to reopen to in-person instruction, a process that began September 8. 
• A district that over a period of two-weeks in August created a brand new virtual school from scratch that provided job security for any and all staff who are immuno-compromised or who live with someone who is AND that provided a guaranteed year-long virtual experience for 500 students who are immuno-compromised or whose family was simply unwilling to take the risk to send their child to school with the level of uncertainty last fall. 
• A district who--when the city, county, and state were unable to get a COVID testing site for students and the community--organized a permanent, daily community COVID testing site that continues today and has tested thousands of students, families, and community members. 
• The first public school district to partner with Stanford Health to provide weekly COVID testing to all staff. 
• A district that has yet to shut down a school due to a COVID outbreak (someone knock on some wood, please) and has gone the entire time without one confirmed case of at-school COVID spread.
• A district that can say that as of yesterday, February 24, all of its in-person staff have at least received their first dose of COVID vaccine or have an appointment to do so this week. (Shout out to SMC Superintendents, SMC Health Department & Supervisors, and SMC Office of Education under Dr. Nancy Magee’s leadership.)

Before I lose you, I’m getting to my point. Here comes the connection...

So why the relative success? In a sea of negative headlines, protests, lawsuits, public battles, and recall efforts, why is it that our little district has fared so well? 

There are many reasons. Not the least of which is that we have incredibly dedicated and brave staff who, when asked to embrace risk amidst challenging times with an unknown future, decided to show up. And show up they did!

But another big reason comes back to where I began this blog. I am a design thinker. And I have surrounded myself on my teams with fellow design thinkers. We grow design thinkers in our district. 

What do design thinkers do differently that most certainly contributed to our successful response to the pandemic?

Design thinkers…

• See the world through a more objective lens of empathy rather than the subjective lens of stakeholder.
• Say “yes, and” before no. 
• Start from a place of possibility, not constraint. In other words, a response like “we can’t afford that” doesn’t stop them from considering all solutions. 
• Solve first for the primary end-user, which in a school’s case is the student. We call this human-centered design. 
• Collaborate across boundaries, bringing multiple voices to the process.
• Seek clarity amidst complexity.
• Brainstorm a myriad of ideas before rushing to a solution design. 
• Are biased toward action.
• Iterate often and test those iterations, using the resulting data to improve the design quickly. 
• Achieve satisfaction when the users are satisfied.

I am neither naive nor arrogant. I realize our approach had just as much chance of failure as it did of success. I recognize, too, that we are not yet out of the woods of this pandemic; our success hangs on a mighty thin thread some days. However, since hindsight is 20/20 and we have seven months of experience upon which to evaluate, I can honestly say that our current success can be directly attributed to the fact that our district exists with a fundamentally different mindset. 

I say this not to boast. Honestly. For the record, I also want to acknowledge that there is no “right way” to do this. Teachers and leaders throughout the country have gone above and beyond even when outbreaks have happened, testing wasn’t available, or virtual learning was the only option. I share none of this to shame other districts or individuals. However, I also feel a sense of responsibility to explain to all those people who are scratching their heads and wondering, “Well, how could MPCSD do what they did?”

It was a lot of hard work. It wasn’t because we have more money than most districts (any ‘extra’ money we spent this year was provided by the CARES Act, which all districts received). It wasn’t because we are predominantly white (although, we are). It wasn’t because we got special favors (if anything, partners were more reluctant to work with a wealthier, whiter district...and rightfully so). It does have something to do with the fact that we are a PK-8 district and high schools are much more difficult (not impossible) to reopen in a pandemic. 

At the end of the day it has everything to do with the fact that we grow design thinkers at every level of the organization. It’s not as if we went through a complete design process for every challenge we faced. In fact, we never really applied a complete design process to create any of our solutions. Design at its core, I believe, is about the posture with which you come at problems. I believe that design mindsets are much more important than design processes.

That’s it. When you think differently about problems, you can achieve much better solutions and much more quickly. #mindsetmatters

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