A Learning a Day

After my first set of reflections from my time at Disneyland, I’ve found myself going back to that experience as I think about experience design. And, as part of that process, I’ve been learning a few interesting lessons about the Disneyland approach to user experience design.

One such anecdote is about the 30 feet rule about trash cans. Walt Disney was obsessed about park cleanliness in the 1950s. So the team studied how long people walk with trash in their hands before they try to get rid of it. The answer to that, it turns out, is ~30 feet.

Ergo – the 30 feet rule – you won’t need to travel more than 30 feet at Disneyland without seeing a trash can. 

While this is an impressive and even inspiring story on the attention to detail in crafting a great user experience, what’s telling is what Walt Disney didn’t do. He didn’t – 

• Get frustrated about this behavior
• Plaster signs all over Disneyland to not litter
• Fine customers who littered 
• Play a recording over a loudspeaker to remind people to not litter
• Employ helpers to supervise customer behavior

I know some of these are outlandish – and I’m exaggerating to make a point. But it is telling that he simply observed user behavior and crafted an experience around it vs. attempting to change it. 

There’s a lesson in there somewhere for all of us.

The path to getting good at dealing with feedback is learning to be both sensitive and numb to it.

Sensitive enough to ensure we listen to the specific piece of feedback, experience some of the pain that inspires action, and figure out the next step.

Numb enough to be indifferent about the tone/spirit and not dwell on it any more than necessary.

There are times as a group when you feel stuck. 3 questions that help move things forward –

(1) Are we aligned on the problem? (Why)

(2) Are we aligned on our approach to the solution? (How)

(3) Are we aligned on the steps we’ll take to solve the problem and how we’ll measure success? (What)

This is, of course, common sense. But it is amazing how often this simple framework unlocks progress.

The single biggest challenge when you’re attempting to drive change is to ignore the allure of the quick fix and instead go upstream to make the systemic change.

The quick fix is easy and feels good in the moment. Going for systemic change, on the other hand, sucks in the short term. Things inevitably take longer and we have to deal with being misunderstood while that happens.

However, easy come, easy go.

It’s the high leverage moves that survive the test of time.

A friend shared a note she shared with herself at a difficult moment. “This moment doesn’t define you, it is the moment to define yourself.”

Word.

“The goal is, did you enjoy getting from here to wherever dead is? And you do that by having a compass, not a map.” | Seth Godin on careers being a sequence of things without a predetermined path – in an interview with Ryan Roslansky, LinkedIn’s CEO.

This was a wonderful excerpt from a conversation from two humans I deeply appreciate.

It was particularly resonant thanks to a conversation I had over the past couple of days about career choices. Career choices are often judged based on some predetermined and assumed map.

But there isn’t one. And even if there was, it is definitely not one custom built for the unique human you are.

Use your compass. Do the work. Enjoy the trip.

Ithaka by C. P. Cavafy

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

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One of the longest running themes on this blog is focusing on the process/journey and not the outcome/destination.

I thought the ending was both beautiful and poignant. You won’t be fooled by Ithaka or the illusion of getting what you want at some arbitrary destination because “you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.”

They are but an excuse to pursue and to engage wholeheartedly with life.

It then allows the good stuff to ensue.

An experienced CEO was asked about leadership in a Q&A. And their response was – “A leader’s job is to define success and define constraints. And put the right people in the right place.”

I appreciated the simple definition. And it got me thinking about how this’d fit with the way I think about defining the role of a leader.

No answers yet but posed a great question.

“It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.”

When in doubt, begin.

Producer Norman Lear titled his memoir – “Even this I get to experience.”

A friend shared that the fascinating thing about this framing was that Norman used this line even when he was going through difficult experience.

It is a simple and powerful idea – one of those that reminds us of the many privileges and gifts – this life included – that we regularly take for granted.

“Even this I get to experience” indeed.