Managing Expectations

As I write this, I'm circling on a small plane somewhere above the New York metropolitan area. We've been delayed because of air traffic concerns and weather.

How do I know this? The pilot has used the PA system several times and done a pretty decent job of communicating with us. He had shared with us the timeline and updated us with new information each time a deadline has passed.

Now this is in stark contrast to my experience earlier this morning when I was waiting for my original flight. The information was slow to come from the gate crew about the delay, its cause, and the impact. Information on the many LCD screens on the airport was not current, not was the airline's website.

When I fly, and I've done a lot of it recently, I expect and understand that there will be delays with security, boarding, take off, and landing. I recognize that flying involves working with a complex system and that things can go wrong.

Today, they clearly have and I'm ok with that. The problem is not that there are problems; there will be. The problem is that in attempting to manage our expectations of the flight, the airline has done little to communicate that we as passengers have value and instead relies on our captivity to this system.

When you fall short of expectations that you have set for yourself and shared with others, you have to actively manage that failure. This means more than just working to fix the problem; it means communicating with others that you understand the problems that you are causing for them. It means displaying empathy.

Sometimes empathy can be relayed verbally and that may be enough. For bigger problems, you may need to tangibly show how you value others. Depending upon the type of organization you run, this demonstration of empathy may vary. For the airline, a little empathy could mean simply sending the drink cart firm the aisle again. You can even demonstrate empathy by simply following up after the problem and sore your customs that they have value to you by asking them about their experience.

Empathy is how we show each other that we matter. And we do.

Where's the Brake?

When I get into a car, I have a few basic expectations of how the car will work. There will be a steering wheel, gas pedal, brake pedal, etc. Some things, like the radio and air conditioner, I know will be different and take a few moments to get oriented to, but it's not going to be rocket science.

Late Monday night, I had flashbacks to my first days as a driver when I didn't feel one hundred percent comfortable in the car. It started with sitting in the parking lot of the car rental agency in the Chevy Captiva that they had given me looking for the power outlet to plug my cell phone's car charger in to which was nowhere to be found. Feeling a little foolish for not being able to identify a basic car feature, I flagged down the attendant and he pointed out where it was, underneath a set of sliding cup holders in the center console.

"Ok," I said to myself, "Odd placement, but somewhat understandable from a design perspective. It's out of the way and won't interfere with operating the car's other features."

So, with this important task out of the way, I pulled out of the rental agency and drove to my hotel. Upon parking, I found myself again scratching my head and growing increasingly frustrated with my car. I was on a slight incline and wanted to engage the parking brake, something my father had taught me to do whenever parking the car. First, I tried engaging it with my left foot which is where the parking brake is located in both of our cars. My foot hit nothing but air and the floor. Then, I looked to my right to see if it was a hand brake, but there was nothing there (yes, I did look to see if it was below the cup holder with the outlet). I kept looking all over the dashboard and floor of the driver's seat, but I couldn't identify it. The car had to be designed with an emergency brake, right?

Would you know where the parking brake is?

Finally, after a short struggle to locate the car's interior lights, I opened the glove compartment, pulled out the manual, and identified a small button, pictured here, below the gear shift that engaged the parking brake.

Needless to say this whole process was completely counter intuitive. The car's designers had not taken into account what we were used to in designing this feature and instead, for whatever reason, had created a brake that was completely different from most other cars. Their lack of thinking about the user's experience lead to a high level of frustration for what should have been a very simple task.

In designing experiences for our faculty, students, or parents, we need to think about how they are going to interact with it. When they approach a learning experience or a faculty procedure will they know what to read, where to click, or what to do? Or will it run counter to what they are expecting and then potentially run into frustration.

This does not mean that learning experiences can't be challenging or that a process can't be complicated. It just means that the user's experience needs to include instructions, reference material, or guidance. My driving experience lacked any of this until I took out the car's manual which is not something that most of do on a regular basis.

I'm sure that the car's drivers have gotten use to this strange arrangement. I know that several years later, I'm used to the push button ignition button in my Prius and the funky joystick that serves as a gear shift. When I bought the car, the salesman pointed out these changes from the norm and made sure that I understood how they worked. If the rental agency attendant had just pointed out this unusual arrangement, I might have avoided the whole ordeal.

Simply put, design matters. Put yourself in the shoes of your users and try to walk a mile in them. If you trip, get blisters, or can't even get started, redesign the experience.

A Staircase to...?

Tuesday started off with an unusual request. On my way to run one of the high school’s alternative minyanim, I was stopped by a group of seniors on the staircase. “Dr. Yares,” they asked, “Can we have our grade level minyan today?”

Now, these same students have been involved in the tefillah conversations that had happened earlier in the year with the Student Government and later with the Va’ad Tefillah. Naturally, I was a bit surprised to hear them request to not have the alternative minyanim that they had helped bring about. However, when they shared their reason for their request, then I got it.

What was the reason? “It’s our last tefillah together as a grade.”

This was a profound statement from these students. While the alternative minyanim are designed to help provide tools to draw us closer to God through tefillah, the students were reflecting on another purpose of tefillah, drawing us closer to each other.

Jewish prayer can happen as an individual, but when we gather as a group of ten or more, as a minyan, we gain the ability to say special tefillot. More importantly, perhaps, is that tefillah in a minyan includes portions that are said aloud and this format emphasizes the community that we are trying to build.

How do we know that our seniors understood this? Perhaps through the request or perhaps it was through the most spirited Aleinu that the school has ever heard. Stomping, dancing, and singing with ruach accompanied this final prayer of their final in-school minyan of their senior year. The kavanah (intent) of their tefillah came through strongly and intensely.

Sometimes when we pray, we connect with God. Sometimes, we connect with each other. And sometimes, we get to do both.

Goats and Lemons

Here is an interesting question to begin your Shabbat with. What do goats and lemons have in common? On the surface, not much. One is an animal and the other is a fruit, but somehow they both send the same powerful message.

Two weeks ago, we read the double parashah of Achrei Mot-Kedoshim in shul. In it, we read about how the Kohain Gadol (High Priest) takes two goats, sacrifices one, and bestows the sins of the people on the other. This is the origin of the scapegoat. It’s literally the goat that gets to escape (of course, later texts indicated that the goat was thrown off the side of a cliff during the time of the Temple - just to make sure that our sins didn’t wander back into town).

Which goat gets the better deal? The one sacrificed immediately or the one blamed with the sins of an entire nation? As Jews, we are acutely aware of the pain that scapegoating can bring. Blaming others for your own problems may seem like an easy course, but it is not a healthy course and means denying your own role in the problem.

This brings us to the lemons that were found in this week’s 6th grade Advisory. Dr. Limor Tintweiss, our BOCES school psychologist, joined Advisory teachers Esther Dubow and Jaime Pitschi and brought along a bag of lemons. This was not be a lesson on how to make lemonade out of these lemons, but rather a plan to get our students to think about the stereotypes that they have and strengthen their understanding of the need for tolerance.

Dr. Tintweiss shared pictures of individuals with the class and asked them to share their assumptions. Our students drew a wide variety of conclusions from the photographs, without necessarily knowing anything more about the person in the picture. Then, Dr. Tintweiss handed a lemon to each group of students. The students studied their lemon and got to know its nuances. Then, their lemon was plunked down amidst several other lemons and students had to pick out which one was there’s. Surprisingly, our students knew their lemons and picked them out with a 100% success rate.

In the discussion that followed, students talked about how they had to recall the individual features of their lemons and see how it stood on its own. Prior to this, students had never really thought about the differences that individual lemons have and considered them to just be part of a broader class. The conversation turned to how we make generalizations about groups of people based upon limited knowledge and understanding. When we make these stereotypes, we open the door to scapegoating others.

In our complex and diverse society, it is increasingly important that we bring tolerance and understanding with us in our interactions. Too often, we will be offered the opportunity to blame the other rather than seek to understand them and grow from this understanding. Seeing the individual, whether it is a goat, a lemon, or a person is the key. The conversations about tolerance and stereotyping in the 6th grade Advisory class are just one part of making this a more just and civil society.