This highlight video is from April 24, 2026 live discussion Design Charrette | The Art of Strategic Listening.
"We get through so much information in such a short amount of time — and the fact that we have a speedrun workshop that's still tangible is impressive." — Matt Sernaker, Lake Forest Center for Leadership
This isn't a presentation. Here's what it is instead.
ELE introduced something new this year — and if you haven't been in one yet, it's worth understanding before you read the rest of this post.
A Design Charrette is a structured, time-boxed peer experience built around one real business challenge — submitted in advance by a community member. Not a topic. Not a theme. A problem someone is actually living right now.
The format runs on two roles. An Internal Client owns the challenge and grounds the room in what the business actually needs. A Strategist helps reframe it, surfaces the tensions, and starts mapping what a path forward might look like. Then the full group breaks out — three rooms, 15 minutes, rapid ideation on a single piece of the problem. Everyone works from the same tool: ELE's Signals-to-Action Planning Worksheet.
As Matt Sernaker framed it at the open:
"We're moving away from just presenting out on specific topics — focusing on the workshop mentality, making it tangible, a safe learning environment for people to really practice." — Matt Sernaker, Lake Forest Center for Leadership
The group comes back together, debriefs the moves, and leaves with a co-built Action Planning Worksheet — a 30/60/90-day path grounded in peer input, not someone else's framework. That worksheet then feeds the next event in the series: an AI Practical Lab, where the group picks the work back up and builds an implementation plan.
This is ELE's 2026 pivot. Not content delivery. Peer-powered problem solving.
👉 See it in action: Watch the Design Charrette highlight reel.
Who was in the room: Lorna Malloy, Education Design Manager at Allstate Insurance, as the Internal Client; Patti Ouzounian, AI Workforce Transformation Strategist at ELE, and Megan Bickle, Head of Talent Management at Rothy's, as Strategists; Matt Sernaker, Senior Business Development Director at Lake Forest Center for Leadership, as Executive Producer; plus contributing members from the ELE community.
The challenge: when speed overrides listening
The business problem Lorna brought to the April 24 Charrette was one most people in the room had lived personally.
Leaders move fast. Agendas are packed. A decision needs to land before the call ends. Someone asks if there are concerns. Silence follows. The meeting moves on.
"Don't assume silence means alignment, right? That's what we're saying." — Lorna Malloy, Allstate Insurance
Patti Ouzounian, stepping into the Strategist role, reflected back what she heard — and in doing so, modeled exactly what the format is designed to practice:
"Leaders aren't always available to listen to their teams, and they often make assumptions, and base their decisions on those assumptions — and that really overrides any chance for listening, leaving teams and people feeling really unheard, especially during times of change." — Patti Ouzounian, ELE
That reframe — from "people aren't speaking up" to "we haven't created the conditions for them to" — is the move. It shifts the problem from a people problem to a design problem. And it's exactly the kind of clarity a Design Charrette is built to surface.
The reframe: thermostat, not thermometer
Megan Bickle pushed the room on a question worth carrying back to your own team:
"Is this a temperature gauge or a thermostat, right?" — Megan Bickle, Rothy's
Annual engagement surveys tell you what already happened. Real-time listening lets you adjust before the resistance hardens into a pattern. The group named the cost of the gap clearly: slower execution, eroded trust during change, and a growing disconnect between what leaders think they're hearing and what teams are actually saying.
"Without the listening, you don't have a feedback to know if you're on target." — Dirk Tussing, ELE
What to try next
- 30 days: Add "What did we hear?" as a standing close to key meetings and decisions. Treat silence as an open question — not a green light. Early evidence signal: are different groups still surfacing the same concerns after the decision moved forward?
- 60 days: Build listening checkpoints into change initiatives at the 2–4 week mark — when quiet resistance typically becomes visible. Early evidence signal: are you catching friction before it calcifies into disengagement?
If any of these insights resonate—and you've got a top-of-mind talent business problem you'd like the ELE community to work on—send it our way.
Members can submit their challenge here: Submit My Challenge Now
Looking to turn these ideas into action? Access the Idea Exchange Post-chat for an updated Action Planning Worksheet.
