E59: Dr. Ryan Rosiello on How Journey Mapping Transforms the Way Leaders Develop People

Dr. Reda Othman sat with Dr. Ryan Rosiello, Manager of Leadership Development at United Natural Foods (UNFI), to explore how journey mapping — a practice most leaders have never thought to apply — can fundamentally change the way organizations design experiences for the people they're developing. Ryan breaks down journey mapping not as a design tool, but as a leadership mindset: one that forces you to stop seeing programs through your own eyes and start seeing them through the eyes of your participants. Two moments in this conversation stand out. First, Ryan walks through how his team mapped every touchpoint of a senior leadership program — from the welcome moment all the way through long-term application — and the extraordinary feedback that followed when participants felt genuinely seen throughout the experience. Second, he shares a candid insight about one of the most common traps leaders fall into: designing for themselves rather than for the people they serve — and the specific practices he uses to stay anchored in participant reality. This episode is practical, grounded, and immediately applicable for school leaders, L&D professionals, and any executive who designs experiences for their teams. Key Takeaways 1. Understand that journey mapping is a leadership mindset, not just a design technique — it's about connecting every decision to the human experience of the people you're leading. 2. Learn how to chart program objectives across two dimensions: what participants should know and what they should feel — because both matter equally in a well-designed leadership experience. 3. Apply Ryan's practice of sitting in the room as an observer during your own programs to experience them the way your participants do, not the way you planned them. 4. Discover how focus groups, one-on-one interviews, and surveys each surface different kinds of insight — and why using all three together gives you the fullest picture of participant experience. 5. Avoid the trap of designing through your own lens by anchoring decisions in participant data and gathering perspectives from multiple stakeholders, including direct reports of program participants. 6. Use the simple discipline of getting the journey down on paper visually — whatever format works — as the single most practical starting point for journey mapping in any context.