What’s Your Pickle? Rethinking Service & Leadership in Education | Robin Landals-Hill

🥒 What’s your pickle? And what could a pickle possibly have to do with educational leadership? More than you might think. In this episode of The Educator Experience Podcast, Salli Carter sits down with Robin Landals-Hill, Educational Leader, speaker, and Faculty Department Head with ‪@MaKamiCollege‬ for a lively conversation about leadership, student support, customer service, belonging, and the small things educators can do that make a surprisingly big difference. Robin is passionate about adult learning, leadership, and creating meaningful educational experiences. She is also the creator of the Immersive Interest framework—TIME, which explores engagement, motivation, and personal growth in education and leadership. At the heart of the conversation is a question we don’t always associate with higher education: What does great customer service look like in education? For Robin, service isn’t about treating students like traditional customers. It’s about asking what we can do to make it easier for someone to succeed. Sometimes that means helping a student navigate a system they don’t understand. Sometimes it means walking someone to the department that can help instead of simply pointing them in the right direction. Sometimes it means knowing someone’s name, creating a more welcoming classroom, or recognizing that fair doesn’t always mean giving everyone exactly the same thing. And sometimes…it means giving them the pickle. 🥒 Inspired by Bob Farrell’s Give ’Em the Pickle, Robin shares the idea of looking for opportunities to “surprise and delight.” What’s the small, extra thing you can do—with what you already have—to make someone’s experience just a little bit better? Salli and Robin also explore accessibility, collaboration between departments, creating belonging, supporting faculty, and an important idea for anyone working in education: they’re all our students. ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 02:51 What Does Educational Leadership Really Mean? 04:12 Fair Doesn’t Mean Everyone Gets the Same Thing 07:43 MaKami College & Robin’s Journey into Adult Education 14:24 What Does Customer Service Mean in Education? 15:03 Give Them the Pickle 🥒 16:18 The Power of “Surprise and Delight” 24:36 Accessibility & Helping Students Ask for Support 30:00 What’s the Pickle? When Departments Work Together 30:52 The Campus Connection Guide 34:57 Creating a Welcoming Classroom Environment 36:20 One Simple Thing Educators Can Do Tomorrow 43:03 Do What You Can With What You Have 43:54 Leadership: You Don’t Have to Be Perfect 47:06 What’s Your Pickle? 🧭 CAMPUS CONNECTION GUIDE One of the ideas we explore in this episode is how much easier it is to support students when you know who to call, where to send them, and how the different parts of your institution connect. That’s exactly why we created The Campus Connection Guide. Whether you’re new to an institution or want to strengthen your campus network, this guide helps you better understand the people and services around you—so when a student needs support, you’re not starting from scratch. Inside, you’ll find: ✔️ Clear descriptions of essential campus offices and what they do ✔️ Conversation starters to help you connect with the right people fast ✔️ Questions you should be asking but might not know to ✔️ Space to track your contacts and build your personal support network 👉 Get the Campus Connection Guide: https://theeducatorexperience.learnwo... This conversation is a reminder that improving education doesn’t always require a massive initiative, a new policy, or completely redesigning the system. Sometimes it starts with noticing the person in front of you and asking: What’s one small thing I can do to make this experience better? Or, as Robin might put it… 🥒 What’s your pickle? 🔗 CONNECT WITH ROBIN LANDALS-HILL Round Robin Learning: https://www.roundrobinlearning.ca/ 🎙️ CONNECT WITH THE EDUCATOR EXPERIENCE https://www.theeducatorexperience.ca/ Subscribe to The Educator Experience Podcast for conversations with educators from across the globe about teaching, learning, leadership, innovation, and professional growth. 👍 If this conversation gives you something to think about, like the video, subscribe, and share it with another educator. 💬 And we want to hear from you: What’s YOUR pickle? What’s one small thing you do to make the student experience better? #highereducation #educationalleadership #studentsuccess #teaching #TheEducatorExperience