How Amazon and Adobe Transformed Team Performance with Experience Design

A scattered team. A tired culture. A creative spark. And just like that, trust starts to grow again—on purpose.

In this episode of Great Mondays Radio, we sit down with experience design leader Elysia Syriac, who’s shaped creative culture at Amazon and Adobe, to unpack how intentional gatherings—big and small—can rebuild trust, connection, and team performance in today’s distributed workplace.

Forget icebreakers and offsites that go nowhere. Elysia breaks down how to create moments that matter, what creatives (and non-creatives) really need to show up, and why efficiency might be killing your company’s creativity.

This isn’t just a conversation about designing better events. It’s about reimagining what work feels like—and how we get there together.

We discuss:

• Why creative culture is everyone’s responsibility (yes, even in legal)
• How to design trust-building experiences that stick
• What Amazon’s Conflux conference got right—and how you can borrow the blueprint
• How to get busy people to say yes (hint: timebox it)
• The cost of prioritizing efficiency over empathy—and what to do instead

If you lead teams, build culture, or just want work to feel more like a community than a checklist—this one’s for you.

Learn more about Elysia Syriac and her work.

Think you'd be a great guest on the show? Apply here!

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Watch Great Mondays Radio episodes on YouTube. Want to learn more about Josh's work at Great Mondays? Check out his website at https://www.greatmondays.com/.