Becoming a Changemaker by Leading with Design
Summary
Design and research-driven leaders have evolved from being responsible for executing design concepts to having a crucial role in driving change across organizations. This is welcome progress, but with greater responsibility comes new challenges, especially when it comes to championing change in organizations likely to resist it. As design and research-driven changemakers have risen in the ranks of business, they’ve “learned on the job,” experiencing both setbacks and victories. We captured many of these learnings by interviewing over 40 design leaders and incorporating their shared wisdom in our book, Changemakers: How Leaders Can Design Change in an Insanely Complex World. Whether these leaders worked at IBM and Google, a US government agency, or a small consulting firm, their insights and observations are applicable to all and well-worth considering. This presentation will offer an overview of what we learned. It will cover the top mistakes changemakers make as they navigate the messy processes and people issues involved in driving any type of change. You'll learn how to determine the ground conditions needed for success, how to find and align supporters, how to minimize detractors, and how to repurpose design tools, frameworks, and techniques to your advantage. Maria Giudice is the co-author of Changemakers: How Leaders Can Design Change in an Insanely Complex World.
Key Insights
-
•
The role of design leaders has evolved from product delivery to shaping organizational culture at scale.
-
•
Changemakers must assess 'ground conditions' like executive support and resources before accepting leadership roles.
-
•
Rushing into change without understanding the organization's history and culture ('coming in too hot') often generates resistance.
-
•
Building a shared vision requires inclusive collaboration where all stakeholders feel heard and represented.
-
•
Prioritization and focus on a few small wins prevent burnout and enable sustainable change.
-
•
Tools like the impact matrix help teams evaluate effort versus impact to choose projects wisely.
-
•
Vision without execution is futile; delivering tangible outcomes with prototyping and milestones is essential.
-
•
Failure is inevitable in change leadership; embracing mistakes with courage leads to growth and innovation.
-
•
Visual communication techniques enhance stakeholder understanding and trust during complex change efforts.
-
•
Changemakers don’t necessarily need formal design training but must adopt design as a mindset and problem-solving strategy.
Notable Quotes
"The best future leaders will embody the qualities and traits of a DEO — design executive officer — creative business leaders at the intersection of design and business."
"Change is fundamentally a design problem and therefore change can be designed."
"Before you accept a mission as a changemaker, ask yourself do you have a clear directive, champion support, and the right resources?"
"Coming in too hot means running into a burning building like a firefighter, ignoring past work, and rushing without listening."
"Nobody wants to be told to do your thing unless it’s clear that it helps their thing. It’s just human nature."
"Don’t boil the ocean. Get small wins before you go for the big change."
"You need maniacal focus to prioritize, but remain flexible as priorities will always change."
"Vision without execution is hallucination. You must make outcomes tangible and measurable."
"Failure sucks and hurts, but if you haven’t failed, you haven’t taken enough risks."
"When you hit the bottom, that’s where creativity flourishes and it’s time to iterate, evolve, and redesign."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"By embedding themselves in environments, the product team underwent a fundamental shift in perspective."
Deanna MitchellDesigning with culture: Unlocking impactful insights for Product and UX
March 12, 2025
"By limiting our classes to six or seven students, we could give better quality feedback."
Marjorie Stainback Kelsey KingmanTransforming Strategic Research Capacity through Democratization
October 24, 2019
"Simulated personas allow you to test ideas rapidly to decide whether they’re worth pursuing before expensive user research."
Gillian Salerno-Rebic Mark MicheliFrom Insight to Impact: How JourneySpark Used WEVO Pulse + Pro to Drive a 50% Lift in Ad Engagement
June 11, 2025
"Talent is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not."
Joseph Williams Nepani Birondo Matt Readman Allison NgoUnlocking impact and influence through inclusive hiring in research
December 16, 2021
"We need to define success in ways that make our work meaningful and purposeful."
Kristin SkinnerTheme 2: Introduction and Provocation
January 8, 2024
"You can’t measure long-term relationship value with KPIs meant for short-term performance indicators."
John DevanneyThe Design Management Office
November 6, 2017
"Post-training on billions of examples is like training a dog over and over until it gets really good at reasoning and tool use."
Peter Van DijckBuilding impactful AI products for design and product leaders, Part 3: Understand AI architectures: RAG, Agents, Oh My!
July 30, 2025
"Technology moves faster than policymaking — that’s the pacing problem we need to address."
Alexandra SchmidtWhy Ethics Can't Save Tech
November 18, 2022
"Health equity must be at the forefront of climate adaptation strategies."
Alex Hurworth Bonnie John Fahd Arshad Antoine MarinDesigning a Contact Tracing App for Universal Access
October 23, 2020
