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
"Make sure you clearly define who your message applies to so your audience can quickly scan and recognize relevance."
Laura Gatewood Laine ProkayBeyond Buzzwords: Adding Heart to Effective Slack Communication
September 23, 2024
"Embrace the role of party planner with your expertise to shape ethical AI innovation."
Jay BustamanteNavigating the Ethical Frontier: DesignOps Strategies for Responsible AI Innovation
October 2, 2023
"Those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it."
Sam ProulxTo Boldly Go: The New Frontiers of Accessibility
September 9, 2022
"We wrote one great security narrative and then just copied and pasted it into every other piece of paperwork."
Marina MartinLives on the Line: The Stakes of UX at the Scale of Government
June 14, 2018
"Short-term pairings with different design people help bring back contributions into the central system."
Nathan CurtisBeyond the Toolkit: Spreading a System Across People & Products
June 9, 2016
"I had a hunger for process and efficiency once I built a feedback bot to share customer insights."
Liza Pemstein Jane DavisScaling Research Via an Ops First Model at Clever
March 27, 2023
"Nearly half of adults in the UK read at a literacy level that makes understanding complex documents very challenging."
Phil HeskethDesigning Accessible Research Workflows
September 29, 2021
"Our processes were scrappy for an assumed neurotypical person, so adding neurodiversity made it overwhelming."
Pippa LomasPaving the Path for Neurodiversity in Design
October 4, 2023
"Spectrum is about empowering collaboration across products, disciplines, and clouds — not just providing tools but supporting people using the system."
PJ Buddhari Nate BaldwinMeet Spectrum, Adobe’s Design System
June 9, 2021