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
"The needs of a government of the people should be the needs of the people."
Victor UdoewaRadical Participatory Design: Decolonizing Participatory Design Processes
December 10, 2021
"If you never want to fully embed yourself in engineering, that’s fine too — you don’t have to show anyone the code you generate."
John DonmoyerShipping your code generation experiments to production
June 11, 2025
"It’s a marathon not a sprint. Pace yourself and take care of yourself and the other runners around you."
Sarah Auslander Betsy Ramaccia Gordon RossInsights Panel
November 18, 2022
"Hiring for fit is dangerous if you don't do it carefully, so we looked at fit for purpose—skills and ramp-up ability."
Tanya SnookDesigning the team experience: Building culture through onboarding
November 4, 2021
"We iterated on recruitment messaging about 15 times to get the tone just right during COVID."
Marjorie Stainback Molly Fargotstein Stephanie MarshWhat Research Ops Professionals Have Learned from COVID-19
July 16, 2020
"Post-implementation reviews help catch bugs or style issues before customers see them, maintaining high quality."
Yunyan Li Anna Le Jen KimUX Best Practices
June 11, 2021
"If you are not on Slack, you are missing out on one of the biggest and most interactive parts of our conference."
Bria AlexanderOpening Remarks
June 10, 2021
"In science, it’s better to miss a phenomenon than to misidentify one that doesn’t really exist."
Victor Lombardi Ted Booth HK Dunston Andrew OtwellBridging Design and Climate Science
February 14, 2024
"They had accidentally created a gaping void between the functionality they were producing and the needs of the people who depended on it."
Dan WillisFilling the Void
November 7, 2018
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
In what ways has the rise of product design language impacted traditional UX roles and knowledge?
What are AI skills and how should their names and descriptions be structured for better findability?
How can I leverage my professional network to find consulting or fractional leadership opportunities?