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
"We want to build consultants who can solve problems across a variety of projects and clients."
Ignacio MartinezFair and Effective Designer Evaluation
September 25, 2024
"Measuring changes before and after is key because you can’t know the impact without a baseline."
Paula BachImproving Legacy Software: How Much Better Does it Have to Be?
March 11, 2022
"A great designer doesn’t have all the right answers, they have the right questions."
Erika Kincaid Brenna Heaps Jessica TsukimuraConnecting the Dots: How to Foster Collaboration and Build a Strong Design Review Culture
June 8, 2022
"You need thick skin to deal with longstanding institutions who are skeptical because they've seen many projects come and go."
Magdalena ZadaraZero Hour: How to Get Far Quickly When Starting Your Digital Service Unit Late
November 16, 2022
"You can access the digital swag bag by scanning the QR code or visiting fld.me/cd2022 for cool sponsor offers."
Bria AlexanderOpening Remarks
November 17, 2022
"People were doing incentives in different ways, using their own cards, which was confusing, so I centralized it."
Liza Pemstein Jane DavisScaling Research Via an Ops First Model at Clever
March 27, 2023
"You don’t need special software to get started analyzing gestures and embodied actions; you just need video and a notepad."
Dane DeSutterKeeping the Body in Mind: What Gestures and Embodied Actions Tell You That Users May Not
March 26, 2024
"I seriously encourage all of you to make a portfolio of ‘You Made My Job Easier’ messages because it shows you your progress and is a great pick me up."
Frances YllanaTheme 2 Intro
September 24, 2024
"Ecological validity means the test must happen in an environment as close to reality as possible."
Maria SkaadenContinuous Design: One eye on the horizon and the other on the next wave
November 8, 2018
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
How might deceptive patterns explain the privacy paradox where users say they value privacy but behave otherwise?
How can designers identify which parts of a system they can influence or should monitor using affordance mapping?
In what ways can AI support iterative design beyond initial concept generation?