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
"Democratization was never something that happened to research. It was something I chose to design to make work for my team."
Dagmara KukawkaTiny team, moonshot impact: Democratizing research across continents
March 10, 2026
"You don’t need a huge planned research study; even two participants can uncover valuable insights."
Gabriela BarnevaOperationalizing Inclusive Design in Service Design
November 20, 2025
"When the world outside is crazy, the team needs to know that at least design ops has things under control internally."
Maggie DieringerCreating Consistency Through Constant Change
January 8, 2024
"Find somebody else with a really big problem and go solve it for them using your tools. Don’t even talk about what design is."
Robert SchwartzWe're Here for the Humans
June 9, 2017
"Doing no harm is a core tenet of user experience research, whether or not you are trained in IRB processes."
Dr. Jamika D. BurgeBroad Strokes: Connecting Design, Research, and AI to the World Around Us
June 7, 2023
"Start tinkering, playing around, and pushing AI’s limits because the industry shift is going to get faster."
Alnie FigueroaThe Future of Design Operations: Transforming Our Craft
September 10, 2025
"It’s not about solving or fixing complexity. We’re making sense of it so we can operate in it."
Kyle GodbeyNon-linear service design for complex adaptive systems
December 10, 2025
"The economies of scale that benefited traditional media organizations have disappeared."
Patrick Boehler Madison KarasThe service shift: transforming media organizations to create real value through design
November 19, 2025
"I resist premature optimization of tagging and structure; I want to be 80% there rather than perfect and distracted."
Jorge ArangoThe Best of Both Worlds: How to Integrate Paper and Digital Notes (1st of 3 seminars)
April 5, 2024
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
What governance is necessary to manage AI prototyping that impacts design systems, code, and performance?
What are practical ways to split accent colors for accessibility without breaking brand recognition?
What skills are essential for designers to communicate effectively with AI to achieve meaningful outputs?