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
"Positionality wheel helps people see who is really in the room and makes it easier to talk about identity."
Jennifer Strickland Lesley-Ann NoelFireside Chat: How Design Addresses a World on Fire
March 18, 2022
"The focus isn’t on head to head competition, but on specialization and differentiation in the Italian market."
Tamara KartoziiaThink global, adapt local: how service design accelerated B2B market entry by 6 months
November 20, 2025
"You can’t have effective teams without happy designers and better designers; they’re interdependent."
Kristin Skinner Kamdyn MooreGroup Activity: A Deep Dive Into Value and Outcomes
October 23, 2019
"We say yes when teammates are curious to try new methods and run pilots to see what works and what could improve."
Megan Blocker Amy Bucher Katie Hansen Ricardo Martins Nidhi Singh RathoreDay 2 Theme Panel
March 12, 2025
"These steps aren’t just research tactics – they could be life savers when employed well."
Amanda Kaleta-Kott Lea Martin, PhDThe Joys and Dilemmas of Conducting UX Research with Older Adults
March 11, 2022
"Systemic bias means a tendency for procedures and practices within an institution that favors certain social groups over others."
Sandra CamachoCreating More Bias-Proof Designs
January 22, 2025
"If you don't understand the process, you're not going to get very far with using AI for analysis."
Maria RosalaAI-Assisted Qualitative Analysis: What to Automate and What to Own
June 5, 2026
"Product operations is the blueprint for rapid but sustainable growth."
Ivana NgLevel Up Your Program with ProductOps
January 8, 2024
"Ops gives you the capacity to see your research within the whole system and all the moving parts that make it up."
Brigette MetzlerScaling ResearchOps: Helping Researchers do Their Best Work
March 30, 2020
