Summary
Phil and Nathan share experiences and strategies for embedding design thinking in large, complex organizations. Phil recounts his journey at IBM since 2010, leading a distributed design program that empowers designers within business units rather than centralizing them. He explains how the program grew organically starting in 2012 and is built to last decades, prioritizing a safe executive channel paired with grassroots adoption. Nathan focuses on the importance of relationship as a foundation for value in organizations and design culture. He explains that culture is formed through relationships and deliberate conversations, and that knowing oneself and others is key. Both speakers emphasize shifting organizational conversations from persuasion to experience-based change, with Nathan advocating doing ethnographic research within organizations to align language and interests. They address challenges of risk-taking in innovation, navigating organizational resistance, and how design thinking can help run the change program itself. Practical tactics also involve listening deeply without judgment, co-creation across silos, and reframing risk as hypothesis testing. Phil and Nathan discuss hiring strategies balancing youthful openness and experience, and how design must speak the language of business to gain traction. The overall message is about maturing design into an organizational force by building authentic relationships, listening, and creating room for experimentation within business constraints.
Key Insights
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Culture change is more effective through experiential learning and doing design rather than merely persuading through theory.
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Phil’s IBM design program avoids a centralized studio model; designers are embedded in business units with matrix reporting to maintain influence and autonomy.
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Strong relationships are foundational for culture and value creation but are difficult to represent and discuss explicitly in organizations.
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Design programs succeed when they have both grassroots team-level adoption and an executive-level safe outlet for reporting dysfunction.
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Risk-taking is essential for innovation, but organizations must balance acceptable risk with mitigation, often requiring collaborative conversations between design, legal, and finance.
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Listening deeply to individuals across silos without judgment builds trust and opens opportunities for meaningful collaboration and co-creation.
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Meaning, emotion, and identity often matter more than features or price, especially when buyers differ from end users in B2B contexts.
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Hiring mixes entry-level and experienced designers to balance openness to learning with practical knowledge, avoiding both close-mindedness and overly rigid mindsets.
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Organizational change efforts often fail by becoming check-box processes; finding early wins and allies helps make programs credible and scalable.
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Designers need to adapt their language to align with business goals, effectively 'speaking the language' of leaders to gain influence.
Notable Quotes
"It’s about design doing, not just talking about design theory."
"Without relationship there is no value. You can’t have culture without relationships either."
"Every one of those hundred teams self-selected in. They want in and they’re trying to do the right thing."
"A leader is someone who clearly communicates a vision that other people want to follow."
"Find some allies and get some wins to prove that change can take root in your company."
"Most people come to work not to make their life harder or to build crappy products."
"We rejected a studio model because designers need to be part of business teams taking direction from them."
"Listening deeply without judgment is maturing design research into active leadership."
"Risk conversations are less about risk or no risk and more about acceptable risk balanced against opportunity value."
"The program is built to last until 2025 and 2030, not just to deliver short-term outcomes."
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