Scaling Empathy, A Case Study in Change Management
Summary
Organizations of all sizes often struggle to reap the full benefits of change, especially in times of transformation, despite huge investments in technology and process. This is often because employees don't understand how their role is changing. It may seem simple to just clarify roles and responsibilities, but as with consumer facing products, people are unique, complex, and motivated by factors that aren't always easy to discover. Additionally, designing for the employee can also mean designing for stakeholder buy-in. This is a story about a real world approach to building practical application of empathy across multiple disciplines and reporting lines, overcoming reservations, navigating politics, with the goal of building a lasting partnership where employee UX design/execution is a team sport and never outsourced.
Key Insights
-
•
Failing to understand internal culture and employee context can cause well-intentioned projects to fail quickly.
-
•
Scaling empathy requires considering not only users but also multiple internal communities and their distinct pressures.
-
•
Strategic value is realized only when empathy for users and employees is aligned and embraced by all organizational levels.
-
•
Siloed mindsets and rigid roadmaps block cross-team empathy and collaboration.
-
•
Creating advocacy networks or action groups helps translate and spread empathy across teams.
-
•
Embedding team members in other teams’ meetings enhances understanding and collaboration.
-
•
Delivering immediate value before demanding adoption of new practices encourages uptake and excitement.
-
•
Leadership competitiveness can be leveraged to encourage broader empathy-based engagement.
-
•
Employees often don’t perceive how new processes affect their roles without peer-to-peer translation of impact.
-
•
Balancing investments in technology and processes with investments in people is critical for project success.
Notable Quotes
"I didn’t understand the people who would be using it, so it was not received well and shut down quickly."
"We over-emphasized technology and process information and forgot the people inside the organization."
"Everyone was just staying in their lane and focused on delivery, not seeing how their project impacted others."
"We had to connect empathy to strategic value so that executives and teams felt the impact on their work."
"We created advocacy networks that allowed directional communication and peer-to-peer sharing of how roles would change."
"We gave away the recipe with no fee for entry – immediate value first, then learning the process."
"People said, ‘I get it’ when a peer explained how their day actually changed—not from top-down communication."
"The pressures in large organizations make it hard for teams to see the value of empathy and cross-team connection."
"If we release new features too early without alignment, it doesn’t make sense to people and causes confusion."
"We have to think beyond projects to the larger ecosystem and understand the ladder of intended outcomes."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Seeing product managers and designers’ aha moments when they realize how impactful the tool is was great."
Taylor Jennings Joe Nelson Alex KnollRepository Retrospective: Learnings from Introducing a Central Place for UX Research
March 9, 2022
"We have a role to play in democratizing the future and amplifying more visions of what that future can hold."
Nicole AleongFuture Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology
March 26, 2024
"These are all attempts by large companies to figure out new ways to deliver their products or services or to create new businesses outside of what they’re currently working on."
Jeff GothelfInnovation Studios: the Engines of Enterprise Experimentation
May 14, 2015
"Accessibility ownership should never fall on just one person but be understood and shared across entire product teams."
Saara Kamppari-MillerDesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility
May 26, 2022
"Creating moments of joy in the day can encourage positive behaviors and brighten people’s days."
Tess DixonC'mon Get Happy
September 29, 2021
"Our skills matrix became the center of gravity for our practice—it started writing job descriptions and guiding recruitment."
Liam ThurstonWhy Your Design Team Is Quitting, And How To Fix It
June 10, 2022
"If you’re amazing at your job but no one listens to your research or design, does it really have impact?"
Ian SwinsonDesigning and Driving UX Careers
June 8, 2016
"Empathy walls emerged at DTA because teams needed a visceral way to bring stories back from the field."
Leisa ReicheltOpening Keynote: Operating in Context
November 7, 2018
"Without a design ops function, teams make their own flavors that dilute brand and accessibility."
Rachael Greene Alison DavisBuilding a Design Ops Practice that Really Works (Most of the Time)
October 2, 2025
