How design can transform your ability to address complex challenges
Imagine your change initiative was faster, smoother, less risky, and delivered better outcomes. We make this possible by putting people at the centre.
Change is a deeply human challenge. When it doesn’t work, human factors are usually to blame. Think about any change you have been involved with – chances are, you will have run into challenges such as:
- power structures: when change clashes with vested interests and shadow power;
- culture and mindset: when change is seen as ‘not how we do things around here’;
- behaviours: when change asks people do things differently;
- networks of relationships: when change calls for new relationships and routines.
Design is not just another change tool – it is the activity of change
Design steps into change with people. It explores the future, gets familiar with it, and works alongside others to overcome obstacles. Along the way, it brings diverse perspectives together, reducing blind spots and surfacing insights that might otherwise be missed.
Design gives shape to change, making ideas tangible and less ambiguous through visuals and shared language. When things get stuck, design unlocks creativity — helping to reframe challenges and imagine new paths where no clear solution exists.
Most importantly, it connects people to purpose, aligning teams and organisations around the value they create and the role each person plays in making it real.
If design is the solution, what is the problem?
Change is a constant for organisations – public and private. It can be driven by cost pressures, shifting markets, new technologies, or bold ambitions. But whatever the driver, the need to adapt isn’t going away — in fact, it’s only accelerating. And yet, every change carries risk: the risk of failure, or worse, the risk of damaging the delicate balance of how an organisation works.
Around 70 percent of change management programmes fail. There are a broad array of reasons for failure but employee acceptance of change is an accurate predictor of success. Deloitte
Only 21% of companies are reaping the transformative value of digital. However for those employing a strong customer focus that number rises up to 53%. HBR, Genpact
Change management often falls short. Technology transformations under-deliver.
Why? Because organisational change is a human process — and too often, it overlooks the humans at the centre of it.
When management is laser-focused on hitting business goals, it can miss the broader picture. Frontline knowledge gets left out, leading to missed insights and low morale.
Technology, meanwhile, is often rolled out without a real understanding of its users — their needs, context, or motivations. The result? Solutions that don’t land, don’t stick, and don’t deliver.
Design provides the golden thread to the change program
At its core, design is focused on value, starting with the value created for customers. From this flows a focus on the people who deliver that value: employees. That human focus then shapes the systems that support them – from management practices to the technology they rely on.
Think of design, management, and technology as a three-legged stool. Design helps define solutions that are meaningful to customers, make sense for employees, and deliver on business goals — all while providing clear direction for how technology should support the bigger picture.
But design doesn’t just help you create the new thing – it strengthens your organisation’s capability to create. It builds the muscle for change itself.
Design is the change as it happens
Design delivers the future state. Through the inherent ability to describe and define the future – and to do so from the perspective of the customer or beneficiary of the change.
It connects the dots between high-level strategy and on-the-ground action. And it delivers the capability to change. By bringing people into the process, aligning perspectives, and guiding the organisation forward, together.
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I’m a believer that Service Design is vastly more than designing services. It is the systemic understand of your whole company through the lens of your customer. It is the catalyst for change and the north star that marries your customer, talent, operations and technology. For those in the know, SD is the happy path on which you will pivot from ESG to regenerative strategies – building a sustainable future for your corporation. I’m our chief ambassador to engage customers in SD.