"What design programs rarely prepare students for is how little agency designers often have once they enter professional practice. And this challenge doesn't disappear with experience. When my co-author and I toured our book Designing Tomorrow, the most common question we heard was not what designers should do differently - but how to drive positive change in the face of resistance."
"How to get buy-in from bosses, managers, co-workers, clients, partner organisations - or whoever pays the bills - is a deceptively difficult problem. It's why the third part of Designing Tomorrow, which focuses on partnerships, may be its most important. Across three chapters, we explore collaboration, buy-in, and the shift from doing good work to becoming a strategic leader. This article, co-written with , distils those chapters into six practical strategies for driving positive change from within organisations."
Many design students are drawn to create social and environmental change, yet professional practice often affords designers limited agency and persistent resistance. Securing buy-in from bosses, managers, colleagues, clients, and partner organisations is difficult. Effective change requires understanding organisational structure and decision-making, clarifying organisational goals and strategic positioning, and identifying operational challenges. Driving change depends on assembling internal and external collaborators and fostering partnerships. Moving from producing good work to exercising strategic leadership helps secure stakeholder support. Practical strategies can guide designers to drive positive change from within organisations despite systemic resistance.
Read at Medium
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]