Dain Saxon’s Post

The Fast Company article titled "Design leaders are in their reinvention era" discusses how design professionals are navigating significant shifts in their industry. The article highlights several key points: ✅ Evolving Roles and Responsibilities: Design leaders are increasingly taking on broader roles that go beyond traditional design tasks. They are becoming integral to strategic decision-making and influencing company culture and direction. ✅ Integration with Technology: The rapid advancement of technology, especially in AI and automation, is reshaping the design landscape. Designers must adapt to these changes and leverage new tools to stay relevant and innovative. ✅ Emphasis on Sustainability and Ethics: There is a growing focus on sustainable and ethical design practices. Design leaders are prioritizing environmental impact and ethical considerations in their work, reflecting broader societal values. ✅ Collaboration Across Disciplines: Successful design today often requires collaboration across various disciplines. Design leaders are working closely with engineers, data scientists, and business strategists to create holistic solutions. ✅ Continuous Learning and Adaptation: The article emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and adaptation for design professionals. Staying updated with industry trends, technologies, and methodologies is crucial for maintaining relevance and driving innovation. Overall, the article portrays a dynamic and evolving field where design leaders must be versatile, forward-thinking, and collaborative to thrive in the modern landscape. This article really helped me validate my thoughts about the future of design leadership. #future #design #designleadership

✨ Hot Take: If Hallmark can have Boss’s Day, why not an Org Designers Day? ✨ Think about it—org design leaders are shaping the future of work. They’re not just tweaking org charts; they’re reimagining how companies operate, how teams collaborate, and how culture thrives in an ever-changing world. This role isn’t just “important”; it’s becoming indispensable as businesses face complex challenges like hybrid work, AI integration, and rapid scaling. If Boss’s Day can exist, surely we can carve out a day to celebrate the visionaries who design the organizations of tomorrow. What do you think—should we make Org Designers Day a thing? Who’s with me? 💪 Drop your thoughts (or ideas for how we should celebrate) below 👇 #OrgDesign #FutureOfWork #Leadership

🔓 Unlock design leadership secrets with Saurabh Gupta! 🚀 Join Cohort 2 of The Design Leadership Workshop for UX designers, Creative Directors, Design Managers, Product Designers and Founders. 💡 Master design problems, strategy, and innovation. 🌟 Reserve your spot now!

Insight 6: Building an Integrated Design Culture To read the report, visit leadingdesign.works What this means for design leaders in regulated sectors: 💪 Empower Your Team: Invest in the growth and development of your design team. A culture that values continuous learning attracts and retains top talent. 👥 Foster Collaboration: A robust design culture thrives on collaboration. Encourage cross-functional teamwork to embed design deeply into the organisation. 🎯 Align with Business Goals: Ensure that design initiatives are aligned with broader business objectives to demonstrate their value and relevance. 💭 Promote a Design Mindset: Embed a design mindset across the organisation to create a unified approach to problem-solving and innovation. 🌐 Integrate Design Across Functions: Break down silos and ensure that design is integrated into every aspect of the business, from strategy to execution. _ Based on 30+ in-depth interviews with design leaders across the UK and Europe, this report offers insights into how these leaders establish, navigate, and leverage design capabilities within their organisations, while adhering to stringent regulatory frameworks. If you would like to learn more about how Leading Design Works insights might relate to your organisation's challenges, please reach out to us and we can schedule a 1-2-1 briefing for you and your leadership team. 

For the report and more, visit leadingdesign.works Design Works Design Leads Design Matters Nicolás Rebolledo Bustamante, Peter Neufeld, John Makepeace, Will Shaw, Monica Henderson, Dani Reis, Nicholas Johnson, PhD, Brando Luca Guerreri, RCA Service Design (Royal College of Art), EY Seren #Design #Transformation #Leadership #ServiceDesign #Digital #HumanCenteredDesign #CustomerCentricity #FinancialServices #Healthcare #Government #Energy #DesignThinking

👉 Stuck in the Land of Maybe? It’s Time to Decide. Ever notice how easy it is to get stuck between ideas and action? Design thrives on insights, creativity, and recommendations—but that’s just the warm-up. The real challenge? Turning those insights into *decisions* that drive progress. 🚧 Recommendations open the door—sparking ideas, backed by research and data. It’s where collaboration happens, trust builds, and everyone has their say. It’s where ideas take shape, but nothing’s locked in. Stakeholders are free to discuss, tweak, or even reject them. 🤔 No matter how brilliant the idea, how logic or compelling the evidence for it—it doesn’t mean a thing until someone makes the call. 🫥 Real design value comes when we move from endless discussion to *decisive action*. That’s where commitment comes in. It’s no longer about possibilities but taking a stand and moving forward—making decisions that set direction, define resources, and shape outcomes. 🚀 Design leaders navigate both worlds. On one side, we foster confidence and invite ownership. On the other, we drive things forward, ensuring decisions don’t get stuck in endless discussion—turning conversations into commitments and transforming ideas into impact. ⚡ So, are you moving forward, or circling around the possibilities? #DesignLeadership #BoldDecisions #CreativeCollaboration #FromIdeasToAction #ImpactDrivenDesign #MakeChangeHappen

"The strategic design gold rush is over." While this might sound like a scary sentiment at first, I'm choosing to see it as an opportunity for design leadership. It's a chance for reinvention of what role design led teams can play in corporate settings. Users are increasing their demand for simple and straightforward user experiences. Every company continues to need more user and customer advocacy and design leaders are perfectly positioned to be the fabric of that advocacy and stitch together the functions required to deliver it to market. Rather than being relegated to a subordinate capability in product-led companies, design leaders can now redefine their purpose, leveraging their skills in user empathy, strategic experiential planning and continue to tie together the often disparate agendas at play in organizations. #Design #Leadership #Reinvention #Innovation

If you want to scale Design significantly, there’s a trade-off When you focus on scaling headcount, quality and creativity don’t tend to correlate well (in most cases) When you increase headcount + production, volume will likely increase But without effective leadership & planning: - it is easy to lose control - it can all become a bit chaotic - silos & inconsistencies start to appear - process is often not adhered to / reviewed - quality consistency typically flies out the window - design becomes a service rather than part of a strategy The only way I think it really works is by flipping the mindset of what scaling Design means From → increasing the number of Designers To → increasing the number of people in the organisation that adopt ‘Design mindsets’ wherever they sit To me that’s the only way for Design to truly scale sustainably ———— ** just speaking from what I have seen and the conversations I’ve had. Happy to be challenged on this! #Design #Leadership #Scale

There is much that organizations can learn from artists and designers, from turning ideas into innovation to creative problem–solving and better decision-making. Trusting and working with designers as a leader involves a shift in mindset. It’s about using design to improve the whole company, not just its products. #leadership #strategy #management

Listening to Peter Skillman on Finding Our Way was both fascinating and thought-provoking. His insights into Philips’ digital transformation - evolving into a company that is now two-thirds software - offered a unique lens on how design plays a pivotal role in shaping the future of healthcare technology. Worth noting: in 2025, Philips is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its Centralized Design Group! What stood out to me was Peter’s focus on beautiful essentials: simplicity and speed. The idea of “doing less better” resonates deeply. As he explained, what you remove can be more impactful than what you add. Addressing customer frustrations and prioritizing the basics, like improving workflows and minimizing complexity, often yields greater value than introducing new, flashy features. In healthcare especially, where clinicians are spending ~40% of their time entering data rather than caring for patients, this focus on simplicity is critical. Streamlining workflows and applying AI to improve essential tasks - like search and data management - can help clinicians reclaim their purpose, ultimately improving care quality and reducing burnout. Although I’m not a designer (except for designing my own living spaces), I found this podcast incredibly insightful. It not only shed light on Philips’ rich heritage and its bold future but also highlighted the broader challenges and opportunities in the tech industry. Hearing Peter discuss the importance of hard work, relentless execution, and staying grounded in purpose reinforced timeless truths about leadership and innovation. As someone whose career began during a different type of digital transformation - telecom’s shift from analog to digital - I couldn’t help but compare it to the transformation Philips is undergoing today. The scope feels much broader, involving not just a technology shift but a reimagining of the company’s identity and its impact on customers and society. I’m also certain that my classmates from MIT, many of whom are big admirers of HBS business cases, will find this podcast equally compelling. It’s a fascinating case study on the intersection of design, technology, and human-centered innovation. Ultimately, Peter’s reflections on simplicity, focus, and unlocking creativity in others reminded me of the power of design - not just to make things work but to make them work for people. It’s a reminder that in our rush to innovate, we should never lose sight of the human.

The Power of Simplicity in Leadership and Innovation Dee Hock said:  “Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior.”  In today's fast-paced, ever-evolving world —whether you’re leading a team, designing systems, or rethinking customer experience—the temptation to layer on complexity can be overwhelming. We often equate intricate systems with sophistication and control, but more often than not, they create rigidity, confusion, and missed opportunities.  The alternative? Start with clarity.  At Maven AGI, we anchor our efforts in this philosophy. When teams have a "shared purpose" and guiding principles, they aren’t just solving problems—they’re anticipating challenges, innovating, and adapting in ways that no set of rules could prescribe.  For example, when we developed AI-driven solutions to improve customer success, we didn’t define every possible scenario or hard-code every workflow. Instead, we focused on empowering our teams and technology with the "principles" of empathy, agility, and user-first thinking. The results? Seamless, intelligent systems that adapt to complexity—without becoming unnecessarily complicated.  As leaders, our role isn’t to design every move but to establish the "why" and "how" that enables others to navigate uncertainty with confidence.  Dee Hock’s insight isn’t just a commentary on leadership; it’s a reminder to embrace simplicity as a competitive advantage.  How are you fostering simplicity in your leadership, team culture, or product design?