Only 20 percent of American homes are protected by security systems, and most of these systems are installed after a break-in. ‍

Home security veteran SimpliSafe hoped to convince the other 80 percent of home-dwellers to invest in preventative technology so the break-in never happens. The company approached IDEO to refresh and simplify the look and feel of its connected products to reach this wider audience and help them feel safe.

Interviews with potential customers revealed insights that informed the new design. Families told the researchers that existing security systems are expensive, bulky, and hard to install and use. Instead, systems should be unobtrusive, but responsive to your needs. They should react appropriately in emergencies, while also protecting your privacy.

Responding to those requests, IDEO overhauled the design and interaction of more than a dozen SimpliSafe products, including a wireless, touch-to-wake keypad; easy to install sensors; and a smart home base that acts as the brains of the system. Additionally, IDEO designed SimpliSafe's first step outside of the home—a video doorbell that can be used in tandem with the namesake home security system or on its own. Making the system enjoyable and intuitive to use means families are more likely to use it consistently—and correctly.

The team developed a consistent design language across SimpliSafe’s physical products, user interface, and digital presence. That clear visual language lets you know what each component does right out of the box; for example, the glass break sensor looks like a human eardrum that might actually hear a window shattering. The design also reduced the size of entry sensors by four times, while improving their range and battery life. Tapered backs and swept-front surfaces for all of these sensors help them blend into your home. The new system’s clean, understated appearance instills confidence without stoking fear of what could happen.

SimpliSafe’s keypad and base station guide you through setting up the system with voice feedback, while gentle LED lights and sound cues let you know at a glance that the system is armed correctly and you’re in safe hands. The system is also equipped with multiple layers of backup, so you don’t have to worry if the power or Internet goes down.

And the system responds intelligently, tailoring the way it reacts to match different scenarios. For instance, it sends a gentle reminder if a window is left open but a police response if a window is broken in. The design team also incorporated a first-of-its-kind privacy shutter on the system’s security camera so families can opt out of being recorded at home.

SimpliSafe launched its redesigned security system in early 2018, replacing the company’s two previous generations of products at the same price point. Already, the revamped system has cut the number of support calls from new customers.

In June 2018, venture fund and private equity firm Hellman & Friedman acquired SimpliSafe in a deal that valued the company at about $1 billion.

With a record number of applicants, stiff competition for top students, and a desire to make classes more diverse, college admissions teams are feeling the strain. Bowdoin College in Maine, one of the top liberal arts schools in the U.S., received more applications for the class of 2022 than for any other in its 224-year history.

Whitney Soule, Bowdoin’s Dean of Admissions and Student Aid, saw her staff at risk of burning out. On the advice of Bowdoin’s president, Clayton Rose, she invited IDEO to embed at the college and help design a new way of working. The IDEO team studied Bowdoin’s workflow and zeroed in on the application process as an area ripe for redesign.

By observing how Bowdoin counselors read applications, IDEO learned what drove their decisions. Mindful of how their choices could impact young people’s lives, counselors prioritized a meticulous reading of each application. But this thorough approach meant they often engaged in redundant work or delayed making final decisions.

IDEO designers translated their insights into a book for staff, featuring watercolor portraits of the admissions team and a clear articulation of their values—from integrity to inclusion. The book was IDEO’s promise that introducing a new reading process wouldn’t mean sacrificing Bowdoin’s personal touch.

Then, the designers and counselors ran A/B tests using real applications from past years, unwinding long-held beliefs about how they “should” be read. Soule and her team experimented by adjusting timelines and other factors that determine when and how applications move from a first read to a second read to a committee discussion.

Soule gave her team explicit permission to toss their typical playbook. Seeing their own process with fresh eyes, counselors realized they could be more confident in their expertise and tweak their workflow to meet changing demands.

A/B testing proved that some variables had little effect on the team’s final admissions decisions. With that in mind, IDEO redesigned the reading process and included a system called “magic sort,” which helps parse groups of applications based on a new set of counselor assessments in order to route each to its next round of reviews more efficiently.

The IDEO-Bowdoin team put the revised technique to work right away, processing 300 new applications from the annual QuestBridge program for low-income students. Counselors found they were able to make equally valid decisions while cutting the amount of overlapping work they faced by 40 percent, compared to years past.

Working with IDEO challenged us to change the way we work together—and we learned a new method of problem solving that we continue to use. We are better equipped to elicit creativity, then channel it into the practical implementation of new solutions. It’s been transformative!

WHITNEY SOULE, DEAN OF ADMISSIONS AND STUDENT AID, BOWDOIN COLLEGE

The new reading method let staff cope with a growing volume of applications, while balancing the need to evaluate individual students with the need to think holistically about the makeup of Bowdoin’s student body. Counselors adapted the technique to the rest of the year’s admissions cycle, including early-decision, regular decision, and transfer applications.

To extend what her team learned to other departments, Soule has led several design thinking workshops across campus. Her success as a leader has mirrored the growth of her team and the college; by empowering staff with new tools and the freedom to experiment, Soule and Bowdoin are leading by example in the evolving world of higher education.

For half a century, Swarovski has crafted iconic chandeliers dripping with the brand’s signature crystals. With the rise of new interface technology, the company came to IDEO for help to design the chandelier of the future.

IDEO designers set out to create beautiful, emotional experiences by layering technology onto Swarovski’s lighting offerings. Whether it’s setting the tone for a sophisticated retail experience, creating subtle ambiance at a romantic dinner for two, or providing true quality light to read a book, the team considered how a chandelier can enrich personal moments throughout the day.

Swarovski and IDEO assembled a multidisciplinary group, including industrial and UX designers, brand experts, and engineers to quickly vet, build, test, and refine their ideas.

Designers from IDEO and Swarovski worked together to completely reimagine the crystal chandelier.

Together, the team designed a new tech-infused chandelier and family of other light fixtures. At first glance, the chandelier resembles a simple, sleek metal disc. But when you turn it on and peer inside, an endless number of crystals swirl far into the distance—an Infinite Aura.

The Infinite Aura collection also includes pendant and wall lights. The team developed a mobile app that proactively modifies light settings based on the time of day, and also lets users customize their experience—including adjusting brightness and color to set a personal mood, or “Aura.”

Unlike most fixtures, Infinite Aura doesn’t just give off ambient light; families can also benefit from high-quality functional light, directed downward to help them focus on a task or diffused upward and downward to create a subtle ambiance. In a similar way, the chandelier can expertly illuminate a library, hotel lobby, or concert hall.

The new lighting line adds greater functionality and emotional resonance to today’s smart buildings, while retaining Swarovski’s timeless elegance. Infinite Aura debuted in Frankfurt, Germany in March and will be available internationally in fall 2018.

More than half of Americans don’t have the cash to cover a $400 emergency expense like a car repair or trip to the hospital. Taking that reality to heart, American Family Insurance, a Fortune 500 company that offers auto, home, business, and life insurance, was seeking a way to make an impact by helping people earn and protect—not just insure—the things they value.

American Family approached IDEO with an ambitious goal: to innovate in a way that would help working families—many of them existing American Family customers—who need a financial cushion in case of the unexpected. This new mission fell in line with American Family’s overall orientation toward increased social responsibility, including committing to a liveable wage for all employees, helping with student loans, and providing college scholarships and tuition reimbursement for employees’ children.

In early discussions, American Family thought people might need budgeting tools, but from the very first research interview, a different urgent need emerged: people needed a way to shore up their savings enough to protect against unforeseen needs. This same story came from numerous places. In Tennessee, the IDEO design team sat in the kitchen of a working single mom of four, who explained how her lifestyle was built around her extremely constrained budget. She couldn’t afford childcare, so she’d organized her home to allow her 11-year-old to watch the younger kids: partitioned snacks, timers on the TV, chore charts on the fridge. She managed her budget meticulously, it was clear, and she didn’t need new financial tools. What she really needed, she said, was extra income cushions so a surprise expense like a doctor’s visit or stretch investment like a kid’s basketball uniform wouldn't derail her plans. Like many of the people the team visited across the country, she didn't want to take on debt; she wanted extra work and the dignity and peace of mind that comes with it.

Could we, the team wondered, offer people who already have jobs the extra hours and income they need in a way that reduces, rather than exacerbates, the stress they already face? Would employers get on board?

The short answer was yes. Today’s businesses depend on on-demand work, including seasonal warehouse and retail shifts. Typically, companies look to temp agencies whose model is built on staffing with the goal of permanent placement. Moonrise enables companies to tap into a workforce that's already employed, allowing them the benefits of passive recruiting (reliability, consistency), but for short term work.

Knowing innovation was the path to growth, American Family took a chance by embracing a radically new brief: Create a service to help families living on the edge bridge the gap between the size of their paychecks and the size of their dreams. The result was a new business venture called Moonrise.

When customers told us that having an easy way to earn extra money could improve their lives, we were compelled to pursue a solution. Moonrise is a business with a human-centered mission. We’re proud it’s part of our American Family.

Jack Salzwedel, Chairman & CEO, American Family Insurance

The Moonrise platform lets workers sign up for shifts with partner organizations through a simple text message interface, and get paid as soon as their shifts are done. Employers who sign up to partner with Moonrise can list open shifts on the platform.

“Moonrisers” are W-2 employees of Moonrise, not contractors, so they don’t have to pay self-employment taxes. They also get personalized business and comment cards to take to job sites, making their interactions with employers feel more professional. In this way, Moonrise helps workers not only build a buffer against unexpected bills, but also explore new positions and fields—and perhaps even land new full-time work with Moonrise partners.

To test the program in real time, IDEO and American Family assembled 11 Moonrisers, six employers, and a team of designers and programmers to work out kinks in the platform. During a one-week live pilot in Wisconsin, Moonrisers finished a combined 28 work shifts, earning an average of $121 each, while IDEO designers worked behind the scenes to keep the process running smoothly.

Based on the success of the pilot, American Family created a new startup company called Moonrise, which became a wholly owned subsidiary of American Family. Moonrise launched to the public in the Chicago area in 2018, with plans for an eventual nationwide rollout. Moonrise signed Enterprise Rent-A-Car as its first employer and actively matches workers in Chicago with shifts, while continuing to build more corporate partnerships.

Since launching in 2018, over 7,000 people have applied to become Moonrisers, more than 7,000 shifts have been fulfilled, and over $500,000 has been put into the pockets of hardworking Moonrisers. Additionally, Moonrise will be expanding into 3 additional states in 2019.

IDEO and American Family Insurance interviewed customers of The General—a division of American Family—about how they budget to make ends meet. In this conversation, customer Chandra told designers how $62 could be the difference between breaking down and breaking even for her family.

It’s not always easy for established companies to innovate, especially outside their core business. But innovation is a high priority for American Family. Creating an employee -centered startup like Moonrise solves an urgent problem and distinguishes them from their competition. Together, American Family and IDEO identified a pressing human need and built a program from the ground up to meet it.

Like a gawky teen who acts like a kid but resembles an adult, many Internet-born organizations find, a few years in, that their mode of operation no longer matches their growing size. The acceptable norms of a small startup—like decision-making around a shared kitchen table—actually prevent these companies from continuing to innovate once they’ve scaled. As a result, they begin to plateau and become susceptible to disruption and competition.

Often, companies in this teen stage seek guidance in areas they've neglected during their initial growth spurt. As one CEO recently shared, she needed help “jumping the S-curve.” The following three principles can enable digitally-native companies to keep thriving and achieve sustainability—in other words, help the skinny kid fill out and establish the traits needed to become a grown-up.

Rethink team structures and incentives

When startups consist of just a few people in a room, there’s no separation between disciplines: An engineer sits next to the head of sales, who sits across from a project manager and shares a file cabinet with a designer. But as the company scales, teams often become siloed into discrete functions. When disparate groups are responsible for specific parts of the customer experience, it becomes fragmented.

In a project IDEO led with an online retail startup that had fallen into this trap, we noticed that the front-end engineers and UX designers—who were responsible for the website search interface—rarely communicated with the back-end engineers and data analysts. Because of this, the front-end team designed user search experiences that weren’t even feasible from a back-end point of view. In addition to this being a massive waste of time and effort, it represented a misalignment between teams working at the same company, on the same product, and serving the same customer. If internal teams are disconnected, the customer experience will inevitably be disconnected as well.

For organizations struggling with this, there’s an opportunity to reorganize teams around moments along the customer journey (account creation, browse or search, checkout, and so on), rather than function. Eventually, that misaligned company created an interdisciplinary search team that included designers, data analysts, account managers, customer success associates, and others. This resulted in a more consistent and functional search experience for users, which in turn led to more people finding, and ultimately buying, products on their site.

The customer experience needs to guide not only team organization, but also incentives. In early start-ups, individuals and teams are rewarded for speed and execution: The quicker features are released, the better. But this mindset only reinforces the tendency for teams to evolve into myopic silos, unable to grasp the holistic experience beyond their discrete function.

When reorganizing their teams around the customer journey, that online retail startup established new incentives and shared success metrics that encouraged the newly-formed groups to work together and focus on the customer experience, rather than speed and quantity. The new interdisciplinary search team’s incentives were tied to a customers’ success in finding the item they were looking for on the website or app.

Dig deeper into data

Internet-born startups tend to have an abundance of engineers who are experts at collecting and leveraging data. They relentlessly A/B test the product and often immediately take action based on the results: If button A is generating more clicks than button B, it’s best to go with the former.

This is where teenage companies take a wrong turn. Engineering teams rely on their same tried-and-true data and analysis methods used when they were chasing the next round of funding. But now that the company has matured and needs to become profitable, it must change its habits to match this new stage of growth. Continuing to blindly A/B test without considering the implications leads to over-optimizing their current product features. This results in feature bloat and prevents innovation beyond a hallmark product or technology.

Instead of reinforcing old habits, it’s useful for startups to ask why something is occuring—why is this button outperforming the other? Many teams skip this question. As a comparison, during qualitative research, we ask target customers open-ended questions to learn why they think, feel, or behave in a certain way. For example, a shopper may share that they prefer organic produce. But learning why—perhaps due to climate concern or wanting the best for their kids—unlocks the potential to understand how an online grocery delivery startup could innovate.

Rather than merely pushing organic strawberries on the homepage or building an “organic” product filter, the company can use this valuable knowledge to grow beyond their primary offering. They can consider questions like: Do environmental activists or health-conscious parents represent new or existing customer segments? How might we meaningfully shift our product or create a new one to serve them? The key is to follow data collection and A/B testing with qualitative research aimed at understanding why. Engineers will need to push beyond their comfort zone to ask these questions. Companies may also consider bringing qualitative research specialists onto engineering teams to help build this capacity.

For Internet-born startups, data can’t be only an optimization tool. It’s also a catalyst for deeper qualitative understanding and continuous innovation.

Embrace a new mode of leadership

When founders are used to working alongside engineers and designers, they often hesitate or struggle to step into the level of leadership required to run a company with hundreds of employees. The skills that enable someone to build a company are not always the same as those required to lead a mature and rapidly growing organization.

During a meeting with a digitally-native healthcare startup, the founder asked for a pause so he could weigh in on new illustration icons. By this point, the company had 200 employees and the founder had hired over a dozen senior leaders with deep experience managing teams and scaling mid-sized startups. But because of this CEO’s tendency to do the work (which he embraced when the startup was 10 people) rather than delegate the work, he wasn’t empowering this new talent do their jobs. Letting go, trusting others, and delegating can be particularly difficult and humbling for founders of companies in this adolescent period. But it’s essential to make these shifts for the startup to flourish.

This same founder also shared that communicating the company’s vision and big decisions to employees felt like more of a challenge than it used to. When an organization can fit inside a conference room, leaders have a simpler time with this: Small startup teams are often made up of generalists with an “all hands on deck” mindset. But with hundreds of specialists on board, CEOs must translate their strategy to multiple teams with differing expertise.

Each quarter, the founder began holding meetings with each team in addition to town halls with the entire company. Rethinking one’s communication strategy at this adolescent stage can create more of an opportunity for understanding, connection, and inspiration. This transition also reflects a new level of maturity for a leader.

Digitally-native startups initially grow and succeed due to a certain set of conditions: They’re technologically innovative, data-driven, and have leaders who can inspire early hires and investors and build from the ground up. But when these startups scale, those core conditions no longer do the trick. Evolving from a rambunctious, scrappy teen to a promising adult requires a new willingness to centralize around the customer experience, think before acting, and reach a higher level of leadership.

Special thanks to Mike Stringer, Jill Levinsohn, and Deb de Vries for their contribution to this article.

Visuals by Kate Bingaman-Burt

Startups enjoy a reputation as the bright young things of the business world. They’re digitally fluent, small enough to be nimble, and new enough to be free of legacy baggage. Yet many successful startups face a rude awakening if they make it past infancy and scale to hundreds of employees. While success is exciting, puberty is awkward. These principles can help.

Now, almost seven years and two babies later, all four of us are still in the same space. I accidentally gave birth to our second child on the apartment floor—a life-changing moment that only took up about twelve square feet. Eric calmly delivered her, while speaking to the paramedics, and our two-year-old stood in the corner.

So, our apartment has served many different purposes. With each additional human, black shirt, pair of boots, friendship, painting, plant, and piece of furniture we have had to really evaluate what stays in the apartment and what must go.

I’ve devoured all the decluttering blogs, books, documentaries, and conversations. I’ve tried a lot of the methodologies, and written “get rid of everything” on my weekend to-do list for more than seven years—and failed. But over the years, I’ve built a framework for making decisions about what to bring into my life—and our space—based on what matters most to me and to us.

I’m not sure that this is the final version of my criteria for what stays and goes, but I’m trying it out—a true IDEO prototype. I would like to think that these five principles could apply to whatever life you have—whether you have a huge space with three closets, a tiny room with no closet, or you actually live in a closet, like my daughters do.

1. Relationships

Relationships are what matter most to me. I value people. I love having them over to celebrate, I love feeding them, letting them stay overnight, hearing their stories, letting them shower, and taking meals to them. We built a Murphy bed for my husband and me to give us more space, but, mostly, so that we can have people over to talk and eat together, and develop those relationships that mean so much to us. We also built bunk bed cribs in the closet (bedroom) so that the girls would learn to share. Instead of being a constraint, I think of our tiny space as a way to share happiness, motivate us to resolve conflict more quickly, and cry and be sad—together.

2. Cleanliness

Cleanliness isn’t just about Pine-Sol and bleach—it’s also about reducing visual clutter. White walls, curated with colorful artwork and flooded with natural light, feel clean and visually calm. With a human baby for a Swiffer, I am also particularly aware of accumulating dust. And although it would be more convenient, I find it difficult to give up my duties to a cleaning person because of my high standards and weird obsession with fresh grout and shiny floors. And so, cleaning and reducing visual clutter are a family affair filled with songs, dance breaks, snacks, and high fives.

3. Long-term vs. short-term

For me, investing in things that will be with me for the long term is a balance between using my money better and producing less waste. In the short term, I will reuse something that I already have, like a hand me down click-on kid booster seat, even though I don’t like the way it looks or the exact function of it. (My kids will eventually be able to sit in a regular chair unassisted, right?) To help manage the amount of waste we produce, we also have the super luxury of curbside compost, recycling, and garbage and we have communities that will happily use things that we no longer can.

4. Aesthetics

When one thing is out of place in a small space, everything looks like chaos. To create order and balance, you need a bit of white space to breathe, and nice things to look at. To give us more storage we installed cabinets high up on the wall, out of our line of sight. We hang our laundry bags on a dowel in our front closet, hiding dirty laundry and freeing up the floor space that a laundry hamper would take up. We often rotate the refrigerator artwork to keep things interesting and curated. We make our home a place filled with things that we’re proud to talk about, look at, and live with.

5. Health and wellness

We all need space to be together and to be apart, space to retreat to and be quiet, space to move around and dance, or space to exercise or meditate. The place where you live can’t always serve all of those purposes. Creating cozy, soft places to read, moving furniture to the perimeter to make room to dance and run in circles, and hanging out in the shower just one minute longer to clear your thoughts have all helped us be a healthier family. And when it feels like everything is breaking down, we buckle the girls in the stroller and go outside. The outdoors have become our extended living room, allowing us to spread out our arms a little wider and play.

We won’t be in our tiny home forever; two growing children mean that one day our apartment will actually be too small. But we—and you—can take this methodology we’ve created wherever we go.

When you think about your own space, remember to consider the things that matter most to you, and the things that work for you. Take pride in your home and make it your own sanctuary. Learn to see the possibility in your space and in your life.

In the meantime, we’ll be thriving in our 400 square feet. If you’d like to drop by, we’d love to feed you.

It all started in 2011, with eight weeks of apartment searching, a lot of flirting with landlords, a couple of rejections (because “couples always break up in studio spaces”), and an eventual win—four hundred square feet for my husband Eric and me.

As more of our interactions with healthcare become mediated by screens, the need to design human-centric systems only increases. Digital interfaces can empower people to take control of their own health, but these systems can also amplify the sterile interactions for which the industry is all too well known.

In order for “making healthcare more human” to be more than a marketing slogan, it’s important for designers, entrepreneurs, and business leaders to keep in mind the humans they serve—especially when designing digital products. Below are five principles we use at IDEO to keep human needs at the center of everything we do.

1. Meet users where they are

Human-centered design means designing for a user’s whole life context: income, employment, food preferences, and emotions. We must also consider the expectations, learned behaviors, and technological capabilities each user brings to the table when thinking about his or her health.

At IDEO, we always try to map out the full user journey. And because that user is human, they might not always be consistent in the way they interact with the digital product or tool. For example, in the course of designing a connected blood glucose meter, we observed that many people with diabetes don’t test their glucose levels on a regimented schedule. Why? Life gets in the way.

But because certified diabetes educators (CDEs) need as accurate information as possible, they ask patients to test as regularly as possible for the two weeks leading up to an appointment. This is where designers can play a role: Because digital tools live in people’s pockets and homes, we can tailor solutions to the individual to a greater degree than is possible in the in-person clinical care environment. By observing how patients use workarounds to integrate products into their routines, we can design solutions that work within the context of their lives. It’s only by meeting users where they are that we can inspire meaningful behavior change over time.

2. Create “give-get” loops

Imagine you’re introduced to a digital product or service by a healthcare provider during a routine clinical visit. You may choose to search for the accompanying app and download it from the App Store. You’d then go through an onboarding process, create a username and password, and decide whether to accept push notifications. You may also be asked to share sensitive health information or consent for the application to access it.

All of these steps have happened before you gained any tangible value from the product or service. In the absence of clear benefit to users, it’s not uncommon to lose many at this early stage.

One way we address early user drop-off is with a “give-get” loop. This could be as simple as asking a user to enter their dietary restrictions in exchange for tailored suggestions about nutrition, or asking for an address to provide hyper-local recommendations. Ultimately, good user experience design incorporates that data to complete a cycle of action that benefits the user. When we’re able to create conditions for purposeful data gathering, we can then recognize patterns and help users discover insights that they could act upon by introducing and initiating new behaviors.

At the same time, we need to be mindful of the role we might be creating for ourselves as recipients and holders of sensitive information. That’s why we’re careful to only collect the “minimally viable data” required to create the intended user experience.

3. Design for relationships

User experience design for managing chronic disease needs to rely on more than software and technology. The relationship between the primary user and their network of care providers and community members has significant bearing on the success of the product. The user experience is part of a larger service ecosystem and must consider how the nodes in that system interact.

Today, pharmaceutical companies often use digital tools to drive adherence—to make sure that patients take their medication at the right times and in the right ways. But digital solutions can go beyond adherence: they can—and should—support holistic care beyond acute or immediate medical needs.

When digital experiences and interactions can help patients live healthier lives, they become tools for delivering better health outcomes overall, beyond any specific condition. Further, the burgeoning field of digital therapeutics is turning out digital health products that themselves stand as effective, proven interventions to treat physical, mental, and behavioral conditions.

4. Don’t be limited by the boundaries of “the device”

When IDEO began working with Bayer Diabetes (now Ascensia Diabetes Care) in 2006, people with diabetes were able to access their own blood glucose data either by logging it themselves or by showing the meter to their doctor. The Contour USB opened up new opportunities for design, enabling people to plug the meter into a personal computer and transfer all readings to a single document. Once the Contour USB launched, the next design challenge was to make it simpler and less expensive. We honed in on a feature: the color screen.

While a color screen might seem like a great new opportunity to present rich information, it was only used for displaying simple data, like meal markers, dates, and times. From a human-centered design perspective, it made more sense to eliminate the color screen and use users’ smartphones or computers instead. The meter’s color screen was adding unnecessary cost without contributing enough benefit in return.

By focusing on the outcome rather than the solution, we were able to spot our own blindspot. Just because an intervention can be solved with technology doesn’t mean it always has to be.

5. Inspire the organization to evolve

As a rule, creating digital products and services will create the need for new capabilities and processes inside the organizations that deliver them. Digital user experiences are living systems, and they require organizational investment and structures ready to support near-constant change. As soon as we’re “done” designing a digital experience, a software operating system might change, a new data privacy law might pass, or a content partner could change their rules of engagement, any of which would require additional refinement.

Today, many companies that deliver global offerings at scale work in silos that are each oriented around different targets and metrics. There are several examples where organizations are directly addressing this challenge through new experimental ways of working. Whether through a corporate innovation lab, internal incubator, or entirely separate venture, carving out a portion of the business enables efficient experimentation without detracting from core business objectives. Then, once proof-of-concepts have been successful, learnings can be incorporated into the rest of the organization.

Even within the most nimble and flexible organizations, any digital product or service will need to continue to evolve and improve from day one. It’s like that old adage about buying a car: once you drive it off the lot, it immediately goes down in value. Once a digital solution is launched, it’s essential to start planning immediately for its next update. By listening to the needs of end users, it should be clear where to begin.

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From stepping into a doctor’s office to taking a daily vitamin, each interaction with the healthcare system was designed for and by a human—and yet the industry can often feel soulless.

CEOs like Tim Cook of Apple, Julie Sweet of Accenture North America, and Larry Fink of BlackRock joined together to declare that businesses must also focus on the ethical treatment of their employees, suppliers, and the environment. In other words, organizations must rethink their purpose—a reason for existing beyond making a profit.

But establishing purpose isn’t simple, particularly for parent companies that own a variety of businesses. Mergers and acquisitions can put the purposes of different enterprises at odds with one another when they find themselves under the same corporate umbrella. Individual employees create their own goals and motivations. But beyond the structural and financial ties across entities and employees within a corporation, there often is no consistent, unifying vision.

With so much complexity in a conglomerate organization, where do leaders begin to create a purpose that functions across many businesses? The solution lies in “nested purpose”—a layered approach that starts at the business level and ladders up to the parent level. Nested purpose builds unity among all employees and businesses, making everyone feel connected. We’ve seen it shift leaders’ mindsets from “running a business owned by a parent company” to “being part of a family of businesses that are stronger together.” Nested purpose has the power to inspire new individual behaviors that in turn catalyze global impact across a corporation.

Walt Disney Company, for example, defines their “why” within their mission statement, “To entertain, inform and inspire people around the globe through the power of unparalleled storytelling.” This statement applies across nine subsidiaries, each with different audience engagement, content, and distribution. A tier down, ESPN, which is owned by Disney, describes their “why” as, “To serve the sports fan, anytime, anywhere.” This statement is more focused on the ESPN consumer and their habits, but it nests comfortably within Disney’s higher purpose, enabling the two to function in tandem toward their ultimate goal, and giving employees in the smaller section of the business a sense that they’re meaningfully connected to the parent corporation.

The following is a series of tools and exercises to help foster nested purpose, based on our experience working with a global corporation hoping to drive transformational change within their organization. Like the Business Roundtable executives, this particular CEO knew that developing purpose at the parent-company level would be both virtuous and strategic, but needed leaders from each of the businesses to be engaged, aligned, and inspired. In addition to engaging these executives, we included promising talent—from mid-level managers to vice presidents—in the work to define and activate parent-level purpose.

Begin by setting the wheels in motion

At the first session with the heads of the businesses and their employees, we introduced the Purpose Wheel: a tool designed to foster conversations about purpose. The Wheel helps teams envision the various ways the parent company might have impact in the world. Simultaneously, the Wheel builds the foundation for an eventual purpose statement. Before crafting the specifics and poetry of a purpose statement, leaders must first find common ground around the idea and how it’s nested throughout the company.

Spinning the Purpose Wheel, the group imagined what the parent company’s future might look like if their purpose was grounded in the following five underlined areas:

We exist to Enable Potential
This suggests a parent company creates impact by inspiring greater possibilities, such as Nike, whose products and services exist to motivate and empower athletes.

We exist to Reduce Friction
By simplifying and eliminating barriers, companies like Spotify make daily pleasures—like listening to music—more accessible and seamless for customers.

We exist to Foster Prosperity
Brands like Warby Parker, which donates a pair of glasses to someone in need for every pair sold, creates impact by supporting the success of others.

We exist to Encourage Exploration
This suggests that a company’s purpose is to champion discovery. Adobe, for example, offers a creative suite of tools and services that people can use to design and explore.

We exist to Kindle Happiness
Zappos purpose is “to live and deliver WOW.” The retail company creates impact by inciting pure joy.

While spinning the wheel, we posed the following questions to encourage discussion: If we exist to [ insert one of the five areas ], how might that purpose ultimately show up in our individual workplaces and in the world? What would all of us—together—have to agree to start or stop doing in order for this parent-company purpose to be true?

The Wheel’s five areas are intentionally designed to be fluid. Phrases like “enable potential” and “encourage exploration” are similar yet different. Though Spotify’s purpose is grounded in reducing friction, the company’s purpose could also be rooted in kindling happiness for its millions of listeners. This kind of flexibility is especially useful when establishing shared purpose among diverse businesses, as it enables generative conversations and more opportunity for alignment.

The Purpose Wheel also opens teams’ eyes to new possibilities: If a parent company exists to foster prosperity, for example, what innovative ideas or growth opportunities might this foundation unlock for one of its business groups? Perhaps it’s tweaking the manufacturing process to be more environmentally-friendly, developing a more human-centered customer service strategy, or instituting a new parental leave benefit for employees.

Get tangible through storytelling

Once this groundwork was laid, we broke the executives and employees into small groups and asked each member to share stories about their business that made them proud or represented their workplace culture at its best—focusing on humans and experiences, not profit or performance.

One business head talked about an entry-level employee who works at one of the energy plants her business operates. During a shift, the worker put his job at risk by persistently questioning a supervisor’s recommendation. His willingness to push authority ended up preventing an accident at the plant, one that would have put both the business and worker safety at risk. A mid-level manager shared a story about his business providing the financial resources to send a customer’s son to engineering school. After graduation, the son returned to his village to help the community learn to irrigate crops and generate food for the local area.

When asked to boil these stories down into values, the groups landed on words like bravery, dedication, trust, protection, empowerment, and generosity. Articulating these values prompted even more storytelling: Other participants began considering and sharing stories from their own organizations. Eventually, they generated a collection of stories about a particular shared value from across the parent company.

Look to the future with optimism

While stories of the past help illuminate purpose-oriented practices already in play, considering the future encourages leaders to articulate hopes and dreams for the parent company. During another workshop, we gave the team blank front covers of magazines, ranging from WIRED to National Geographic. We asked them to reflect on the purpose statement and values they’d derived from the previous exercises to imagine how their company might show up on a magazine cover in the future. What image would appear? What would the headline say?

One participant proudly taped his National Geographic cover on the board. The headline read, “Plastics Now Completely Eliminated From the World’s Oceans.” Another’s cover said, “[Parent company’s CEO] Named Time’s Person of the Year.”

When creating purpose at the parent company level—or any level for that matter—it’s helpful for tools and exercises to toggle between the accessible (sharing real stories) and aspirational (spinning the Purpose Wheel and imagining the future). This ensures that the eventual purpose statement is ambitious and inspirational, but also relatable and within a business’ reach.

Collaborate to drive improvement and alignment

To ground the group back in the tangible, we guided them through a writing session, asking them to draft three potential purpose statements for the parent company, based on the structure established from the Purpose Wheel, the values derived from their favorite stories, and the visions captured on the magazine covers.

Each team presented their favorite to the larger group, then switched tables and left their favorite purpose statement for others to inherit, build on, and improve. At the end of the rotations, every participant had contributed to five strong purpose statement prototypes to continue refining and testing with teams.

Putting purpose into practice

Nested purpose isn’t simple. Done poorly, it can confuse, distract and compound already complicated dynamics at the parent company-level. But when carefully planned and designed with both leaders and their employees, nested purpose can invigorate an organization by clarifying roles and creating cohesion across industries and countries.

Written by Kristin Kelly and Nate Carter
Visuals by Louisa Liu

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Business Roundtable, a lobbying group composed of executives from some of America’s largest companies, recently released a statement arguing that today’s corporations must do more than simply drive shareholder value.

I help organizations cut through complexity by shaping how they show up, through brand strategy, identity, and storytelling.

Working at the intersection of brand and business, I bring an editorial eye and a bias toward making—turning ideas into tangible experiences that people can understand, trust, and believe in.

My work spans government, healthcare, financial services, media, and consumer goods, from launching Gen Z-focused ventures to building innovation labs and reimagining legacy brands. I relish moments of ambiguity and enjoy translating across teams, perspectives, and priorities to move ideas forward.

I started my career in editorial and digital design, shaping cross-platform experiences and identity systems in publishing and agency environments. That foundation still shapes how I work today: I’m detail-oriented, collaborative, and overreliant on the Oxford comma. I hold a BFA in Visual Communication from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

For 25 years, I've asked the same question: Who does this design exclude—and what are we going to do about it?

My work spans human-centered strategy, inclusive design, and qualitative research, with clients ranging from Microsoft, Google, and Verizon to the National Science Foundation, and San Francisco Unified School District.

Before IDEO, I taught elementary school in East Palo Alto and spent a decade doing design work with social service organizations—where I learned firsthand what it costs people when systems are built without them in mind.

I am currently writing User Error, a nonfiction book about digital access and the design decisions behind it. I live in Oakland, California.

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My expertise spans brand, communication, and product design across tech, education, the arts, and social impact.

I believe great work demands both high-level vision and obsessive attention to detail, and only happens through collaboration.

I bring an inclusive, hands-on approach and a deep understanding of business, which enables me to consistently deliver excellence while always asking why.

Before joining IDEO, I worked at the brand firms Pentagram and VSA Partners. I began my career as a designer, leading teams at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Milwaukee Art Museum. I hold an MFA in graphic design from Maryland Institute College of Art and a BFA in communication design from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, and have taught at some of the best design schools in the US.

I am responsible for IDEO’s long-term success in China and working with clients to use design as a tool to enable growth. Specifically, I have helped Chinese companies design holistic brand solutions through the development of their products, communication, services, and innovation teams, and I have helped multinationals expand their presence and influence in China.

I advise global leaders on developing China-led innovation and capabilities.

In over 15 years in IDEO Shanghai, I have worked on projects that use design to elevate the quality of the experience of healthcare products and services, streamline processes that increase productivity, create spaces and programs that promote and enable inclusive communities, and build next generation mobility solutions that are planet-positive.

Before joining IDEO, I worked at Philips Electronics and the Electrolux Group in Italy, the Netherlands, and Singapore on a number of breakthrough commercial products. I am a member of the Young President Organization in Shanghai.

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In this episode, Becca Carroll, IDEO's Chief Strategy Officer, talks with Sida Li, co-founder and CEO of Shared Context Lab, about staying anchored to a human need while the technology around her keeps changing shape, why she treats her business model with the same rigor she'd bring to a product, and what it feels like to build a company at this particular, disorienting moment in AI.

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