Since its founding over a century ago, Tokyo College of Music (TCM) has trained countless world-class musicians. Despite its well-established reputation, however, the school was feeling a pressing need to reconsider its role in order to remain relevant in a changing world.

The college had plans to build a second campus in Daikanyama, a prominent area of Tokyo known for being a hotbed for new global trends. Taking advantage of this opportunity, TCM leaders asked IDEO to help them develop a new concept for the school, and to redesign the learning experience while preserving a focus on classical music.

To kick off the research phases of the project, IDEO designers interviewed TCM students, and traveled to London, New York, and Boston visiting educational institutions, music schools, and arts facilities.

The team observed that students at music colleges outside of Japan were giving serious consideration to their career plans at an early stage in their studies, acquiring a variety of skills and mindsets through a well-rounded education. By contrast, TCM students were focused on learning and performing classical music, but tended not to have a clear image of future career opportunities.

IDEO proposed four specific directions for TCM’s new campus, based on an overarching theme of “culture, fields, and people collaborating across boundaries.” The first aim was to foster a business mindset and entrepreneurial spirit among the students that surpassed their classical music training. Next was to increase opportunities for actual performances, collaborations with professionals outside the school, and joint projects. The third aim was to position the college as a platform that would encourage the spontaneous creation of communities within and outside the school. The final aim was to develop students who were digitally savvy and fluent in new technologies, enabling them to continue evolving in response to developments in the real world. These goals are reflected in the various spaces of the school, as well as in the design of the experiences that occur in those spaces.

The most symbolic of these spaces is the Creative Lab. Originally intended as a library, the space now functions as a platform where people from within and outside the school community can collaborate and generate innovative ideas. The open layout, which encloses a cafeteria for students and faculty, can be altered depending on programming needs. The Creative Lab provides a venue not only for live performances in which the students can polish their improvisational skills, but for holding workshops and other events on topics such as cultural exchange, business, and new technologies.

New furniture and objects were carefully selected to inspire spontaneous encounters and conversation between students from different departments and staff, creating a flow of activity.

Even the landings on the staircases, which tend to be dead space, were designed with this concept in mind. One student commented that the space facilitates meeting new people and creates “opportunities for deeper interaction with students from other departments.” This intentional, open design has transformed the space into a hub within the school and the local community.

Through the new environment and educational opportunities at TCM's Daikanyama campus, students now have stronger opportunities to apply their creative talents in numerous fields worldwide, creating impact informed by the various perspectives, skills, and relationships they have developed at TCM.

Georgia is among the most populous states in the American South. It’s a place with a storied past and promising future—on the rise economically, and continuing its powerful cultural impact on music, TV, cuisine, and tourism. Over 10.4 million people call Georgia home, and nearly all of these people will at some point navigate the state’s websites for securing everyday services. Ideally, this online platform would provide unifying and accessible government resources for everyone, whether they’re renewing their vehicle registration, seeking a fishing license, or looking up tax law updates.

Georgia’s Office of Digital Services (DSGA), part of the Georgia Technology Authority, was challenged with designing a platform to modernize the collective and individual online presence of 80+ state agencies, many of which used visually disconnected formats and color palettes that could leave the public feeling confused. DSGA recognized that they could provide more efficient and higher quality service to the public if they simplified the language, designed the site from the user's point of view, and created a more cohesive look and feel across agencies.

IDEO worked with the DSGA to identify the priorities of Georgia residents who use the various agency websites. On a road trip from Savannah to Atlanta, with stops in Macon and Dublin, the IDEO team immersed themselves in the rich culture of Georgia, connecting with social workers, low-income residents, state agency leadership and civic organizations to learn how Georgia’s digital properties could better address their disparate needs.

The design research underscored that there isn’t just one Georgia—it’s a tapestry of people, geographies and political orientations. Yet several common themes emerged, including:

Georgians want their government to “give it to them straight.” On the redesigned Georgia.gov platform, the people of Georgia can easily search popular topics to get the information they need. This includes learning how to apply for food stamps, renewing a business license, or simply finding out the location of a local office in their area. If a user has remaining questions, they can connect directly with a real human for further assistance, balancing direct information with warmth and a personal touch. User feedback on the site provides the opportunity for continuous design improvement.

Georgians want to take pride in the legacy and the future of their state. IDEO developed an entirely new design system with new navigational elements, fonts, and a color palette inspired by Georgia’s landscapes, all of which can be modified for individual agencies while remaining consistent with the state brand.

A distillation of the original Georgia seal adds authority, and new icons anchor the site’s menus and bring more clarity to the search function. The platform was designed to be Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 AA compliant, providing clear and accessible page content that adheres to federal laws and international web standards. To instill trust in Georgia’s online presence, each page also has a header that indicates it’s an official Georgia State website and outlines the uniform features constituents can use to identify this.

With improved navigation and easy-to-access prioritized content, Georgia.gov is a much more efficient platform for addressing requests from citizens. The site projects a happy-to-help, citizen-centered approach that aims to empower all Georgians so that they feel confident, informed, and prepared.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 30 million Americans have diabetes, almost 10% of the population. The vast majority of these diagnoses are type 2, which is commonly treated through a combination of medicine, diet, and exercise. Today, one of the major barriers to better outcomes is access to trusted information. As little as 15 percent of people with diabetes receive adequate education from their healthcare providers on managing their disease and making recommended lifestyle changes.

Ascensia Diabetes Care, a global healthcare company, has been a leader in diabetes treatment for over 70 years, known primarily for producing blood glucose meters. IDEO has worked with Ascensia for more than a decade, helping develop and design their CONTOUR NEXT ONE meter in 2016. In 2017, Ascensia engaged IDEO with a new goal of moving the company beyond physical devices. Ascensia envisioned a first-of-its-kind approach to educating and monitoring diabetes patients. In partnership with IDEO, they wanted to build a comprehensive solution—one that would not simply take glucose readings and document food intake, but would consider all factors that impact a person's health.

Through deep collaboration, Ascensia and IDEO built a powerful app-based service. The project began with a strategic vision for the experience and ended with the delivery of an all-encompassing health offering, including training of providers, packaging, app design, content creation, and visual design.

The patient experience married data and tracking, real-life mentorship, and personalized content. When a patient signed up, they were paired with a Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE) who created a tailored program based on their needs and linked them to relevant articles on topics like cooking, mental wellbeing, and sexual health. The IDEO team led the charge in hiring and training guides, crafting the educational content, and even designing the content management hub.

The data engine behind the app is another one of the program's stand-out qualities. The app pulled data from multiple data sources—exercise bands and glucose meters—to provide constant feedback, track progress, and continually refine the experience. To generate empathy, as well as build the app's initial data set, IDEO's data scientists tested the product on themselves. One designer wore a wrist full of exercise monitors around the office and tracked her blood sugar after every meal.

The app-based service was tested with 60 people and demonstrated remarkable early results. Only two participants failed to complete the study—a stunning success rate when adherence to therapy for chronic illnesses in developed countries averages around 50%. Additionally, participants reported drastic improvements in both physical and mental health. One recently widowed 70-year-old woman emerged from depression, returned to swimming, and started having regular blood sugar readings.

The project required Ascensia to embrace new ways of working internally, adopt a broader view of their offering, and ultimately expand the way they serve people with diabetes.

When Mr. Gordon told his fifth grade students they were taking a field trip on a bus, many of them envisioned the city bus that they ride each day to school. But when they saw the Verizon Explorer Lab pull into the school parking lot, they realized a unique experience awaited them. Painted in bright colors, this bus promised something very different from their daily commute.

“Climb aboard, explorers!” says the Lead Explorer. The students walk through the bus’ sliding doors and inside, where instead of rows of seats, they find a sleek research lab. Suddenly, the lights dim. The bus makes a rumbling noise as though it’s about to lift off. And on a large screen, a vision of Earth from space appears. The students listen and point as the video narrator briefs them on NASA’s ongoing search for life in space.

Science education isn’t always this fun. Some kids have a chance to learn through interactive games, immersive experiences, or engaging field trips; but many lack access to rich educational experiences in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). As a result, they can be less likely to pursue careers in STEM, though many future jobs will demand mastery of these subjects. This not only impacts a student’s potential and future, but reduces the diversity and number of qualified STEM job applicants.

In under-resourced schools, students are often limited to the scarce tools available for STEM learning in their classrooms. Many kids rarely have a chance to leave their neighborhoods. For these kids, mobile learning experiences that come to their school offer unparalleled exposure to cutting-edge, technologically advanced, and—most importantly—inspiring gateways into these critical academic subjects.

As part of its focus on digital inclusion, Verizon partnered with IDEO to share the excitement of STEM learning with middle schoolers. To facilitate access and discovery of STEM, the team designed a learning experience that takes place on a coach bus and can be scaled to reach kids across the nation.

The team set out to transform the bus into the Verizon Explorer Lab: a futuristic research lab that transports kids to new environments, from outer space to under the sea. As part of the larger Verizon Innovative Learning program, the Verizon Explorer Lab offers delightful and rigorous content that meets national science standards.

A multidisciplinary team comprised of designers across interaction, communication, environments, games, and software partnered with Verizon to bring the Verizon Explorer Lab to life.

To keep the student at the center of the experience, the team designed alongside kids. Their gravitation toward play, interaction, and technology inspired the digital game that students play onboard the bus. When developing the game’s narrative, the designers turned to popular kids’ books and movies. What began as a card game prototype eventually became a 360-degree video and virtual reality expedition to Mars—complete with a custom musical score—that introduces middle schoolers to engineering basics.

After stepping through the bus doors and taking a tour of the solar system, Mr. Gordon’s students receive an emergency call from NASA: They must rescue the missing Curiosity rover, which is dedicated to collecting evidence of life on Mars. Eager to save Curiosity, the students become immersed in the adventure at hand. And through the adventure, they become immersed in science.

Students use tablets to design their own Mars rover. Each rover appears on a large screen and traverses the planet’s extreme terrain. The goal is to collect data that suggests life on Mars, including ice deposits, photos, and more. Students iterate on their rover’s design—wheels, power sources, and sensors—to test if it can stand up against dust storms and craters. The team consulted a NASA planetary scientist to ensure accuracy, as well as educators to establish cohesion with classroom curricula.

During the game, students are encouraged to compare designs and learn from each other: One rover may be able to travel long distances and take various photos, while another can carry large quantities of ice and sediment samples but can’t go far because of its size. At the end of the mission, the group finds Curiosity and sends all of the evidence they’ve collectively gathered back to NASA to aid the search for life beyond Earth. Before departing the bus, students watch an animated video that explains various jobs in STEM and encourages kids to pursue one of these careers.

The Verizon Explorer Lab teaches students the engineering design loop, the value of collaboration and teamwork, and what a career in STEM might look like. The mission to Mars game is just one of many potential STEM learning opportunities for students and integrated, customizable learning modules for teachers.

Since launch, the Verizon Explorer Lab has traveled to various parts of the United States and reached thousands of kids. It continues to be managed by Learning Undefeated, Verizon’s nonprofit partner. By designing for and with students, it’s possible to create educational experiences that facilitate meaningful learning and genuine fun. The Verizon Explorer Lab represents progress towards a more inclusive future for employers and the STEM field.

On that day, they pulled us into a room that resembled a basketball court. Wide, open decks were marked by signs and little flags identifying team workspaces: Purchasing Boulevard, Operations Corridor, and Design Central. The walls of the space were adorned with customers stories, insights, and frameworks that had been collected during design research and now pointed toward new opportunities. At the center of the room sat a new kind of prototype of a vehicle, which had been the focus of a startup-style development team made up of members of purchasing, HR, legal, design, accounting and more. The process of creating the low-fidelity prototype had been entirely new for this cross-functional team—defined by collaboration and experimentation—but the prototype that now appeared before us proved the value of their approach.

This was just one of dozens of war-rooms now filling the buildings of Ford's Dearborn campus, and also in Ford’s campuses around the world. This new kind of problem solving and rapid prototyping were new to the greater Ford team. And while the IDEO team had been alongside Ford through many projects, we had not touched this prototype.

When developing a new vehicle, defining the concept is a significant investment in time and resources. Using this approach, the team achieved a massive reduction in design development time, in turn reducing cost to the company and accelerating the time to market. It was a light-bulb moment for us. We suddenly saw that a comprehensive organizational change was in motion here—design thinking now lived in Ford’s DNA and they were taking it forward.

Over many years of deep collaboration with designers at Ford, we’ve worked primarily on specific projects or initiatives, all the while broadening our points of connection within the company. Early on, the IDEO team functioned like a pirate brigade on the edge of the business, with a mandate to run fast and break the rules—but you can’t scale that up.

Where scale has been achieved is in the aggregate, as numerous individual projects have exposed more and more members of Ford to the power of human-centered design. Although we did not do the work to create some of the vehicle prototypes we viewed that spring day, our deep collaboration with Ford over many years has helped enable the organization to shift its way of working, and that may be the greatest and most lasting success of our partnership. Together, we’ve moved with Ford toward the precipice of becoming a new kind of company, suited to lead not just auto manufacturing, but a radical revolution in mobility.

Mapping the entire span of our time with Ford, it’s clear that the way we’ve been working is its own kind of strategy. Design thinking has been permeating the organization system-wide, often spearheaded by inspired employees eager to explore new ways of working. At its best, design enables people to tackle complex, systemic challenges. Within a large organization, the work isn’t so much about applying a process, but helping the company itself improve its resilience and uptake of new ideas. We can push the edge by asking tough questions about what people—the customers or users of their products and services—really want, and figuring out what needs to change in order to fulfill those desires.

That unifying anchor point during this shift has been Jim Hackett, who took over as Ford’s CEO in 2017. Hackett came from Steelcase, a world-class furniture company that has been instrumental in applying design to shape the future of work. It was at Steelcase where Hackett first worked with IDEO, and through that collaboration cultivated an approach to business that put the customer at the center, evolving the company from simply a furniture manufacturer to a hub of leadership in the changing workplace landscape. When he came to Ford, he brought this human-centered approach with him.

The whole purpose of a business, ultimately, is to meet a customer’s need. Many legacy businesses that have been operating decades or centuries find themselves with very established business models. They know how to make money through those methods. But the consequence of entrenched models is that everything drives toward efficiencies and returns. If you live in that mode, you lose your customer. It’s easy to say legacy companies need to change the lens through which they’re viewing and operating their business; it is everything to get it done well.

During his tenure, Hackett has built an ecosystem that enables design to spread from the core innovation teams out to all corners of the more than 190,000-person organization. Creating change is about convincing networks of people to make different choices, which means unconvincing them of their current behaviors and helping seed the potential of doing things differently. By helping them align in new ways around ideas, they gain the bravery to make choices that may not be supported by their corporate or cultural DNA.

In an effort to be more intentional and comprehensive with this diffusion of ideas, Ford is moving forward with two primary initiatives: First, a global design lab network called D-Ford, with teams around the world focusing not on products, but on customers. And second, a robust, enterprise-wide learning program to give everyone at Ford access to the design tools and skill sets that the collaborative team of Ford and IDEO spent years refining together. With these two efforts in operation, design thinking can be disseminated from the inside out, spreading throughout the organization.

Ford’s global innovation labs represent the design-intensive core of the company. The D-Ford studios are housed in Detroit, London, Palo Alto, and Shanghai. In each, a nimble group of design practitioners gets their hands dirty iterating, fixing, and prototyping possibilities for the next era of mobility.

To be human-centered doesn’t just mean to put humans at the center of the design problem, but to put humans at the center of the design solution and empower them in different ways. The D-Ford Labs, and the associated learning program, are creating a radically new way of working that is accelerating Ford's evolution. It's not IDEO, it's not Ford, it's a third way.

Outside of these hands-on labs, the uptake of design thinking is more variable and sometimes controversial. Thousands of employees cross paths with the small group of radical experimenters so transformation happens more slowly. Communicating the value of design in this broad population requires moving from provocation to persuasion and proof, demonstrating how much leverage design can provide in solving problems that have seemed intractable through more conventional approaches.

Design requires being on the ground with the people who will use and experience any new offerings from Ford, but it also means reaching across aisles and opening dialogues where previously deep, daily collaboration has been unheard of.

This never would have happened had they not felt invited into the room to help with the design. Having cross-functional teams from engineering, design, purchasing and more, has been a breakthrough, because they gain empathy and respect for each other’s practices and work together, rather than sitting in silos that tend to block each other’s effort.

Perhaps one of the clearest proof points for Ford’s new way of working is the groundbreaking, all-electric SUV Mustang Mach-E, which was unveiled in Los Angeles late last month. The Mustang Mach-E came to life just a few blocks away from Henry Ford’s first factory in Detroit, through a development process grounded in human-centered design, concentrated entirely on customer needs and desires.

The development team, called Team Edison, was made up of broad expertise, including members leading the design, charging strategy, infotainment, and marketing of electric vehicles. Thanks to the company-wide shift toward human-centered design, Team Edison was truly able to exercise creative license and operate in a different way. The Mustang Mach-E represents change not only within Ford, but worldwide. Customer outlooks and desires are evolving, and by listening to what’s true for their user, the team created a vehicle that aligns with the changing world.

While this new mindset is thriving within the walls of the labs, it’s a feat to communicate the nuance and potential of human-centered design to parts of Ford where design itself isn’t necessarily top of mind. Across every level and department, the principles can apply, but putting them in context matters. In order to activate that deeper saturation, Ford has developed an internal learning program that guides employees through the different phases of design thinking. From teams assembling child safety seats in Nanjing, to a Dearborn group researching the nighttime patterns of taxi drivers, to sales representatives in London, Design Thinking at Ford unifies people across the organization around the mission of putting humans at the center of their work.

The learning tools and experience are available to anyone at Ford who wants to better understand design. Practical tools include methods cards that can be applied at intervals in the development process, and videos illustrating how design thinking has come to life at Ford in the past.

Ford believes that all of its employees will benefit from a human-centered perspective, and is making progress in its enterprise-wide effort to create a unique, design-led creative culture.

One of the most exciting aspects of the early learning about design is realizing just how many areas it encompasses. From making autonomous rideshare vehicles to designing an ecosystem of connected services around sustainable transit, human-centered design in particular enables individuals to rethink how they go about their lives and how they look at the world around them.

As a designer, I was always taught it’s valuable to be able to say, I designed that—it’s on a shelf somewhere. Now we’re getting to a moment when it’s more valuable to create impact and influence rather than an object in space. We’re beginning to see new ways to measure impact, and better ways to affect change.

If you teach people to question what they do, and to collaborate and take cues from others with diverse skills, they will learn to change on their own, and the company will follow suit. This is how large-scale transformation happens. This radically different approach is what will determine the future of Ford.

Illustrations by Johan Papin

On a warm spring day in Dearborn, Michigan, where Ford Motor Company has its world headquarters, our team met up with some of Ford’s senior leadership. It’s a visit we’ve made regularly during the 15 years IDEO has worked with the century-old carmaker.

Did you just cringe? Perhaps your nostrils flared in suspicion. I’m at the far end of the extroverted spectrum and even I have on that grimace.

I’m here to talk to you about creative warm-ups, and to once and for all distinguish them from their brash, single-toned—that tone being forced, high-energy social interaction—cousin: the dreaded icebreaker.

But first, a brief interlude for sports. If you have played or watched any sport on the planet, you know that athletes do not run straight onto the field, into the pool, or out on the court. (If they did that, their game would be garbage and they'd likely pull a hammy.)

Athletes always warm up, and I’d argue that if you were to take one thing from the world of sports to use in your everyday work, it’s this: warm-ups are the thing that can radically change your game.

But if they’re not uncomfortable team cheers or cringe-worthy partner games, what are they?

Warm-ups are a critical part of the collaborative design process. They're a strategic way to set individuals, the team, and the work up for success. And if you do them consistently, you'll build your team’s awareness muscles. You'll become more self-reflective, tuned-in, empathetic, and intentional about the work you are setting out to do.

Here are 4 reasons I believe every collaborative work session needs one.

1. They build psychological safety

Warm-ups can create space to show our humanity. Instead of diving straight into the work, take three minutes to go around the room and check-in with the question: “On a scale of 1-5, how is everyone doing today?” In doing this, we acknowledge that we are not business-people-robots, but are instead complex humans with emotions. Moments of vulnerability help build a foundation of trust, especially when modeled by those with seniority.

Though it may seem trivial, asking people to start off a session by sketching, then sharing a place they loved to play as a child invites everyone to put their voice into the room in a way untethered to expertise or authority. A first contribution is often the hardest, particularly for people farther down the power hierarchy. If you actually want everyone there to collaborate, create a safe invitation for them to participate.

Small moments where you make space for people to bring their real and unique selves to work add up. They build a sense of safety that will allow your team to take risks, challenge the status quo, and propose new ideas.

2. They help you get into the specific mindset the work needs

Ever had someone walk into your meeting in a crappy mood and subsequently prevent your entire team from getting down to business? Everyone is coming from someplace different, whether that’s a stressful one-on-one, a heads-down working session, or a two-hour European lunch.

Take the time to design a transition into the new mindset your work requires. It could be as simple as giving people two minutes to write the to-do list that’s clogging up their brainspace, then putting those Post-its outside the room. Mode switching is hard!

Don't forget to consider not just where people are coming from, but where you want them to go to. The mental place your team needs to be in for a synthesis session (perhaps pattern-finding or decision-making) is totally different than for an ideation jam (maybe pattern-breaking or generating). Think critically about what specific mindsets the work you are embarking on needs.

If you need folks to compromise and build together, have everyone draw an ambiguous squiggle on a Post-it, then pass their drawing to the right; turn that new squiggle into something, then pass each squiggle once more; and have the final person give the squiggle a provocative title and share it with the group.

Getting the right muscles firing up front will grease the gears, and you’ll find your team will be able to go farther faster.

3. They help you practice critical skills

Warm-ups are also a means for you to tangibly grow the core skills you need for your work. When you start a meeting with a three-minute brainstorm on the slimiest, bumpiest, or most laughter-inducing things you can think of, you’re creating a place for people to practice diverging in a low-risk way. If you try having everyone stand at the same spot at the window, each pointing out something they have never noticed before, you’re having them flex the skill of looking at something familiar with fresh eyes.

Working on these skills in a context not tethered directly to business outcomes builds creative confidence. It makes space for folks to grow through trying, flailing, or failing without pressure. When the time comes for them to apply these skills to the work at hand, they will have already built the muscle memory.

4. There's power in starting from a shared experience

The start of a meeting is mission-critical. As an experience designer, I know that it’s impossible (and not actually worth it) to design every moment to perfection. Rather, I focus on the few that really matter, like the beginning.

A warm-up is a way for your team to all start on the same page. If you set off on the wrong foot—or don’t set off at all, leaving everyone wandering whatever alternate plane they were on before your meeting started—you’re not going to get far.

This is especially true for a team where there is currently tension. Designing a human moment that everyone can share will help people start the work at hand with a common understanding. Having each person describe one thing that brought them joy this week can shift the dynamic and set the team up to think collaboratively rather than combatively.

Warm-ups are a breath—a moment to pause in days spent running continuously from list to thing to email. They help us create the necessary space to check-in with ourselves and each other, leave the unnecessary outside the door, and invite in the things we actually want.

Can warm-ups really do all these things? Yes, they can. But they're not a one-size-fits-all solution. You have to be intentional in how you use them.

Let's go back to sports. What can we learn? You have to warm up slowly—jog before you sprint. You have to warm up specific muscle groups—shot putters and synchronized swimmers don’t warm up the same way. And lastly, you warm up together as a team.

When you make it a ritual that every meeting starts with a warm-up, your team will come to expect one, start to feel like they need one, and eventually take shared ownership in leading them. All because they have built the habit of asking what they, as individuals and a collective, need in order to shine.

Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts on warm-ups for all your needs (like when anxieties are high, the 3pm slump hits, your team needs a laugh, or you are diving into convergence).

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Imagine yourself at a conference, team-building event, or bar mitzvah. The person at the front of the room claps their hands gleefully and announces they’re going to lead an icebreaker.

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IDEO’s global client and partner network gives us a unique view into how organizations are responding to rapid change. Recently, we decided to ask our clients what problems are keeping them up at night, and what promising solutions keep them leading with optimism.

We reached out to 55 global business leaders spanning 25 cities and 18+ industries. What we heard is that while uncertainty isn’t new, there have never been so many compounding causes for concern. A decade ago, it was easy to see what triggered the recession. Now, volatility surrounds us—in politics, markets, regulations, the environment, and society at large.

Leaders cited increasingly complex consumer expectations and interactions. They pointed out tension between fueling growth and tightening belts, and pressure to sustain their core businesses while spinning up new growth horizons. And they noted growing difficulty attracting and retaining the right talent.

Leaders agree that growth is still the primary business objective, but increasingly understand that the methods and mindsets to achieve growth have changed. In particular, it’s becoming more important and impactful to consider people—customers, employees, shareholders, and stakeholders—when making business decisions. A human-centered approach to strategy and innovation makes it possible to turn obstacles into opportunities.

How do leaders become more human-centered? By looking both inward and outward to identify the needs and conditions that drive innovation. Inwardly, it’s about evolving leadership qualities to encompass a combination of creativity, strategy, technology, and soft skills. Outwardly, it means testing tangible solutions with customers to inform execution and scale.

These shifts can unlock trapped value, fuel growth, and build trust and loyalty.

Our research identified six key tensions leaders face now. While tension can create stress, it can also—when approached thoughtfully—enable sustained balance between opposing priorities. In our client network, we see numerous examples of inspirational leaders and organizations learning to strike that balance, and in turn finding a new way forward that leads to profitable business growth.

1. Improving efficiencies while exploring new growth opportunities

In 2014, The Times and The Sunday Times worked with IDEO to define and design a new digital publishing strategy. The decision to move to four editions a day—and stop competing with round-the-clock breaking news—freed up tremendous resources to focus on big stories, and balance efficiencies with growth. Since moving to online editions in 2016, subscriptions are up 15% (April 2018) in a market where most content is free.

2. Balancing the needs of shareholders and stakeholders

Intercorp is a Peruvian conglomerate whose strategy focuses on providing Peru’s growing middle class with high quality and accessible healthcare services, competitive education, and financial service offers. In 2010, IDEO started working with Intercorp to design and launch Innova, a low-cost, for-profit education model built on the needs of families and aiming to make Peru an education leader in Latin America. Innova has become a successful business that investors are confident to back and scale. Innova has opened 63 schools in Peru, which will serve 52,000 students by 2020. They also recently opened the first Innova school in Mexico, welcoming 1100 students, and plan to open three more schools in 2020.

3. Rethinking data collection to unlock actionable insight

Ascensia Diabetes Care, a global healthcare company, has been a leader in diabetes treatment for over 70 years. In 2017, Ascensia set its sights on moving the company beyond producing blood glucose metering devices, to become a comprehensive health support provider for people living with diabetes. IDEO’s team worked with Ascensia to leverage real-time data from people with diabetes to identify behavior patterns, then share that information on demand with certified diabetes educators (CDEs). The team used the insights from the data to prototype various ways of connecting those health educators to people with diabetes, ultimately enabling a different kind of patient-provider interaction through live remote support and a suite of digital tools.

4. Approaching talent acquisition as a strategic venture

In order to future-proof its business, Mitsui & Co., one of Japan’s largest investment and trading firms, believes that they need to build greater internal capabilities to start and launch new businesses of their own, instead of relying purely on their trading investments. To that end, they have partnered with IDEO to create Moon Creative Lab, an innovation hub aiming not only to launch new ventures but also to develop entrepreneurial talent and capabilities as a strategic asset for Mitsui’s future. IDEO is working with Mitsui to attract, hire, and onboard new talent with skills and backgrounds radically different from that of the parent organization.

5. Investing in culture to build purpose and values

Leaders at Europe’s largest online fashion retailer, Zalando, recognized that staying competitive would not just require new offers, but new ways of working internally. IDEO partnered with Zalando to rally teams around a renewed corporate purpose, to deliver a best-in-class fashion experience, generating a greater sense of engagement and pride in the company culture. Zalando has since become a European success story that has sustained a high level of growth. The number of active customers grew by more than 15% year over year as of August 2019.

6. Refocusing leadership from individual experts to collaborative teams

Ford has spent nearly 15 years steering its global enterprise toward design-led innovation. By integrating teams to include diverse expertise and setting up dedicated innovation labs, the company has reduced both time and money spent on new product development while becoming a leading player in future mobility solutions.

Outside of the corporate context, there is a need for learning and development programs that can teach these new leadership approaches. IDEO and Tsinghua University, an esteemed Chinese academic institution, have created a year-long program to guide and support executives who aspire to transform China’s economy. The goal is to cultivate a generation of collaborative, creative, and purpose-driven leaders, enabling the country’s transformation from “Made in China” to “Created in China.”

Special thanks to a global team of IDEO collaborators including Charles Hayes (Shanghai), Michael Hendrix (Cambridge), and Madison Mount (San Francisco).

Illustration by Tynan Collins

With so many global challenges converging at once, businesses face unprecedented tension between present demands and future goals. Smart business leaders are formulating responses that will fortify their resilience and sustain growth. But many are also losing sleep over the monumental task of navigating through ambiguity in order to successfully adapt and thrive.

Inspired by the recent overhauls of government sites like gov.uk and boston.gov, Georgia tapped IDEO to explore how it could give more than 80 state agencies flexibility in the look and feel of their websites, while also preserving a uniform branding experience that residents could recognize and trust.

To get acquainted with the state, we took a road trip, wandering around the historic streets of Savannah, getting to know the resilient spirit of Macon, and soaking up the innovative energy of Atlanta. We learned a lot about what Georgians would like from their government, and took a strong look at how the look, feel, and content of a digital experience might impact delivery of services. But we also learned a lot about the difficulties of accessing—and providing—government services. Soon, we realized that this project could be more than just an identity exercise.

The state of Georgia’s population has grown 25 percent over the past decade while the size of its government has decreased by 25 percent. These diverging trends have put a strain on government staff, adding even more pressure to the promises of efficiency that come with civic tech. The transition to digital delivery is not easy, and governments around the world are working to define digital best practices. Because the work is still in progress, service delivery is a serious challenge. Our project wasn’t just about identity, but about how changes in CSS, information, and color schemes could fix the concerns residents had about trust and access to information and services.

During our journey through Georgia, residents told us they felt that government was removed from their lives, monolithic, opaque, and solemn. While it plays a necessary and—in some cases—critical role in their lives, their relationship to it was transactional. Armed with that feedback, our goal was to leverage Georgia.gov to make that relationship feel more collaborative from both a functional and emotional perspective. Thanks to conversations with many people from the great state of Georgia, we synthesized the shortcomings of government websites, explored the needs of the people, and came up with a list of three rules for anyone looking to create a better digital link between a government and its people.

1. Empower users to make an impact

When there are limits to what government can do, give constituents a clear role in how they can work with government to solve problems together. In our research, we chatted with civic technology expert Cliff Lampe, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Information Studies. In one project, Professor Lampe and his students developed a technology that allowed residents to flag the presence of rats in their neighborhoods. Though the technology empowered residents to report health and safety issues, the staff in Ferndale, Michigan didn’t actually have the capacity to keep up with them. They started replying to requests for support with information about what residents could do to help mitigate the rat population, like getting rid of clutter in the backyard or keeping pet food inside. Instead of ignoring work it couldn’t get to, the government brought the people into a collaborative relationship, so that they could fight the rodent population together.

2. Leverage UI to let residents know that government is on their side

People on both sides of the conversation called interacting with the government “a necessary pain.” Government staff recognize that if you’re coming to a website to pay taxes, you’re probably not in the greatest mood. Residents often mentioned that the look and feel of the websites didn’t give them the sense that they were welcome to reach out and call agency staff for help.

Our testing of early prototypes revealed that shifts in language and color schemes could change how both government staff and residents felt about their experiences. When we changed the color scheme from a traditional red, white, and blue to more approachable and ownable peaches and greens, residents used words like “warm” and “welcoming” to describe the look and feel. Adding language that invites people to call if they needed help also lead to a much better reception.

One resident told us that these changes gave her the feeling that the government services actually wanted to help her, rather than giving a feeling of what in the past felt like reluctant support.

3. Give constituents insider knowledge

When we visited Atlanta, we spoke to Tara, a program manager at a nonprofit that connects low-income individuals to state financial and educational resources. As an intermediary, Tara knows that state workers are stretched thin, so she advises her clients to do what they can to help move the process along. To this end, she has developed a series of strategies that make the process a little bit easier for everyone involved. Tara, like other superuser intermediaries we spoke to, relies on these strategies to empower herself in her work, helping to move the process along more efficiently.

Sharing tips on how to best navigate the application process brings residents into a collaborative relationship with agency staff, helping them understand obstacles and needs. Some of the tips that Tara shares with her clients include scheduling periodic check-in times to get updates on applications, keeping a file on previous conversations, and having key information on hand before making a call. Following her example, we provided step-by-step application instructions as well as advice from agency staff. Articulating these strategies on the agency website allows constituents to have smoother and more efficient conversations with agency staff without doing a deep dive overhaul of the service model.

Supporting collaboration between government and constituents doesn’t have to mean an overhaul of services. You can make things better with seemingly surface-level changes, like changes to tone, color schemes, and the way information is shared. Though they may appear to be band-aid fixes compared to solving larger systemic challenges, they really can change the way people see and experience their relationship with the government.

Special thanks to the residents of Georgia who shared their experiences with us, and to the IDEO design team of Tom Kershaw, Lindsey Turner, and Emma Baker that shared in this journey. See the state of Georgia's new website at pilot.georgia.gov.

Illustrations by Matteo Berton

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There’s a reason government sites don’t have a reputation for great user experiences. They rarely have the budget or staffing even for digital updates, much less innovation. But the state of Georgia wanted to change that.

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.