When the way we live and work isn’t working, it’s time for a redesign.
We help individuals, leaders, and organizations understand what is creating the outcomes they experience and redesign what is no longer working.
When something isn’t working, we have a choice: keep pushing harder or design a better way.
Many of us feel increasingly isolated, disconnected, and overwhelmed. We are navigating the pressure to sacrifice our health, relationships, and humanity to prove our worth and keep up with the demands of work and life.
Organizations are struggling too. Leaders are being asked to do more with less while navigating rapid change, shifting expectations, multiple generations in the workplace, and the challenge of attracting and retaining great people.
These struggles are signals that something about the way we’re working, leading, relating, and living is no longer working.
At The Redesign Institute, we believe the way things are is not the way they have to be. The ways we have designed work and life can change. And when the design no longer serves us, it is time to create something better.
We help individuals, leaders, and organizations step back, examine what isn’t working, and intentionally redesign the way they work, lead, relate, and live around what matters most.
Principles for Better Design
Follow the Outcomes
Outcomes are information. They tell us something about the conditions, choices, behaviors, relationships, and structures producing them. Before assigning blame or jumping to solutions, get curious. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong?” ask, “What’s creating this outcome?” If we want different outcomes, we have to understand what is producing the ones we have.
Look at the Whole
Rarely is one thing responsible for a complex problem. People, relationships, expectations, resources, behaviors, structures, and environments interact and influence one another. Better design looks beyond the obvious problem to understand the whole picture and identify where change can make the greatest difference.
Design With, Not For
The people most affected by a design should have meaningful power in shaping it. Better design expands voice, agency, access, belonging, and participation rather than unnecessarily concentrating power or making decisions for people without them. Whether redesigning a workplace, community, relationship, or life, we create better outcomes when we build with people, not simply for them.
Design for What Matters
What we value but don’t design for gets crowded out. If wellbeing, relationships, creativity, quality, family, innovation, connection, or belonging matter, we have to make actual room for them. Coping strategies can help us manage difficult conditions, but they should not become substitutes for changing what isn’t working. Our designs should reflect our priorities, not compete with them.
Design, Learn, Redesign
There is no perfect final design. People change. Organizations change. Circumstances change. Better design is iterative. We make thoughtful changes, pay attention to what happens, learn from the outcomes, and adapt. Better is possible, and better is never finished.
Better is possible, and better is never finished.
Take the next stepHow We Redesign for Change
Change isn’t linear.
Neither is our approach.
The Redesign Method is a continuous process for creating meaningful, sustainable change. We begin by understanding the systems shaping current outcomes, align around what matters most, turn insight into action, and adapt based on what we learn. Because lasting change isn’t something you implement once. It’s something you continually design.
“When people aren’t flourishing and organizations aren’t thriving, it’s not a failure. It’s a design problem.”
Dr. Lisa J. Martin, Founder
The Redesign Institute
In their words
“Think of your favorite Black auntie, mentor, teacher, mother, or sister whose advice you trust, cherish, and know will guide you in the right direction in all aspects of life; that’s Dr. Lisa, in a nutshell. She’ll keep it all the way real with you as she 1) helps you to unlock your potential, power, and voice and 2) equips you with the skills to expertly navigate all the nuances that being a Black woman in the workplace entails.”
“Dr. Lisa Martin came to us highly recommended and still exceeded expectations. Top to bottom, we know we’re better for having worked with her. She’s strategic, thoughtful, patient and yet uncompromising in how she coaches and challenges leaders. She’s inclusive, an active listener, a teacher, and adept trainer…Simply put, she’s been a game-changer for our organization.”
“We brought Dr. Lisa in to help us roll out a new initiative. In early meetings our staff did not talk or participate and we didn’t know why. Dr. Lisa has this way of holding the whole team and bringing out the staff who were more hesitant to talk. She also helped us as leaders develop better communication strategies with the team. By the end of our work together, we felt like a team, successfully implemented the new initiative, and had better skills for navigating change as an organization.”
Take the next step
Tell us what isn’t working. We will tell you what we would look at first, and whether we are the right fit.