Leading Your Organization to be More Human-Centered: 6 Reasons Why Most Fail

No matter your industry, designing programs, products, and digital services around the needs of those you serve is now essential. Customers, clients, and users expect better experiences and transparency. Trust and loyalty hinge on how well organizations meet real and often rapidly changing needs.

So, why do so many well-intentioned organizations struggle to become truly human-centered? Based on decades of collective experience partnering with organizations of all kinds, we see 6 recurring issues that can quickly derail even the best-laid plans. Here’s what to avoid and how to pave the way for lasting impact.

Error 1: Not Establishing a Great Enough Sense of Urgency

The number one reason organizations fail to transform is a lack of urgency. When design happens without a clear focus on customer needs, the status quo feels safe. People stick with familiar approaches if they don’t see why the old way no longer works. Without urgency, change efforts stall before they even begin.

To make the shift, we make the cost of excluding customers visible. We start with a "listening phase" to build the case for change, by gathering data from customers to tell us where they struggle to interact with your organization. We comb through customer service logs, survey data, usage analytics. We quantify the cost of a poor experience, not just in dollars, but in mission impact and lost trust.

This shows how both the customer and the organization suffer when delivery and design are not human-centered. Change begins when leaders are convinced that business as usual is no longer an option.

Error 2: Not Having an Executive Champion at the Top

One of the biggest mistakes is not having an executive champion. Initiatives often start in the middle of an organization and struggle to get the attention of leaders who control priorities and budgets. Even a powerful guiding team can only go so far without a champion at the top.

A strong executive champion has the power to approve projects or stop them. We once worked with a champion who faced strong resistance when she proposed delaying a major website launch. Because she had built a coalition around a vision of an easy and accessible customer experience, she stood firm. She let the IT team know she was willing to delay the launch to do it right. For her, a successful digital product was one that worked for the people it was meant to serve.

Error 3: Not Having a Clear Vision (And Not Communicating It Enough)

Organizations’ efforts to become more human-centered run into trouble when they: 

1. Don’t have a clear vision
2. Don’t connect their vision to their mission
3. Don’t communicate their vision enough.  

A strong vision acts as your North Star and clarifies how you will serve your customers. Without it, your transformation efforts can spiral into disconnected work that doesn’t move the organization forward. 

Your vision must show how helping customers helps you achieve your mission. For example, if your mission is to enhance well-being through health services, an easy-to-use website that helps people apply for benefits directly supports that mission.

Even when you have a clear vision connected to your mission, you need to communicate it clearly. Employees need to have the vision repeated frequently through different channels – intranet, videos, town halls, presentations, customer journey maps and through vision statements – to truly digest it. Repeat the message until everyone understands where you are headed and why it is important.

Error 5: Letting Liaisons Stand in for the Customer

Some organizations claim to practice human-centered design without ever engaging directly with customers, assuming their daily interactions like sales, service requests, and complaints provide all the insight they need. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Internal knowledge, while valuable, is no substitute for direct customer feedback. Relying on assumptions often leads to flawed services, missed opportunities, and customer frustration. Insider perspectives can narrow our view risks, overlook areas for improvement, and miss the subtle details that make or break the customer experience.

The art of implementing change in any organization is understanding the nuances of how people behave. What do they need, when, and why? What small details trip them up? The way you find the answers to these questions isn’t by guessing or assuming. It’s by observing, listening, testing, and finding out what is working, and what’s not, that you improve the customer experience and evolve services 

Error 6: Believing There is a Silver Bullet Approach

Some leaders look for a magic solution, a shortcut, training, or off-the-shelf tool, that will solve their problems instantly. But there are no shortcuts to transforming processes, mindset, and culture to become truly human-centered. 

This belief often arises under pressure like tight funding, looming deadlines, or internal politics that push leaders to chase quick fixes to show results, even if those fixes don’t address the root problem. 

We worked with an organization trying to transform how they sold goods online and in stores. The leader wanted to build or buy a tool based on assumptions about customers and an incomplete understanding of the changes required. We cautioned them: many organizations invest in solutions that don’t fit customer needs, force awkward process changes, or require costly fixes later. Instead, we encouraged them to pause, allow time for discovery, and iterate based on real customer insights.

No silver bullet can replace the value of talking with your customers on a regular cadence to shape your products and services.

In Summary

Leading your organization to be more human-centered is no easy task. Even organizations that are successful took a lot of time, effort, and human-centered design expertise to get there. Understanding where organizations go wrong will hopefully help you avoid the errors that others have made. 

When you’re ready to put people at the heart of everything you do, we’re here to help—with practical experience, candid advice, and an unwavering focus on customers.