Design Better — Phil Gilbert: Making a 114-year-old, 400,000 Person Company Care About Design

Podcast: Design Better
Hosts: Eli Woolery and Aarron Walter (The Curiosity Department)
Guest: Phil Gilbert, Former GM of Design at IBM
Date: November 25, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode dives into Phil Gilbert’s ambitious efforts to transform design culture at IBM—a 114-year-old company with over 400,000 employees across 180 countries. Phil shares the blueprint behind IBM’s design revolution, which became the foundation for his new book, Irresistible Change. The conversation unpacks how Phil treated change as a “high-stakes product,” why IBM’s approach was opt-in versus top-down, and what it takes to embed a design mindset into the DNA of a massive, traditional organization. Not only for those leading at scale, Phil’s insights are valuable for anyone seeking to drive meaningful, lasting change.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Change as a High-Stakes Product

(04:01)

• Phil explains that most transformations fail because they are forced upon people as mandates:

  “Most transformation efforts fail... because they’re mandated. Somebody says, thou shalt change... most people resist things that they're forced to do, or at least they initially do.” — Phil Gilbert (04:15)

• Treating change as a product shifts accountability:

  “When you bring a product mentality to something, what you say is... I need to deliver this thing in such a way that the teams that need to adopt it want to adopt it.” — Phil Gilbert (04:50)

• If an initiative doesn’t stick, it’s either poorly communicated, or the idea itself isn’t genuinely useful.

2. Phil’s Path to Design Thinking

(06:59)

• Phil recounts his early exposure to design through startups, referencing Alan Cooper and David Kelley.
• At IBM, after his company was acquired, he was asked to “make this division more like Lombardi and less like IBM.” His design thinking approach led to strong business outcomes:

  “We went from 1200 people to 700... took about 50% market share... Those business outcomes are what caught the attention of Ginny Rometti.” — Phil Gilbert (08:35)

3. IBM’s Strategic and Cultural Backdrop

(10:29)

• Phil found IBM’s morale and physical work environments poor, with a culture focused on cost-cutting to meet Wall Street targets over investing in creativity.
• IBM had missed key market trends (e.g., cloud computing), partly because:

  “We weren’t even talking, much less listening with our users. And so we were missing massive moves in the technical marketplace.” — Phil Gilbert (12:57)

4. Early Challenges and Key Epiphanies

(14:25)

• Observing both “design-forward” and “design-laggard” companies, Phil realized great cultures are defined by the value non-designers place on design, not merely by the existence of design teams:

  “Great cultures are not great cultures because they contain an attribute, they are great because they value the attribute.” — Phil Gilbert (00:01, repeated at 14:25)

• Focused on shifting the attitudes of non-designers and embedding design values throughout the organization.

5. Methodologies for Organizational Change

Opt-In, Experiential Transformation

(19:09 — 25:51)

• IBM’s approach emphasized experience over evangelism:

  “You can't convince [skeptics]. Evangelism was never a part of our program... for any change to be adopted, it has to be experienced.” — Phil Gilbert (19:09)

• IBM’s “Hallmark Program” was a premium, capacity-limited, branded experience—teams had to opt-in rather than be forced.
• Teams attended intensive, bespoke boot camps in Austin, working on their own products and projects. Success stories were internally broadcasted, turning skeptics into champions.

The Role of “Psychiatrists”

(22:31, 25:51)

• Post-boot camp, each team was supported for 3–6 months by change advisors dubbed “psychiatrists,” who helped overcome obstacles and reported back on systemic challenges.

Making Design Viral

(26:09)

• The goal was to “spread a virus,” affecting non-designers and changing supporting systems. True transformation required hacking the company’s DNA, not just adding designers.
• Change meant interfacing with HR, communications, and product systems to make design self-replicating.

Notable Quote

“For every hundred designers I would add, I would need to affect about 5,000 other IBMers. There was no way to do it unless this thing became really plumbed into the DNA of the company.” — Phil Gilbert (26:30)

6. IBM’s Formula: People, Practices, Places

(30:26)

• Phil credits the scaling of culture to focusing equally on people (skills and attitudes), practices (methods and tools), and places (physical and virtual environments).

  “It’s the people and their skills, the practices, including the tools, and the places... the environment in which we’re working.” — Phil Gilbert (31:57)

• These categories kept the leadership team focused and balanced in their interventions.

7. Designing Studio Spaces to Nurture Culture

(33:29 — 37:40)

• Studios were intentionally designed for openness, transparency, and “intentional serendipity.” Even the location of the kitchen forced cross-team interactions.
• Early studios celebrated IBM’s historic design figures, building a narrative of continuity and pride.

Quote on Place as Propaganda

“We can use this space as a place for propaganda... we reveled in IBM's past design history... and that was really a signal to the company, hey, we've done this before.” — Phil Gilbert (35:50)

8. Lasting Impact and Cultural Stickiness

(37:40)

• The design transformation at IBM endured and expanded:
  • Designer headcount grew to 4,500–5,000 after Phil’s departure.
  • The “Loop,” IBM’s human-centered iteration cycle (Observe–Reflect–Make–Reflect), is now central to product and design work.
  • Design studios and practices have permeated physical spaces and new corporate initiatives.

Notable Quote

“Today, if you see the number of design awards that IBM is still winning... the design workshops, the iterations, it's all still in place. It looks a little different, but yeah, very, very proud of that.” — Phil Gilbert (39:58)

9. Personal Inspirations

(41:14)

• Phil recommends Stan McChrystal’s On Character—a book of short essays about values that matter, written for the author’s granddaughters.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On change as a product:

  “If you choose not to change, that's on me, it's not on you... If they don't adopt what you want them to adopt, it's either the idea is just not a good one or you haven't delivered it very well.” — Phil Gilbert (05:38)

• On organizational transformation:

  “It's not about the thing, it's about how do we value the thing and plumb the systems and processes to reinforce that value.” — Phil Gilbert (16:39)

• On the scale of the challenge:

  “I needed to really rethink kind of how to architect a program to get 400,000 people on the same page. And it's not something you do overnight.” — Phil Gilbert (27:23)

• On physical environments and culture:

  “We wanted to symbolically not have silos as well as in reality... If we have to be worried that somebody sees a wireframe on a wall walking through our office and they're going to beat us—if that’s our concern, we’ve already lost.” — Phil Gilbert (33:49, 35:00)

• On legacy:

  “The Loop is now part of the official product canon at IBM... All of this stuff, the design workshops, the iterations, it’s all still in place... very, very proud of that.” — Phil Gilbert (38:22, 40:55)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 04:01 — Thinking about change as a product, not a mandate
• 06:59 — Phil's journey from startups to design thinking at IBM
• 10:29 — State of IBM pre-transformation; strategic and technological gaps
• 14:25 — Realization: It’s about non-designers valuing design
• 19:09 — The Hallmark Program and opt-in model
• 22:31, 25:51 — Role of “psychiatrists” in sustaining change
• 26:09 — The “spread a virus” metaphor; systemic change strategies
• 30:26 — Three pillars: People, Practices, Places
• 33:29 — Designing studios for openness and “intentional serendipity”
• 37:40 — 40:56 — Enduring impact of the design transformation
• 41:14 — Phil’s recommended reading: Stan McChrystal's On Character

Conclusion

Phil Gilbert’s candid and insightful discussion outlines how IBM’s design transformation succeeded where so many large-scale change efforts fail: by making participation voluntary, focusing on non-designers, addressing inherited systems, and carefully designing both culture and space. The lessons are adaptable, and anyone involved in—or hoping to spark—organizational change will discover actionable ideas in both this conversation and Phil’s new book, Irresistible Change.

Find Phil Gilbert & Irresistible Change: gilbert.com