Design Thinking gave us process. We need posture.

I've spent years being called in after the decisions are made.

The strategy's locked. The vision's set. The direction's been blessed by leadership. And then the brief arrives: "Make this work. Make it usable. Make it beautiful."

I know this sounds ungrateful. Someone's handing you work, after all.

But here's what I kept noticing. By the time design shows up, the most important choices have already been made. And half the time, those choices are why nothing's working.

Design Thinking gave us a process for solving problems. That's valuable. But it didn't change when we get invited into the room. We're still downstream, polishing decisions someone else shaped.

That's what The Possibility Principle of Design challenges.

It's not another toolkit. It's a shift in posture. From executing decisions to shaping them. From working downstream to starting upstream, at the level of purpose, belief, direction.

The biggest shifts don't start with deliverables. They start with better questions. With seeing what others are missing. With helping teams move from ambiguity to clarity before anyone writes a brief.

This isn't about replacing Design Thinking. It's about evolving where design shows up in the life of an organization. In a world where change is accelerating and AI is amplifying everything, we need more than polished answers. We need people willing to ask uncomfortable questions early enough to matter.

I'll be sharing more as this develops. The patterns I'm seeing. The shifts I'm testing. The arguments I'm probably going to regret making in public.

If you've ever felt the friction of working inside a system that wasn't built for the questions you're asking, this might be for you.

This is part of my ongoing exploration of The Possibility Principle of Design.

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