Imagine this. A friend you haven’t seen for months, decides where your family will live. He’s making the final call. Flat, big house, or even a fucking castle. And guess what? You’re paying the bill and will have to move to this place! Sounds crazy, right?

But that’s how many decisions are made in today's work culture. The ones deciding aren’t always the ones who’ll live with the impacts of the decisions. If things go to shit, they won’t pay the price. They won't have to live the consequences. Someone else will have to deal with it.

Sure, maybe that long-lost friend is a real estate expert. Maybe he nows the market and has bought already many homes. But you wouldn't make him take that decision without you.

The same goes for our services. We need to bring in those who’ll be most affected by our decisions. It could be the people we serve, the community where our service lives, or the frontline workers who’ll make it happen.

Action question

Think about your next big decision. Who are the people most affected by it? Who isn’t part of the decision-making process yet? How can you give them a voice? Or better yet, a vote?

Daniele's notes

• This is the first shitty draft of this principle

• This principle might one day make it in the fifth book in the "Service Design Principles" series that explores how to better serve humans and the planet.

• If you're curious about service design principles, you can get the four previous books in the series, with proofread principles and less grammatical creativity.

Written with AI help
This principle draft is based on an audio note I took while walking that was transcribed and cleaned using Audiopen. I then reviewed and improved the text by hand.