I grew up in a Christian context. There is one story of my childhood that to this day impresses me. A Christian community mobilised to write to a prison. There a pastor was emprisonned because of his faith. The prison and the state got so many letters that they felt public pressure. This wasn’t a guy to let die. The stories says because of the letters he got free.

To this day, I’m not totally sure if this was a myth or a true story, remember I was a kid.

But years letter, reading the book “The Future we Choose” (1) this same idea of writing to the ones in power to show what you care about came back in the end summary with the top recommendations of what to do.

We can do the same within the organizations we work in. If we care about an important issue, like privacy, diversity, sustainability, we can write to our bosses. From time to time, we can remind them what feels important to us.

Action question

For what topic would it makes sense to write to the higher ups to let them know what’s important to you? Who are the others colleagues you could bring on to send reminders about that issue?

Footnotes

(1) A book on what to do for a better future with the climate crisis, by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac who are two lovely humans that did the negotiations for the United Nations during the Paris Agreement of 2015.

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.