The Art of the "Sneaky" Service Designer / Inside Service Design / Max & Jennifer

What do you do when you want to drive human-centered change inside your organization, but you don't have the formal authority, you don't hold the budget, and you don't even have the official job title?

To dive deeper into this strategy, I sat down with Max Seabrooke and Jennifer Kitchen.

According to them, you stop asking for corporate permission and start getting a little bit sneaky. We step away from perfectly polished frameworks to look at the raw, political reality of practicing "undercover influence" from the inside out.

In this episode, you will learn:

• How to quietly embed user-centric design into your organization without triggering corporate resistance or using confusing industry jargon.
• Why slowly building a toolkit of data on top of your company's existing expertise wins over skeptical executives.
• How to figure out exactly how other siloed teams measure their own success so you can align your project to their metrics.
• Why avoiding friction inside your team can quietly destroy project alignment and sabotage quality.

So, if you want to hear raw, practical insights from professionals who are in the trenches every single day, you'll really like enjoy this one!

I’m curious, if you don't have the official "Service Designer" title, what does your email signature currently say? Let me know.

Enjoy the episode and keep making a positive impact.

Be well,

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to the April Round Up 2026

03:45 Career Paths to Service Design

05:30 Titles vs Doing the Role

06:15 Modern Human-Centered Design

07:15 UX Design for Kids

09:15 Supply Chain Overhauls

12:15 The Human Side of Blueprints

13:15 Product Repair Operations

15:30 Strategic Sneakiness

18:15 Fixing Complex Mergers

21:00 Politics as Design Material

21:45 Corporate Political Survival

24:15 Active Listening & Handoffs

28:30 Eliminating Corporate Jargon

33:45 Operational Alignment

39:15 Dangers of Toxic Politeness

44:15 Confronting Hard Truths

50:00 Customer Belief Toolkit

54:15 Leadership Evidence Layers

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxseabrooke
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-kitchen-studio

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

Join our private community for in-house service design professionals.

⁠https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

--- [ 4. FIND THE SHOW ON ] ---

• Youtube ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/inside-service-design-13-youtube
• Spotify ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/inside-service-design-13-spotify
• Apple ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/inside-service-design-13-apple
• Snipd ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/inside-service-design-13-snipd