Dr. Tim Tompson and Dr. Leanne Sobel On Designing Systems For Participation, Reflexivity & Social Impact

Tim Tompson is a Co-founder and Principal of Snowmelt, a systemic design consultancy. Snowmelt specialises in enabling organisations to tackle complex, multi-stakeholder challenges, and works in areas such as international development, education, the built environment, and healthcare.

Tim has unique expertise in employing design-led and systems-based approaches to complex challenges, drawing on his work with several consultancies since 2010 and his educational background. Tim has always been curious about the intersection of design and society – the theme he explored in his PhD in planning and urban development.

He is most excited about his current work coaching cities to enable youth-led climate action, and most proud of the growing and thoughtful team at Snowmelt. Outside of Snowmelt, Tim dedicates time to educating emerging practitioners, he has lectured on design, management, and social policy themes at UTS, UNSW and UCLA. He spends much of his time in Australian bushland, a familiar context from his childhood, where he learned firsthand how systems work.

Leanne Sobel is the Director, Strategic Design at Snowmelt. Leanne is passionate about applying design practices to unpack complex problems. She has developed a unique perspective to address organisational challenges over her 20+ years of practice across agency, consulting, academic and industry positions.

Leanne has completed a PhD in management, exploring the role of design in strategy at the University of Technology Sydney. Leanne holds a Master of Management from Macquarie Graduate School of Management and a Bachelor of Design from Swinburne University and Billy Blue College of Design.

Over her career, Leanne has worked in a variety of roles within design agencies, education and corporate strategy consulting. Passionate about the education of future leaders, Leanne integrates design and management practices with relevant theories and practical knowledge into her teaching. She is a coach and lecturer in the Executive MBA program at University of Technology Sydney and facilitates training in a variety of capacities. Outside of work. Leanne enjoys a range of creative pursuits - making art, exploring beautiful design, and playing music.

Tim and Leanne discuss how design and systems thinking can be leveraged to create more participatory and equitable strategies across complex social challenges, enabling collaborative leadership, and embedding human-centred approaches within organisational change.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Tom Allen] - To start off, can you please share a bit about your backgrounds and what it was that led to you both working on complex systems?

[Leanne Sobel] - I started my career with a Bachelor of Visual Communication Design and learned the skills and ways of thinking about design and making. Through this, I became interested in how design could be used to solve complex problems beyond just creating things.

That led me into an interest in design thinking as it became more popular in management discourse. From there, I completed a Master of Management. I then had the opportunity to experiment with design and strategy in corporate consulting, particularly working on complex challenges in the healthcare space and thinking about how businesses can change their future directions.

It’s that merging and mixing of creative practices, design, and understanding how to bring people into engaging with complexities across levels, layers, and systems.

[Tim Tompson] - I think my background’s similar in some ways to Leanne’s. As a young kid, I was passionate about design and making things. I grew up in the country, did some woodwork, and built bird boxes. I did anything I could to engage with the system I was living within, encouraging different kinds of changes to take place around me.

When I studied Industrial Design as my first undergraduate degree, I also did Arts, and that helped me explore the broader context. What are the products and services we interact with day to day? That curiosity drew me to asking questions like how do organisations make decisions? How do they produce what we produce? Why do we end up with what we have?

I was curious about things like solar and other sustainable technologies, which were already around 15–20 years ago when I first studied industrial design. My question was always if this all exists, why isn’t it ubiquitous? This curiosity drew me into organisations, strategy, and thinking about how to affect larger-scale change over time.

Tell us more about the specific approach to strategic design you implement with Snowmel that is helping organisations navigate complex societal challenges?

[Tim Tompson] - We tend to play in a lot of similar spaces to traditional strategy or management consulting, but we come at those problems with a different approach.

We use a design and systems lens. From the systems thinking view, we look at challenges holistically. We consider different perspectives around an issue and think about how relationships might evolve over time. Then we look at design as a practice of making. If we believe the world is moving in a particular direction, what role might our organisation play?

Therefore, what do we need to make now to build relationships, partnerships, new products and services, or communication platforms that will support that direction?

Sometimes, it’s multiple organisations coming together to effect broader change, whether that’s economic shifts or social innovation. We’ve worked with a number of not-for-profits, NGOs, and philanthropic groups in that space.

Given that both of us (as well as many members of our team) have tangible design and organisational business backgrounds, our practice is focused on actually operationalising and making change happen.

Strategically, we look at the social process. Who needs to be involved? How early should they be brought in? How do we draw on diverse perspectives to make progress toward a challenge or opportunity? It can sound quite grandiose and large, but really, it comes down to fundamental things. How do people come together and communicate? How do we listen to one another?

Some of the systems we work on inside organisations include strategy, identity, and governance. How do you measure and understand your portfolio of work? How do you shift that portfolio over time based on what you learn? How do you relate to others and your partners?

Then there’s ways of working. Sometimes it’s really mundane things like: how many hours a week am I spending on strategic activities? How much of my work is about building new relationships? It can be really simple when you get down to it.

You’re both presenting at the upcoming Social Impact Summit, which is in July on the second and third in Sydney. What are some of the themes and conversations you’re most excited to be contributing to, hearing about, or learning from others at the event?

[Leanne Sobel] - We’re very excited to be involved in this summit. It’s a great opportunity for us to interact with broader groups working in the social impact space.

Building on what Tim just said, there’s often a lot of discussion about what we’re doing in organisations and how we’re trying to create impact. But there’s less focus on how we are being as we do that work.

At the start of the year, we participated in a workshop with Professor Chris Mowles, a management professor who specialises in complexity theory. He guided us through ideas around navigating complexity as both an individual and social process.

At this summit, we’re particularly interested in exploring those ideas further. How do you connect big-picture thinking with individual and organisational change by starting with yourself? It’s about thinking through questions of critical reflexivity. How am I showing up in my work? How am I relating with others?

And how does that ongoing process of working with others help us reflect on what we’re here to facilitate, and how we’ll collaborate to make that a reality?

Learning from your experience in identifying key leverage points or blind spots when it comes to designing more participatory and equitable systems, what sorts of shifts do you think are needed across sectors to accelerate more meaningful change?

[Tim Tompson] - We talk about this a lot internally at Snowmelt; how do we get better at this, and how do we help organisations see some of these challenges?

Often, it’s about naming things they haven’t been able to see before, or recognising patterns in how they work, think, and relate to others. Our job is often to make those patterns explicit. One of the biggest shifts relates to leadership and management.

If you’ve traditionally worked within a management orthodoxy where leadership means control and directing others in a hierarchical way, then the challenge of working collaborativel (especially with external partners) is learning to lead when you don’t actually have power. That shift demands a willingness to engage others meaningfully. You need to be open to different perspectives and genuinely consider the possibility that the plan you had in your head might not be the right path forward. You need to create space for other voices to shape the story.

This touches on many of the patterns we mentioned earlier—strategy, governance, relational dynamics, and ways of working. It manifests in a lot of different ways.

It’s about creating space for genuine participation, not just consultation. That’s a major hang-up for many organisations.

Too often, they engage with stakeholders only after an 80% complete plan is in hand, just hoping for a rubber stamp.

Instead, what’s needed is the courage to go out with a blank sheet of paper and ask: What would you like to see happen? What’s important to you? What values or principles should guide how we work together?

That’s a completely different starting point, one rooted in openness and shared creation rather than pre-determined outcomes.

When it comes to advice for purpose-driven leaders or changemakers who are feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure how to take things to the next level, what would you tell them?

[Leanne Sobel] - I think it comes back to some basic principles: focus on your own backyard and the things you can control to begin with. What kind of change do you want to make? It might feel like a small step, but it could have a much bigger ripple effect over time.

Alongside that, with the participatory ethos that Tim mentioned earlier, think about the network you’re part of, even if that includes people you haven’t met yet.

Look at the wider system surrounding the challenge that’s got you stuck, and ask: who in this network could I talk to for a bit of insight, practical knowledge, or sage advice that might point me in a new direction? It’s about meaningfully activating that network to get yourself unstuck. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of reframing the challenge and thinking differently about the issue or the type of change you’re aiming for. This can unlock progress.

Always keep in mind that others around you may hold exactly the knowledge or experience you need to take the next step forward.

What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across recently creating a positive change?

[Tim Tompson] - Whenever people ask a question like that, I can’t help but think of the brave work many of our clients are doing. One example that comes to mind is from a couple of years ago, when we worked with a state government agency that recognised a significant need to change how they were operating. This was largely due to the shifting demands of the current landscape.

They made a bold decision to completely redesign their strategy development process, using it as a demonstration project for a different way of working. The intent was to reset how they related to other agencies, how they collaborated across government departments, and how they worked internally within their own agency.

They created a large-scale demonstration project with around 35 seconded, fractional FTEs and strong leadership backing. The project ran for over a year and was focused on shifting the internal systems necessary to bring this new strategy to life, and by extension, to reset relationships across the system at scale.

It was bold work, and there was an impressive level of commitment from leaders to continue supporting and building the practice. Sure, things got tough when other pressures emerged inside the organisation, but they stuck with it.

When we caught up for a debrief at the end of last year, it was incredibly encouraging to see that many of the practices we worked on together are still very much embedded. That way of working has now become a norm.

These are the kinds of stories that continue to excite and inspire me. It always starts small, it’s never about trying to take on everything at once. Sometimes, it’s those little demonstration projects that spark the shift. They show what’s possible and build the relationships in the way you’d like to see them happen.

To finish off then, what are some books, thinkers, or resources you’d recommend to our listeners who want to dive deeper into systems design, complexity, or participatory change?

[Leanne Sobel] - Yeah, we’ve got a few! I mean, we could probably be here all day listing the resources we refer to.

One theme we didn’t touch on earlier, which we’re excited to explore at the Social Impact Summit, is courage. Courage to develop your capabilities and to work in ways that aren’t necessarily the norm in business. A lot of the resources we return to are about building that courage and giving yourself new skills and ideas to take your work in new directions.

I’d say, be curious. Think about these resources as ways to stretch yourself, to try something different, and to champion a different approach. Especially if you’re in an organisation trying to facilitate social impact, and you feel what you’re doing isn’t delivering the change you hoped, maybe it’s time to explore another way. If you’re working solo, think about what knowledge, skills, or capabilities you don’t yet have and consider stretching into those.

Drawing on the work we did with Chris Mowles, his book Complexity: An Idea for Business and Society is a fantastic resource. It lays out what complexity means in a management context.

He argues that all the work we do is inherently complex and there’s no escaping it. The skills to hone are around relational dynamics: how I bring myself into my work, how I understand my own views and values, and what that means for how I work with others. It’s a great, very practical read, even though it draws on theory.

Another is a pragmatic business book I used while navigating my PhD: The 12 Week Year. It brings planning into these neat blocks of time and focuses on setting specific goals. If you’re trying to build a new capability or change an aspect of your work, it’s an effective tool for thinking about how to make progress over a short, focused period.

Then there’s Designing for the Common Good. This book captures the essence of design practice. And Frame Creationis another excellent resource. It breaks down design methods and ways of thinking that help organisations or individuals tackle problems from an exploratory, abductive perspective rather than jumping straight to solutions. It’s a methods book, more than a theory one, and a solid introduction to design, something we talk about a lot in our work.

[Tim Tompson] - I’d just add a couple of really great resources and books at the intersection of systems thinking and business. One accessible read to get you into that mindset is Upstream by Dan Heath, a popular business book that explores the value of systems thinking within large-scale organisations and systems.

Another essential resource is Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows. It’s perfect if you’re interested in the theory that underpins systems thinking, including some of the core frameworks for understanding complex dynamics.

We’ve also drawn a lot of inspiration from Relating Systems Thinking and Design, an annual conference usually held in the US or the Nordics. It brings together practitioners and academics from around the world who apply systems thinking and design to a wide range of societal challenges; from food systems and the circular economy to organisational collaboration.

I highly encourage checking out the RSD website, it’s a rich source of knowledge and ongoing conversation in this space.