He named the rules nobody wrote down.
For more than two decades, Jeff Leitner has worked on problems that resisted every previous attempt — at NASA, the U.S. State Department, the Kigali Genocide Memorial, the Poetry Foundation. The work kept revealing the same thing: the obstacles weren’t strategy or resources. They were unwritten rules nobody could see. That pattern became norm design, the field he founded and the practice he runs.
Jeff Leitner
Jeff Leitner has spent more than two decades helping organizations do things they did not know how to do. NASA brought him in to confront a slow-motion crisis in its relationship with Congress. The U.S. State Department asked him to reimagine how it invests in emerging democracies. The Kigali Genocide Memorial wanted to know why visitors left moved but unmoved to act. The Poetry Foundation wanted a roadmap for expanding poetry’s reach. The work spanned every sector — government, science, the arts, philanthropy, healthcare, education — and almost nothing in the engagements appeared to have anything in common.
Except one thing. In every case, the obstacle that had defeated previous attempts was not what anyone had named. It was not the strategy, the budget, the leadership, or the politics. It was a set of unwritten rules — norms so embedded in the culture of the organization or the field that nobody inside could see them, and most outside consultants were not looking for them. Leitner kept finding the pattern in radically different places. Eventually he gave it a name.
Norm design is the practice of seeing the unwritten rules that hold problems in place and designing change that works with them rather than against them. It draws on sociology, neuroscience, and the practical lessons of decades of engagements. It explains why most change efforts fail and how the ones that succeed actually work. The field has its first academic home at the University of Southern California, where Leitner served as Innovator in Residence and helped design the nation’s first doctorate in social innovation, with norm design as part of the curriculum.
Leitner is the founder of Leitner Studio, the consulting and speaking practice through which he applies norm design to organizational and field-level challenges. He co-founded UX for Good, the first organization to apply experience design to social problems, where he did much of the foundational work in norm design — including the redesign of the Kigali Genocide Memorial. He is also affiliated with Inzovu, the design collective led by Jason Ulaszek, where he serves as cultural researcher and social innovator. Earlier, he founded Insight Labs, a pro bono strategy platform that convened more than six hundred scientists, artists, academics, and executives to rethink strategy for over fifty governments, institutions, and NGOs.
His work has been featured in Fast Company, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Inc., and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. He has spoken at Harvard, Stanford, the World Government Summit in Dubai, and dozens of other institutions and conferences around the world.
Norm Design for Audiences
Every ambitious change — inside an organization, across an industry, or out in the world — runs into the same invisible wall. Not a lack of resources or ideas, but a set of forces no one talks about and most people cannot see. They determine what gets taken seriously, what quietly dies, and whether bold ideas survive long enough to matter. They are the unwritten rules that govern how groups behave, and they are the subject of Leitner’s keynotes and workshops on norm design.
He is an award-winning speaker who has delivered the talk to corporate teams confronting internal change, industry audiences confronting collective stagnation, and conference rooms full of people who suspect their best ideas keep dying for reasons no one can name. Past audiences include Facebook, Microsoft, AT&T, MetLife, the U.S. General Services Administration, and the International Federation of Arts Councils and Cultural Agencies, among forty other institutions, companies, associations, and conferences.
“Jeff’s talk on unwritten rules was as insightful and thought-provoking as it was entertaining and engaging.” — Esther Lee, Global Chief Marketing Officer, MetLife
To book Jeff for a keynote or workshop, contact Jessica Polsky Alotto at DBA: jessica@dbagency.co.uk.
The work
The list below covers more than two decades of collaborations with governments, institutions, companies, and foundations.
Plus collaborations with NASA, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Starbucks, UBS, Allsteel, Lurie Children’s Hospital, Chicago Public Media, Great Books Foundation, Interior Environments, Council for Interior Design Accreditation, Foundations of East Chicago, Illinois State Assistance Commission, Rotary One, West Collection, Akerman, Professional Convention Management Association, and Ashoka.
Reach Jeff
For consulting inquiries, press, or anything else, send a note.
For speaking inquiries, contact Jessica Polsky Alotto at DBA: jessica@dbagency.co.uk.