#26 Lady's Lab: How to Change a System Without Letting It Change You
The Lady’s Lab (Bi-Weekly)
Real conversations. No masks. No gatekeeping.
The Lady’s Lab is a bi-weekly facilitated space to think things through with other women who understand the reality of the work.
This isn’t a class or a workshop.
There’s no hierarchy, no fixing, no performance.
Just thoughtful conversation with women navigating leadership, change, and the messy middle of building meaningful work.
This Session:
How to Change a System Without Letting It Change You with Maja Grakalić
So much of modern work still asks people to adapt to systems that were not designed with them in mind.
Be more resilient. Communicate better. Manage your energy. Set better boundaries. Try another tool. Have another meeting.
But what if adapting was never the problem — what if disappearing into it was?
In this Lady's Lab, design strategist and futurist Maja Grakalić shares a method built over twenty years across a state broadcaster, government, and private companies: stay inside the systems you depend on, and use your position there to move them, without losing yourself in the process.
This isn't about leaving broken systems, or being resilient enough to survive them. It's about something more specific: knowing when to disrupt from within, why the things that don't fit neatly on one CV line (elevator pitch) are often the real leadership toolkit, and how to stay independent enough, even while embedded, that you never lose the ability to move or exit.
Together, we'll explore:
What does it actually look like to disrupt a system from the inside, without waiting for permission or seniority?
Why do the skills that don't fit in one lane, might be exactly what's needed now?
What does it take to stay independent while still deeply embedded, and what happens the moment that slips?
This is a conversation for anyone who has ever wondered:
"Is it me — or is this way of working simply not working?"
Meet Maja Grakalić
Experience & Service Design Strategist / Futures thinking
Maja has spent 15 years working across product, service and systems design, with experience at the BBC, Crown Commercial Service and startups. Her work has focused on helping teams move from fragmented, controlling ways of working towards more coherent, human-centred structures.
More recently, she also reached a personal threshold in her own relationship with work.
So this conversation is not only about organisational design.
It is about the moment many women know well: when you realise you can no longer keep over-functioning inside a system that refuses to change.
This is not theoretical.
It’s grounded in real examples of change in action.
Join us — and feel free to bring a friend 💜
Fransje & Dina
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PS. We’re always looking for thoughtful women to host future Lady’s Labs. If you have a topic you’d love to explore with this community, we’d be happy to have a conversation
📧 Message dina@theladysrealm.com