What do you do if stakeholders are resistant to your innovative design concepts?

stakeholders resistance are often rooted in fear of the unknown or concerns about disruption. So as I designer, you need to make them visualize the end result like, by addressing their concerns, effectively communicating the benefits, and actively involving the stakeholders throughout the design process, you can increase the chances of gaining their support for your innovative, and if possible do a small scale prototype to demonstrate the potential of the design to them.

The best way to convince the stakeholders is to find out is their concern. If financial issues are their main worries, then designers should try to present different methods and approaches for cost effective products. Other sources of concern also should be paid attention.

Always keep your stakeholders concern as a priority, you put the idea on the table, they put the money. Ask questions about their concerns, elaborate your answers taking in consideration what worries them without getting too far from your idea. Always make sure that they get their worries resolved if you want to convince them. Ask if they understood the solution and feel free to ask again if your explanation solved whatever concern they may had

Engineering is for problem solving. The start point for innovative solution is understanding the concerns of stakeholders and this is defined in design briefs for projects. Stakeholders must be encouraged to discuss their concerns and engineers must do all that is possible to first get full clarity of what these concerns are. Engineers must throw more light to the concerns raised by stakeholders and break issues further down to basis, investigate and probe all concerns and ensure that both the stakeholders and the design team thru the lead have a common understanding of what the concerns are and these are detailed in brief or Terms of Reference for the design activity. This brief is then sign off before project is costed and kickstarted.

All project financiers must be made to understand the benefits of the money to expended on projects. An engineer must clearly elicit the benefits of the design to be embarked upon. This is when the stakeholders would be happy to commit their resources into the innovative design

You should share these innovative ideas once you have them. Ask for input so others also feel like they are part of the innovation. Also, sometimes people just need to time to get used to an idea. If you share the idea early and ask for input, then stakeholders will ruminate on the idea and become comfortable with it.

Make sure such a project will allay all true concerns. You might need to dig deeper to understand the true nature of the concerns. Sometimes people have an emotional reaction, and can't explain this logically. Thus, you need to get good at reading people's feelings and understanding them.

Consider the possibility you are being innovative for its own sake. Maybe this innovation is not really needed, and not actually that innovative. But if it truly makes things better all round, then apply all of the above.