Category Archives: culture

Storytelling as a Strategic Asset

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Building a Culture of Shared Vision

Storytelling as a Strategic Asset

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

In the complex, data-saturated landscape of modern business, leaders often mistake communication for connection. We blast out metrics, strategy decks, and endless transformation roadmaps, yet struggle to achieve true alignment. Why? Because facts inform, but stories inspire. As a proponent of Human-Centered Change, I believe that Storytelling is not a soft skill reserved for the marketing department; it is the single most powerful strategic asset a leader possesses for knitting together a culture of shared purpose and driving difficult, lasting innovation.

Innovation requires people to leave the certainty of the present for the ambiguity of the future. No spreadsheet can bridge that gap; only a compelling narrative can. Storytelling provides the emotional context that turns a complex 10-point plan into a simple, unforgettable journey. It is the necessary fuel for lighting your Innovation Bonfire.

The Anatomy of a Strategic Narrative

A strategic story is not just a recounting of events. It is a structured tool designed to achieve three non-negotiable goals:

1. Establishing Context and the “Why”

Every great story starts with a clear call to action or, in business, a clear articulation of the challenge (the villain) and the opportunity (the treasure). The narrative must define why the change is necessary — not just for the bottom line, but for the customer, the employee, and the broader world. This anchors the change in a higher purpose, making sacrifice feel meaningful.

2. Defining the Hero (It’s Not You)

Effective leaders understand they are the narrator, not the hero. The heroes of the transformation story must be the employees, the customers, or the front-line innovators. When you center the narrative on the team’s potential to overcome the challenge, you foster psychological ownership. People are far more likely to commit to a vision in which they play the starring role.

3. Creating Emotional Residency

Data is processed in the prefrontal cortex; stories are processed across the brain, activating areas linked to emotion and memory. A compelling narrative creates emotional residency — the feeling that the future state is already real and deeply desirable. This emotional connection is what sustains momentum when the inevitable project setbacks occur.

Case Study 1: The NASA “Janitor” Story

One of the most enduring stories of strategic vision involves President John F. Kennedy visiting NASA headquarters in 1962. During his tour, he encountered a janitor carrying a broom and simply asked him what he did at NASA. The janitor’s response was legendary: “Mr. President, I’m helping put a man on the moon.”

This is a masterclass in strategic storytelling. The janitor’s answer wasn’t a product of an operations manual or an HR training deck. It was evidence that the highest organizational mission — the “Why” — had successfully permeated every single level of the organization. The story of landing on the moon was the shared vision, and every employee understood their specific, vital role in that narrative. By anchoring the organization’s purpose in a powerful, common goal, NASA fostered an internal culture of innovation and dedication that transcended job titles and silo boundaries. The story became the operating system.

Case Study 2: Leading Change Through Artifacts

I once worked with a large, traditional manufacturing firm attempting a massive digital transformation, but the mid-level managers were entrenched in the old way of working. The strategy was too abstract — a deck of slides called “Digital 2.0.” To make the change real, we shifted to Human-Centered Storytelling through Artifacts.

Instead of presenting the “Digital 2.0” slides, the leadership team created a simple, physical Customer Pain Map — a large, visual representation highlighting the three most frustrating, friction-filled touchpoints for the customer that the current systems created. Crucially, they accompanied this map with three laminated printouts of customer complaints — actual, raw feedback taken from the call center — that were so painful they were almost impossible to read without wincing.

These artifacts became the new narrative. The purpose of the transformation instantly became clear: it wasn’t about saving money; it was about ending the customer’s pain. The team wasn’t “building Digital 2.0”; they were “fixing the red dots on the pain map.” By making the strategy tangible, emotional, and centered on the customer-as-hero, the leadership bypassed logical resistance and activated empathy, accelerating the shift in operational priorities far faster than any quarterly report could have.

“Data tells, but narrative sells. If you want people to commit to an ambiguous future, you must give them a vivid, emotional story they can step into and own.”

Building Your Storytelling Muscle

How does a leader evolve from a communicator of facts to a champion of vision through narrative? It requires deliberate practice:

  • Embrace Vulnerability: Start with your own story. Leaders who share their personal “Why” — their own journey and the failure they overcame — build trust and give permission for their team members to be vulnerable, too. This is the foundation of psychological safety.
  • Gather Front-line Narratives: The most powerful stories live on your company’s front-line. Dedicate time in town halls or team meetings to have employees share a “Hero Moment” — a recent example where they solved a problem that perfectly embodied the company’s stated values.
  • Simplify the Vision: Can you summarize your entire transformation strategy in a single, three-sentence narrative that your janitor could repeat? If not, the story is too complex. Strip away the jargon until the core conflict and resolution are crystal clear.

Your ability to narrate the future is the core competency of Human-Centered Leadership. By turning your strategic plan into a compelling, human-centric story, you move past mere communication. You create a shared reality, galvanize collective action, and unlock the massive reservoir of human potential needed to win the future.

Extra Extra: Because innovation is all about change, Braden Kelley’s human-centered change methodology and tools are the best way to plan and execute the changes necessary to support your innovation and transformation efforts — all while literally getting everyone all on the same page for change. Find out more about the methodology and tools, including the book Charting Change by following the link. Be sure and download the TEN FREE TOOLS while you’re here.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Designing Innovation – Accelerating Creativity via Innovation Strategy

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Designing Innovation - Accelerating Creativity via Innovation Strategy

GUEST POST from Douglas Ferguson

To innovate is to survive.

As an overwhelming 80% of founders believe innovation to be the heart of organizational growth, employing an innovation strategy that promotes,  facilitates, and feeds innovation is essential.

Developing a solid plan for facilitating innovation in your organization is a necessary step in your company’s growth. In this article, we’ll discuss the best ways to harness innovation as we explore the following topics:

  • The Source of Innovation
  • What is an Innovation Strategy?
  • Strategizing for Innovation
  • Innovating from Within
  • A System of Innovation

The Source of Innovation

Innovation often feels like a form of magic: it’s a powerful yet elusive force that drives the best ideas and creates the greatest breakthroughs. While some prefer to wait for inspiration to strike, happenstance is hardly the driving force behind innovation.

The true source of innovation is the organization itself. Leaders must intentionally create systems, processes, and strategies that allow for innovation at every turn.

Innovation is similar to any other corporate function as it requires careful strategizing to make the best ideas come to life. In doing this, leaders can set the stage and make the most innovative ideas and processes a regular practice in their organization. Ultimately, innovation may appear in the initial spark of a great idea, but it takes purposeful, thoughtful, and conscious planning for a great idea to exist beyond that moment of genius.

What is an Innovation Strategy?

Driving organizational innovation starts with creating an innovation strategy. An innovation strategy identifies processes that allow for the most creative and effective solutions.

The ideal innovation strategy allows an organization to zero in on its audience’s expectations by:

  •  Identifying customers’ unmet needs
  • Targeting these needs for growth

A healthy innovation strategy allows an organization to create the most efficient pathways to resolving these needs and growing its company. Effective strategies for innovation follow a prioritization method to help teams understand which ideas hold the highest return. In creating a solid innovation strategy, leaders must develop a system that can be repeated time and again.

Strategizing for Innovation

From defining your goals to using tech to transform your organization into a hybrid model, the possibilities are endless when it comes to innovation. As you design your innovation strategy, it’s essential to understand the nuances of innovation. Working with an innovation consultant can help you iron out a strategy that’s best for your team. With an expert in innovation, you’ll be able to better determine effective next steps toward the business’s goals.

Consultants are equipped to explain the subtleties in innovative strategizing, such as the various types of innovation:

  • Routine Innovation.

Routine innovation is a building block that adds to the company’s pre-existing structure, such as its customer base or earlier versions of a product.

  • Disruptive Innovation.

Disruptive innovation results in a new business model that disrupts or challenges the competition’s business models.

  • Radical Innovation.

Radical innovation introduces new inventions, software, or technology to completely transform an existing business model. This type of innovation is best used to help organizations achieve a competitive advantage in the market.

  • Architectural Innovation.

Architectural innovation uses new technology to create new markets. Essentially, architectural innovation changes the entire overall design of a product by redesigning existing components.

In creating the best innovation strategy for your current needs, take into account the following guidelines:

  • Clarifying your goals and priorities.

The right innovation strategy outlines your organizational goals and efforts to identify the best actionable steps to achieve these goals.

  • Fostering alignment within your organization.

Alignment should be at the center of any innovation strategy. Everyone must be aligned in pursuing a common goal for an organization to achieve new ideas and an innovative way of working.

  • Encouraging your team to keep improving.

Complacency kills innovation. Make sure your company is always ready to move on to the next great idea by making continuous growth and development a key part of your innovation strategy.

  • Reaching long-term success.

Focusing on reaching long-term success is an essential part of any innovation strategy.

Innovating From Within

An innovation strategy becomes the most effective when leaders can ingrain the processes and practices into their culture. Once innovation becomes an integral part of how a team works, they’ll be able to keep innovation top-of-mind.

By innovating from within, you’ll create a sustainable innovation strategy that becomes part of your company culture. Consider these pillars of innovation as you center innovation strategy at the heart of your company:

  1. Models: Innovation strategies fall into two models:
  • Business model innovation
    In this process, an organization completely adapts its business model to add value to its customers.
  • Leveraging an existing business model
    This process allows an organization to use its existing business model while bringing innovation to the business itself.
  1. Intrapreneurship
    Intrapreneurship empowers employees to act as entrepreneurs while working within the company. This encourages each person to create and act on their ideas, thus fostering a culture of ongoing company-wide innovation.

  2. Corporate Accelerator
    Corporate accelerators are programs started by larger enterprises, offering aspiring entrepreneurs the opportunity to find mentors, access seed capital, and make important connections.

  3. Innovation Labs
    Innovation labs are a starting point for R&D teams and startups to facilitate new ideas.

  4. Open Innovation Program
    This model of R&D encourages existing employees to collaborate on new business ideas that add value to the company.

  5. External Accelerators
    Though external accelerators don’t meet in-house, they can add incredible value to an organization. Businesses can use external accelerators to advance startups and drive concepts that align with their goals and needs without covering the costs of running an in-house program.

  6. Collaboration
    Collaboration is an integral component in shaping a cohesive innovation strategy. Through constant discussion, interaction, and creative collaboration, all members of an organization work together to bring their ideas to life.

  7. Ideation
    Managing innovation requires organizations to manage ideation. In doing so, leaders work to identify the best plans for analyzing, gathering, and implementing the right ideas. Ultimately, companies need an effective system that will transform an idea into a process that gets results.

  8. Measurement
    Innovation strategies should include a plan to measure success by considering relevant metrics for each goal. For example, KPIs such as email subscribers, website traffic, and social shares are excellent metrics for tracking brand awareness.

A System of Innovation

Developing a comprehensive innovation strategy must go beyond general objectives such as achieving growth, creating value, and beating competitors. To truly create company-wide change through innovation, organizations should clearly articulate specific objectives that will allow for the most sustainable competitive advantage.

A thorough innovation strategy successfully embeds innovation in the very system of an organization. To implement such systemic innovation, design your innovation strategy with the following objectives:

  • Creating Long-Term Value for Potential Customers

An innovation strategy should always consider the most effective ways to create long-term value for customers. In developing a cohesive strategy, consider the type of value you’re aiming to create through innovation. Value can be created in many ways, including improving customer experience, making a product more affordable, or benefiting society at large.

In your efforts to identify what values to zero in on, consider those that will have the greatest impact in the long term. This way, your innovation strategy will include continuously iterating towards better designs in the future.

  • Capturing Value Generated From Innovations 

Innovations easily attract competitors that can pose a risk to the original product or idea. In your efforts to create a thorough innovation strategy, consider how your company plans to capture the value its innovations create.

For example, a company that creates an exciting new product should be prepared for its competition to create more affordable prototypes. In the worst-case scenario, the competition may capture the value of the innovation.

Consider these risks in your innovation strategy by identifying what complementary services, products, assets, and capabilities may improve customer loyalty. This way, you’ll already have a plan in place to ensure your organization continues to profit from every innovation.

  • Strategizing for Business Model Innovation

Technology plays an important role in innovation but isn’t the only path to new ideas. In developing a robust innovation strategy, consider the level of technology and your preferred method of innovation to pursue.

Harnessing the magic of innovation takes careful planning. Need help driving innovation in your organization? At Voltage Control, we help leaders develop innovative strategies through change! Contact us today to discuss the best path to innovation. 

Image credit: Pexels

Article first published here: voltagecontrol.com

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Innovate for Good – Breaking Paradoxes

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GUEST POST from Teresa Spangler

At the time of my writing this, the world is in the midst of unprecedented triple crises. The COVID-19 pandemic is wreaking havoc on healthcare and on the personal lives of people globally. The economic impacts of this pandemic are crippling nations, small towns, and people all over the world. And to top it off we are experiencing incredible social unrest – protests for Black Lives Matter are taking shape all around the world, with the goal of peaceful protests for change – but they’ve been hijacked by anarchists of varied profiles… individual crusaders, terrorists acting solo, antagonists of the left and the right wings… so many different factions creating chaos. All of this to say, change is happening at paces unimaginable, and ‘INNOVATION for Good’ – of all types, centered on human, economic, and environmental impacts – is a dire necessity.

The world faces many great challenges. For example, the World Economic Forum reports that “by 2050, global food systems will need to sustainably and nutritiously feed more than 9 billion people while providing economic opportunities in both rural and urban communities. Yet our food systems are falling far short of these goals. A systemic transformation is needed at an unprecedented speed and scale.”

Speed and scale, these days, are the operative words prioritized in innovation investments. When and how are the big questions that investors and stakeholders primarily ask? Of course, these are important questions. Breaking the cycle of ‘profit first’ is not an easy shift for capitalist societies. Social Entrepreneurism, Social Innovation Organizations, and Non-Governmental Organizations are charting courses toward innovating in new and socially impactful ways, but they need the support, collaborative partnership, and help from investors and from the public and private sectors. The world of business has been groomed for years to drive everything fast, faster, and fastest – fail-fast, rapid prototype, accelerated stage gates, hire-slow-fire-fast, rapid returns… and so on. Measured return on investments drives innovation decision-making from new cure-all drugs to the closet full of patents that sit in the coffers of giant industry leaders never making it out into the commercial world, even though these may be game-changing, lifesaving, humanity-improving innovations.

This chapter looks at examples of how to shift from ‘profit first’ to ‘ethics and innovation for good and safety first’. If you build it safely, ethically, and build it to serve humanity, improve the environment, and support socially good causes, the profits will come. But investors and stakeholders need to understand the WHYs – why safety, ethics, and serving are so important. How are we innovators sharing these three critical priorities in the stories we build to gain buy-in on new ideas? So often, safety and ethics are afterthoughts. Responsible Innovation: Ethics and Risks of New Technologies, Joost Groot Kormelink, TU Delft Open, 2019 note:

“If we do not critically and systematically assess our technologies in terms of the values they support and embody, people with perhaps less noble intentions may insert their views on sustainability, safety and security, health and well-being, privacy and accountability.”

Also in the textbook, Responsible Innovation: Ethics and Risks of New Technologies, it sites are case study examples of how conflicting values can open up new opportunities to innovate responsible. As a learning method, the case study opens up our minds to the point of view or moral foundations as an opportunity:“Moral dilemmas can help stimulate creativity and innovation, and innovative design may help us to overcome problems of moral overload.”

In the case study excerpt below: “Smart meters and conflicting values as an opportunity to innovate.” The case study points to an example of smart meter design.

The smart meter 3.0, which is what we are ideally looking for, is designed to accommodate both of the functional requirements in order to make energy use more efficient, while also protecting personal data. It gives us privacy and sustainability. In this respect, innovation in smart metering is exactly this: the reconciliation of a range of values, or moral requirements, in one smart design, some of which were actually in conflict before. Similarly, if we would like to benefit from RFID technology (enabling to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects) in retail, but fear situations in which we might be tracked throughout the shopping mall, it has been suggested we can have it both ways. A so-called ‘clipped chip’ in the form of a price tag with clear indentations would allow customers to tear off a piece of the label, thereby shortening the antenna in the label so as to limit the range in which the label can transmit data.

Clarity of Values-Based Purpose

In the case above, there is clear purpose-driven innovation. Study after study has shown clarity of purpose is key to engaging people in new ideas.

A Kin&Co survey conducted by Populus points out that “Not embedding purpose properly also alienates customers, because in this age of transparency employee problems leak out online, and into the press. Over a third of employees surveyed (34%) said they’d consider writing a negative review online.” One example cited is of “… the Etsy employee who started a petition against the company’s leaders for not living their purpose and values, which was signed by thousands of employees and then went viral.” From: Why purpose matters and four steps companies can take to get it right”, Rosie Warin, 14 February 2018, Ethical Corporation Magazine, Reuters Events – Sustainable Business, the conclusion was thus that …

 Having a purpose and not living it will actually hurt your business more than not having one at all! Why Purpose Matters

There is a hunger for more transparency, having our work be meaningful, and knowledge that ethics and privacy are forethoughts, not afterthoughts. It’s good for business, and certainly will drive better profits in the long run.

Breaking the ‘Fast Profit’ Addiction and Adapting Innovation for Social Benefits – Seeking Purpose

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.  Winston Churchill

What if we asked the BIG ‘What if?’ What if we were more focused on the benefits of our innovations to humans, the environment, and society – making these priorities over profits first? Can it be proven that if you build it, the profits will come?

The United Nations: Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The chapter Foundations of Moral Innovation (Chapter 3 – page 57) mentioned the ‘triple bottom line’ that socially conscious companies focus on serving – People / Planet / Profit… the social, environmental, and financial aspects of an organization’s impact. In 2015 the United Nations cast a vision (and put actions to their words) to build a better world for all people by 2030. Engaging a world of collaborators is key to the success of these 17 Development Goals (noted below).

“The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are one of the world’s best plan to build a better world for people and our planet by 2030. Adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, the SDGs are a call for action by all countries – poor, rich and middle-income – to promote prosperity while protecting the environment. They recognize that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and address a range of social needs including education, health, equality, and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and working to preserve our ocean and forests. See Transforming A World: A 2030 Agenda.

The Division for Sustainable Development Goals (DSDG) within the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) provides substantive support and capacity-building for these SDGs and their related thematic issues.

To say the least, as we read these 17 audaciously massive and impactful goals, the goals feel incredibly lofty; the actions to innovate solutions for three of the goals, much less 17 of them, feels nearly unachievable (in our fast prototyping, rapid release, ROI-focused, capitalistic mind-sets) and CFOs around the world sense that acting on these in any way may weigh heavily on profits. Yet many companies are collaborating to drive solutions to these goals. The United Nations built a values-based and purpose-driven platform to participate in solving these world challenges. They provide guidelines, research, information on other collaborators, tools, data, and so much support to help those that choose to participate. And participating they are! Noted from a press release in July 2019: “28 companies with combined market cap of $1.3 trillion step up to new level of climate ambition. Ahead of the UN Climate Action Summit, companies commit to set 1.5°C climate targets aligned with a net-zero future, challenging Governments to match their ambition”.

Here are a few of the participating companies from this release: AstraZeneca, Banka BioLoo, BT, Dalmia Cement Ltd., Eco-Steel Africa Ltd., Enel, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Iberdrola, KLP, Levi Strauss & Co., Royal DSM, SAP, Signify, Singtel, Telefonica, Telia, Unilever, Vodafone Group PLC, and Zurich Insurance, amongst others. The release goes on to note that this collectively represents over one million employees from 17 sectors and more than 16 countries.

It seems that the United Nations has created an intensely collaborative framework that offers a moral ground to innovate. It’s just one example, and as complex as these goals are, the framework is simple… build a mission-driven platform, engage thought-leaders around the world, set up metrics and measures for success, provide as much data as possible, offer support when and where needed, and provide as many tools as possible to encourage collaboration amongst them.

ESG – A Moral Compass

Social investors are a group growing in popularity and size. These investors focus their investments and their portfolios on corporations around the world with metric-driven processes to ensure they are building sustainable and responsible companies – a practice known as environmental, social and corporate governance, or ESG.

An example of such an organization is Philips Corporation, which has made a commitment to ESG and thus to ethics over profits. In the article, “Good business: Why placing ethics over profits pays off”, they share “When companies work ethically, they will naturally outpace competition. Why? Simply because customers, as we’ve discovered, will see them as a trusted partner, not only for what they do, but how it is delivered. Commitment from management is a key factor to effectively deal with these situations.”

In Stanford Social Innovation Review, authors Chris Fabian and Robert Fabricant write, “An ethical framework – ‘a way of structuring your deliberation about ethical questions’ – can help to bridge disparate worlds and discourses and help them work well together.” Their article further notes that, “Ethical questions might include: ‘Is this platform / product actually providing a social good?’ or ‘Am I harming / including the user in the creation of this new solution?’ or even ‘Do I have a right to be taking claim of this space at all?’”11 Such a strong ethical framework can help innovators to plan for ‘value-based collaborations’. Establishing such a framework within your innovation practice also provides a process whereby collaborators can monitor the work, and consistently ensure that ethics are intact. Moreover, planning for positive outcomes and managing to an ethical framework gives customers, buyers, stakeholders, users, and investors some comfort that the ‘net new disruptive innovations’ will be safe for all, which will result in strong profits and longevity in due time.

Very importantly, this article also points out that while ethics may involve subjectivity, nevertheless “an ethical framework can bridge the worlds of startup technology companies and international development to strengthen cross-sector innovation in the social sector.”

Fabian and Fabricant outline a 4-model framework in this article:

  • Innovation is humanistic: solving big problems through human ingenuity, imagination, and entrepreneurialism that can come from anywhere.

  • Innovation is non-hierarchical: drawing ideas from many different sources and incubating small, agile teams to test and iterate on them with user feedback.

  • Innovation is participatory: designing with (not for) real people.

  • Innovation is sustainable: building skills even if most individual endeavors will ultimately fail in their societal goals.

“Critical to the world’s innovation effort is harvesting the Human Imagination!”  Patrick Reasonover – writer and producer of They Say It Can’t Be Done

Incorporating any of the above four models provides the basis for forethought and planning. There may be additional considerations accompanying the above framework to drive even better outcomes yet – especially for those with big audacious visions of disruptive innovation. But often there are unexpected barriers. So how can one plan for the unexpected? There is a documentary film that explores some of these barriers, and four companies working to overcome them.

They Say It Can’t Be Done, written and produced by Patrick Reasonover, is an excellent documentary exploring how innovation can solve some of the world’s largest problems. The film tracks four companies on the cutting edge of technological solutions that could promote animal welfare, solve hunger, eliminate organ wait lists, and reduce atmospheric carbon. The film explores often unexpected challenges and barriers that are potentially keeping these companies from realizing success. They each share steps and strategies on how to break through the ‘concrete walls’.

The compelling theme from these companies is innovation for good – innovation with a moral foundation to improve humanity. One of the first questions typically asked by stakeholders is “When will these companies or their new innovations become profitable?” Here’s the BIG ‘What if’ question.  What if we changed this question to, “What will it take to make this successful, and how can we help you get there faster?”  These are fairly typical questions. But what about roadblocks potentially challenging even the most knowledgeable and experienced teams and proven technologies? I recently spoke with Patrick Reasonover about his mission and the documentary. Reasonover shares, “Faced with similar challenges to the companies in the documentary, I felt if more people understood barriers, the world would see more successful outcomes that could save people, improve human conditions, and the environment.”  Reasonover went on to share four themes that would greatly help disruptors in their innovation practices. These four themes are summarized as follows:

  1. One of the most important points he made in our discussion was to engage regulators and government agencies – collaborating with them very early on in the process and all along your path. Help them to understand; listen and take in their input.

  2. Institute what Reasonover calls an ‘Ambassador of Imagination’. We need more imagination in the world and in our own world. It’s too easy to get boxed into an innovation framework and forget to take the blinders off in order to think and create big things!

  3. Optimism is sorely needed in the world and especially for innovators. Getting new things out the door is daunting. Infuse your efforts with doses of optimism grounded in reality.

  4. CELEBRATE… hitting milestones should be celebrated along the way. It’s a long road, and all too often we get push back from doubters, investors wanting faster outcomes, governing approval agencies, and so on. Celebrate and move forward!

These four practices create a culture that encourages and celebrates imagination, innovation, success, and all the collaborators helping you get there. And involving agencies early on in the process helps them to understand that you are taking safety and ethics seriously. Take for example 3D-printed organs for those needing transplants. There is so much at stake. Stepping through the approval process to prove it out on less risky organs – for example, 3D printed ears – helps to chart the course for other organs as the technologies and the discovery of new methods continues to develop.

The article “On The Road To 3-D Printed Organs” in TheScientist reports, “There are a number of companies who are attempting to do things like 3-D print ears, and researchers have already reported transplanting 3-D printed ears onto children who had birth defects that left their ears underdeveloped, notes Robby Bowles, a bioengineer at the University of Utah. The ear transplants are, he says, ‘kind of the first proof of concept of 3-D printing for medicine.”

Ethics First

All in all, there is much evidence pointing to success, longevity, scale, and profits when building a framework that places ethics, safety, values, and purpose as planned practices in any innovation effort.

These practices do not have to slow the process of innovation in the least. On the contrary… they will often speed up the effort, as in the example of engaging regulators as collaborators early on in your efforts. Engaging imagination and optimism are sorely needed, and keeps teams engaged and enthused. And.. leveraging one of Stanford’s four models could save a great deal of pain by monitoring outcomes all along your development stage gates. It all just makes good and safe business sense!

*Article is an excerpt contribution (chapter 6): The Other Side of Growth: Innovator’s Responsibilities in an Emerging World

Image credit: Pixabay

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Measuring the Immeasurable

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Quantifying Culture and Psychological Safety

Measuring the Immeasurable

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

For decades, organizational leaders have dismissed culture as a ‘soft skill’ — a nice-to-have byproduct of good management, but too ethereal to track on a balance sheet. Meanwhile, psychological safety — the bedrock belief that one can speak up without fear of punishment or humiliation — has been treated as an abstract ideal. As a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I find this reliance on intuition and anecdote to be one of the greatest systemic failures in modern leadership. We cannot optimize what we do not measure. The innovation leaders of tomorrow must learn not just to value culture and safety, but to quantify their impact with the same rigor they apply to revenue and R&D spend.

The innovation economy is built on risk-taking, honest feedback, and rapid experimentation. All three of these behaviors are direct consequences of high psychological safety. If employees fear making a mistake, they will revert to safe, incremental thinking. If they fear criticizing the status quo, change and innovation dies in silence. The great leap forward is now possible because technology — specifically AI-driven analysis of communication and behavioral patterns — allows us to move from a subjective feeling (e.g., “Our culture feels collaborative”) to objective, actionable data that drives organizational change. This means treating culture as a leading indicator of innovation and performance.

The Psychological Safety Scorecard: From Feeling to Fact

To quantify the previously unquantifiable, we must shift our focus from traditional engagement surveys to measurable behaviors and systemic friction points. Here are the three key dimensions of the Psychological Safety Scorecard, metrics now possible through NLP (Natural Language Processing) analysis of communication data:

  • 1. Speak-Up & Challenge Density: This measures the frequency and quality of dissent. How often do junior employees challenge senior leaders? We quantify the ratio of questions to statements in meetings, and the percentage of project feedback that contains a genuinely challenging idea. A high density of low-risk, candid communication is a strong sign of safety.
  • 2. Failure-to-Learn Ratio: True safety is evident in how organizations handle failure. Instead of measuring failure rates, measure the time, resources, and documentation dedicated to post-mortem analysis and shared learning. If a failed project is quickly buried and the individual responsible is sidelined, the Failure-to-Learn Ratio is high (bad), indicating low psychological safety.
  • 3. Cross-Boundary Interaction (Friction Score): Innovation often occurs at the intersection of departments. We quantify friction inherent in cross-functional interactions by measuring the number of approval loops and the sentiment (via communication analysis) when one team critiques another’s work. A low friction score indicates high cross-silo safety.

“Culture is what happens when the CEO leaves the room. If you can measure that behavior, you can change the organization.”

Case Study 1: Project Aristotle and the Google Teams

The Challenge:

Google, a company renowned for hiring the best and brightest, embarked on Project Aristotle to determine what made certain teams excel while others struggled. The hypothesis was that team performance was dependent on a mix of individual skills, tenure, or co-location — all easily measurable factors.

The Quantified Discovery:

After extensive data collection, they found that none of the traditional variables mattered as much as Psychological Safety. The most impactful metrics they identified were subtle, measurable behaviors: Conversation Turn-Taking (everyone on the team spoke roughly the same amount) and Social Sensitivity (team members were good at reading and responding to non-verbal cues). These metrics effectively quantified the feeling of safety. When team members felt safe to speak up and contribute equally, they took risks, shared knowledge, and, as a result, were consistently high-performing.

The Organizational Impact:

Google shifted its focus from optimizing individual talent to optimizing team dynamics. They now had quantifiable data points — a Psychological Safety Index — that could be trained, measured, and improved across the organization. This proved that culture is not only measurable but is the single greatest multiplier of intellectual capital and, critically, the speed of change adoption.

Case Study 2: The Healthcare Anomaly – Error Reporting as a Safety Metric

The Challenge:

In high-stakes healthcare systems, traditional leadership linked low reported error rates to high quality. However, this often masked a dangerous reality: providers were hiding errors and near-misses to avoid discipline, creating a fragile system and preventing organizational learning.

The Quantified Discovery:

Leading healthcare institutions began flipping the metric. Instead of punishing error, they incentivized Error Reporting Density and the Near-Miss Ratio. They realized that a high rate of “near-miss” reporting (incidents that almost caused harm) was a positive metric, signaling high psychological safety. It meant front-line staff felt safe enough to admit mistakes and warn the system. Furthermore, they measured the time-to-reporting for non-punitive errors. Rapid, high-volume reporting indicated a learning culture, while slow, sporadic reporting indicated a blaming culture.

The Organizational Impact:

By measuring the frequency and honesty of reporting — a direct proxy for psychological safety — these organizations created a genuine Learning System. This culture of candid feedback led to thousands of small, human-centered process innovations, ultimately leading to a verifiable reduction in actual patient harm events. The ability to measure the willingness to be vulnerable became the most important metric for both innovation and life-saving operational excellence.

Conclusion: Leadership’s New Accountability

Measuring culture and psychological safety is the new mandate for human-centered change leaders. We must stop treating engagement surveys as a once-a-year formality and start integrating real-time behavioral metrics into our organizational dashboards. This isn’t about surveillance; it’s about enabling exponential performance and accelerating change adoption.

The innovation premium — the added value derived from creativity, speed, and risk-taking — is directly dependent on a culture where people feel safe. By quantifying Speak-Up Density, the Failure-to-Learn Ratio, and Cross-Boundary Friction, we provide leadership with the actionable data required to dismantle fear and build a truly resilient, innovative organization. The C-suite must recognize that this investment in cultural quantification is the most essential infrastructure project of the digital age. Leaders must understand that if they can’t measure safety, they can’t manage change. The future belongs to those who make the invisible visible, transforming soft culture into hard, strategic competitive data.

Extra Extra: Futurology is not fortune telling. Futurists use a scientific approach to create their deliverables, but a methodology and tools like those in FutureHacking™ can empower anyone to engage in futurology themselves.

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Effective Facilitation for All

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How Leadership Fundamentals Benefit Everyone

Effective Facilitation for All

GUEST POST from Douglas Ferguson

Effective facilitation isn’t limited to the inner workings of staff meetings. True facilitation goes beyond simply setting an agenda: it’s a mindset, framework, and way of being.

Excellent facilitators know how to get the best out of their teams and design conversations that are innovative, exciting, and productive.

In this article, we explore how the fundamentals of facilitation affect an organization in the following topics:

  • Leading with Great Expectations
  • Effective Facilitation for Everyone
  • Facilitation with a Purpose

Leading with Great Expectations

At its core, great facilitation is an engaging conversation. In practicing effective facilitation, leaders make sure all communication is as clear and thoughtful as possible. Facilitators can begin this conversation by intentionally setting their expectations with all stakeholders in every conversation, meeting, and project.

Often, meetings end with attendees unaware of their colleagues’ and leaders’ expectations. By focusing on effective facilitation, leaders can identify and communicate their expectations as well as the expectations of everyone else in the room.

Consider the following facilitation fundamentals when identifying others’ expectations and needs ahead of a meeting:

  • Personal Preparation

Preparation is essential for any form of facilitation. Whether you’re leading a meeting or heading up a project, participants expect you to come prepared. Demonstrate proper facilitation techniques by preparing to be physically, emotionally, and mentally ready for your presentation.

  • Practice

Practice is the next step in proper facilitation. In practicing, you’ll be able to review your process and identify any areas needed for adjustment. Moreover, practicing will help you visualize your upcoming session, anticipate problems, and prepare alternative plans should something go wrong.

  • Process

Effortless facilitation follows a seamless process designed specifically for your audience. Facilitators have a variety of processes to choose from, including strategic planning, problem-solving, decision-making, and more.

  • Place

Your physical or virtual environment plays an important role in your facilitation ventures. It’s essential to be as intentional as possible in selecting the space for your next session. Consider the requirements for a space, such as the size of the room, what equipment is needed, and any other elements that may affect the flow of your meeting.

  • Purpose

The purpose may be the single most important component of effective facilitation. Your purpose will outline the end goal of a meeting and will communicate why the session is taking place.

  • Perspective

Perspective is as essential to effective facilitation as the purpose. Your perspective allows you to contextualize the goals, mission, vision, and purpose of your meeting.

  • Product

As effective facilitation hinges on meeting with a purpose, understanding what that purpose will produce is just as important. Consider what deliverables should be created by the end of a project, meeting, or conversation. Additionally, be sure to define the most important goals and actionable steps required to achieve them.

  • People

Facilitate with intention by identifying who should be in attendance. Learn more about each participant by researching the bias, potential barriers, and preconceived ideas that they may bring to each meeting. Likewise, be sure to highlight their strengths to further assess how they can be an asset in your conversation.

Effective Facilitation for Everyone

Integrating effective facilitation skills and techniques goes far beyond the walls of a meeting. A facilitative approach to leadership zeroes in on the positives of leading an active and engaged group. Facilitation techniques such as active listening and encouragement work to stimulate participative group conversation and collaboration.

Every member of an organization can benefit from the power of facilitative leadership. Leaders that demonstrate and embody proper facilitation skills can impart these practices to their employees.

Facilitation techniques benefit employees in the following ways:

1. Fostering Collaboration and Learning

Facilitation skills are essential in encouraging an environment of collaboration and learning. Encouraging team members to look at a situation from a different perspective, consider new solutions, and understand how to bring the best out of each other will result in the most productive experiences.

In creating a culture of learning, leaders should take the time to learn from their teams as well. Giving your employees a platform to offer their own insights is the best way to invite them into this collaborative process of co-creating learning.

2. Getting More From Meeting Attendees

As employees adopt the elements of effective facilitation, they’ll bring more of their skills, focus, and energy to each meeting. Equipped with the skills to act as influencers amongst their peers, each employee will become an active participant in the meeting, encouraging each other to make the most out of their time together.

3. Improving Productivity

As team members work together on various projects, effective facilitation skills allow them to move forward in the most productive, cost-effective, and timely manner. When employees incorporate their finely-honed facilitation skills, they work together efficiently, converse productively, and solve problems effectively. Ultimately, facilitation fundamentals allow everyone from team members to management to make the most of their time at work.

4. Boosting Group Dynamics

Incorporating effective facilitation skills helps improve group dynamics as well. All team members benefit from improved communication strategies, both in and out of the structured setting of meetings. These strategies allow all participants to better express their thoughts, opinions, and concerns as they work together to achieve a common goal.

Teams that invest in developing their communication skills are likely to retain the best employees. Statistics show that organizations that practice strong communication skills experience 50% less attrition overall.

5. Encouraging Active Participation

While effective facilitation is often considered from a leadership perspective, it is also an excellent catalyst in driving employee participation. Oftentimes, team members don’t feel comfortable enough to share their true opinions in a meeting. Moreover, they tend to bring the bare minimum to the workplace if they don’t feel as though their participation, efforts, and insights are valued.

Organizations that champion effective facilitation as part of their company culture are actively shaping an environment that makes employees feel as though they are truly part of their team. Feeling this sense of psychological safety allows all stakeholders to feel comfortable enough to put their all into their work.

6. Encouraging Team Competency

Leaders that excel in facilitation techniques are able to engender a sense of self-efficacy in their team. Oftentimes, leaders fail to go beyond methods of coaching to help their team members understand and internalize pertinent information. Effective facilitation helps to bridge the gap of competency in an organization.

Leaders must encourage team members on the path toward true competency. This approach to facilitation is essential to incorporate a culture where facilitation skills are easily transferable.

Lauren Green, Executive Director of Dancing with Markers, shares that the path to competency starts with meeting employees where they are:

“First, you’re unconsciously incompetent. You’re unconscious. And then you become aware [of] your incompetence, and then you’re consciously competent. And then you start to grow your skills. So then you’re consciously competent. And then when you don’t have to think about it anymore, then you’re unconsciously competent.”

Facilitation with a Purpose

Just as the purpose is a powerful tool in leading a meeting, it’s also essential in building effective facilitation skills in others. Intentionally investing in facilitation training allows organizations the opportunity to teach, practice, and embody the structured techniques of effective facilitation.

The nature of effective facilitation is that nothing can take place without purpose. From managing meetings to running projects, leading with the fundamentals of facilitation helps every facet of an organization run smoothly.

Lead with purpose by focusing on the following effective facilitation practices:

  1. Listening first and speaking second
  2. Leading with effective communication
  3. Managing time and tracking deadlines
  4. Asking intentional questions
  5. Inviting others to engage
  6. Creating a focused and psychologically safe environment
  7. Providing unbiased objectivity
  8. Acting as a decider in group discussions

Effective facilitation benefits everyone, whether you’re leading a meeting or encouraging employees to take their leadership skills to the next level. At Voltage Control, we help leaders and teams harness the power of facilitation. Contact us to learn how to apply these fundamentals to your organization.

Article originally published on VoltageControl.com

Image credit: Pexels

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Why Small Teams Kick Ass

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Why Small Teams Kick Ass

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

When you want new thinking or rapid progress, create a small team.

When you have a small team, they manage the hand-offs on their own and help each other.

Small teams hold themselves accountable.

With small teams, one member’s problem becomes everyone’s problem in record time.

Small teams can’t work on more than one project at a time because it’s a small team.

And when a small team works on a single project, progress is rapid.

Small teams use their judgment because they have to.

The judgment of small teams is good because they use it often.

On small teams, team members are loyal to each other and set clear expectations.

Small teams coordinate and phase the work as needed.

With small teams, waiting is reduced because the team members see it immediately.

When something breaks, small teams fix it quickly because the breakage is apparent to all.

The tight connections of a small team are magic.

Small teams are fun.

Small teams are effective.

And small teams are powered by trust.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Age Discrimination in the Workplace is Real

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Forty-Three Percent Say 40-Plus Is Old

Age Discrimination in the Workplace is Real

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI, is a popular yet sensitive topic in the workforce today. Leadership and HR that recognize this are finding ways to ensure employees from all races, ethnicities, abilities, sexual orientations, religions, etc., are represented. Sometimes included, but often left out, is age.

Age shows no color, race, religion, sex, etc. It just is. People get older, and as they do, workplace biases may become evident. It’s important to be aware of this issue. A 2022 study by LiveCareer, ‘Older People & the Workplace’, revealed some intriguing findings regarding age-related stereotypes and discrimination. More than 1,000 workers were surveyed to “investigate their opinions about older people in the workplace.”

Eight in ten respondents claimed age stereotypes were still alive in the workplace.

What is considered old? Forty-three percent of those surveyed said 40-plus is old. Twenty-six percent said 50-plus is old. And 21% said 60-plus is old. So, if you are 50, with probably 15 or more years until retirement, 69% of the people you work with think you are old.

Here are some more findings from LiveCareer’s study to get you thinking about how your organization treats aging employees:

  • 74% of the respondents aged 50-plus said they had been fired because of their age.

  • 86% aged 50-plus felt that most job postings were addressed to people younger than them.

  • 72% of respondents claimed that older employees were a target for workplace bullying.

  • 77% of the respondents said: I haven’t been hired for a job because of my age.

  • 69% said: I’m afraid to lose my job because of my age.

If over 50 is old, then leadership is … old. According to Zippia, there are over 38,700 CEOs currently employed in the U.S., and their average age is 52 years old. If you look at the Fortune 500, the average age of a CEO is 57. Several companies on the Fortune list are run by CEOs ranging from 71 to 91!

Consider the age of the most powerful executives in the United States. President Biden was 78 when he became president. Donald Trump was 70. Barak Obama seems like a baby considering he entered the Oval Office when he was just 47. The overall average age of a United States president entering office is 56 (almost 57).

Some companies and brands are taking a proactive position against age discrimination. Dove and Wendy’s in Canada reacted to CTV news firing Canadian news anchor Lisa LaFlamme for letting her hair go gray. Dove Canada responded with a #KeepTheGrey campaign on its social media postings. They wrote, “Age is beautiful. Women should be able to do it on their own terms, without consequences.” Wendy’s tweeted, “Because a star is a star regardless of hair color.”

Companies are evaluating their retirement policies, recognizing the value of older employees. Target recently announced it is eliminating the mandatory retirement age of 65. Its current CEO, Brian Cornell, will be turning 64 on his next birthday, and Target doesn’t seem ready to start planning for his successor. While Target’s reason for changing the policy may seem self-serving, you can’t ignore that they have come to realize the value in keeping their best employees, regardless of age. Other major companies like 3M, Merck and Boeing are also changing their policies on mandatory retirement.

The OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), an international group of economists based in Paris, with more than 38 member countries, predicts that by 2050, more than four in ten individuals (that’s 40%) in the world’s most advanced economies are likely to be older than 50. The workforce is aging even more rapidly as younger people are starting work at an older age, and older people are staying employed.

We’re not getting any younger. We’re older today than yesterday, both in life and at work. We can’t fight that. It’s just a fact, and you can’t ignore it. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the workforce is also getting older. In 2000 the average age of a worker in the U.S. was 39.3. In 2010, that jumped to 41.7. In 2020, it increased to 42.8.

Despite these changes and observations, age bias still exists. It needs to be considered—and eradicated—the same as other DEI issues.

This article originally appeared on Forbes

Image Credit: Pixabay

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Psychological Safety: The Foundation of a Thriving and Innovative Culture

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Psychological Safety: The Foundation of a Thriving and Innovative Culture

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

In a world defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), the old rules of leadership no longer apply. For too long, we have celebrated organizational cultures built on a foundation of intense competition, relentless efficiency, and a drive for individual brilliance. The implicit message was simple: success belongs to the most competent, the most certain, and the most productive. As a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I am here to argue that this approach is fundamentally flawed. The most resilient, innovative, and high-performing teams are not the ones with the most talent, but the ones with the most trust. Their secret weapon is a concept known as **psychological safety**, the shared belief that the team is a safe place for taking interpersonal risks.

Psychological safety is not about being “nice” or creating a “safe space” for mediocrity. It’s about building a foundation of trust where people feel safe enough to be vulnerable. It’s the feeling that you can admit a mistake, ask a “stupid” question, or challenge the status quo without fear of being ridiculed, shamed, or punished. This is a crucial distinction. When psychological safety is absent, our natural human instinct to self-preserve kicks in. We self-censor, we withhold critical information, and we stick to the known, a recipe for stagnation and eventual failure. But when it’s present, something magical happens: individual intelligence transforms into collective genius. Teams learn faster, innovate more freely, and adapt to change with a level of agility that is impossible in a fear-based environment.

The Business Case for Safety: Why Trust is Your Greatest Asset

The argument for psychological safety isn’t just a philosophical one; it’s a strategic imperative with a clear business case. Research from a wide range of fields—from organizational psychology to neuroscience—confirms its power. In a landmark study, Google’s “Project Aristotle,” researchers set out to find the secret to the company’s most effective teams. They analyzed everything from individual skills to personality types, but the data revealed a surprising truth: the single most important factor was not talent, but psychological safety. This finding cemented psychological safety as the ultimate foundation for high-performance.

When psychological safety is high, a team can:

  • Embrace a Learning Mindset: Mistakes are seen as data points for learning, not failures to be punished. This enables rapid iteration and a “fail-fast” culture.
  • Unlock Creativity and Innovation: When people are free from the fear of looking foolish, they are more likely to share unconventional ideas, leading to genuine breakthroughs.
  • Improve Problem-Solving: Team members are more likely to speak up about potential problems, raise red flags, and engage in constructive conflict, allowing the team to address issues before they become crises.
  • Increase Employee Engagement and Retention: People want to work in an environment where they feel valued, respected, and safe. A culture of psychological safety fosters deep loyalty and reduces turnover.

“Talent gets you on the field, but psychological safety is what allows you to win the game.”

Case Study 1: Pixar’s “Braintrust” – A Masterclass in Candor and Trust

The Challenge:

In the high-stakes world of animated filmmaking, a single creative misstep can lead to a disastrous flop. For Pixar, the challenge was to create a mechanism for frank, honest, and even brutal feedback on films in progress without crushing the creative spirit of the director and their team. A typical corporate review process would be too political and hierarchical for the level of candid feedback needed.

The Psychological Safety Solution:

Pixar’s solution was the **Braintrust**, an exclusive group of the company’s most accomplished directors and storytellers. This wasn’t a formal committee; it was a culture built on psychological safety. The core rules of the Braintrust are simple yet powerful: a director is never obligated to act on the feedback, and the group’s purpose is to help the film succeed, not to assert power. The feedback is always on the work, never the person. This deep, shared belief that everyone is there to help and that no one is judging personal worth allowed for a level of open, candid criticism that is almost unheard of in other creative industries. Directors could present their half-finished, deeply flawed films and receive honest input without fear of professional harm.

The Result:

The Braintrust is a key reason for Pixar’s long-term, unprecedented creative success. It is a living testament to the power of psychological safety. By building an environment where candor and vulnerability were not just tolerated but celebrated, Pixar created a collective intelligence that consistently elevated the quality of every film. They proved that honest feedback, delivered with a foundation of trust, is the ultimate driver of creative excellence.

Case Study 2: The Boeing 737 MAX Crisis – The Catastrophic Cost of Silence

The Challenge:

In the years leading up to the two fatal crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX, the company was under immense pressure to compete with Airbus and deliver a new, fuel-efficient aircraft on an aggressive timeline. Internally, a culture of cost-cutting and a rigid, top-down hierarchy created a fear-based environment. Engineers and employees were aware of potential issues with the new flight control software (MCAS), but they felt unable to raise their concerns.

The Psychological Safety Failure:

In this culture of fear, with an emphasis on meeting deadlines at all costs, employees chose silence over speaking up. A damning report by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee found that a lack of psychological safety prevented whistleblowers from coming forward. Engineers felt that raising safety concerns would not only fall on deaf ears but could also lead to retaliation or professional damage. Instead of a collaborative problem-solving approach, the culture fostered a dangerous “don’t ask, don’t tell” mentality. The very people who could have prevented the tragedy were silenced by an environment that prioritized speed and cost over human lives.

The Result:

The absence of psychological safety at Boeing led to one of the most devastating corporate crises in modern history. The two fatal crashes killed 346 people and resulted in a massive financial and reputational blow. The case of the 737 MAX serves as a powerful cautionary tale, demonstrating that a lack of psychological safety is not just a cultural problem; it is a critical strategic risk with potentially catastrophic consequences. It’s a stark reminder that when people are afraid to speak up, the cost can be measured in both lives and livelihoods.

Conclusion: The Ultimate Foundation for Innovation

Psychological safety is not a “nice-to-have” or a buzzword from a corporate retreat. It is the ultimate foundation for building teams that are resilient, adaptable, and ready for anything. It is the soil in which innovation grows, where creativity flourishes, and where people are empowered to be their best, most authentic selves. As leaders, our most important job is not to have all the answers, but to create the environment where our teams feel safe enough to find them together.

In a world of constant change, the ability to learn and evolve is paramount. And learning only happens when we are willing to admit what we don’t know, to experiment without fear of failure, and to speak our minds without fear of judgment. The future belongs to the psychologically safe. Let’s start building it, one conversation and one act of vulnerability at a time.

Extra Extra: Because innovation is all about change, Braden Kelley’s human-centered change methodology and tools are the best way to plan and execute the changes necessary to support your innovation and transformation efforts — all while literally getting everyone all on the same page for change. Find out more about the methodology and tools, including the book Charting Change by following the link. Be sure and download the TEN FREE TOOLS while you’re here.

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Reset and Reconnect to Increase our Connectedness

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Reset and Reconnect to Increase our Connectedness

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

In our second blog in the Reconnect and Reset series of three blogs, we stated that now is not the time to panic. Nor is it a time to languish from change fatigue, pain, and emotional lethargy. It is a significant moment in time to focus, rehabilitate, rebuild, repair, regrow and reset to increase our connectedness through linking human touchpoints that increase people-power in the fourth industrial revolution.

In the current environment, where chaos and order are constantly polarizing, it’s crucial to touch people with empathy, reignite their social skills, and enable them to become healthily self-compassionate and more self-caring to:

  • Patiently support, lead, manage, mentor, and coach them towards finding their own balance to flow with mitigating the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution.
  • Take advantage of new technologies, networks, and ecosystems to re-engage and collaborate with others and with civil society in positive ways that contribute to the whole.
  • Do the good work that creates a more compelling, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable future, that serves the common good.

The Landscape Has Changed and So Have the Solutions

As the fourth industrial revolution continues to implode, we need to zoom out and consider the bigger picture. Where a recent Harvard Review article What Will Management Look Like in the Next 100 Years?” states that we are entering an era, which is fundamentally transforming the way we operate. Which is defined by the disruptive growth in blockchain technology, robotics, artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and other core digital capabilities.

All of which, in some way, is dependent on linking the key human touchpoints that increase people’s power and our connectedness.

  • An era of empathy

In the same article, management scholar Rita Gunther McGrath argued that management practices based on command and control, and expertise would ultimately make way for empathy.

Where work is centred around value creation conducted through networks and collaboration, that rely on increasing the connectedness between machines and humans rather than through rigid structures and relationships to thrive through increasing people-power in the fourth industrial revolution.

  • Capable of better

The Qualtrics 2022 Employee Experience Trends Report also states that the landscape has changed.  Where people are choosing to work flexibly, to work in the places that work best for them, and to take time for their own well-being, families, and friends.

Where people are demanding change because they care, about their leaders and their organizations, and want to be capable of developing better ideas; better innovations; and delivering better performances.

The report outlines the four things your people need you to know:

  1. There will be an exodus of leaders – and women will be the first out the door.
  2. People will demand better physical and digital workspaces.
  3. The lack of progress in diversity, inclusion, and belonging won’t be accepted.

People don’t want to become irrelevant, nor do they want their managers, leaders, and organizations to become irrelevant. People know that they can’t, and won’t go back to the old ways of doing things. People also know that they are already living in the new normal and that they need to start working there, too and to do that, we need to increase our connectedness.

Which is especially important for building people’s power and mitigating the challenges emerging in the fourth industrial revolution.

  • A transformative moment for employees and employers

Businessolver’s Eighth Annual Report on the State of Workplace Empathy describes how the pandemic has impacted on employees’ personal lives, the labor market, and the economy, and states that “we are living through a renegotiation of the social contract between employees and employers”.

Their data shows that amid the return to the office, fewer employees view their organizations as empathetic, and that workplace empathy has clear implications for employee well-being, talent retention, business results, and increases people-power:

  • About 70% of employees and HR professionals believe that empathetic organizations drive higher employee motivation.
  • While 94% of employees value flexible work hours as empathetic, the option is only offered in 38% of organizations.
  • 92% of CEOs say their response to returning to in-person work is satisfactory, compared to 78% of employees.
  • 82% of employees say their managers are empathetic, compared to 69% who say the same about their organization’s chief executive.

Yet, there seems to be a true lack of understanding, especially in the corporate sector, of what it means to be empathetic, and a shortage of time and energy to develop the mindsets, behaviors, and skills to practice it and make it a habit.

It is also a fundamental way of being to increase our connectedness and building peoples-power.

Make a Fundamental Choice to Increase our Connectedness

Even though each person is a distinct physical being, we are all connected to each other and to nature, not only through our language but also by having a deeper sense of being.

Human connectedness is a powerful human need that occurs when an individual is aware and actively engaged with another person, activity, object or environment, group, team, organization, or natural environment.

It results in a sense of well-being.

The concept is applied in psychology as a sensation or perception where a person does not operate as a single entity – we are all formed together to make another, individual unit, which is often described as wholeness.

Which is especially important for our well-being and people power in the face of the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution.

Strategies for Developing Quality Connections

  • Be grounded, mindful and conscious

Being grounded and mindful enables people to become fully present to both themselves and to others. It is a generous gift to unconditionally bestow on others. Especially at this moment in time, where the pandemic-induced social isolation, has caused many people to become unconsciously and unintentionally self-absorbed.

There is an opening to become aware of, and to cultivate our attending and observing skillsets, to sense and see the signals people are sending, at the moment they are sending them. To help people identify the source of their issues to re-establish a sense of influence and control that reduces their autonomic nervous system reactions and help them restore their calmness.

This is the basis to increase our connectedness, by attuning and becoming empathetic as to what thoughts and feelings lay behind their behaviours and actions, with detachment, allowing and acceptance.

  • Be open-hearted and open-minded 

Being curious about what others are feeling and thinking, without evaluating, judging, and opposing what they are saying. By knowing how to listen deeply for openings and doorways that allow possibilities and opportunities to emerge, to generate great questions that clarify and confirm what is being both said and unsaid.

To support people by creating a safe and collective holding space, that reduces their automatic unconscious defensive responses.  To defuse situations by being empathic and humble and increase our connectedness by asking how you might help or support them, and gaining their permission and trust to do so.

Increase our connectedness through being vulnerable in offering options so they make the best choice for themselves, to reduce their dependence, help them identify and activate their circles of influence and control and sustain their autonomy.

  • Help people regenerate

Now is the moment in time to focus on building workforce capabilities and shifting mindsets for generating a successful culture or digital transformation initiative by harnessing, igniting, and mobilizing people’s motivation and collective intelligence and building people power.

It is crucial to acknowledge and leverage the impact of technology through increasing people-power by developing new mindsets, behaviors, skills, and new roles, which are already emerging as fast as other roles change.

Be willing to invest in the deep learning challenges that build people’s readiness and receptivity to change, so they can embrace rather than resist it, and be willing to unlearn, and relearn, differently, by collaborating with other people, leaders, teams, and organizations across the world.

Ultimately, it all depends on being daring and willing to increase our connectedness, through adapting, innovating, and collectively co-creating strategies, systems, structures that serve the common good, and contribute to the well-being of people, deliver profits and nurture a sustainable planet.

Find out more about our work at ImagineNation™

Find out about our collective, learning products and tools, including The Coach for Innovators, Leaders, and Teams Certified Program, a collaborative, intimate, and deeply personalized innovation coaching and learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 9-weeks, starting Tuesday, February 7, 2023.

It is a blended and transformational change and learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles, and applications of an ecosystem focus, human-centric approach, and emergent structure (Theory U) to innovation, and increase people-power, upskill people and teams and develop their future fitness, within your unique context. Find out more about our products and tools.

This is the final in a series of three blogs on the theme of reconnecting and resetting, to create, invent and innovate in an increasingly chaotic world.

You can also check out the recording of our 45-minute masterclass, to discover new ways of re-connecting through the complexity and chaos of dis-connection to create, invent and innovate in the future! Find out more.

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Attracting the Best

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How Purpose Becomes Your Talent Magnet

Attracting the Best - How Purpose Becomes Your Talent Magnet

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

In the relentless war for talent, organizations often compete on a transactional level: salary, benefits, and perks. While these are certainly important, they are no longer the decisive factors for top-tier professionals, especially for the younger generations entering the workforce. As a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I am here to argue that the most powerful, sustainable, and effective talent magnet is not compensation, but **purpose**. In a world where meaning and impact are highly valued, a clear and authentic purpose is what separates a good company from a great one. It’s what moves an organization from a place where people simply work to a place where people are compelled to belong.

The modern workforce, particularly top talent, is looking for more than a paycheck. They seek alignment between their personal values and the mission of their employer. They want to know that their work contributes to something bigger than a profit margin. They are driven by a desire to solve meaningful problems and make a tangible difference in the world. When an organization can clearly articulate its purpose—its “why”—it creates a compelling narrative that resonates with the hearts and minds of potential employees. This isn’t about crafting a slick marketing campaign; it’s about embedding purpose into the very DNA of the company, from its core strategy to its daily operations. The result is a self-selecting talent pool of motivated, innovative, and deeply committed individuals.

The Four Pillars of Purpose-Driven Talent Attraction

Building an organization that attracts talent through purpose requires a commitment to four key pillars:

  • Authenticity and Integrity: Purpose must be genuine, not a performative facade. It must be reflected in the company’s actions, its products, and its leadership decisions. Hypocrisy is a powerful repellent for today’s talent.
  • Clear Communication: The “why” must be simple, inspiring, and consistently communicated to both internal and external audiences. It should be a constant theme in recruitment, onboarding, and internal communications.
  • Mission Alignment: Every role, from the factory floor to the executive suite, must be connected to the company’s purpose. Employees need to see how their specific contributions advance the larger mission, creating a sense of ownership and meaning.
  • Tangible Impact: Purpose must translate into tangible, measurable impact. Whether it’s a social, environmental, or technological impact, showing concrete results of the company’s purpose makes the mission feel real and achievable.

“You can rent a person’s hands with a salary, but you can only earn their heart with a purpose. And in the innovation economy, hearts are the most valuable asset.”

Case Study 1: Microsoft’s Transformation from “Know-It-Alls” to “Learn-It-Alls”

The Challenge:

In the early 2010s, Microsoft was a technology giant struggling with a stagnant culture. Employees were highly competitive, often working in silos, and the company was seen as a “know-it-all” culture. This environment made it difficult to attract top talent who were looking for collaborative, growth-oriented workplaces. CEO Satya Nadella’s vision for a new Microsoft was centered on a new purpose: **to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more**. 🚀

The Purpose-Driven Solution:

Nadella didn’t just write a new mission statement; he fundamentally shifted the company’s culture. He focused on a **growth mindset**, encouraging employees to become “learn-it-alls.” This new purpose created a compelling narrative for potential hires, who were no longer just joining a software company but a mission-driven organization. Microsoft’s purpose became a powerful filter for talent, attracting individuals who were passionate about making a global impact through technology.

  • Talent Attraction: The new purpose helped Microsoft attract a new generation of engineers, designers, and leaders who were drawn to the company’s commitment to social and technological empowerment. This included talent from outside the traditional tech space, as the company’s mission resonated with a broader group of people.
  • Talent Retention: The growth mindset and a sense of shared purpose significantly increased employee engagement and retention. By linking individual roles to a global mission, employees felt a deeper sense of value and belonging, reducing the high turnover that had plagued the company in the past.
  • Innovation: The cultural shift led to a surge in innovation, as employees were encouraged to collaborate and experiment without fear of failure. Products like Microsoft Teams, which became a cornerstone of remote work, were born from this more open and purpose-driven environment.

The Result:

By shifting its core purpose and culture, Microsoft successfully revitalized its talent pipeline. It became a magnet for top talent, proving that a compelling mission can be a more powerful draw than just a high salary. The company’s market value soared, demonstrating that purpose and profit are not mutually exclusive but can, in fact, be mutually reinforcing.

Case Study 2: Warby Parker’s Vision for a Socially Conscious Business

The Challenge:

When Warby Parker launched in 2010, the eyewear market was dominated by a few large corporations, and a single pair of glasses was often prohibitively expensive. Co-founders Neil Blumenthal and David Gilboa’s purpose was to create a company that was both a successful business and a force for good. Their purpose-driven mission was simple: **to offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price while leading the way for socially conscious businesses**. 👓

The Purpose-Driven Solution:

Warby Parker’s “Buy a Pair, Give a Pair” program was not just a marketing tactic; it was the core of their business model. For every pair of glasses sold, a pair was distributed to someone in need. This clear and compelling purpose became an instant talent magnet.

  • Talent Attraction: Warby Parker attracted talent who were passionate about making a difference. The company’s mission resonated with professionals who wanted to use their skills in retail, design, and technology to address a global health issue. They received a flood of applications from individuals who saw their work as a means to a greater end.
  • Culture of Purpose: This purpose permeated every aspect of the company’s culture. Employees were regularly involved in “giving trips” where they could see the direct impact of their work. This connection strengthened their commitment to the brand and its mission, creating a powerful sense of community.
  • Brand Loyalty: The purpose-driven model not only attracted top talent but also built an incredibly loyal customer base. This loyalty, in turn, reinforced the company’s mission and its value proposition to employees, creating a virtuous cycle of purpose, talent, and business success.

The Result:

Warby Parker successfully built a highly engaged and motivated workforce that was passionate about the company’s mission. Their purpose became a critical part of their recruitment strategy, attracting a wave of socially conscious professionals who were eager to contribute to a brand that aligned with their values. It proved that a clear purpose can attract, motivate, and retain top talent in a way that traditional incentives cannot.

Conclusion: Purpose is Not an HR Initiative, It’s a Strategic Imperative

In the new talent economy, purpose is no longer a “nice-to-have” or an HR initiative; it is a fundamental strategic imperative. The best talent is looking for more than a job; they are looking for a cause. They want to be part of an organization that is making a positive impact on the world, a brand they can be proud to work for and contribute to.

As leaders, our challenge is to move beyond the superficial and to truly embed purpose into the heart of our organizations. We must be authentic in our mission, transparent in our actions, and committed to showing the tangible impact of our work. By doing so, we will not only attract the most talented and innovative people but also build a more resilient, successful, and human-centered business. Your purpose isn’t just your north star for strategy; it’s your most powerful talent magnet.

Extra Extra: Futurology is not fortune telling. Futurists use a scientific approach to create their deliverables, but a methodology and tools like those in FutureHacking™ can empower anyone to engage in futurology themselves.

Image credit: 1 of 950+ FREE quote slides available at http://misterinnovation.com

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