Category Archives: Psychology

Four Ways to Overcome Resistance to Change

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

Why are organizations so resistant to change? Many point to a corporate immune system or to organizational antibodies that instantly attack change. The idea is that leaders prefer stability to disruption and put systems in place to reduce variance. These systems will instantly seek out and destroy anyone who tries to do anything different.

This is a dangerously misleading notion. There is no such thing as a corporate immune system. In fact, most senior executives are not only in favor of change, they see themselves as leading it! However, while most people are enthusiastic about change as a general concept, they are suspicious of it in the particular.

The truth is that is if the change you seek has the potential to be truly impactful, there are always going to be people affected who aren’t going to like it. They will seek to undermine it, often in very dishonest ways. That’s just a fact of life that you need to accept. Yet history clearly shows that, with a smart strategy, even the most ardent opposition can be overcome.

1. Ignore The Opposition — At First

The first principle for overcoming resistance is to understand that there is no reason you need to immediately engage with your active opposition. In fact, it’s something you should do your best to avoid in the early stages when your idea is still untried, unproven and vulnerable.

All too often, change initiatives start with a big kickoff meeting and communication campaign. That’s almost always a mistake. In every organization, there are different levels of enthusiasm to change. Some will be ready to jump on board, but others will be vehemently opposed. For whatever reason, they see this particular idea as a threat.

By seeking to bring in everybody at once, you are very likely to end up spending a lot of time and energy trying to persuade people who don’t want to be persuaded. The truth is that in the beginning your idea is the weakest it’s ever going to be. So there’s no reason to waste your time with people who aren’t open to it.

If you find yourself struggling to convince people, you either have the wrong change or the wrong people. So at first, seek out people who are already enthusiastic about your vision for change and want it to succeed.

2. Identify Your Apostles

In retrospect, transformations often seem inevitable, even obvious. Yet they don’t start out that way. The truth is that it is small groups, loosely connected, but united by a common purpose that drives transformation. So, the first thing you want to do is identify your apostles—people who are already excited about the possibilities for change.

For example, in his efforts to reform the Pentagon, Colonel John Boyd began every initiative by briefing a group of collaborators called the “Acolytes,” who would help hone and sharpen the ideas. He then moved on to congressional staffers, elected officials and the media. By the time general officers were aware of what he was doing, he had too much support to ignore.

In a similar vein, a massive effort to implement lean manufacturing methods at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals began with one team at one factory, but grew to encompass 17,000 employees across 25 sites worldwide and cut manufacturing costs by 25%. The campaign that overthrew Serbian dictator Slobodan Milošević started with just 5 kids in a coffee shop.

One advantage to starting small is that you can identify your apostles informally, even through casual conversations. In skills-based transformations, change leaders often start with workshops and see who seems enthusiastic or comes up after the session. Your apostles don’t need to have senior positions or special skills, they just have to be passionate.

3. Shift from Differentiating Values to Shared Values

People feel passionately about things that are different. That’s why the first product that Steve Jobs launched after he returned to Apple was the iMac. It wasn’t a very good computer, but its bright colors were designed to appeal to Apple’s passionate fan base, as was the “Think Different” ad campaign launched around the same time.

Yet if all Steve Jobs had to rely on was difference, Apple would have never grown beyond its most ardent fans and become the most valuable company in the world. It was the company’s growing reputation for high quality and smart features that brought in new customers. True change is always built on common ground.

One of the biggest challenges in driving transformation is that while differentiating values make people excited about an idea, it is shared values that help grow a movement. That doesn’t mean you’re abandoning or watering down your principles. It just means that you need to meet people where they are, not where you wish them to be.

For example, the Agile Manifesto has inspired fierce devotion among its adherents. Yet for those outside the Agile development community, its principles can seem weird and impractical. If you want to bring new people, it’s better to focus on shared values, such as the ability to produce better quality projects on time and on budget.

4. Create and Build on Meaningful Success

The reason people resist change is that they have a certain level of comfort with the status quo. Change forces us to grapple with the unfamiliar, which is always uncomfortable. There are also switching costs involved. So, if you want your change to take hold, at some point you are going to have to prove you can get results.

One great example is the PxG initiative at Procter & Gamble. It got started when three mid-level executives decided that they could dramatically improve a process. They didn’t try to convince anybody or ask for permission but were able to reduce the time it took from weeks down to hours. That started a movement within the company that has attracted thousands.

When Experian CIO Barry Libenson started a cloud transformation at his company, he didn’t force anybody to go along. Instead, he focused on helping product managers who wanted to build successful cloud projects. As they began to show concrete business results, the pressure for others to get with the program increased.

Perhaps most of all, you need to accept that resistance is part of change and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, skeptics can often point out important flaws in your idea and make it stronger. The difference between successful revolutionaries and mere dreamers is that those who succeed anticipate resistance and build a plan to overcome it.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credit: Pixabay

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Integrating Ethics into Every Stage of Innovation

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From Concept to Conscience

Integrating Ethics into Every Stage of Innovation

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

In the relentless pursuit of innovation, we often celebrate speed, disruption, and market dominance. The mantra “move fast and break things” has, for too long, overshadowed a more profound responsibility. As a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I have seen the dazzling promise of new technologies turn into societal pitfalls due to a critical oversight: the failure to integrate ethics at the very inception of the innovation process. It’s no longer enough to be brilliant; we must also be wise. We must move beyond viewing ethics as a compliance checklist or a post-launch clean-up operation, and instead, embed **conscience into every single stage of innovation**, from the initial concept to the final deployment and beyond. The future belongs to those who innovate not just with intelligence, but with integrity.

The traditional innovation pipeline often treats ethics as an afterthought—a speed bump encountered once a product is almost ready for market, or worse, after its unintended consequences have already caused harm. This reactive approach is inefficient, costly, and morally bankrupt. By that point, the ethical dilemmas are deeply baked into the design, making them exponentially harder to unwind. The consequences range from algorithmic bias in AI systems to privacy invasions, environmental damage, and the erosion of social trust. True human-centered innovation demands a proactive stance, where ethical considerations are as fundamental to the design brief as user experience or technical feasibility. It’s about asking not just “Can we do this?” but “Should we do this? And if so, how can we do it responsibly?”

The Ethical Innovation Framework: A Human-Centered Blueprint

Integrating ethics isn’t about slowing innovation; it’s about making it more robust, resilient, and responsible. Here’s a human-centered framework for embedding conscience at every stage:

1. Concept & Ideation: The “Pre-Mortem” and Stakeholder Mapping:
At the earliest stage, conduct an “ethical pre-mortem.” Imagine your innovation has caused a major ethical scandal in five years. What happened? Work backward to identify potential failure points. Crucially, map all potential stakeholders—not just your target users, but also those who might be indirectly affected, vulnerable groups, and even the environment. What are their needs and potential vulnerabilities?
2. Design & Development: “Ethics by Design” Principles:
Integrate ethical guidelines directly into your design principles. For an AI product, this might mean “fairness by default” or “transparency in decision-making.” For a data-driven service, it could be “privacy-preserving architecture.” These aren’t just aspirations; they are non-negotiable requirements that guide every technical decision.
3. Testing & Prototyping: Diverse User Groups & Impact Assessments:
Test your prototypes with a diverse range of users, specifically including those from marginalized or underrepresented communities. Conduct mini-impact assessments during testing, looking beyond functionality to assess potential for bias, misuse, or unintended social consequences. This is where you catch problems before they scale.
4. Launch & Deployment: Transparency, Control & Feedback Loops:
When launching, prioritize transparency. Clearly communicate how your innovation works, how data is used, and what ethical considerations have been addressed. Empower users with meaningful control over their experience and data. Establish robust feedback mechanisms to continuously monitor for ethical issues post-launch and iterate based on real-world impact.

“Innovation without ethics is a car without brakes. You might go fast, but you’ll eventually crash.” — Braden Kelley

Case Study 1: The IBM Watson Health Debacle – The Cost of Unchecked Ambition

The Challenge:

IBM Watson Health was launched with immense promise: to revolutionize healthcare using artificial intelligence. The vision was to empower doctors with AI-driven insights, analyze vast amounts of medical data, and personalize treatment plans, ultimately improving patient outcomes. The ambition was laudable, but the ethical integration was lacking.

The Ethical Failure:

Despite heavy investment, Watson Health largely failed to deliver on its promise and ultimately faced significant setbacks, including divestment of parts of its business. The ethical issues were systemic:

Lack of Transparency: The “black box” nature of AI made it difficult for doctors to understand how Watson arrived at its recommendations, leading to a lack of trust and accountability.
Data Bias: The AI was trained on limited or biased datasets, leading to recommendations that were not universally applicable and sometimes even harmful to diverse patient populations.
Over-promising: IBM’s marketing often exaggerated Watson’s capabilities, creating unrealistic expectations and ethical dilemmas when the technology couldn’t meet them, potentially leading to misinformed medical decisions.
Human-Machine Interface: The integration of AI into clinical workflows was poorly designed from a human-centered perspective, failing to account for the complex ethical considerations of doctor-patient relationships and medical liability.

These failures stemmed from an insufficient integration of ethical considerations and human-centered design into the core development and deployment of a highly sensitive technology.

The Result:

Watson Health became a cautionary tale, demonstrating that even with advanced technology and significant resources, a lack of ethical foresight can lead to commercial failure, reputational damage, and, more critically, the erosion of trust in the potential of AI to do good in critical fields like healthcare. It highlighted the essential need for “ethics by design” and transparent AI development, especially when dealing with human well-being.

Case Study 2: Designing Ethical AI at Google (before its stumbles) – A Proactive Approach

The Challenge:

As Google became a dominant force in AI, its leadership recognized the immense power and potential for both good and harm that these technologies held. They understood that building powerful AI systems without a robust ethical framework could lead to unintended biases, privacy violations, and societal harm. The challenge was to proactively build ethics into the core of their AI development, not just as an afterthought.

The Ethical Integration Solution:

In 2018, Google publicly released its **AI Principles**, a foundational document outlining seven ethical guidelines for its AI development, including principles like “be socially beneficial,” “avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias,” “be built and tested for safety,” and “be accountable to people.” This wasn’t just a PR move; it was backed by internal structures:

Ethical AI Teams: Google established dedicated teams of ethicists, researchers, and engineers working cross-functionally to audit AI systems for bias and develop ethical tools.
AI Fairness Initiatives: They invested heavily in research and tools to detect and mitigate algorithmic bias at various stages of development, from data collection to model deployment.
Transparency and Explainability Efforts: Work was done to make AI models more transparent, helping developers and users understand how decisions are made.
“Red Teaming” for Ethical Risks: Internal teams were tasked with actively trying to find ethical vulnerabilities and potential misuse cases for new AI applications.

This proactive, multi-faceted approach aimed to embed ethical considerations from the conceptual stage, guiding research, design, and deployment.

The Result:

While no company’s ethical journey is flawless (and Google has certainly had its own recent challenges), Google’s early and public commitment to AI ethics set a new standard for the tech industry. It initiated a critical dialogue and demonstrated a proactive approach to anticipating and mitigating ethical risks. By building a framework for “ethics by design” and investing in dedicated resources, Google aimed to foster a culture of responsible innovation. This case highlights that integrating ethics early and systematically is not only possible but essential for developing technologies that genuinely serve humanity.

Conclusion: The Moral Imperative of Innovation

The time for ethical complacency in innovation is over. The power of technology has grown exponentially, and with that power comes a moral imperative to wield it responsibly. Integrating ethics into every stage of innovation is not a burden; it is a strategic advantage, a differentiator, and ultimately, a requirement for building solutions that truly benefit humanity.

As leaders, our role is to champion this shift from concept to conscience. We must move beyond “move fast and break things” to “move thoughtfully and build better things.” By embedding ethical foresight, transparent design, and continuous accountability, we can ensure that our innovations are not just brilliant, but also wise—creating a future that is not only technologically advanced but also fair, just, and human-centered.

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: Pixabay

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The Power of Psychological Safety

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Building Teams Ready for Anything

The Power of Psychological Safety

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

For decades, we’ve defined high-performing teams by their collective talent, their competitive drive, or their relentless focus on execution. We’ve believed that success is a matter of gathering the smartest people in a room and demanding excellence. But as a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I’ve seen time and again that this model is insufficient for the complexity of our modern world. The most resilient, innovative, and successful teams are not defined by individual brilliance, but by a shared sense of trust and vulnerability. Their secret weapon is a concept known as psychological safety, a foundational element that empowers people to take risks, speak up, and learn from mistakes without fear of judgment or reprisal.

Psychological safety is a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. In simple terms, it’s the feeling that you can be yourself, ask a “stupid” question, admit a mistake, or propose a wild idea without being shamed, ridiculed, or penalized. This isn’t a “soft” concept; it’s a hard, strategic capability. In a world where change is the only constant, teams must be able to experiment, give and receive honest feedback, and pivot with agility. None of this is possible in a fear-based environment. The human instinct to self-preserve—to avoid looking incompetent—is a powerful force. Without psychological safety, we self-censor, we withhold critical information, and we stick to the known, a sure-fire path to stagnation and irrelevance. Conversely, when psychological safety is high, a team’s collective intelligence soars, and their capacity for innovation becomes limitless.

Cultivating a Culture of Safety: A Leader’s Blueprint

Building psychological safety is a leader’s most important job. It’s not about being “nice”; it’s about being intentional. Here are four essential practices for creating an environment where your team is ready for anything:

1. Frame the Work as a Learning Problem: In a complex world, there is no single right answer. Frame every challenge not just as a task to be executed, but as a hypothesis to be tested. This reframes failure as a source of valuable data and reframes mistakes as essential steps on the path to a solution.
2. Acknowledge Your Own Fallibility: Leaders must go first. When you admit a mistake, say “I don’t know,” or ask for help, you create a powerful permission structure for your team. This vulnerability signals that it’s okay for them to do the same, breaking down the fear of looking incompetent.
3. Practice Inclusive Inquiry: Instead of simply stating your opinion, ask questions. Actively seek out the opinions of quieter team members. Say things like, “What are we missing?” or “I want to hear from someone who disagrees with me.” This signals that diverse perspectives are not just welcome but essential.
4. Respond Constructively to Failure: When a project fails or a mistake is made, your response is everything. Avoid placing blame. Instead, lead with curiosity. Ask, “What did we learn from this?” and “How can we build a system to prevent this from happening again?” This turns a moment of potential crisis into a learning opportunity.

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

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

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: Volkswagen’s “Dieselgate” – The Cost of Silence

The Challenge:

In the years leading up to the “Dieselgate” scandal, Volkswagen was a highly centralized, hierarchical organization with a demanding culture of top-down perfection. Leaders set ambitious, often unrealistic, performance targets. The challenge was to meet a new set of strict emissions standards for their diesel vehicles, a goal that their engineering teams knew was physically impossible to achieve without compromising performance.

The Psychological Safety Failure:

In this fear-based environment, with a rigid emphasis on hierarchy and an intolerance for failure, employees were not psychologically safe to speak up. The engineers knew the emissions targets were unattainable, but they feared professional repercussions—demotion, firing, or public shaming—if they admitted failure. Instead of raising the impossible challenge to senior leadership, they chose to develop and install a “defeat device,” a software program designed to cheat on emissions tests. This was a direct, disastrous consequence of a culture that prioritized looking good over being honest and vulnerable.

The Result:

When the deception was discovered, it led to one of the biggest corporate scandals in history. The financial cost was in the tens of billions of dollars, but the damage to the company’s brand and reputation was incalculable. “Dieselgate” serves as a powerful cautionary tale. It shows that when psychological safety is absent, people will choose silence over speaking the truth, and a single, unaddressed problem can grow into a monumental crisis that threatens the very existence of the organization. It’s proof that a lack of psychological safety is not just a cultural problem; it’s a critical strategic risk.

Conclusion: The Ultimate Foundation for Innovation

Psychological safety is not a “nice-to-have.” 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 provide 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.

Image credit: Pexels

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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:

There will be an exodus of leaders – and women will be the first out the door.
People will demand better physical and digital workspaces.
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.

Image credit: Pixabay

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What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do

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What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

When you don’t know what to do, what do you do? This is a difficult question.

Here are some thoughts that may help you figure out what to do when you really don’t know.

Don’t confuse activity with progress.

Gather your two best friends, go off-site, and define the system as it is.

Don’t ask everyone what they think because the Collective’s thoughts will be diffuse, bland, and tired.

Get outside.

Draw a picture of how things work today.

Get a good meal.

Make a graph of goodness over time. If it’s still increasing, do more of what you did last time. If it’s flat, do something else.

Get some exercise.

Don’t judge yourself negatively. This is difficult work.

Get some sleep.

Help someone with their problem. The distraction will keep you out of the way as your mind works on it for you.

Spend time with friends.

Try a new idea at the smallest scale. It will likely lead to a better one. Repeat.

Use your best judgment.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Spotting Frauds and Hucksters

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Spotting Frauds and Hucksters

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

Within hours of planes crashing into the World Trade Center on 9-11, stories began circulating that it was not, in fact, the planes that caused the towers to collapse, but explosives planted inside by someone with access. Since then, a number of conspiracy theories have circulated that people ranging from government employees to Wall Street Traders were responsible for the attack.

So, it shouldn’t be surprising that there is no shortage of alleged schemes about the coronavirus epidemic, from theories that the disease is caused by 5G mobile networks to that Bill Gates cooked it up as part of a global plot to electronically track us through vaccinations. Even the president’s son has a pet theory.

The simple truth is that when a tragic event happens, we lose our sense of control and there will never be a shortage of hucksters willing to take advantage of that, for profit or for other reasons. Often, these are elaborate narratives and can seem very convincing. Yet the schemes tend to have common characteristics which we can use to spot and nullify their effect.

Questionable Credentials

The first and most obvious thing most fraudulent conspiracy theories have in common is questionable credentials. Credentials, like a professional degree or certification, are important because they show that someone’s expertise has been recognized by other experts in a specific field of endeavor and that person has subjected themselves to evaluation.

That doesn’t mean someone has to have a piece of paper for their ideas to matter. In fact, as Thomas Kuhn pointed out decades ago, it is often outsiders, like Richard Feynman in virology and Elon Musk in space exploration, who drive paradigm shifts in a particular domain. However, in those cases, the outsiders are almost always working in conjunction with recognized experts.

Of course, the hucksters understand the importance of credentials, so they use several ploys to confuse us. They often appear in videos in white lab coats and use scientific sounding words. Like a cargo cult, they adopt the appearance and forms of a scientific method but discard the substance. Often, they will point to the lack of acceptance by “the establishment” as proof that their ideas are so important, they are being silenced.

So, the first thing we should look at is the credentials of the person or people making the claim. Lacking credentials doesn’t immediately make you wrong and having them doesn’t necessarily make you right. Nevertheless, when someone is unwilling to accept some type of training and evaluation it should put us on our guard.

A Lack of Transparency

Real science is transparent. There are no trade secrets. You are providing information on your materials and methods as well as the data that results. The idea is that you want to give everybody all of the information they would need to question your conclusions and judge the value of what you profess to be contributing.

Conspiracy theorists don’t do this. That’s why YouTube is a favorite medium. It’s so hard to fact check. You aren’t expected to provide links or data in an appendix to a video. You can just make assertions set to dramatic music. You can flash images that suggest nefarious activities without making any real assertions.

Another favorite ploy of the hucksters is to point to the lack of data as proof of the importance of their ideas. Of course, they don’t have data! That’s part of the cover up! So, they refuse to give any real proof and try to bury you in false assertions. They shift the burden of proof to anybody who questions them. Can anybody prove the data doesn’t exist?

We want to constantly ask ourselves, “Is this person giving me all the information I would need to come to a different conclusion? Is he or she open to different interpretations of the same data?”

A Persecution Complex

While researching my book, Mapping Innovation, I interviewed dozens of top innovators. Some were world class scientists and engineers. Others were high level executives at large corporations. Still others were highly successful entrepreneurs. Overall, it was a pretty intimidating group.

So, I was surprised to find that, with few exceptions, they were some of the kindest and most generous people I have ever met. The behavior was so consistent that I felt that it couldn’t be an accident. So, I began to research the matter further and found that, to a surprising extent, generosity can be a competitive advantage.

One particular case that comes to mind is Jim Allison, who had his idea for curing cancer rejected by the establishment. The pain was apparent in his voice even 20 years after the fact. Yet he didn’t blame anybody. He tried to understand why people were skeptical, went back and further validated his data, pounded the pavement and kept advocating for his idea. Jim won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2018.

Conspiracy theorists, on the other hand, often go to great lengths to explain how they have been silenced by the establishment and say this is proof of the importance of their ideas. They ascribe malevolent motives to those who disagree with them. For them, there is no such thing as honest dissent.

Have You Ever Seen a Humble Conspiracy Theorist?

One thing that always impressed me about the innovators I researched was how they insisted on giving credit to others. This came through especially during fact checks, when they would insist, I note the contributions of their collaborators. They never claim that they did it all themselves.

The people who make the biggest breakthroughs aren’t necessarily smarter or harder working than anybody else. However, they are effective knowledge brokers who build up strong networks of collaborators. They don’t always know more, but they know who knows more and that helps them to access that random piece of knowledge or insight that allows them to crack a really tough problem.

Yet conspiracy theorists would have us believe that they possess, by either innate ability or opportunity, some unique insight that others are not privy to. They don’t invite collaboration, scrutiny or alternate perspectives because they believe they are already possessing the absolute truth.

We need to have a healthy skepticism, especially with ideas we would tend to agree with. We should ask questions, explore alternative explanations of the same data and be open to additional evidence. What we need to look out for are people who would suggest that we shouldn’t do these things, because they are the ones looking to deceive us.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credit: Unsplash

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Have the Courage to be Wrong

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Have the Courage to be Wrong

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

When you were wrong, the outcome was different than you thought.

When the outcome was different than you thought, there was uncertainty as the work was new.

When there was uncertainty, you knew there would be learning.

When you were afraid of learning, you were afraid to be wrong.

And when you were afraid to be wrong, you were really afraid about what people would think of you.

Would you rather wall off uncertainty to prevent yourself from being wrong or would you rather try something new?

If there’s a difference between what others think of you and what you think of yourself, whose opinion matters more?

Why does it matter what people think of you?

Why do you let their mattering block you from trying new things?

In the end, hold onto the fact that you matter, especially when you have the courage to be wrong.

Image credit: Unsplash

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Why We Resist Change and How to Overcome It

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Deconstructing Fear

Why We Resist Change and How to Overcome It

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

In every organization, the journey of change and innovation is met with a familiar, often unspoken, adversary: fear. We label it as resistance, inertia, or a lack of buy-in. We try to overcome it with data, process flowcharts, and top-down mandates. But as a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I’ve seen that these approaches often fail because they don’t address the root cause. We resist change not because we’re stubborn or lazy, but because we are fundamentally wired to find comfort in the known and to view the unknown with apprehension. Fear is the primary reason we resist change, and until we deconstruct and address it, our best-laid plans for innovation will be met with resistance.

Our brains are built to seek patterns, create routines, and predict outcomes. This evolutionary hardwiring has served us well, allowing us to conserve cognitive energy and navigate our world efficiently. However, in today’s environment of rapid technological and market disruption, this same wiring becomes a liability. Change shatters our routines and forces us into a state of cognitive overload. It introduces risk, uncertainty, and a loss of control. To inspire change, we must stop treating people like cogs in a machine and start treating them like the human beings they are, acknowledging their fears and creating a safe path forward.

The Four Faces of Fear in a Changing World

Resistance to change isn’t a monolith. It manifests in different forms, and understanding these “faces” is the first step to overcoming them:

Fear of the Unknown: This is the most fundamental fear. People are not afraid of change itself; they are afraid of what they don’t know about the change. What will my job look like? Will I be able to learn the new system? Will I be relevant? This uncertainty creates anxiety and a powerful desire to cling to the status quo.
Fear of Incompetence: Change often requires new skills. An employee who was an expert in the old system suddenly feels like a novice. This can trigger feelings of inadequacy and a fear of being exposed or replaced. It’s a threat to their professional identity and self-worth.
Fear of Losing Control: When a change is imposed from the top down, employees can feel powerless. They lose their sense of autonomy and agency, which can breed resentment and passive resistance. This is particularly true when they are not consulted or included in the decision-making process.
Fear of Failure and Retribution: Innovation and change require experimentation and a willingness to fail. But in many corporate cultures, failure is punished. Employees are hesitant to embrace new processes or ideas if they believe a mistake could lead to negative consequences for their career or reputation.

“You can’t mandate courage, but you can create an environment where it’s safe to be brave.”

Overcoming Fear with a Human-Centered Approach

To lead people through change, we must replace fear with a sense of safety, purpose, and empowerment. Here’s how to do it:

Increase Transparency and Communication: Proactively and consistently communicate about the “why” and “what” of the change. Address the unknown by providing as much information as possible. Share the vision, the goals, and the benefits of the new path.
Invest in New Skills (Address Incompetence): Provide training, mentorship, and continuous learning opportunities. Show employees that you are invested in their future and that you will give them the tools to succeed. Celebrate the learning process, not just the end result.
Empower and Co-create (Restore Control): Involve employees in the change process. Ask for their input, solicit their ideas, and give them a voice in how the change is implemented. When people have a hand in creating the future, they are far more likely to embrace it.
Create Psychological Safety (Reduce Fear of Failure): Leaders must actively create a culture where it’s safe to experiment and fail. Acknowledge that mistakes will happen. Celebrate the learning that comes from failure and show, through your actions, that risk-taking is a valued part of the process.

Case Study 1: The IBM Mainframe to Cloud Transition

The Challenge:

In the late 2000s, IBM faced a monumental challenge. Its core business was built on decades of expertise in mainframes and legacy IT infrastructure. However, the market was rapidly shifting to cloud computing and open-source solutions. The company needed its engineers—many of whom had spent their entire careers working with legacy systems—to embrace an entirely new technology stack. This was met with significant resistance, a mix of the fear of the unknown and the fear of incompetence.

The Fear-Deconstructing Approach:

Instead of a top-down mandate, IBM’s leadership created a systematic, human-centered approach to reskilling. They invested billions of dollars in a massive educational initiative, partnering with online learning platforms and universities. The key was not just providing courses, but also:

A Sense of Security: They made it clear that their existing workforce was their greatest asset and that the goal was to reskill, not replace.
Empowerment: They gave employees the autonomy to choose their own learning paths based on their interests and career goals.
Peer-to-Peer Learning: They fostered an internal culture where new knowledge was shared and celebrated, turning learning into a collaborative, non-threatening experience.

The Result:

By directly addressing the fears of incompetence and the unknown, IBM successfully reskilled thousands of employees. They transformed their workforce from a legacy-focused team into one capable of building a multi-billion-dollar cloud services business. They didn’t just tell their people to change; they gave them the tools, the purpose, and the psychological safety to do so, turning a potential liability into their greatest asset.

Case Study 2: The Nordstrom Digital Transformation

The Challenge:

Nordstrom, a storied retail company known for its exceptional in-store customer service, had to pivot to compete in an e-commerce-dominated world. The shift required store employees—who were masters of in-person interactions—to embrace technology, digital tools, and a more data-driven approach. The core challenge was not technological, but cultural: convincing a workforce whose identity was tied to the physical store to embrace a digital future without losing their human touch.

The Fear-Deconstructing Approach:

Nordstrom’s leadership understood the deep-seated fear of losing control and the fear that technology would dehumanize their legendary service. They addressed this by:

Co-creating the New Vision: They actively involved store employees in the development of new digital tools. Employees provided feedback on everything from the new point-of-sale system to the mobile apps, giving them a sense of ownership.
Highlighting the “Why”: Leaders communicated that technology was not a replacement for their human-centered service, but an enabler. The tools were designed to free up time from administrative tasks so employees could spend more time with customers, reinforcing their core identity.
Celebrating Small Wins: They rolled out changes incrementally and celebrated every successful pilot, showing employees that the new approach was working and that their input was valuable.

The Result:

Nordstrom’s digital transformation was successful because they didn’t just implement new technology; they led a cultural shift. By deconstructing the fear of change and empowering their employees as co-creators, they built a hybrid model where technology and human service work in harmony. The in-store employees became powerful ambassadors for the digital tools, proving that when you address the human element, even the most daunting change can be embraced as an opportunity for growth.

Conclusion: Leading with Empathy

Change is inevitable, but resistance is not. The most effective leaders are not those who force change upon their people, but those who guide them through it with empathy and understanding. By deconstructing the fears that fuel resistance—the fears of the unknown, of incompetence, of losing control, and of failure—we can create an environment where change is not a threat but a shared adventure.

The next time you face resistance to an innovation, stop and ask a different set of questions. What are my people afraid of? How can I give them more control? How can I make it safe for them to learn? By leading with a human-centered approach, we can move beyond simply managing change and start inspiring it, one courageous step at a time.

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Reset and Reconnect to Transform your World

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Reset and Reconnect to Transform your World

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

Our blog, Reset and Reconnect in a Chaotic World was the first in a series of three, on the theme of reconnecting and resetting, to create, invent and innovate in an increasingly chaotic world. In this blog, we described how we have opportunities, to focus on being kinder to both ourselves and to others we interact with. To help us shift our mental states to transition effectively through the shock and pain of the pandemic, and rehabilitate in ways that transform our worlds.

We also outlined the range of key reasons as to why it is critical to take personal responsibility for understanding, helping, and supporting those we depend upon, and who depend upon us, to respond in ways that are respectful and compassionate, creative and courageous.

That enables and empowers people to recover and rehabilitate from the shock and pain they are experiencing from their elevated levels of stress, discomfort, and anxiety, occurring in our relentlessly uncertain and chaotic environments, through allowing, accepting, and acknowledging where people are at – and that it’s OK to not be OK!

Neither a time to panic nor languish

Right now, it is neither a time to panic, stall nor to languish in the face of change fatigue and mental lethargy.

It is a time to shift from making binary (either/or) judgements towards making linear (both/and) judgements to re-think and create a mental state, that is open and receptive to emerging possibilities and embraces change in ways that are fair and inclusive.

To transform your world through:

Choosing a range of constructive and positive responses to the rising levels of global economic, civic, and social uncertainty and unrest in our own local environments.
Generously and kindly demonstrating care, respect, and appreciation for the value everyone brings, and by being collaborative, appreciative, helpful, and supportive.
Being unconditionally willing to take the “sacred pause” that allows ourselves, teams, organizations, and to reconnect and reset, through intentionally using constraints and developing a mental state that supports them to become adaptive, creative, inventive, and innovative.

Transforming your world involves co-creating a deeper sense of belonging and a more optimistic outlook, to enhance our collective intelligence toward discovering and navigating new ways of thriving, flourishing, and flowing in the face of ongoing disruption.

Integrating and balancing chaos and rigidity

Dr. Dan Siegal, in Mindsight, applies the emerging principles of interpersonal neurobiology to promote compassion, kindness, resilience, and well-being in our personal lives, our relationships, and our communities.

In our global coaching practice at ImagineNation™ we have observed that many of our clients are experiencing mental states that embody varying levels of discord, dissonance, and dis-order, which are deeply unconscious and are impacting them neurologically.

Dr. Dan Siegal states:

“At the heart of both interpersonal neurobiology and the mindsight approach is the concept of ‘integration’ which entails the linkage of different aspects of a system – whether they exist within a single person or a collection of individuals. Integration is seen as the essential mechanism of health as it promotes a flexible and adaptive way of being that is filled with vitality and creativity.

The ultimate outcome of integration is harmony. The absence of integration leads to chaos and rigidity—a finding that enables us to re-envision our understanding of mental disorders and how we can work together in the fields of mental health, education, and other disciplines, to create a healthier, more integrated world.”

We have seen a vast range of evidence of peoples’ internal and external, mental chaos, and self-imposed internal rigidity in many of our clients’ coaching sessions.

Knowing that when chaos and rigidity are prolonged – it creates unproductive or dysfunctional mental states and inflexible thought processing.

This makes people non-adaptive and mostly inflexible because their natural well-being is impaired (dis-order).

Our approach is to partner with clients to co-create a relationship, that supports and helps facilitate a set of more integrated mental states. This entails each person’s being respected for his or her autonomy and differentiated self through deep empathic communication, which creates the space and an opening for shifting mindsets and behaviors, to ultimately pull them towards a new possibility that may transform their world.

Allowing, accepting, and acknowledging

When we allow, accept, acknowledge and support people to recover and rehabilitate from the shock and pain they are experiencing as a result of recent global events and conflicts, including feelings of overwhelm, isolation, loneliness, and disconnection, we can enable them to initiate making these shifts.

According to Gallops Global Emotions 2022 Report – these are considered “negative emotions – the aggregate of the stress, sadness, anger, worry and physical pain that people feel every day” and have reached a new record in the history of their tracking.

Jon Clifton, CEO of Gallop stated in the report that their data reveals that unhappiness has been rising for more than a decade and that the world is also struggling from a silent pandemic – loneliness.

“Gallup finds that 330 million adults go at least two weeks without talking to a single friend or family member. And just because some people have friends, it doesn’t mean they have good friends. One‑fifth of all adults do not have a single person they can count on for help.”

No emotion or mental state is permanent!

It’s time to focus on exploring how to better help ourselves, our clients, people, and teams by paying deep attention and being intentional as to how we might experiment and collaborate, with three key steps, to make these shifts:

Co-create relationships focused on supporting integration, by being respectful and empathic in all communications, to open space of possibility, and pull people towards what creative ideas and breakthroughs might transform their world.
Artfully and masterfully generatively listen, inquire, question, and disagree, to evoke, provoke and create ideas for thinking and acting differently both today and in the future.
Maximize people’s strengths, differences, and diversity, to sense, see and solve problems and be creative and inventive in delivering breakthrough ideas and innovative solutions that add value to the quality of people’s lives, in ways they appreciate and cherish.

Rehabilitate with intention

At the same time, paradoxically, extending options and choices that help them shift and transition through the shock and pain of the past two and half years.

Enabling and empowering people to rehabilitate, with intention rather than regret, adopting a systemic lens through:

Creating safe collective holding spaces, that embrace presence, empathy, and compassion.
Helping people get grounded, become mindful, and fully present, enables them to make quality connections, rebuild their confidence and recreate a sense of belonging.
Enabling, equipping, and empowering people with new mindsets, behaviors, and skills through unlearning, learning, and relearning so they can adapt, grow and be resourceful and resilient in the face of the range of emerging problems, opportunities, and challenges.
Amplifying people’s strengths, reinforcing positive emotions, mitigating and reducing the way they filter information to re-ignite their intrinsic motivation and re-engage them in what they can control, what care deeply about value, or need, to survive and thrive.

A decade of both transformation and disruption

As most of us are aware, we are currently experiencing a decade of both transformation and disruption, where chaos and order are constantly polarizing, making it imperative to support, mentor, and coach people to integrate and find their balance.

To help them become more flexible and open to being adaptive, and effectively “dance in dis-equilibrium” between the constant and consistent states of chaos and order.

To enable people to see themselves as the cause in actively unlearning and letting go of old mental models, unresourceful mental states, and thinking patterns, to reimagine and redesign how they work to transform their world and create a more compelling, inclusive, and sustainable future.

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, presented by Janet Sernack, is 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 upskill people and teams and develop their future fitness, within your unique context. Find out more about our products and tools.

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

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Detecting the Seeds of Future Innovation

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Weak Signals, Strong Insights

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

In our hyper-connected world, we are inundated with information. Market data, analyst reports, and competitive intelligence systems all provide a clear picture of the present. But as a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I argue that the most transformative opportunities don’t emerge from this flood of “strong signals.” They emerge from the subtle, often contradictory, and easily dismissed weak signals on the periphery. These are the whispers of change, the fringe trends, the unarticulated customer frustrations, and the strange technological mashups that hint at a future yet to be built. The ability to detect, interpret, and act on these weak signals is the single most powerful competitive advantage an organization can cultivate. It’s the difference between reacting to disruption and proactively creating it.

Weak signals are, by definition, not obvious. They are often dismissed as anomalies, niche behaviors, or fleeting fads. They can come from anywhere: a casual comment in a user forum, a viral video that defies a category, a surprising scientific breakthrough in an unrelated field, or a quiet startup with a baffling business model. The challenge for leaders is to move beyond the comfort of big data analytics and embrace the messy, qualitative, and deeply human work of foresight. This isn’t about guesswork; it’s about building a systematic, human-centered practice for sensing the future and turning those faint whispers into a clear vision for innovation.

Why Weak Signals are Your Best Innovation GPS

Cultivating a weak-signal detection capability offers profound benefits:

Foresight, Not Just Hindsight: While strong signals confirm what has already happened, weak signals provide clues about what is *about to* happen. This gives you a critical head start in preparing for, or even driving, market shifts.
The Source of True Disruption: Most truly disruptive innovations—from personal computing to smartphones—began as weak signals on the fringe, often dismissed by established players who were focused on optimizing their core business.
Uncovering Unmet Needs: Weak signals are often an early indicator of deep, unarticulated human needs. They are the seeds of a problem that a current market solution isn’t addressing.
Building a Culture of Curiosity: Actively looking for weak signals encourages a culture of curiosity, open-mindedness, and a willingness to challenge assumptions—all essential traits for innovation.

“Strong signals confirm your past. Weak signals whisper your future. The most innovative leaders are the best listeners.”

A Human-Centered Approach to Detecting Weak Signals

Detecting weak signals is not an automated process. It is a deeply human activity that requires a specific mindset and intentional practice:

Go to the Edge: Move beyond your core market and familiar customer base. Talk to fringe users, early adopters, and even those who reject your product. Spend time in adjacent industries and with unconventional thinkers.
Embrace a Beginner’s Mindset: Temporarily suspend your expertise. Look at your industry as if you are seeing it for the first time. Why do customers do what they do? What seems strange or inefficient to an outsider?
Connect the Unconnected Dots: A single weak signal means little. The true insight comes from identifying patterns. Is a new technology in one field combining with a new consumer behavior in another? The unexpected combination of two seemingly unrelated signals is often where the magic happens.
Create “Listening Posts”: Form small, cross-functional teams whose sole purpose is to scan the periphery. Empower them to read obscure journals, follow niche social media communities, and report back on anything that feels “off” or interesting.

Case Study 1: The Rise of Social Media – A Weak Signal Ignored by the Giants

The Challenge:

In the early 2000s, the internet was dominated by large, content-heavy portals like Yahoo! and search engines like Google. Communication was primarily through email and instant messaging. The idea of people building public profiles to share personal updates and connect with friends was seen as a niche, even trivial, activity. It was a weak signal, a seemingly minor behavior on college campuses.

The Weak Signal Ignored:

For established tech giants, the signal was too faint. They were focused on the strong signals of search queries and content monetization. Facebook, MySpace, and Friendster were dismissed as “just for kids” or a “niche social trend.” The idea of a public profile as a primary mode of online identity and communication was too far outside their core business model to be taken seriously. They saw a minor curiosity, not the future of human connection.

The Result:

The companies that paid attention to this weak signal—and understood the human-centered need for connection and self-expression—went on to build a multi-trillion-dollar industry. The giants who ignored it were forced to play a decade-long game of catch-up, and many lost their dominant position. The weak signal of a simple public profile evolved into the foundational architecture of the modern internet and the economy built on it. Their failure to see this wasn’t a failure of technology; it was a failure of imagination and human-centered listening.

Case Study 2: Netflix and the Streaming Revolution – From DVDs to a Weak Signal

The Challenge:

In the early 2000s, Blockbuster was the undisputed king of home entertainment. Their business model was robust, profitable, and built on a physical presence of thousands of stores and a lucrative late-fee system. The internet was a nascent and unreliable platform for video, and streaming was a faint, almost invisible signal on the horizon.

The Weak Signal Detected:

While Blockbuster was focused on optimizing its core business (e.g., store layout, inventory management), Netflix, then a DVD-by-mail service, saw a weak signal. The signal wasn’t just about faster internet; it was about the human frustration with late fees and the inconvenience of physical stores. The company’s leaders started to talk about the concept of “on-demand” content, long before the technology was ready. They were paying attention to the unarticulated desire for convenience and unlimited choice, a desire that was a whisper to Blockbuster but a deafening call to Netflix. They began to invest in streaming technology and content licensing years before it was profitable, effectively cannibalizing their own profitable DVD business.

The Result:

Blockbuster famously dismissed Netflix’s weak signal, seeing it as a minor inconvenience to their existing business model. They believed a physical store experience would always win. Netflix, by acting on the weak signal and a deep understanding of human frustration, was able to pivot from being a DVD service to the global streaming behemoth we know today. Their foresight, driven by a human-centered approach to a technological trend, allowed them to disrupt an entire industry and become a dominant force in the future of entertainment. Blockbuster, unable to see beyond the strong signals of its profitable past, is now a cautionary tale.

Conclusion: The Foresight Imperative

The future is not a surprise that happens to you. It is a collection of weak signals that you either choose to see or ignore. In an era of constant disruption, relying on strong signals alone is a recipe for stagnation. The most resilient and innovative organizations are those that have built a human-centered practice for sensing change on the periphery. They have created a culture where curiosity is a core competency and where questioning the status quo is a daily ritual.

As leaders, our most critical role is to shift our focus from optimizing the past to sensing the future. We must empower our teams to go to the edge, listen to the whispers, and connect the dots in new and creative ways. The future of your industry is already being born, not in the center of the market, but on its fringes. The question is, are you listening?

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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