Category Archives: Psychology

Overcoming Resistance: The Persuasive Power of a Well-Told Story

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

As a thought leader focused on human-centered change and innovation, I’ve seen countless brilliant strategies—digital transformations, market pivots, organizational redesigns—fail not because of technical flaws, but because they ran headlong into the brick wall of human resistance. We, as change agents, often make a critical error: we speak in the cold, logical language of spreadsheets and PowerPoint decks, yet we expect people to respond with the emotional commitment required for true change. That gap, the gulf between data and devotion, can only be bridged by one thing: a powerful, well-told story.

Resistance to change isn’t malicious; it’s human. It’s born from fear of the unknown, loss of status, or the exhaustion of yet another corporate mandate. Facts and figures may convince the brain, but only a story can rewire the heart. Stories bypass the critical, analytical side of the brain that’s waiting to find fault, and instead engage the empathetic, imaginative centers. When you tell a story, you don’t just present a future state; you invite your audience to live in it—to experience the journey, feel the challenge, and ultimately claim ownership over the success. A compelling narrative acts as an organizational immune booster, inoculating the workforce against the cynicism and “this too shall pass” attitude that kills innovation from within.

The Three Essential Elements of the Change Story

A compelling narrative designed to drive change must contain three core, human-centered elements, regardless of whether you’re using a keynote speech or a short internal video:

1. The Crisis and the Call (Why Now?): Define the stakes. What is the burning platform—the threat or the monumental opportunity—that mandates change? This must be personal, illustrating what failure or success means for the audience, not just the balance sheet.
2. The Journey and the Hero (What’s the Path?): Establish the vision of the future, but focus on the process. Crucially, the hero of the story must be the audience. The leader is merely the guide or mentor. This element shifts the audience from passive listeners to active participants, increasing their willingness to take the risks necessary for innovation.
3. The Triumphant Future (What’s the Reward?): Paint a vivid picture of the world after the change. The reward must be meaningful to the individual: less friction, more time with family, a more meaningful job, or restored customer trust. It cannot simply be a higher stock price.

“People don’t resist change; they resist being changed. A great story allows them to choose their role in the transformation.” — Peter Senge and Braden Kelley

Case Study 1: Transforming Customer Service at Zappos

The Challenge:

In the early 2000s, Zappos made a massive, non-intuitive strategic bet: they would differentiate their online shoe company not through price or selection, but through obsessive customer service. This meant turning their call centers, often seen as cost centers in retail, into premium experience hubs. Internal employees and investors faced resistance: why invest in expensive 24/7, US-based call centers and offer free, 365-day returns? The data (initial costs) looked terrifying.

The Power of the Story:

CEO Tony Hsieh didn’t lead with cost projections; he led with the story of the “Wow” experience. He told tales of employees who were empowered to spend eight hours on a single customer call, or who sent flowers to customers whose feet had been injured. The story wasn’t about the transaction; it was about building a movement defined by happiness—for employees and customers alike. The narrative centered on the employee as the hero, capable of delivering magical moments. This story made the astronomical cost of service acceptable because it redefined service as the core, non-replicable brand innovation. The resistance dissolved as employees rallied around a story that gave their work meaning far beyond simply answering a phone.

The Innovation Impact:

The story became the operational principle. The emotional commitment it generated led to legendary word-of-mouth marketing, turning customer service into the greatest driver of revenue and allowing Zappos to command a premium price. The company’s sale to Amazon for $1.2 billion validated that the emotional story of the “Wow” was the most valuable asset.

Case Study 2: NASA and the Moonshot

The Challenge:

In 1961, when President John F. Kennedy announced the goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth before the end of the decade, the scientific, technical, and logistical obstacles were almost insurmountable. NASA engineers faced skepticism, limited technology, and a public wary of the massive, unprecedented expenditure. The raw data said: “Impossible.”

The Power of the Story:

The story was the Moonshot itself. It wasn’t framed as a complex series of engineering tasks, but as an epic quest—a simple, audacious narrative that transcended budgets and deadlines. Kennedy’s challenge provided the clear Crisis and the Call (a race against geopolitical rivals) and the Triumphant Future (a bold step for mankind). The story made every engineer, technician, and administrative assistant—down to the janitor—feel like an essential hero on a grand, world-changing journey. When Kennedy asked a janitor at the space center what his job was, the man famously replied, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.” The story had successfully redefined his job description and purpose.

The Innovation Impact:

The compelling narrative drove innovation at a furious, impossible pace. It created a culture of extreme dedication, risk-taking, and cross-functional collaboration. The power of the story overcame the technical resistance and institutional inertia, directly impacting key innovation metrics like speed of execution and employee-driven solutions necessary to solve problems that had no known technical solution at the time.

The Leader’s Mandate: From Analyst to Author

If you are a leader charged with driving significant change, you must recognize that your job is not merely to delegate tasks; it is to craft the narrative. Stop trying to force change with directives and start creating stories that make the desired future irresistible. This narrative isn’t just a speech; it should be woven into every communication, from town halls to interactive digital campaigns.

Embrace the role of the author. Define the villain (the status quo, the market threat, the friction), outline the plot (the transformation journey), and most importantly, position your people as the central characters—the ones who will achieve the extraordinary. This human-centered approach is the single most effective way to overcome resistance and ensure that your innovation initiatives succeed, translating emotional buy-in into faster adoption and greater employee ownership. To change a culture, you must first change the conversation.

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: Pexels

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Why Consumers Demand Purpose-Led Brands

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Authenticity as a Differentiator

Why Consumers Demand Purpose-Led Brands

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

In the past, competitive advantage was primarily defined by two metrics: price and feature set. A better product at a lower cost was the undeniable formula for market dominance. That formula is now obsolete. As a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I argue that in today’s hyper-transparent, socially conscious economy, the ultimate non-replicable differentiator Authenticity. Consumers — particularly younger generations — are no longer just buying products; they are funding missions, endorsing values, and investing in brands that clearly and consistently demonstrate a purpose beyond profit. They demand purpose-led brands, and they use their purchasing power as a moral compass.

Authenticity is the seamless, genuine alignment between what a brand says, what a brand does, and what a brand believes. It is the absence of the “Purpose Gap” — the space between stated values (on the website) and observable behavior (in the supply chain or corporate policy). In the age of social media, where a single misstep or act of hypocrisy can be exposed globally and lead to immediate reputational crisis (often termed “cancel culture”), this gap is an existential threat. Conversely, a brand that lives its purpose creates an emotional resonance that transcends mere transaction, fostering loyalty that is fiercely resilient to price competition and feature parity.

The Three Pillars of Authentic Differentiation

For organizations to embed authenticity and purpose as strategic differentiators, they must focus on three core pillars:

1. Consistency Across the Human Experience (Internal Alignment): Purpose must be lived first by the people. Employees are the brand’s first and most vocal authenticators. If the purpose doesn’t inform hiring, talent development, and daily operational policies, it fails immediately. This internal alignment is the bedrock of credibility that attracts and retains mission-driven talent, fueling the engine of innovation.
2. Transparency in Action and Failure (Proof, Not Claims): Customers are skeptical of glossy claims. Authenticity requires radical transparency in demonstrating how the purpose is achieved. This means sharing progress metrics, admitting to shortcomings, and disclosing the difficult trade-offs made in pursuit of the mission. Proof of effort and an honest accounting of failure is more valuable than a claim of perfection.
3. Co-Creation of Impact (Customer Empowerment): Purpose-led brands empower consumers to be active participants in the mission, not just passive donors. By allowing consumers to see their purchase directly contribute to the stated purpose, the brand moves from being a seller of goods to a facilitator of shared impact, deepening loyalty and providing critical feedback on how the mission can be innovated.

“Purpose is not a marketing campaign you run. It’s a design constraint you live by. If it doesn’t cost you something, it’s not a real purpose, and your customers know it.”

Case Study 1: TOMS – Institutionalizing Purpose-Driven Giving

The Challenge:

TOMS entered the highly competitive, low-barrier-to-entry footwear market, needing a powerful, unique reason for consumers to choose them over established, cheaper, or more fashionable brands.

The Authenticity Solution:

TOMS institutionalized purpose through its One for One® model. By making a direct, measurable commitment — for every pair of shoes purchased, a pair was given to a person in need — TOMS made its purpose a non-negotiable part of the product’s identity. The purchase wasn’t just acquiring footwear; it was participation in a charitable act. This wasn’t charity tacked on; it was the core business model, creating immediate, powerful differentiation and focusing early innovation efforts on scalable giving logistics.

The Market Impact:

This model created an instant, powerful emotional connection, turning customers into advocates who marketed the mission. While the model itself evolved over time (later shifting to commit one-third of profits to grassroots efforts), the original authenticity established TOMS as a pioneer of the purpose-led business. It proved that purpose, when baked into the economic structure, can justify a price premium and build profound loyalty that traditional advertising simply cannot achieve.

Case Study 2: Patagonia – Consistency and Environmental Advocacy

The Challenge:

Patagonia operates in the apparel industry, notorious for fast fashion, high waste, and opaque supply chains. Their challenge was maintaining authenticity while scaling globally, knowing that every business decision could be viewed as a compromise to their core environmental mission.

The Authenticity Solution:

Patagonia differentiates by making difficult, often counter-intuitive decisions that prove their commitment. Key examples include their infamous “Don’t Buy This Jacket” campaign, which directly challenged consumerism, and their dedication to repairing gear, not just replacing it, demonstrating a commitment to product longevity and the circular economy. Crucially, they use radical transparency regarding their supply chain, disclosing environmental footprints, and actively lobbying for climate policy changes—sometimes even taking political stances that risk short-term sales (e.g., suing federal governments over land protection).

The Market Impact:

Patagonia’s actions consistently reinforce its purpose as an environmental activist disguised as a clothing company. This consistency creates deep trust; consumers know that buying Patagonia is an endorsement of specific, aggressive environmental values. This dedication focuses their innovation on material science and durability, while their authenticity allows them to maintain a premium price point and creates a customer base that views the brand as an ally, not just a vendor. This is anti-fragile loyalty — loyalty that is strengthened, not weakened, by the brand’s ethical stance and political action.

The New Mandate: Purpose as the Core Innovation

The time for Purpose Washing
is over. Today’s consumers have highly sophisticated BS detectors and the digital tools to verify claims. For organizations seeking sustainable innovation, the purpose itself must become the core innovation. This means asking: How can our reason for being create value not just for shareholders, but for the world?

Authenticity is the dividend paid on decades of consistent, purpose-led behavior. It is the only true non-replicable competitive advantage remaining in a world where technology and feature parity are easily achieved. Leaders must stop viewing purpose as a charitable add-on and start treating it as a strategic design constraint for every business decision and innovation cycle. When you integrate your purpose so deeply that removing it would fundamentally destroy your business model, you have achieved authentic differentiation. That is the innovation that wins the future.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Mindfulness for Mavericks

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Finding Calm in the Chaos of Innovation

Mindfulness for Mavericks - Finding Calm in the Chaos of Innovation

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

The world of the innovator — the Maverick — is inherently chaotic. It is defined by relentless speed, constant pivoting, the terror of the unknown, and the inevitable sting of failure. For too long, we have celebrated the myth of the stressed-out, high-octane leader who fuels breakthrough with sheer exhaustion and adrenaline. But this model is not only unsustainable; it is strategically deficient. Exhausted minds make predictable mistakes, miss subtle signals, and react impulsively. As a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I argue that the single most powerful, yet overlooked, strategic tool for any innovator is Mindfulness — the non-judgmental awareness of the present moment. Mindfulness is not a “soft” wellness trend; it is the hard skill required to cultivate clarity, enhance resilience, and make smarter, more ethical decisions in the face of constant organizational chaos.

Innovation lives in the space between stimulus and response. When an unexpected challenge arises — a competitor’s sudden move, a prototype failure, or a market rejection — the unmindful leader reacts based on fear, bias, or past trauma. The mindful leader, however, creates a brief, intentional pause. This pause is where wisdom resides. It allows them to observe the emotional surge without being hijacked by it, ensuring that their response is strategic and deliberate, not emotional and reactionary. The capacity to be fully present, focused, and non-reactive is, therefore, the core competitive advantage in any fast-moving market. Calm is the new creativity.

Mindfulness as a Strategic Capability

Embedding mindfulness into the innovation culture is not a matter of employee benefit; it is a strategic imperative that directly impacts your bottom line and your capacity for disruptive thought. Here is why it belongs on the strategy table:

Reduces Cognitive Bias: Innovation is plagued by confirmation bias and anchoring bias. Mindfulness trains the brain to observe thoughts, feelings, and assumptions as temporary phenomena, not as absolute truths. This ability to decenter from one’s own immediate judgments is vital for seeing new solutions and avoiding fatal strategic blind spots.
Accelerates Resilience: Failure is oxygen for innovation. Mindfulness equips teams to process setbacks faster. By practicing non-judgmental observation, innovators learn to treat failure not as a personal crisis, but as neutral data — a valuable data point that requires analysis, not anguish. This allows for quicker pivots and less wasted time mourning a failed concept.
Enhances Deep Listening: Human-centered innovation demands empathy. Mindfulness sharpens our ability to listen—not just to the words being said in a user interview, but to the unspoken emotions, the subtle body language, and the unarticulated needs. This deep listening capability is the raw fuel for breakthrough insights.

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be stoked. Mindfulness is the bellows that focuses the flame.” — Braden Kelley (author of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire)

Case Study 1: Google’s Search Inside Yourself (SIY) Program – Institutionalizing Calm

The Challenge:

Even at a place like Google, where technical brilliance is abundant, high pressure, rapid scaling, and information overload were creating burnout and hindering effective cross-functional leadership. The challenge was finding a way to enhance emotional intelligence and focus that was rigorous, scientific, and acceptable to a highly analytical culture.

The Mindfulness Solution:

In 2007, Google launched Search Inside Yourself (SIY), a now-famous program pioneered by engineer Chade-Meng Tan. It was a six-week course designed not just for “wellness,” but explicitly to enhance emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and focus through mindfulness training. The program used neurological data and a practical, secular approach to teach engineers and leaders how to manage stress and respond more skillfully to complex workplace situations. By linking mindfulness directly to measurable outcomes like improved collaboration and reduced conflict, the program integrated it as a strategic leadership tool.

The Human-Centered Result:

SIY proved that institutionalizing mindfulness could be scaled, even in the most demanding tech environments. The program fostered a generation of leaders better equipped to handle ambiguity and lead with empathy. It demonstrated that by training the mind to be calm and present, you directly improve the capacity for high-stakes problem-solving and sustainable innovation—making it a core capability, not a peripheral perk.

Case Study 2: Tactical Mindfulness in High-Stakes Environments – The Intentional Pause

The Challenge:

In fields where chaos is the norm—such as emergency medicine, aviation, or high-level tactical operations—decision-making must be instantaneous, precise, and free of panic. A sudden system failure in a cockpit or a rapid-fire sequence of events in a surgical theater demands peak cognitive performance under immense stress. Traditional training focuses on technical checklists, but often fails to address the cognitive breakdown that occurs when fear takes over.

The Mindfulness Solution:

High-reliability organizations, from Navy SEALs to commercial aviation safety experts, increasingly incorporate elements of Tactical Mindfulness into their training. This is not about long meditation sessions; it is about practicing the Intentional Pause. Techniques like “Box Breathing” or a quick “Sensory Scan” (grounding oneself by noting five things they can hear, see, or feel) are used to rapidly interrupt the panic cycle. This returns the prefrontal cortex—the rational decision-making center—to control. The goal is to maximize the time between the chaotic stimulus (e.g., a warning light) and the response, ensuring the action is deliberate and based on training, not terror.

The Human-Centered Result:

This application of mindfulness strips away any lingering stigma and positions it as a non-negotiable performance multiplier. By cultivating the capacity for calm under fire, these professionals significantly reduce error rates. This translates directly to the innovation world: the ability to execute an intentional pause when a major product launch fails, or a critical pivot is required, ensures the team moves from crisis to calculated action with speed and clarity—the very definition of resilient innovation.

Conclusion: The Ultimate Future-Proofing Skill

Mindfulness is the ultimate tool for FutureHacking™. It allows the Maverick to rise above the noise of the market and the internal anxiety of their own ambition, creating the necessary cognitive space to see truly disruptive opportunities. Leaders must recognize that their most powerful asset is the clarity of their team’s attention. By modeling and supporting mindfulness, you are not just offering a pathway to reduced stress; you are building an organization that is inherently more focused, more empathetic, more resilient, and ultimately, more capable of sustainable innovation.

The time has come to stop chasing the next distraction and start prioritizing the depth of your presence. The future of change belongs not to the fastest to react, but to the most skilled at pausing. Find the calm within the chaos, and you will find the answers you seek.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

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The Human Element in Futurism

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Understanding What Drives Tomorrow’s Behaviors

The Human Element in Futurism

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

We live in a world obsessed with technological predictions. We meticulously track Moore’s Law, debate the singularity of AI, and map the exponential curve of quantum computing. But I argue that this focus on hardware and code misses the single most volatile and vital factor in any prediction: the human being. As a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, my job is to look beyond the what of technology to the why of behavior. Futurism is not about predicting a new device; it’s about understanding a new human need. The key to successful future-casting — and successful innovation — lies in anchoring technological foresight to the immutable principles of human psychology and anticipating how technology will meet, or fail to meet, our deepest, most enduring needs for connection, control, identity, and security.

The history of failed predictions is littered with technologies that were brilliant on paper but died in the marketplace because they misunderstood or ignored human behavior. We often forget that technology is merely an accelerant; the engine of change is always a shift in human value. To effectively navigate and profit from the future, leaders must perform an exercise I call Behavioral Foresight. This means starting with the timeless human desire (e.g., the need for connection, status, or ease) and then envisioning the scenarios where a disruptive technology either amplifies that desire or simplifies the mechanism for achieving it. When technological capability meets a deep human truth, true transformation occurs.

The Three Drivers of Tomorrow’s Behavior

While the expression of human needs changes with every innovation cycle, the underlying drivers remain constant. Successful futurism anticipates the convergence of technology with these three enduring pillars:

1. The Need for Control and Autonomy: As the world becomes more complex, people inherently seek more control over their personal data, time, and environment. Any technology that democratizes power, decentralizes decision-making, or gives the individual greater agency (from blockchain to personalized health trackers) is inherently aligned with a fundamental human driver.
2. The Pursuit of Ease (Frictionless Living): We are wired to conserve energy. Innovations that eliminate friction, simplify complex processes, or reduce cognitive load will always win. This is why a one-click purchase button is more successful than a three-step form, and why seamless integration beats powerful but complex software. Tomorrow’s successful behaviors are the easiest ones.
3. The Desire for Authentic Identity and Belonging: Technology may connect us globally, but it also creates anxiety around authenticity and status. The future of social platforms and digital identities will be driven by platforms that allow for niche, meaningful connections and give people powerful tools to express their unique, evolving selves, resisting the homogenizing forces of mass culture.

“Predicting technology is easy. Predicting human behavior is the only thing that matters.”

Case Study 1: The Smartphone Revolution – Prioritizing Connection Over Capability

The Failed Prediction:

In the early 2000s, many tech experts predicted that the future of mobile phones would be driven by technical capability — faster processors, superior cameras, and advanced features. The prevailing wisdom was that professional and power users would be the primary adopters of these complex devices.

The Human-Centered Reality:

The iPhone’s success was not initially built on its superior processing power (which lagged behind competitors at launch), but on its ability to satisfy the human need for frictionless connection and belonging. The seamless interface, the easy access to email and social platforms, and the intuitive camera made it a powerful social tool, not just a business device. The killer applications were not spreadsheets; they were instant messaging, photo sharing, and social networking. The success was driven by the average person’s need to feel constantly connected and to easily share their lived experience. It prioritized the human element (ease, connection) over the technical element (raw power).

The Key Behavioral Insight:

The market demonstrated that people will tolerate significant complexity behind the scenes (processor architecture, network latency) if the interface perfectly addresses their core human need for immediate, effortless social interaction. The future of mobile wasn’t about power; it was about proximity to people.

Case Study 2: The Failure of Google Glass – When Status Conflicts with Comfort

The Technological Promise:

Google Glass was a technological marvel: a discreet, wearable computer that promised to deliver information directly into the user’s field of vision, representing the ultimate fusion of digital information and physical reality. Technically, it was a leap forward, aimed at maximizing efficiency and access to data.

The Human-Centered Failure:

Despite the technical brilliance, Glass failed spectacularly in the consumer market, largely because it created severe friction in two fundamental human areas: social identity and control.

Identity/Belonging: Users felt self-conscious, and the public saw the wearers — dubbed “Glassholes” — as arrogant or intrusive. The device was perceived as a symbol of status and exclusion, making the wearer feel separate rather than integrated.
Control/Security: The always-on camera and recording capability deeply violated the social contract of trust and privacy, making non-wearers feel a profound lack of control over their own image and security in the wearer’s presence.

The technology ignored the human truth that people value their sense of comfort, privacy, and social acceptance far more than instant access to search results.

The Key Behavioral Insight:

The market demonstrated that any technology that infringes upon the psychological safety and social norms of the community will be rejected, regardless of its utility. The human need for social acceptance and privacy trumped the efficiency gains offered by the wearable tech.

Conclusion: The Future is Human-Shaped

The most enduring innovations are not those that change the most things, but those that understand the things that never change—the immutable drivers of human behavior. Technology simply provides new pathways to fulfill these old needs.

For any leader charting a course into the future, your greatest tool is not a crystal ball or a supercomputer; it is radical empathy. You must look at emerging technologies through the lens of human psychology. Ask: Does this technology simplify an ancient frustration? Does it amplify a core need for connection? Does it empower the individual or take away their control?

The convergence of technological capability and human truth is where true value is created. By centering your future-casting on the timeless human element, you move beyond mere trendspotting to true FutureHacking – proactively shaping a world that is not only technologically advanced but also genuinely human-centered and aligned with the aspirations of the people it serves.

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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Four Ways to Overcome Resistance to Change

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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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Making Abstract Concepts Tangible

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The Power of Anecdote

Making Abstract Concepts Tangible

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

In the innovation landscape, we are drowning in data and gasping for insight. We talk endlessly about “digital transformation,” “agile strategy,” and “cultural change”—phrases that are intellectually sound but emotionally sterile. These abstract concepts, presented in PowerPoint decks filled with charts and jargon, may inform the mind, but they rarely move the soul. As a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I can tell you this truth: Jargon and data don’t drive change; stories do. The single most powerful tool a leader has to ignite a movement, overcome resistance, and embed a new culture is the simple, compelling anecdote. An anecdote takes an abstract, often intimidating strategic goal and anchors it to a specific, tangible human moment, making the incomprehensible accessible and the unbelievable real.

We are wired for narrative. Neurologically, when we hear pure data or statistics, only the language processing centers of our brains are engaged. But when we hear a story, the brain areas that would be active if we were *experiencing* the events ourselves light up. This phenomenon, known as neural coupling, is why an anecdote is the kinetic energy of change. It releases oxytocin, building trust and empathy between the storyteller and the listener. It moves past intellectual understanding to emotional ownership. You can tell an employee that the company needs to be “customer-centric” ten times, and they’ll nod. But tell them the story of how one simple act of service saved a customer’s day, and you don’t just inform them—you transform their understanding of their own role. The anecdote is the ultimate human-centered design for strategy.

A Framework for Anecdotal Leadership

Effective leaders don’t just delegate strategy; they become the chief storytellers of the organization’s future. Leveraging the power of anecdote requires intent and structure, not just random storytelling. Here is a framework for embedding narrative into your leadership:

1. Anchor the Abstract to the Authentic: For every major strategic initiative—whether it’s “sustainability” or “process efficiency”—find the one authentic story that illustrates the point. Do not let a new value statement stand alone; anchor it with the specific human moment that brought that value to life.
2. Democratize Storytelling: The most potent anecdotes often do not come from the C-suite. They come from the front lines, from the customer service representative, the engineer, or the sales associate. Leaders must actively create channels to collect and amplify these stories, turning the front line into the source of organizational truth.
3. Vulnerability as the Currency of Trust: To drive real behavioral change, leaders must model vulnerability. Sharing a personal anecdote about a major failure, a moment of profound uncertainty, or a time when you realized you were wrong is the fastest way to build psychological safety. It signals that it is safe for others to take risks and admit mistakes, which is the oxygen of innovation.
4. The Anecdotal Test: Before presenting any major initiative—a new product, a cultural shift, a strategic pivot—test it with a simple question: “If I stripped away all the data and jargon, what single, compelling story would prove the value of this change?” If you can’t tell that story, your strategy is too abstract to succeed.

“Facts tell, but stories sell. In the business of change, you must sell the vision before you can achieve the strategy.” — Braden Kelley

Case Study 1: NASA’s Apollo Program – The Janitor’s Shared Purpose

The Challenge:

In the 1960s, the goal of “putting a man on the moon” was monumental, abstract, and technically incomprehensible to most people. How do you align thousands of scientists, engineers, and support staff across dozens of different facilities—from mathematicians calculating trajectories to janitors sweeping the halls—to a single, human-centered objective?

The Power of Anecdote:

The solution was encapsulated in a single, enduring anecdote involving President John F. Kennedy. As the story goes, during a 1962 tour of the NASA Space Center, Kennedy approached a janitor and asked him what his job was. The janitor, without hesitation, replied, “Mr. President, I’m helping put a man on the moon.” This story, whether perfectly accurate or slightly mythologized, became the organizational blueprint for shared purpose. It was instantly accessible and emotionally resonant. It showed everyone that their role, no matter how distant from the rocket itself, was essential to achieving the collective, human-centered goal.

The Result:

This anecdote transcended engineering schematics and budget reports. It didn’t just explain the mission; it defined the *meaning* of the mission for every employee. It created an organizational culture where purpose was tangible and felt at every level. It is a powerful example of how a leader can use a single, simple human story to align a massive, complex organization toward an abstract, audacious vision, turning a technical challenge into a human triumph.

Case Study 2: Southwest Airlines – Defining Culture Through Action Stories

The Challenge:

How does an airline maintain a culture of exceptional, “beyond-the-policy” customer service and high operational efficiency in an industry notorious for low margins, high stress, and bureaucratic rigidity? Furthermore, how do they teach this unique culture to thousands of new employees every year?

The Power of Anecdote:

Southwest Airlines achieved this not through rule books, but through an obsessive focus on collecting, sharing, and celebrating stories of service. Instead of a 10-point plan for “Customer Loyalty,” new employees are immersed in anecdotes about fellow staff: the flight attendant who bought a pizza for a stranded flight, the ground crew member who retrieved a teddy bear from a distant airport, or the employee who went above and beyond to comfort a nervous traveler. These stories—passed down in training, internal newsletters, and town halls—do not just describe the culture; they prescribe the behavior. They act as concrete examples of the abstract concept of “LUV,” making the company’s commitment to fun and service palpable and actionable.

The Result:

By making storytelling central to their internal communication, Southwest created an immediately recognizable, human-centered cultural fabric. The anecdotes serve as powerful, memorable standards of conduct that are far more effective than any memo. They guide autonomous decision-making in the moment, empowering employees to break rank for the sake of the customer experience. The enduring success of Southwest proves that a thriving, innovative culture is fundamentally a collection of great stories that its people choose to live out every day.

Conclusion: The Narrative Imperative

The era of leading with abstraction is over. If you want people to move—if you want to ignite genuine innovation, shift culture, and drive a strategic transformation—you must first move their hearts. The anecdote is your most potent tool, the linguistic delivery system for empathy and action. It allows you to take the vast, complex machinery of change and compress it down into a moment that every human can understand, remember, and internalize. As leaders, our role is not just to analyze the data; it is to master the narrative. We must become the chief story collectors and chief storytellers, for the enduring power of a single, well-told human story will always outweigh a thousand bullet points. The most effective strategies are not those that calculate best, but those that resonate best.

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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.

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.

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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.

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