Tag Archives: Innovation

Illuminate to Innovate

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

Being consciously innovative involves expanding your awareness and opening your heart and mind to disrupt habitual feelings and thinking, allowing for deeper, more holistic decision-making and innovative problem-solving. It allows us to play in the space of possibility by cultivating consciousness – illuminating the state of being aware of your surroundings, internal thoughts, and subjective experiences. This encompasses everything you perceive, feel, and think, ranging from basic sensory awareness to complex self-reflection, decision-making and problem-solving. Developing people’s consciousness involves strengthening a person’s ability to sense and connect with awareness-based systems and respond appropriately to achieve desired outcomes. Conscious innovation is a mandatory way of being, thinking, and acting that makes people matter and enables them to survive and thrive in the emerging, uncertain and disruptive world of AI, where leaders must know how to illuminate to innovate.

What is consciousness?

According to Dr Dan Seigal[1], consciousness has two elements that shape a person’s inner state or interior condition. There is the knowing, which is awareness itself. And there are the knowns, which are everything that enters awareness. To integrate consciousness means to differentiate these two elements from each other, and then to differentiate the knowns from one another.

Knowns consist of people’s thoughts, feelings, and memories, while sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touch bring the outside world in as a constant stream of sensation. They also include intuition, inner wisdom, and awareness of mental and emotional processes, such as memories, beliefs, intentions, and hopes. As well as the relational self, the awareness of connection to other people, to living beings, and to something larger than the individual self.

What is conscious innovation?

Our approach to conscious innovation creates the conditions for individuals and teams to move and focus their attention, develop conscious awareness, and become intentional and passionately purposeful in solving challenging problems. People illuminate to innovate by advancing through the three levels of self to make the world a better place by balancing people, profit, and the planet.

Conscious innovation integrates the key principles and methodologies of emergence, systems thinking, human-centered design, sustainability and technology to empower people to realize their potential at the intersection of human possibility and technological innovation.

Conscious innovation includes being able to understand and improve a person’s inner state or interior condition, and illuminate to innovate by:

Focusing on expanding who they are as human beings by creating the conditions to develop people’s metacognition[2] and brain health[3], enabling them to experience what it means to be responsible, passionately purposeful, and agile, and to build an adaptive capacity to flourish in an uncertain world.
Developing an awareness of the potential of cognitive dissonance and harnessing creative tension that enables people to safely learn and grow as humans who act in ways that build their capability to be creative, inventive, innovative and resilient in the face of chaos and disruption.
Creating the conditions by clarifying an aligned strategy and developing a safe, trusted, and aligned culture that enables and supports people and teams to collaborate, experiment, and innovate by willingly partnering human potential with AI.

These invisible elements of conscious innovation affect how people interact with, relate to, and lead people and teams; how they communicate, learn, make decisions, solve problems, manage, implement, and embed change; and how they execute innovation or transformational projects and initiatives.

Illuminate to Innovate – The three levels of self

The three levels of self-illustrate the deep learning and change journey involved in illuminating and harnessing human potential on the people side of innovation. At a time when companies are required to rethink the very nature of the corporation, especially how to integrate human accountability with virtual and physical AI agents.

Self-regulation involves developing awareness of one’s automatic responses, understanding their sources and effects on one’s physiology and neurology, owning one’s responses, and ensuring they have a positive impact on oneself and those with whom one interacts.
Self-management involves close observation and management of people’s knowns: being attentively present to neurological and physiological factors, including emotional states, traits, thoughts, feelings, mindsets, behaviours, and skills in how people use time to make decisions, communicate, and resolve business challenges.
Self-leadership involves deepening and illuminating known skills: open awareness, knowledge, and the ability to intentionally master one’s own neurology and physiology, as well as others’, in interactions and challenging situations, to mindfully evaluate and successfully create, invent, deliver, and execute innovative solutions.

The intent is to create strategic and cultural alignment that delivers execution excellence by enabling leaders and engaging people to solve problems in generative ways, consciously prioritizing human relationships through collaboration and experimentation in partnership with AI, and steadily moving towards goals in deliberate, focused, systemic, kind and honorable ways.

What are the benefits of being consciously innovative?

Being consciously innovative involves learning to be, think, and act differently; people learn to stop trying to solve a problem with the same thinking that created it and to stop reproducing the same results they no longer want.

At the same time, the emergence of AI requires a major brain shift to maximize human potential by building foundational cognitive, interpersonal, self-leadership, and technological literacy abilities that enable people to adapt, relate, and contribute meaningfully, integrating an awareness-based systems approach and a holistic focus.

The benefits of being consciously innovative include improving leaders’ and people’s abilities to:

Replace short-term, reactive, and conventional linear thinking processes that initially created and now sustain problems, and embrace change as a circular, creative, continuous, and systemic process.
Courageously adopt long-term, sustainable strategies for the organization’s growth and the impact it seeks to have on clients or customers and wider communities.
Make better-informed decisions by considering potential scenarios, anticipating risks, identifying interdependencies, and making decisions that meet needs while keeping the bigger picture in view.
Cease overlaying new structures onto people’s unchanged ways of perceiving and experiencing their world by creating the conditions for people to help people make sense of new structures and processes, show up differently, and take new and right actions.
Combine futures thinking and systems thinking, emphasizing ethical considerations, social responsibility, and sustainability.
Be empathetic and compassionate by discerning, understanding, and considering the needs, values, and perspectives of all stakeholders involved in a problem or a system, not just those present in a room.
Improve people’s capacity to attend, observe, inquire, listen to each other, and differ in generative ways, and to feel empowered to think independently and act differently.
Embrace AI strategically, using AI and new technologies to assist, help, and empower human agency, to partner, collaborate, and experiment with AI to rebuild engagement and deliver execution excellence.

Illuminate to innovate

Being consciously innovative requires actively illuminating and integrating the ways leaders and coaches bring clarity, creativity, compassion, courage, and meaning to their decisions, roles, and teams. This involves expanding your awareness and opening your hearts and minds to disrupt habitual thinking, allowing for deeper, more holistic decision-making and innovative problem-solving. It involves cultivating consciousness – illuminating the state of being aware of your surroundings, internal thoughts, and subjective experiences and encompasses everything you perceive, feel, and think, ranging from basic sensory awareness to complex self-reflection, decision-making and problem-solving.

[1]The Developing Mind (The foundation of Interpersonal Neurobiology) [1]

[2] Metacognition is “thinking about thinking”—the awareness, understanding, and control of one’s own cognitive processes, like learning and problem-solving, to improve performance.

[3]https://www.mckinsey.com/mhi/our-insights/the-human-advantage-stronger-brains-in-the-age-of-ai?cid=mgp_opr-eml-nsl-ofl-mgp-glb–&hlkid=507fe91b220d4915bbcd198daaeb857a&hctky=1766168&hdpid=bfbfe441-95e5-45b4-9dc7-c32cd1789c2f#/

Image Credit: Pexels

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Thin Lizzy – An Innovation Miracle from a Monster

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Gila monster in the Southwest desert - a source of bio-inspired innovation and GLP-1 medical breakthroughs

GUEST POST from Pete Foley

The pejoratively named Gila monster is a protected and borderline endangered species that inhabits my adopted Southwest. It is the only venomous lizard in the USA, but while its venom can be deadly, human deaths are extremely rare. It’s generally a shy, slow moving creature that spends much of its time underground. It presents little danger unless you try to handle it, and if you are lucky enough to see one, it’s pink and black colors make it quite stunning to look at.

Monsters and Weight Loss: But whether you perceive it as beauty or beast, it has recently played a surprisingly important and beneficial role in human health. As many reading this will already know, it’s venom is the origin of GLP-1’s. These are the ‘miracle ingredient’ found in diabetes and weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. GLP-1’s were initially isolated from Gila Monster venom about 30 years ago. These ‘Thin Lizzy’ drugs are now manufactured synthetically, but it’s unlikely that we’d have discovered them without the help of this maligned ‘monster’

A Benevolent Monster. Type-II diabetes and obesity are deadly diseases, and GLP-1’s have helped many patients live longer, better quality lives. I sometimes worry about over and unsupervised use, and long term effects of such a widely used new drug. But there is no question around the benefits it has brought to the human race. Gila is a benevolent monster, and we owe it our thanks for saving countless lives.

Bio-Inspired Innovation: In a broad sense, this is a great example of biomimicry, or at least copying innovation from nature. Nature is a huge untapped resource of largely pre-cooked innovations. Pretty much any problem we face, somewhere nature has already solved. It’s not always easy to find or adapt those solutions, but sometimes when we do, we get miracles like GLP-1. We can find innovations anywhere in nature, but marginal environments often have disproportionately more. They force evolution, as nature has to solve more difficult problems. Often we hear biodiversity expressed in terms of ‘number of species’. That is a valid claim. There is no question, for example, that the density of species and fierce competition in the Amazon make it a rich source of biodiversity, and hence bio-derived innovation. But the huge number and diversity of species there also adds to the ‘needle in a haystack’ challenge we find with seeking innovation in nature. But the extremely harsh, hot, dry, environment of Southwest Deserts can also drive unusual adaptations. In the case of GLP-1’s, their metabolism and glucose management help the Gila monster navigate an environment where food and water is scarce, and feeding sporadic. Perhaps more importantly, given the harshness of the environment here, it’s likely that GLP-1’s are the tip of the ice-berg, and that our desert contains a reservoir of many more useful secrets waiting to be unlocked, especially around metabolism and water management.

Destruction of Wilderness: But marginal environments are often also where species are most fragile and under threat. In the desert southwest, the Gila’s habitat (and that of other marginalized species like the desert tortoise) is being squeezed from all directions. An historic drought has gripped much of the area for decades. And we are now compounding that with massive housing developments, even bigger industrial scale solar farms, and the massive infrastructure needed to transmit the energy those farms create. Even more recently, we are further compounding that ’squeeze’ with data centers, increased mining for rare metals and more. These ‘developments’ not only destroy massive swathes of wilderness, and put additional pressure on already endangered species, but also compound drought and climate change by piling rapidly accelerating heat island effects on top of a warming climate.

Don’t Shoot Yourself in the Foot. As an innovator I embrace change, and recognize that progress inevitably comes with trade-offs. But change needs to be managed thoughtfully, especially the inevitable trade offs that change creates in a complex system. Speed is often important, but it needs to be weighed against the need to have some basic understanding of the broad impact we have beyond the narrow, core objective. To use a ‘western’ analogy, in a gunfight it’s important to fire first, but not so fast that you shoot yourself in the foot.

The Desert is an Ocean with its Life Underground: In my last article I talked about the need for more scientists in leadership positions. One of the reasons for this is that our leaders today often appear unable, or perhaps unwilling to look at the big, complex picture, but instead over-simplify issues. Nowhere is this more evident than in the southwest United States, where in the rush for growth, ‘renewable’ energy, raw material independence and AI development is destroying huge swathes of wilderness. While well intentioned, this is often driven by leaders who are focused on narrow goals, and ignore collateral damage by simplistically regarding the Mojave and as ‘s ‘only a desert’. But that desert is really an extremely complex and fragile system. GLP-1’s are likely the tip of the iceberg. We don’t know what else lies below the surface, but we need to be careful that we don’t destroy it before we have a chance to find out

The Pros and Cons of Solar Energy in the Desert: Just taking mass solar as an example of well intentioned but overly simplistic thinking. Our deserts are rapidly getting littered with massive industrial scale solar farms, together with the equally massive infrastructure needed to transport the electricity they create to population centers, and/or AI data centers.

At a basic level, the concept of solar is a good one; what’s not to love about pollution free energy independence? But if we look at the bigger, far more complex picture, it’s nowhere near that simple.

Too Hot For Solar? For example, a hot sunny desert is a superficially obvious place to build solar infrastructure. But that’s until we realize that surface temperatures are so hot cells operate far below optimum efficiency. Meanwhile dust further reduces efficiency, and remote locations make building, maintaining and connecting these farms difficult, expensive and environmentally damaging.

Collateral Damage: Solar farms and their infrastructure do extensive damage to our desert wilderness. They remove habitat for endangered species, and block migration roots for others. Their installation and maintenance uses scarce water, and creates significant CO2 emissions (the thing they were supposed to prevent). Much of the technology is shipped from China, posing a question around true energy independence, and that shipping and manufacture also creates CO2. Climate change is a global issue, and while shifting CO2 emission for solar manufacture from the US to China may look good on some spreadsheets, it does nothing to solve the actual problem.

These solar farms also create enormous amounts of dust. Installing them requires removing of both surface crust and vegetation whose slow growing root systems hold the desert surface together (and ironically store CO2 via a symbiotic relationship with a mycelium). That dust not only reduces the efficiency of the solar panels themselves, but also presents a hazard to traffic, and can even be quite toxic. Mojave desert dust contains both natural asbestos and potentially deadly valley fever. Its why all construction has to be constantly sprayed with increasingly scarce water.

With industrial scale desert solar, the narrow view of ‘renewable and ‘clean’ solar energy’ is highly attractive. The reality is more complex, and full of trade offs that pit a green core technology against the environmental cost of construction, maintenance, eventual decommissioning, destruction of habitat and unintended consequences such as toxic dust. This makes a superficially simple choice far more complex. Some trade offs are alignable. For example, we can probably calculate actual net CO2 savings over the lifetime of a solar farm after manufacture, shipping, installation and decommissioning are taken into account. But I’m not even sure if we can truly compare some of the other trade offs. How do we quantify the trade off between toxic dust and reduced CO2 emissions? Or how do we quantify and compare the impact of water usage, or loss of habitat to endangered species?

Simplistic Focus: The result is a very complex calculation. But what is clear is that our leaders today typically ignore this, and instead remain simplistically focused on the narrow view. Maybe if we could get more scientists into leadership positions we might do a better job of understanding trade offs, and the cost benefit of new technologies. Today politicians all too often line up in favor of, or in opposition to projects based on overly simplistic, partisan frames, when really we need to manage complex trade offs.

Calculating the Cost of Change in Complex Systems: Now, although I believe we need to do much better at managing complex systems, that doesn’t mean the pendulum needs to swing to far in the other direction. Complexity and uncertainty should not become an excuse for procrastination, inaction, or what I like to call the tyranny of data. The later is when we get stuck generating data and reports in increasing detail that add so much complexity, we never make a decision. As an innovator I embrace change, and recognize that progress inevitably comes with trade-offs. But it’s about balance, and its critical to understand those trade offs at a systems level before charging ahead with initiatives, but still be willing to move forward embracing some uncertainty. All innovation comes with some risk, but smart innovators minimize those risks and balance them against timely progress. And scientists are trained to learn as they go. That’s a balance I’d argue our leaders are struggling with today, swinging between inaction, and massive investments based on limited knowledge.

Solar is one example. But there are many more. In my home city of Las Vegas we are already facing a severe water crisis and extreme heat island effects. In light of that, the mass destruction of wilderness to build 250,000 new MacMansions in the desert seems to lack even minimal big picture thinking. Data centers, the innovation de jour are a more complex challenge. There is certainly a demand for them, and there is a powerful, albeit US centric argument for keeping the US at the head of the AI innovation curve. That means we do need data centers, but the cost in water and energy, two resources that are in relatively short supply here, arguably makes the SouthWest a poor choice of location. Although I’ll acknowledge that data centers are rapidly becoming a somewhat universal ‘good idea as long as it’s not here’ technology.

Embracing Complexity and Solving Trade Offs: But embracing complexity and looking at these at a systems level does not mean stopping innovation or progress. Quite the opposite, it should ultimately help us to innovate more effectively, and maybe face-plant less often. Identifying and challenging trade offs had long been a source of innovation, and is at the core of many innovation processes. For example, with AI, could the US stay ahead of the AI curve by focusing data centers on more useful tasks, while cutting out less useful and energy expensive ‘slop’ such as action figures and/or caricatures? That is maybe where regulation comes in, but as I mentioned in my last article, regulation without understanding risks both being ineffective, or creating unintended collateral damage. So this all supports the need for more technical ‘savvy’ in leadership.

We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know. When we try to evaluate trade off’s associated with innovation, what we don’t know is always one of the biggest challenges. Who would have guessed 30 years ago that the Gila monster would provide the cure for obesity, and significantly reduce Type -II diabetes. As mentioned before, we can be fairly sure that our desert wilderness holds many more untapped innovations, but we just don’t know what they are. That harsh environment drove the evolution of tools for metabolism and glucose management that today treat obesity and diabetes management. Longer term, could they also be a source of chemistry with efficacy against cancers, where glucose restriction and differentiation between the kinetics of healthy and cancer cell replication are effects we have, and will likely continue to exploit? That’s speculation, but it highlights that we often don’t know all of the trade offs, and so those complex models need to be monitored and updated. Narrow focus on a simplistic model means we miss so many potential opportunities. We also risk destroying the sources of the innovations and breakthroughs we haven’t found yet

Image credits: Google Gemini

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Markets Don’t Build Themselves, You Must Engineer Them

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Exclusive Interview with Bruce Cleveland

In a business landscape increasingly cluttered by “feature wars” and fleeting viral trends, true market leadership isn’t just about who builds the best product — it’s about who defines the problem. In his groundbreaking work, Market Engineering, Bruce Cleveland argues that successful companies don’t just enter markets; they architect them. By blending rigorous systems thinking with the art of category design, Cleveland provides a blueprint for moving beyond commodity status to become a dominant force that sets the rules of the game.

In this insightful Q&A, Cleveland breaks down why “Market Engineering” must be foundational from day one rather than a secondary thought for the marketing department. From the evolution of Chief Storytellers to the strategic distinction between a market and a category, he explores how leaders can steer through the noise — especially in the age of AI — to create a resonant narrative that sticks.

Today we dive deep into the characteristics and necessities of market engineering with our special guest.

Markets Don’t Build Themselves

Bruce Cleveland is a former venture capitalist and engineering and product executive at Apple, C3 AI, Oracle, and Siebel Systems. As founder of Traction Gap Partners, he has helped hundreds of startups, scale-ups, and enterprises to transform innovation into impact. His previous book, Traversing the Traction Gap, is taught in universities and used by investors and founders worldwide. Cleveland’s frameworks blend analytical discipline with creative storytelling — empowering leaders in companies of all sizes and industries to transform technology into traction and markets into movements. He lives in Bend, Oregon.

Below is the text of my interview with Bruce and a preview of the kinds of insights you’ll find in Market Engineering presented in a Q&A format:

1. When does it make sense for a company to engage in Market Engineering?

Market Engineering isn’t something you save for later: it’s foundational from the moment you decide to bring a new product or company to life. The earlier you start intentionally defining or redefining your category, shaping positioning, and setting the narrative, the more leverage you have. If you wait until after a product launch or when you’re trying to scale, you’re forced to play by definitions set by incumbents or competitors, which makes differentiation and leadership much harder.

2. Why is it so important for a company to shape the market reality?

If you don’t shape your market’s reality, someone else will, often in a way that disadvantages you. Shaping market reality means you control how problems are defined, which features or metrics matter, and what the buying criteria look like. Market leadership is rarely awarded to the objectively “best” product; it’s achieved by those who frame the market in terms they can win.

3. Why must all leaders intimately understand the difference between a category and a market?

A market is the overarching territory: the set of buyers, sellers, and needs. A category is a specific frame or context you create and own within that market. If you only compete in the market, you become a commodity; if you define and then dominate a category, you set the standards and leave competitors playing catch-up. Leaders must understand this distinction so they can move from playing the existing game to rewriting the rules.

4. What do you think about the Chief Storyteller roles we see appearing in companies?

It’s a positive development; as long as the role goes beyond polished campaign stories and becomes architect and keeper of the full-market narrative. The best Chief Storytellers aren’t just marketers; they’re narrative engineers who unite product, category vision, customer proof, and internal culture into a coherent, resonant story that attracts and aligns stakeholders. Think Steve Jobs: one of the best storytellers ever.

5. Many see Thought Leadership as a combination of messaging and storytelling, what makes it a standalone tenet?

Thought Leadership stands alone because it’s about setting the agenda (leading the conversation) rather than just communicating your point of view. It requires original insight, provocation, and the courage to propose new models, not just synthesize existing ones. When done well, it changes the direction of the market; others start to echo your terminology and frameworks.

6. Why is it so hard for most new products to get traction?

Most new products fail to get traction not because of weak tech, but because of unclear value, undifferentiated positioning, or market confusion. Teams overfocus on features and under-invest in the story, category, and proof. Without clear market engineering, no one knows why the product matters or how they should think about it compared to everything else.

7. Where do companies go wrong with category design?

The most common mistake is either not designing a category at all (just trying to out-feature incumbents) or making it a “naming exercise” disconnected from authentic customer need and business reality. Category design isn’t branding; it’s systems thinking. it should be rooted in a real problem, codified with relentless clarity, and validated with influential customers and analysts.

8. How does the leadership team recognize they got the positioning wrong and how do they fix it?

You’ll know you have a positioning problem if deals stall in the pipeline, you get slotted into the wrong RFP bucket, or media/analysts lump you with solutions you don’t respect. Fixing it starts with honest investigation: talking directly to customers/prospects, auditing every touchpoint, and rigorously re-testing your Messaging Matrix. It’s usually about clarity, not cleverness.

9. What are the biggest pitfalls of message ownership and management and how can leaders avoid them?

The biggest pitfalls are lack of internal discipline and message drift: where every functional group tells the story a bit differently, or the narrative morphs with each campaign. Leaders must treat the messaging as a living, central artifact (like the Messaging Matrix), ensure frequent training, and make every update explicitly cross-functional. Messaging must be owned at the top.

10. What are some of the keys to great storytelling that every leader should master?

Great storytelling starts with empathy: a deep understanding of customer pain and aspiration. Then, it follows with clarity (no jargon), specificity (real data, real outcomes), and tension (what’s at stake in the market). Too often, stories become “laundry lists”. The key is to focus on a single arc: What’s broken in the world, what new future you’re inviting them into, and social proof that it’s real.

11. What are the keys to creating effective thought leadership?

You must have a strong point of view and the willingness to challenge conventional wisdom. Effective thought leadership is not just more content; it’s original, actionable ideas presented consistently across channels and validated with real-world outcomes, not just theory. Authenticity and a learning mindset are critical: the market rewards those who teach, not just those who promote.

12. Does AI make Market Engineering easier or more difficult and why?

AI makes Market Engineering both easier and much harder. Easier, because it democratizes access to research, market signals, and rapid content generation. Harder, because it amplifies noise and makes it much more difficult to stand out unless your positioning, messaging, and insight are precise and differentiated. The bar for clarity and originality rises: those who do Market Engineering well will thrive; those who don’t will be commoditized instantly.

13. Is there anything you wish I had asked so that you could speak to it?

I wish more people asked, “How do you maintain momentum and discipline in Market Engineering after the initial category launch?” Winning the first lap is one thing; evolving category leadership into true market leadership and dominance over the years is another. It’s not a one-time event: it’s ongoing narrative, data, partner ecosystem, and customer proof work. The companies that endure are those that outlearn, outevolve, and outlast, not just outlaunch their competition.

Conclusion

Thank you for the great conversation Bruce!

I hope everyone has enjoyed this peek into the mind of the man behind the insightful new title Market Engineering!

Image credits: Bruce Cleveland, Google Gemini

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We Need More Innovators and Scientists in Leadership Roles

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We Need More Innovators and Scientists in Leadership Roles

GUEST POST from Pete Foley

Our world is changing at an unprecedented rate. We are in an innovation driven economy. AI, genetic manipulation, energy innovation, climate, and virtually anything driving change are all highly technical and complex. And all come with high stakes pros and cons.

Scientists and innovators navigating this requires strategic leadership that understands technical complexity, uncertainty and that collectively has some knowledge of basic science and engineering.

Politics Lacks Scientists: Today, while more than half of US Senators have a law background, only one has a science PhD. I believe this creates a serious gap in fundamental knowledge between our strategic leaders and the innovators that are driving change.

Experts or Oracles? Of course, our leaders have access to ‘experts’ to help them with complex topics. But when the fundamental knowledge gap between leaders and experts becomes too big, experts become oracles. They pronounce rather than persuade. When this happens we risk the determining factor in strategy becoming superior communication skills, instead of knowledge or superior ideas. The ideas (and regulations) that win are not the necessarily best ones, but the ones championed by good communicators, salesmen scientists or smooth talking lobbyists. It’s dangerous to follow the science blindly, and even riskier to regulate what we don’t understand. That invites dangerous unintended consequences. But increasingly, that is the path we are on.

Why We Need More Innovators and Scientists in Leadership Roles

Of course, our leaders don’t need to all be 160 IQ polymaths with PhD’s in quantum mechanics. But to make good decisions they do need to at least be able to understand and apply critical thinking to the inevitably conflicting opinions of experts.

Communicating Science and Technology: Now of course, much of the onus for promoting understanding of complex technology lies with us in the broader innovation and science community. If we cannot communicate knowledge to people who own resources and executive power, then we risk that knowledge becoming redundant.

But communication is always a two way street. Bridging between leaders and experts requires some common ground. It’s really hard to have a useful discussion with someone who does even have a basic vocabulary for a topic. As technology and innovation become increasingly important, without more technically savvy leaders we risk a disconnect between strategy, regulation and knowledge. As our leaders get older, and more disconnected from the science driving change they rely less on quality of ideas, and more on appealing framing of ideas, or perhaps familiarity with equally disconnected experts. That is a dangerous path.

Non Scientific Mindsets Facing Technical Challenges. One key danger is the tendency to view choices as binary, another is sunk cost. Binary choices are superficially easy, but in the real world most innovation is not black and white, but instead involves some form of trade off. Whether it is AI, energy strategy, pharmaceutical development or one of the other ever growing list of emerging technologies, there are benefits, but also costs. With AI for example, the benefits of gaining and holding global leadership of the technology are likely as economically huge as the opportunity cost of not doing so. But with big opportunity also comes big risks, including the environmental costs of data centers, risks to societal structure, and even existential risk to humanity itself. The stakes don’t get much higher.

The Uncertainty Principle: And this is multiplied by the sunk cost fallacy. Over commitment to an incorrect binary choice can be really risky. While we know there are going to be pros and cons to any new technology, we rarely understand them very well in advance. Innovation is by definition a dive into the unknown, and that makes accurately predicting both upsides and downsides really difficult. This requires flexible, agile thinking, openness to new data, and a willingness to adjust mid-flight, skills inherent to science and technology .

But as a society, if anything we seem to be moving away from flexible thinking, and towards more rigid viewpoints that are often heavily pre-primed by affiliations, preconceptions and bizarrely, politics. People are often passionately for or against AI, but all too often without really knowing why. ‘Green’ energy is polarizing, climate change is divisive. But while passion and ownership have their place, often the best answer is not cheerleading for a team. Instead it’s beneficial to find a flexible balance that acknowledges the pros and cons, and that ideally identifies non zero sum answers for those contradictions. But that again typically requires nuance, and some level of technical understanding.

Finding Non Zero Sum Answers: The good news is that once we step away from polarized and binary thinking, non zero sum solutions are sometimes not as hard to find as we think. Just as an example, with AI, there is potential to have our cake and eat it. If we cut out digital slop, it’s conceivable that could we achieve and maintain technology leadership, but with much lower environmental cost. For example, using AI to solve complex medical problems may be a net benefit that is worth some damage to our wilderness, or use of our scarce resources. But action figures, generic illustrations, mediocre music and often pointless copies of master artists not so much! I’m sure all of the latter help advance our knowledge to some degree, and help to justify AI investment, but by being more selective, could we achieve the same or similar ends with a superior benefit/cost ratio?

The Human Advantage: But making smart trade-off decisions like this requires flexible and creative thinking. Ironically that is one of the things humans still do better than AI. We just need to embrace our human strengths, but also make sure our leaders also reflect those strengths.

Innovators in Leadership Roles: This means we need a more balanced and scientific approach to leadership if we are navigate the increasingly technology driven future. Having lawyers making laws is not bad per se, but I passionately believe we need a more diverse set of skills at our upper leadership levels if we are to effectively navigate the coming years. That means the innovation and scientific community needs to step up. We also need to get much better, and mea culpa, at communicating complex issues. It’s critical to be clear and simple but not simplistic.

The Tyranny of Simplicity: Simplistic answers, memes, and binary choices have a great deal of superficial appeal. And politicians and the media exploit this very effectively. In our information overloaded, time constrained world, everybody’s cognitive bandwidth is stretched. We often seek answers rather than understanding because that’s all we have time for. But from a leadership perspective, we need to understand that limited cognitive bandwidth is not the same as limited intelligence. People may grasp for simplistic answers, but because they have no commitment to them based on their own knowledge or critical thinking, that grasp is tenuous. This means that being simplistic can be self defeating in the long run. For example, take the much quoted, ‘globally agreed’ climate target; to not exceed a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase since pre-industrial times. For sure, some people will accept this without question. But other enquiring minds will ask if 1.49C OK? Is this a tipping point? Do we fall of a cliff at 1.51C. Conversely, what happens if we exceed that limit and nothing dramatic happens? Do we discard that boundary, or move it? Then there are obvious questions around how we address that boundary. What will it take to prevent crossing it? What are the trade offs? Who has the sphere of influence to actually make a difference? It’s OK to have a simplistic position, but it needs to be supported by layered reasoning.

Cry Wolf: I’m not suggesting that climate scientists who promote 1.5C don’t grasp this complexity. But somewhere in the path from science to politicians and media the real world complexity it often gets lost in translation. And thats not trivial, as it creates the risk of ‘cry wolf’ effects, and of leaders being perceived as manipulative. If we overstate the importance of 1.5 C, and it proves to be wrong, or at least a softer limit than previously advertised, we risk people perceiving that they have been mislead or manipulated. That then feeds skepticism, and even gives support to some of the wilder ‘conspiracy theories’. Once a source has become discredited on one vector, it is typically discredited on everything.

No easy answers to this. But I believe innovators and scientists really need to take a bigger leadership role in a world where innovation is increasingly the driving force. Politicians generally don’t get elected because they deeply understand complex issues, but because they understand how to motivate, communicate, simplify and manipulate. They often rely on peoples limited cognitive bandwidth, as this helps them to craft simple slogans, concepts, and sometimes trigger fear and division. Remember that we dislike losing something about twice as much as we like gaining it, which makes fear a very powerful manipulative tool. That brings power, but not necessarily wisdom. But limited cognitive bandwidth is not the same as limited intelligence. And simplistic concepts are vulnerable to challenge, or evolving data.

Of course, we don’t want to make every issue a PhD thesis. But we do need to acknowledge increasing complexity and uncertainty, and at the very least develop authentic, layered narratives that acknowledge complexity and the inevitable uncertainty of an innovation driven world. Without that, our strategies become extremely fragile, and easily shattered the first time we are proved wrong. Even if we may start from a position of intense conviction, we must also change paths in the face of compelling evidence. Scientists and innovators tend to be good at this. It’s a skill that maybe needs to be used more broadly

Image credits: Google Gemini

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Connecting People in a Time of Isolation and Detachment

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Connection People in a Time of Isolation and Detachment

GUEST POST from Douglas Ferguson

In today’s fast-paced and increasingly digital world, people often find themselves feeling disconnected from others, both in the workplace and their personal lives. The rise of remote work, the constant bombardment of information on social media, and the divisiveness of politics have only exacerbated these feelings of isolation and detachment. This disconnection is not only detrimental to our well-being but also poses significant challenges for organizations seeking to foster a collaborative and innovative environment. Now, more than ever, we must recognize the importance of fostering connection and nurturing relationships at work to repair the fractures that have formed in our society.

“We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness.”– Albert Schweitzer

By acknowledging the current state of disconnection and actively working to promote understanding, empathy, and collaboration, we can create a more inclusive and productive workplace that benefits everyone involved. In this article, we will explore the consequences of disconnection, the power of connection and understanding, and the role of facilitation in fostering these essential relationships.

The consequences of disconnection

Disconnection can be observed across various aspects of our society. In politics, the polarization of opinions and the entrenchment of viewpoints create a divide that prevents productive dialogue and collaboration. Social media platforms contribute to this divide by amplifying echo chambers, wherein individuals are exposed primarily to information that reinforces their pre-existing beliefs, further deepening the rift between differing perspectives.

Disconnection also permeates the workplace and organizational structures. Within companies, miscommunication, a lack of understanding, and unaddressed conflicts can create disconnects between individuals and teams, hindering progress and innovation. These consequences are not limited to large-scale issues; even seemingly minor incidents, like a disagreement over conference room usage, can cause lasting resentment and erode workplace relationships.

A striking example of the dangerous consequences of disconnection is the recent classified document leaks via Discord. The individual responsible for the breach was motivated by feelings of isolation and a desire for recognition. This act of cyber espionage demonstrates how disconnection and the need for validation can drive individuals to take extreme risks and engage in destructive behaviors.

The consequences of disconnection can even be observed at a cellular level. In a recent Rich Roll Podcast episode, Dr. Zach Bush discussed the origins of cancer originating from cellular disconnection in the human body. When cells become disconnected from one another, they may begin to malfunction and grow uncontrollably, resulting in cancer. This biological phenomenon parallels the societal consequences of disconnection, wherein isolation and detachment can lead to radicalization and unproductive behaviors.

“The eternal quest of the human being is to shatter his loneliness.”– Norman Cousins

The power of connection and understanding

By fostering connection and understanding, we can counter the negative consequences of disconnection and create an environment where growth and collaboration thrive. Research consistently shows that diverse teams perform at higher levels when united by a shared purpose and understanding. Embracing and engaging with different perspectives not only sharpens our own viewpoints but also allows us to innovate and produce better products, services, and solutions.

A sense of belonging and purpose is crucial in the workplace. Employees often cite the team and the people they work with as key factors in job satisfaction. By building genuine connections and strong relationships, employees become more invested in the organization’s mission and feel a deeper commitment to their work. This sense of purpose is amplified when colleagues are able to collaborate effectively, respect each other’s opinions, and find common ground despite their differences.

Teamwork

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”– Helen Keller

There is extensive evidence supporting the importance of connection and relating at work. For instance, a study published in the Harvard Business Review found that employees who reported feeling more connected at work were more likely to be engaged and productive while also demonstrating higher levels of well-being and job satisfaction (1). Furthermore, research has consistently shown that diverse teams perform at the highest levels thanks to their ability to generate innovative ideas and foster a culture of learning and growth (2).

Several books highlight the significance of connection and relating at work. In “Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect,” neuroscientist Matthew D. Lieberman explores the ways our brains are hardwired for social connection, emphasizing the importance of developing strong relationships in all aspects of our lives, including the workplace (3). Similarly, in “The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact,” Chip and Dan Heath discuss how creating meaningful, memorable experiences can foster deeper connections among coworkers and lead to a more engaged and satisfied workforce (4).

Connection and understanding are also vital for creating healthier organizations. Employees who feel connected and supported are more likely to engage in productive behaviors, contribute positively to the workplace culture, and stay committed to the organization’s goals. As a result, fostering connection and understanding not only benefits the individuals involved but also the organization as a whole.

Real-life examples of connection and relationships

Facilitators and leaders play a crucial role in fostering connection, understanding, and relationships within organizations. Creating the conditions necessary for open dialogue and collaboration can bridge divides and encourage growth through diverse perspectives.

Elena Farden is a Voltage Control Certified Facilitator, and her work as the Executive Director (ED) for the Native Hawaiian Education Council provides a compelling example of fostering connection and relationship building. As the ED, she is responsible for advocating for resources and support for Native Hawaiian education: expanding indigenous voices at the federal level.

Elena Farden – Executive Director (ED) for the Native Hawaiian Education Council

One key aspect of her work is anchoring her vision in the connection to the land, with her entire portfolio serving as a metaphor for connection to land with sense of place. In a recent conversation, Elena shared an insightful quote about this connection: “Our connection to the land is the foundation of our identity and purpose. As we nurture this connection, we strengthen our relationships and responsibility to work together for the betterment of our community.”

Elena utilizes the ʻauwai, a Hawaiian irrigation system, as an approach to facilitation. She discussed how one part of the irrigation process involves tempering the water to avoid damaging the crops. This approach resonated with her as an analogy for addressing controversial topics in her work. Elena explained, “Just like the water tempering process, facilitation requires a gentle approach when dealing with sensitive issues. By creating a safe space for open dialogue, we allow for growth and understanding to emerge.”

In her role as the Executive Director, Elena has demonstrated the power of connection and relationships in driving positive change. She has gone to bat for the Native Hawaiian community, facing challenges and building connections between different stakeholders. Through her work, she has shown that fostering relationships and understanding are crucial elements in addressing complex issues and finding solutions that benefit everyone involved.

One of Elena’s most significant achievements has been creating opportunities for collaboration and dialogue between the indigenous community and the government. This has not only facilitated the allocation of resources for Native Hawaiian education but has also strengthened the ties between the two parties. In her words, “When we build connections and relationships with people from different backgrounds, we create a solid foundation for collaboration and understanding. This, in turn, leads to more effective solutions and a stronger sense of our collective responsibility to community.”

Elena’s story is a powerful testament to the importance of connection and relationships in both personal and professional settings. By nurturing these connections, we can create healthier organizations and communities where individuals feel supported, understood, and empowered to reach their full potential.

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), established in 1995, serves as another powerful testament to the importance of connection and relating in the healing process of a nation. Born out of the wounds of apartheid, the TRC aimed to provide a platform for victims and perpetrators alike to share their experiences and confront the harrowing truth about the country’s violent past. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the chair of the TRC, famously stated, “Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or our loved ones is not about pretending that things are other than they are… It is about finding a way in which to accept that which happened as that which happened, and then to move beyond it and to be willing to develop a new relationship.”

Through a process of public hearings, amnesty applications, and reparations, the TRC fostered understanding, forgiveness, and, ultimately, reconciliation among South Africans. The public hearings were instrumental in giving voice to the voiceless and allowing individuals to share their stories in a supportive environment. As one survivor, Nomonde Calata, poignantly said during her testimony, “Now that I have told the story, I feel like a great burden has been lifted from my shoulders.”

Despite its achievements, the TRC’s work was not without its challenges and controversies. Critics argue that the commission failed to hold all perpetrators accountable and that the reparations provided were insufficient to address the deep-rooted inequalities that persist in South African society. Nevertheless, the TRC’s efforts showcase the power of human connection in repairing deep-seated divisions and fostering a sense of unity.

By offering a space for individuals to engage with diverse perspectives and confront difficult truths, the TRC played a crucial role in helping South Africa move toward a more inclusive and equitable future. It demonstrated that open dialogue, empathy, and understanding can help build bridges between communities and lay the groundwork for healing.

The lessons learned from the TRC can be applied to various contexts, including personal relationships, community initiatives, and corporate environments. By fostering a culture of open communication and empathetic listening, we can encourage understanding, bridge divides, and create more harmonious relationships both in our personal lives and in the workplace.

In the workplace, facilitators can apply these principles by creating an environment where employees feel safe to express their ideas, engage with diverse perspectives, and collaborate effectively. This can be achieved through active listening, encouraging empathy, and fostering an atmosphere of trust and respect.

“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.”– Ralph G. Nichols

Here are some tips for facilitators and leaders to foster connection and relationships at work:

Encourage open dialogue: Foster an environment where team members feel comfortable expressing their opinions and ideas, even if they differ from the majority. Set group agreements or commitments that ensure this openness. By encouraging open dialogue, we create opportunities for understanding and learning, which can lead to more informed decisions and innovative solutions.
Cultivate empathy: Make an effort to understand the perspectives and experiences of others, even if they’re different from our own. By practicing empathy, we can break down barriers, reduce prejudice, and build stronger connections with those around us.
Engage in community-building activities: Participate in initiatives that bring people together, both within your organization and your local community. This could include team-building events, volunteering, or joining local clubs or groups. These activities can help strengthen bonds between individuals and promote a sense of belonging.
Practice active listening: When engaging in conversations, make a conscious effort to truly hear and understand what the other person is saying without judgment or interruption. Active listening helps to build trust and rapport and can lead to deeper connections and more productive discussions.
Be mindful of the language we use: Words have power, and the language we choose to use can either build connection or create division. Be mindful of the words you use in your communication, and strive to choose language that is inclusive, respectful, and empathetic.
Embrace diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging: Make a conscious effort to create a diverse and inclusive environment where everyone feels valued and included, regardless of their background, beliefs, or perspectives. And lean into conversations and issues of identity, power, privilege, and justice. By embracing these approaches, we can benefit from the rich tapestry of ideas and experiences that each individual brings to the table and create a culture where all team members belong.

The Importance of Connection and Relationships

The importance of connection and relationships at work cannot be ignored. By recognizing the negative consequences of disconnection and actively working to foster understanding, empathy, and collaboration, we can create a more inclusive and productive workplace that benefits everyone involved.

Facilitators and leaders play a critical role in promoting connection and relationships within organizations. By applying principles of empathy, active listening, and trust, they can bridge divides and encourage a culture of collaboration and growth.

As we continue to navigate an increasingly complex and interconnected world, nurturing connection and understanding at work is essential for building healthier organizations, driving innovation, and creating a more inclusive society.

“Connection is the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”– Brené Brown

As we move forward, it’s essential to prioritize connection and relationships at work. Reflect on your own experiences and consider the ways in which you can nurture stronger connections and understanding within your organization. Remember, you have the power to create a positive impact on your team and the overall work environment.

Consider the following steps as you work towards fostering connection and relationships:

Assess your current work environment: Identify areas where you can promote understanding, empathy, and collaboration.
Engage in open dialogue: Encourage open and honest conversations about the importance of connection and relationships within your team.
Seek opportunities for growth: Look for ways to learn from diverse perspectives and foster personal and professional growth for yourself and your team members.
Share your experiences: Share your own experiences of connection and understanding with others, and learn from their stories as well.
Stay committed to the process: Building and maintaining strong connections and relationships takes time and effort. Stay committed to the process and recognize that growth and understanding may not happen overnight.

By actively working to build connection and relationships at work, we can create healthier organizations, foster innovation, and contribute to a more inclusive and equitable society.

Let’s make a conscious effort to prioritize connection, empathy, and collaboration in our workplaces and beyond.

Image Credits: Unsplash, Voltage Control, Elena Farden

Article originally posted at VoltageControl.com

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Stereotypes – Are They Useful and Should We Use Them?

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Stereotypes - Are They Useful and Should We Use Them?

GUEST POST from Pete Foley

I recently got a call from an ex colleague looking to staff up a technology innovation organization. She was looking for suggestions for potential candidates, and when I asked her for a bit more more information, her first criteria was that she was looking for a ‘Gen Z’. This triggered an interesting conversation around how useful generational and other stereotypes are.

At one level, they are almost invaluable. We use stereotypes, categorization and other grouping strategies all of the time, both consciously and unconsciously. Grouping things together is a pragmatic part of how we as humans deal with large numbers of anything, whether it’s people, tasks, objects or pretty much anything, and are often a key tool in prediction. They are not always accurate or precise, but they are often a first step in how we distill large amounts of data or choices down to more manageable numbers, and/or how we begin to understand something unfamiliar. If a stranger were to point an unfamiliar gun at us at a stop sign, we can quickly determine that they are probably dangerous, likely a criminal, and that the gun is likely deadly. That kind of categorization and stereotyping might be the difference between life and death.

But these grouping strategies can also mislead us, especially if we don’t use them effectively. For example, in the case of generational stereotypes, when dealing with large numbers of people, it can be useful to break them down into generational groups. A targeted marketing campaign may benefit from knowing that people over a certain age are more likely to use different social media platforms than people under 20. Or a physician and patient may benefit from knowing certain age groups are more likely to face certain health issues and need screening for certain diseases. Stereotypes can also address fundamental differences in life experiences between generations. For example, Gen Z grew up immersed in a digital world, whereas earlier generations grew up acquiring digital skills, perhaps changing how we design interfaces for Medicare versus home schooling?.

But the key lies in the phrase ‘large groups of people’. There are times when its really useful and beneficial to make approximations on when dealing with large groups. But as tempting as it can be when having to make a quick judgement, or to quickly filter a large number of people, as in my friends original question, applying them to individuals is often misleading, and risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

No matter what grouping strategy we apply, we need to be really careful about applying them at an individual level. And there are of course many different ways to group things, whether it’s categorization, archetypes, stereotypes, sensory cues or many others, depending upon context and goals. I’ve deliberately blurred the lines between these, because in reality, people tap into different ones depending upon goals, contexts, personal experience or personal knowledge. And to a large degree, similar principles apply to all of them. That leads to a couple of concepts, which while pretty obvious, I think are worth sharing or reiterating:

1. Stereotypes can be useful when applied to large groups of people, but judging an individual through that lens is disingenuous in both directions. Take gender as an example. There are distinct, scientifically measured differences between men and women if we look at them at the large group level. These differences can be physical, behavioral or both. Perhaps the least controversial is that ON AVERAGE, men are taller and stronger than women. But importantly there is also massive overlap between genders, and there are many, many individual women who are taller and stronger than individual men. We intuitively get that, and nobody would recruit for a job that requires hard physical labor by ruling out women. But conversely, if we are designing a clothing line, we’d be foolish to ignore those average differences when developing sizing options and inventory. Gender differences are potentially useful when dealing with large numbers, but potentially highly misleading on an individual basis

Similarly, using generational stereotypes to target ‘digital natives’ for a tech job may superficially sound reasonable, as it did to my friend. But it risks ignoring strong candidates who may reside outside of that category. Even if Gen Z as a whole may arguably have a more intuitive understanding of tech, there are many individual Millennials, X’ers and Boomers who are more technically savvy than individual Z’ers. Designing software targeted at large groups of specific age groups may benefit from group categorization, but choosing who to write it on that basis is a lot less effective, if at all.

2. Grouping is how we often manage complex decisions. Faced with more than a few individual choices, pragmatically, we often have to find some way to narrow choice to manageable numbers. For example, in Las Vegas we have 2,500 restaurants. When deciding where to eat, we cannot consider each one individually. We instead use grouping filters like location, cost, cuisine, familiarity or ratings. It’s not perfect, it’s often not a conscious strategy, and we may miss a great restaurant, but it beats the alternative of starving while we cross reference 2500 individual options. Recruitment these days is similar. Most job openings get multiple candidates that we must narrow to manageable numbers. But we need to be careful that we carefully select criteria that benefit us and candidates. Those may vary by context. But especially as we defer screening and decision making to AI and automation, it’s so important that we really understand what those criteria are, and how they benefit our search. I’d argue that generational stereotypes are a particularly ineffective filter in narrowing our choices for many things, especially for recruiting or career management.

3. Not all stereotypes or categories are accurate. Even if they feel intuitively right, they may be neither accurate or predictive. In part this is because they are often based on (superficial) correlation, instead of causation. For example, historically a common stereotype was that women were considered less able at math and science than men. It was true that for a long time men were better represented in these fields. But the stereotype that men were were more skilled was fundamentally inaccurate. We now know there is no gender difference in that innate ability. But a mixture of social factors, and a feedback loop created by a self fulfilling stereotype created an illusion of meaningful difference. Conversely, men were considered less empathic than women. The actual science is far less clear on this, and there may be some small innate gender differences. But if they exist, they are sufficiently small that it’s hard to separate whether this is due to self reporting biases, socialization, or meaningful differences in biology. But certainly the difference is too small to preclude men from careers that require a high level of empathy, a stereotype that existed for quite some time in, for example, fields such as nursing, which were long dominated by women.

Even today, only 13% of registered nurses in the US are male, and only 31% of engineers are women Self fulfilling stereotypes can be particularly hard to see through, let alone break, because they reinforce their own illusion.

But all of this said, some stereotypes can still be useful. Take the stereotype that the Swiss are punctual, organized and ‘on time’. If you are planning on catching a train for an important flight, nearly 95% of trains in Switzerland arrived on time in 2025. In Italy, the number was less than 75%. That of course doesn’t guarantee than the Swiss train will be on time, or the Italian one won’t. But it does make it prudent to add a bit more padding into an Italian travel itinerary, or at least research back up options!

And then there are examples like the tomato. No matter how you pronounce it, the tomato is technically a fruit. But it is commonly used as a vegetable. So is it more practically useful to categorize it as a fruit or vegetable? I’d argue vegetable.

In conclusion, stereotype, categories, grouping and similar mechanisms are a fundamental part of the way we as humans deal with large amounts of data. And at least at one level, as the amount of data we are exposed to explodes, we are going to need those filters more than ever. But they can also be highly misleading, especially when applied to individuals, so we need to understand when and how to use them, and treat them with a lot of caution.

Image credits: Google Gemini

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Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of January 2026

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Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of January 2026 Drum roll please…

At the beginning of each month, we will profile the ten articles from the previous month that generated the most traffic to Human-Centered Change & Innovation. Did your favorite make the cut?

But enough delay, here are January’s ten most popular innovation posts:

Top 40 Innovation Authors of 2025 — Curated by Braden Kelley
Trust is a Gold Mine for Organizations, but it Takes a Bit of Courage — by Oscar Amundsen
Outcome-Driven Innovation in the Age of Agentic AI — by Braden Kelley
Building Your Dream Organization — by Braden Kelley
Why Photonic Processors are the Nervous System of the Future — by Art Inteligencia
Reimagining Personalization — by Geoffrey Moore
We Must Hold AI Accountable — by Greg Satell
The Keys to Changing Someone’s Mind — by Greg Satell
Concentrated Wealth, Consolidated Markets, and the Collapse of Innovation — by Art Inteligencia
It’s Impossible to Innovate When … — by Mike Shipulski

BONUS – Here are five more strong articles published in December that continue to resonate with people:

Is OpenAI About to Go Bankrupt? — by Chateau G Pato
The Rise of Human-AI Teaming Platforms — by Art Inteligencia
What Are We Going to Do Now with GenAI? — by Geoffrey Moore
Rebuilding Trust When You’ve Broken It — by David Burkus
Modeling Good Board Governance — by Geoffrey A. Moore

If you’re not familiar with Human-Centered Change & Innovation, we publish 4-7 new articles every week built around innovation and transformation insights from our roster of contributing authors and ad hoc submissions from community members. Get the articles right in your Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin feeds too!

Have something to contribute?

Human-Centered Change & Innovation is open to contributions from any and all innovation and transformation professionals out there (practitioners, professors, researchers, consultants, authors, etc.) who have valuable human-centered change and innovation insights to share with everyone for the greater good. If you’d like to contribute, please contact me.

P.S. Here are our Top 40 Innovation Bloggers lists from the last five years:

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What to Do When Your Plans Are Already Obsolete

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HINT: It has something to do with strategy execution

What to Do When Your Plans Are Already Obsolete

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

We are three full weeks into the new year and I am curious, how is the strategy and operating plan you spent all Q3 and Q4 working on progressing? You nailed it, right? Everything is just as you expected and things are moving forward just as you planned.

I didn’t think so.

So, like many others, you feel tempted to double down on what worked before or chase every opportunity with the hope that it will “future-proof” your business.

Stop.

Remember the Cheshire Cat, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”

You DO know where you’re going because your goals didn’t change. You still need to grow revenue and cut costs with fewer resources than last year.

The map changed. So you need to find a new road.

You’re not going to find it by looking at old playbooks or by following every path available.

You will find it by following these three steps (and don’t require months or millions to complete).

Return to First Principles

When old maps fail and new roads are uncertain, the most successful leaders return to first principles, the fundamental, irreducible truths of a subject:

Organizations are systems
Systems seek equilibrium and resist change when elements are misaligned
People in the system do what the system allows, models, and rewards

Returning to these principles is the root of success because it forces you to pause and ask the right questions before (re)acting.

Ask Questions to Find the Root Cause

Based on the first principles, think of your organization as a lock. All the tumblers need to align to unlock the organization’s potential to get to where you need to go. When the tumblers don’t align, you stay stuck in the dying status quo.

Every organization has three tumblers – Architecture (how you’re organized), Behavior (what leaders actually do), and Culture (what gets rewarded) – that must align to develop and execute a strategy in an environment of uncertainty and constant change.

But ensuring that you’ve aligned all three tumblers, and not just one or two, requires asking questions to get to the root cause of the challenges.

Is your leadership team struggling to align on a decision because they don’t have enough data or can’t agree on what it means? The Behavior and Culture tumblers are misaligned with the structure and incentives of Architecture

Are people resisting the new AI tools you rolled out? Architectural incentives and metrics, and leadership communications and behaviors are preventing buy-in.

Struggling to squeeze growth out of a stagnant business? Structures and systems combined with organization culture are reinforcing safety and a fixed mindset rather than encouraging curiosity and learning.

Align the Tumblers

When you diagnose the root causes you find the misaligned tumbler. And, in the process of bringing it into alignment, it will likely pull the others in, too.

By role modeling leadership behaviors that encourage transparent communication (no hiding behind buzzwords), quantifying confidence, and smart risk taking, you’ll also influence culture and may reveal a needed change in Architecture.

Modifying the metrics and rewards in Architecture and making sure that your communications and behavior encourage buy-in to new AI tools, will start to establish an AI-friendly culture.

Overhauling Architecture to encourage and reward actions that expand that stagnant business into new markets or brings new solutions to your existing customers, will build new leadership Behaviors will drive culture change.

Get to your Goals

It’s a VUCA/BANI world AND It’s only going to accelerate. That means that the strategy you developed last quarter and the operational plans you set last month will be obsolete by the end of the week.

But the strategy and the plan were never the goal. They were the road you planned based on the map you had. When the map changes, the road does, too. But you can still get to the goal if you’re willing to fiddle with a lock.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Four Ways to Manage Projects

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Four Ways to Manage Projects

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

There are four ways to run projects.

One – 80% Right, 100% Done, 100% On Time, 100% On Budget

Fix time
Fix resources
Flex scope and certainty

Set a tight timeline and use the people and budget you have. You’ll be done on time, but you must accept a reduced scope (fewer bells and whistles) and less certainty of how the product/service will perform and how well it will be received by customers. This is a good way to go when you’re starting a new adventure or investigating new space.

Two – 100% Right, 100% Done, 0% On Time, 0% On Budget

Fix resources
Fix scope and certainty
Flex time

Use the team and budget you have and tightly define the scope (features) and define the level of certainty required by your customers. Because you can’t predict when the project will be done, you’ll be late and over budget, but your offering will be right and customers will like it. Use this method when your brand is known for predictability and stability. But, be weary of business implications of being late to market.

Three – 100% Right, 100% Done, 100% On Time, 0% On Budget

Fix scope and certainty
Fix time
Flex resources

Tightly define the scope and level of certainty. Your customers will get what they expect and they’ll get it on time. However, this method will be costly. If you hire contract resources, they will be expensive. And if you use internal resources, you’ll have to stop one project to start this one. The benefits from the stopped project won’t be realized and will increase the effective cost to the company. And even though time is fixed, this approach will likely be late. It will take longer than planned to move resources from one project to another and will take longer than planned to hire contract resources and get them up and running. Use this method if you’ve already established good working relationships with contract resources. Avoid this method if you have difficulty stopping existing projects to start new ones.

Four – Not Right, Not Done, Not On Time, Not On Budget

Fix time
Fix resources
Fix scope and certainty

Though almost every project plan is based on this approach, it never works. Sure, it would be great if it worked, but it doesn’t, it hasn’t and it won’t. There’s not enough time to do the right work, not enough money to get the work done on time and no one is willing to flex on scope and certainty. Everyone knows it won’t work and we do it anyway. The result – a stressful project that doesn’t deliver and no one feels good about.

Image credit: Pexels

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Ranking Your Top 10 Micro Moments

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Ranking Your Top 10 Micro Moments

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

Everybody loves a Top X list. This past week I’ve read the Top 100 Best Comedy Movies of All Time, The 100 Best Episodes of the Century, and the NYT’s 100 Notable Books of 2025. And all this before we’re inundated with the Top 10 lists sports, politics, celebrity news, world news, and whatever other topic a writer can dream up.

Top X Lists are about big things, events that affect everyone or that will be remembered for decades. And while those Macro-moments are what stand out in our memories, they rarely define our everyday existence.

What are Micro-moments?

I first heard of Micro-moments in an interview between Dan Shipper, founder of Every, and Henrik Werdelin, founder of Prehype (an incubator that helped launch Barkbox and Ro Health). According to Werdelin:

Micro-moments for me are things when I’m in flow and things where I’m happy. It can’t be a big thing like having a family. It has to be a very concrete things like I like walking over the Brooklyn Bridge in the morning. It’s just something I get profoundly happy about, right? Or I like being in brainstorm meetings with (other entrepreneurs).

But his list of Micro-moments isn’t just a new-age happiness manifestation, it’s an actual decision-making tool. Werdelin explains:

I was basically trying to figure out what to do next and I was keeping all my options open. I got offered a job to run BBC Digital on the international side and then I got offered a job at a design agency called Wolf Collins who had an incredible CEO.

And so, I ended up having these 30 concrete [moments] where I’ve done stuff and then I started to use that as a way to measure options that would be thrown at me. The BBC sounded like it would be a lot of money, and it was like a cool job, and it would give me, I guess, self-esteem for a second. But then when I looked at what it would entail, none of the Micro-moments would be included so I was like, “ah, probably not for me.”

My first Micro-reactions

Eye roll: Thank goodness you had a list of Micro-moments so you could avoid the soul sucking horror of running BBC Digital!
Righteous indignation: Do you have any idea how hard it is out there to find a job? People would be thrilled to have a job that delivers only ONE Micro-moment of happiness?!
Breathe: Wait a second. What if Mico-moments don’t determine your role. What if Micro-moments…perhaps…mean a little bit more! (yes, that is a terrible rephrasing of the Grinch’s epiphany)

Micro-moments are more than moments of flow and joy. They’re the moments that make up our lives, relationships, and view of the world. They’re the moments that should be on our Top 10 lists but too often get crowded out by noisier, bigger moments.

They’re also things we can create, design for, and sometimes even control.

What are YOUR Micro-moments?

As the period of end-of-year reflection approaches, think about your Micro-moments. What small, concrete moments that brought you flow, joy, or peace, this year? Where were you? What were you doing? Who were you with? Jot them down.

When the new year dawns, go back to your list and get curious. What are the common themes, people, places, and activities in your Micro-moments. Write down what you notice.

As the year kicks into gear and everyone settles back into work and school routines, return to your list and start planning. How might you create more Micro-moments?

Life is made up of moments. Many of them are beyond our control. But some of them aren’t. And wouldn’t it be great to know which ones make us happiest so we can experience them more often?

Image credit: Pexels

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