The Two Main Opponents of Digital Success

The Two Main Opponents of Digital Success

GUEST POST from Howard Tiersky

I have written before about the importance of the role that emotion plays in driving your customer’s or audience’s behavior in digital channels.

When creating digital touch points, it is natural to focus on the capabilities and content that we believe customers will want, need, and hopefully love. This is essential as your digital touchpoint must have a strong core value proposition to the visitor in order to be viable.

However, it’s important to be aware of a psychological factor called Negativity Bias. What Negativity Bias says is basically that our negative emotions are more powerful in our psyche than our positive emotions. We might be excited about going on vacation, but if we are worried it might rain, those negative feelings can outweigh the positive ones.

At FROM we spend a lot of time testing websites, mobile apps and other digital experiences with real end-users and we get to observe their emotional reactions first-hand. After watching hundreds of these tests, I would have to say that our research confirms this idea of negativity bias. Simply put, no matter how promising or worthwhile a site is when it starts to trigger negative reactions in users, they usually abandon it quickly, no matter how initially interested they may have been. Note there is an exception to this rule which we call the Bruce Springsteen Rule – perhaps showing our age. For many years the TicketMaster site was quite terrible and yet when the moment came that a new Bruce Springsteen concert opened up for sale, tens of thousands of people would flock to the site and frankly just suffer through the purchase experience in order to get those tickets. So if your site experience is the digital equivalent of a Bruce Springsteen ticket (Millennials, please substitute Justin Bieber), then you may have found a way to neutralize negativity bias. Otherwise, read on.

So what are these negative reactions we get from users? There are a variety of possibilities, but there are two primary emotional villains that lead the pack: confusion and frustration.

Confusion is usually the first emotion we see. A user begins perhaps looking for a product or researching a topic, but he/she doesn’t fully understand the interface, the results they are getting or the labeling or language used. They start to feel confused. Confusion is a harmful emotion because it tends to make people feel that they are at fault. They are perhaps too stupid to figure out how to use the site or app. You might think,” Well that’s better than them blaming us!” but in fact, it’s not. They say the best thing you can do to have a great first date with someone is to leave them feeling great about themselves, and so it goes with digital experiences. If a user feels they aren’t smart enough to figure out your site or app, they may not blame you, but they leave nevertheless, so the outcome is basically the same.

And by the way they may in fact subconsciously blame you for making them feel dumb.

So how to avoid confusion? Study users’ paths through the site via task analysis, as we do here at FROM. Anytime we test a site, even a very successful one, we always find many points of confusion. It’s a matter of basic hygiene: sites are constantly changing, and it’s hard to make sure that every tweak is totally clear to everyone. Doing quarterly or at least annual user tests to make sure you are aware of any confusion “bombs” that may have been planted on your site is just good business. Furthermore, confusion-related problems are often inexpensive to fix. Sometimes it’s simply about rewording a button or moving a call to action. Sometimes it’s about just removing a feature that’s causing more confusion than benefit.

The second emotional villain is frustration. When you are frustrated you aren’t feeling at all confused — generally, you know exactly what the site is supposed to do; it just isn’t doing it! Frustration can be triggered by site defects, slow performance, check out process that are more steps than the user feels they “should be,” policies that don’t give the user the outcome they want, or missing features that the user perceives “everybody else has” which may actually just mean that Uber and Amazon have them. It’s quite easy to frustrate users today as their expectations are so incredibly high. Creating frustration in digital users is super-damaging to your brand because many users create a meaning around the frustration which is that the brand just doesn’t care. Users believe that brands should know what they expect and that if they aren’t providing it, there can be only reason: they just aren’t bothering. This, of course, may be a completely erroneous conclusion… in our experience very often clients don’t realize the points in their customer experience that are creating frustration until we conduct the user tests that reveal these problems.

Frustration problems are often easy to fix, but sometimes they can be very challenging because they may stem from underlying technology issues that are expensive to remediate. Nevertheless, it’s essential to understand where these problems exist and gauge the impact they are having on your business results, so that you can make an informed decision about whether or when to invest in addressing them.

In our experience, sites that offer something of value and manage to avoid creating confusion or frustration for their visitors are winners. The first step to getting there is a user-research focused assessment so that you can face the reality of the emotional reactions you are creating. Once that is understood, a roadmap to improvement can be developed and results measured along the way.

This article originally appeared on the Howard Tiersky blog

Image Credits: Pixabay

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

Five Must Reads for 2025

Five Must Reads for 2025

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

‘Tis the season for “year in review” and “top 10 lists.”  As fun (and sometimes frightening) as it is to look back, it is just as fun (and sometimes frightening) to look ahead.  After all, as innovators, that is what we naturally do.  So, in anticipation of the year ahead, here are 5 Must Reads to make 2025 far more fun than frightening.

(listed in alphabetical order by author’s last name so I can’t be accused of playing favorites)

Pay Up! Unlocking Insider Secrets of Salary Negotiation by Kate Dixon

Pay Up! Unlocking Insider Secrets of Salary Negotiation
  • This book is for everyone, especially… people who want to earn what they deserve
  • This book solves the problem of…the black box that is compensation and the fear of negotiating for what you’re worth
  • This book creates value by… Outlining a step-by-step system to:
    • Understand key terms and concepts and apply them to your situation
    • Research the information you need to confidently and competently negotiate
    • Know what to say and do (and NOT say or do) in the moment
  • Why I love this book: Full disclosure – Kate and I are friends, so I’ve had a front-row seat to her wisdom and humor (how many compensation books invoke Beyonce?) and the jaw-dropping impact she gets for her clients.  I’ve even gifted this book to others because I know it works!

Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work by Whitney Johnson

Disrupt Yourself - Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work
  • This book is for everyone, especially… people who are rethinking their careers and are ready for change
  • This book solves the problem of… knowing how to start redefining your career (and yourself)
  • This book creates value by… Turning Clayton Christensen’s Theory of Disruption into four principles for self-disruption, including:
    • Identifying your disruptive strengths
    • Stepping backward or sideways to grow
    • Patiently waiting for your career (and legacy) to emerge
  • Why I love this book: Two quotes: (1) “Disruption starts as an inside game” and (2) “Constraints can be the perfect remedy if you are having a difficult time.”

Live Big! A Manifesto for a Creative Life by Rochelle Seltzer

Live Big! A Manifesto for a Creative Life
  • This book is for everyone, especially… people who want to experience daily joy and creativity
  • This book solves the problem of…feeling stuck in the day-to-day reality of life, uncertain whit how to begin, and afraid to make big, drastic changes
  • This book creates value by… Offering 20 tips for:
    • Becoming a person who Lives Big, including slowing down, aligning to your purpose, and being patient
    • Acting big, including listening to your intuition, embracing change, and carrying on
    • Savoring the small joys of life, including the gorgeous design of the book
  • Why I love this book: Rochelle’s Discovery Dozen exercise is a game-changer.  I learned this tool when she was my coach, and I have continued to use it for everything from naming my business, to deciding if/when/how to act on an opportunity, and writing articles.

The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Steiner

The Coaching Habit - Say Less, Ask More - Change the Way You Lead Forever
  • This book is for everyone, especially... busy managers who want to be better people leaders
  • This book solves the problem of…balancing hands-on management with team empowerment and individual development
  • This book creates value by… Guiding you through seven questions that help you:
    • Work less hard while having more impact
    • Break cycles of team overdependence and workplace overwhelm
    • Turn coaching and feedback from an occasional formal event into a daily habit
  • Why I love this book: A copy of the 7 questions sits just below my monitor, reminding me to be curious, dig deeper, and that every decision is a choice to do one thing and not another.

Readers Choice!

Version 1.0.0
Version 1.0.0

It’s audience participation time!  In the comments below, drop YOUR recommendation for a 2025 Must Read.

Bonus points for telling us:

  • Who it’s for
  • Problem it solves
  • Value it creates
  • Why you love it

Image credit: MileZero, Misterinnovation.com

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

Moments and Movements Are Not the Same Thing

Moments and Movements Are Not the Same Thing

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

On September 17th, 2011, protesters began to flood into Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan. Declaring “We are the 99%” they planned to #Occupy Wall Street for as long as it took to make their voice heard. Similar protests soon spread like wildfire across 951 cities in 82 countries. It seemed to be a massive global movement of historic proportions.

But it wasn’t a movement. It was merely a moment. Within a few months, the streets and parks were cleared. The protesters went home and nothing much changed. #Occupy was, to paraphrase Shakespeare, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Certainly, no tangible aim was accomplished.

Failure has costs. Thousands of people for hours a day across several months adds up to billions of dollars worth of man-hours that could have been put to some useful purpose. Make no mistake. Creating positive change in the world takes far more than mobilization. You need a vision and a strategy, guided by values, designed to accomplish clear objectives.

Getting Beyond Grievance

Every change effort starts with a grievance. There’s something that people don’t like and they want it to be different. In a social or political movement that may be a corrupt leader or a glaring injustice. In an organizational context, the problem is usually something like falling sales, unhappy customers, low employee morale or technological disruption.

Whatever the case may be, the first step toward bringing change about is to understand that getting mired in grievance won’t get you anywhere. You can’t just complain about things you don’t like. You need to come up with an affirmative vision for how you would want things to be different and better.

The best place to start is by asking yourself, “if I had the power to change anything, what would it look like?” Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision for the civil rights movement was for a Beloved Community. Bill Gates’s vision for Microsoft was for a “computer on every desk and in every home.” A good vision should be aspirational. It should inspire.

One of the things I found in my research is that successful change leaders don’t try to move from grievance to vision in one step, but rather identify a Keystone Change, which focuses on a clear and tangible goal, includes multiple stakeholders and paves the way for future change, to bridge the gap.

For King, the Keystone Change was voting rights. For Gates it was an easy-to-use operating system. For your vision, it will undoubtedly be something different. The salient point here is that every successful transformation I have come across started out with a Keystone Change, so that’s where you will want to start as well.

Building In Constraints Through A Genome Of Values

Creating a clear vision for change is absolutely essential, but it’s only a first step. You also need to be clear and explicit about your values. While a vision for the future represents possibility, values represent constraints. Values make clear that we not only want things, but we’re also willing to incur certain costs to attain them.

For example, throughout his life, Nelson Mandela was accused of being a Communist, an anarchist, an extremist and worse. Yet when confronted with these accusations, he would always say that no one had to guess what he believed or what he was fighting for, because it was all written down in 1955 in a document called the Freedom Charter.

Importantly, the Freedom Charter imposed constraints on Mandela and his movement. When he rose to power, he couldn’t oppress white Afrikaners, because that would betray all that he’d been fighting for. That gave the movement credibility and power. Occupy, of course, was never clear or explicit about its values and never sought to constrain itself in any way. It’s activists were often seen as undisciplined and vulgar

In a similar vein, when Lou Gerstner set out to transform IBM in the 90s, he vowed that he would shift the company’s values from the “stack of its own proprietary technologies” to its “customers’ stack of business processes.” Yet it was his willingness to forego revenue on every sale to make good on this value is what made people believe in it. If not for that, it’s doubtful IBM would still be in business today.

Make no mistake. Values always cost something. If you are unwilling to bear costs and constraints, it isn’t a value. It’s a platitude. Change is always built on a foundation of shared values and common purpose. If you aren’t able to communicate clearly about what you believe and what you value, you can’t expect others to join you.

Mobilizing People To Influence Institutions

In October 2011, at the height of the #Occupy protests, the civil rights legend and Congressman John Lewis showed up at an #Occupy rally in Atlanta and asked to speak. He was refused. Some attributed the snub to racism among the privileged white protestors. Others faulted Lewis himself, who didn’t understand the complex rules of the rally.

The protester who led the charge to block Lewis, however, described a different motivation. For him, Lewis’s great crime was that he was part of the “two-party system” and therefore unworthy of trust. “Any organization that upholds the legitimacy of the two-party system simply buttresses interests opposed to those of everyday people,” the man said.

This is, of course, total nonsense. Every regime or status quo depends on institutions to support them. That’s why a key part of any transformation strategy is to mobilize people to influence the institutions that can bring change about. One major reason that #Occupy failed was that it mobilized people to do no more than sleep in parks and snarl out epithets.

Now consider Martin Luther King Jr., who was able to bring considerable influence to bear on the US political system, just as Thurgood Marshall and Charles Hamilton Houston did with the US legal system and Nelson Mandela did with international institutions. These men had at least as much reason to be skeptical as any #Occupy protester, but understood that it is institutions that have the power to make change real.

In our corporate work, we find the same principle applies. Would-be changemakers tend to construe institutions too narrowly. If it is an internal initiative, they overlook customers, industry associations, community leaders and other external stakeholders. If it is an externally facing initiative, they often overlook important internal stakeholders that can help.

Preparing For Your Moment

It’s easy to confuse a moment with a movement. A movement involves linking together small, but often disparate groups in the context of shared purpose and shared values. A moment occurs when an event triggers a temporary decrease in resistance to an action or idea that opens up a window of opportunity. Movements require preparation. Moments require little more than luck.

That’s why we see protesters suddenly fill the streets and then, almost as suddenly, dissipate with little or no impact. It’s why some startups catch investors’ imagination and race to billion-dollar unicorn status, only to crash and burn just as fast. Politicians’ fortunes rise and fall, social media stars have their moment in the sun before disappearing into obscurity.

Building a movement requires work. You need to get beyond mere grievances and articulate an affirmative vision. You need to identify and speak to shared values and build on common ground. You need to invite people to join your cause for their own reasons, which may be different from your own. And then you need to focus your efforts on influencing the institutions that can actually make a difference.

So we should never mistake a moment for a movement. However, we can build a movement in anticipation for a moment that we expect will come. Gandhi trained his disciples for ten years before the opportunity for the Salt March came along. King’s efforts failed in Albany, but triumphed in Birmingham under better circumstances. Polish protesters were ill-prepared in 1970, but learned from the mistakes and later brought down an empire.

The crucial point to remember is that moments of opportunity are rare. We need to prepare for them. So that when they happen and fortune smiles on us we are ready. We have everything in place. That’s how radical, transformational change comes about.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credits: Pexels

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.






Building Trust for High Performing Teams

Building Trust for High Performing Teams

GUEST POST from David Burkus

Trust is the bedrock upon which successful teams are built. High-performing teams are characterized by an elevated level of trust. This trust in high performing teams manifests in four distinct ways: teams trust each other to deliver, they trust that they can share new ideas, they trust that they can disagree, and they trust that they can make mistakes. Each of these aspects of trust contributes to the overall success and productivity of the team.

As a leader, it is your responsibility to set the tone and model trust within your team. This involves creating an environment where team members feel safe to share their ideas, voice their disagreements, and admit their mistakes. By doing so, you can foster a culture of trust that drives your team towards high performance.

In this article, we’ll review each type of trust in high performing teams and offer ways leaders can build each.

Teams Trust Each Other To Deliver

Trust in a team begins with the belief that each member will deliver on their commitments. This trust is built on clarity and understanding of each person’s role within the team. When team members understand how their work contributes to the overall team goals, they are more likely to feel accountable and deliver on their commitments. Lack of trust can manifest when people don’t know how their work fits into the team. This can lead to confusion, miscommunication, and ultimately, a failure to meet team objectives.

Regular team huddles can improve clarity and accountability, thereby fostering trust in the team’s ability to deliver. In huddles, the team meets at regular intervals to review progress, set new priorities, and discuss any potential roadblocks. Doing so as a team not only keeps everyone on the same page, over time it can instill a belief in each person that their teammates can deliver on their promises (assuming, of course, the teammates are actually delivering on their promises).

Teams Trust They Can Share New Ideas

High-performing teams are often characterized by their ability to generate and welcome new ideas. This requires a culture of trust where team members feel safe to share their out-of-the-box thinking. Diversity of experiences and perspectives can lead to innovative ideas that drive the team forward. But only if team members feel safe enough to share the innovative ideas that stem from their diverse perspectives.

Leaders play a crucial role in fostering this culture of trust. By modeling active listening and creating an environment where new ideas are considered and valued, leaders can encourage their team members to share their thoughts and contribute to the team’s innovation. When leaders demonstrate how to respect the new ideas of others, hearing them out fully, and discuss them, they not only teach the team how to do so but they send a message to everyone that “crazy” ideas are welcome here.

Teams Trust That They Can Disagree

Disagreements are a natural part of any team’s dynamics. As teammates from different backgrounds, perspectives or experiences discuss their problems or plan out critical tasks, they’re going to disagree on the best way forward. In low-performing teams, this conflict is often avoided, and ideas suppressed. However, in high-performing teams, disagreements are viewed as opportunities for growth and improvement. Team members trust that they can voice their disagreements and have their ideas challenged in a respectful and constructive manner.

Leaders can foster this trust by setting the tone for disagreements. When teammates speak up to disagree with a leader, it’s an opportunity to model respectful dissent and discussion. When teammates disagree with each other, it’s an opportunity for the leader to “referee” the conflict and establish ground rules for keeping conflict task focused. By welcoming disagreements and ensuring that everyone feels heard, leaders can create a safe space for constructive conflict and continuous improvement.

Teams Trust They Can Make Mistakes

Mistakes are inevitable in any team. Teams will make assumptions about the environment or get hit with unexpected changes. Failure on a team is unavoidable even on the highest-performing teams. In low-performing teams, failures quickly turn into blame sessions, which each member trying to save their own skin. However, in high-performing teams, mistakes are viewed as learning opportunities rather than failures. This requires a culture of trust where team members feel safe to admit their mistakes and learn from them.

In dysfunctional teams, people often hide their failures due to fear of judgment or exploitation. Leaders can counteract this by modeling vulnerability and admitting their own mistakes. This can help to build trust and create a safe environment for team members to learn and grow. When a team witnesses a leader taking responsibility for failure or admitting a shortcoming, they’re more likely to trust that leader in the future—and to trust each other.

Trust is the cornerstone of high-performing teams. It manifests in the team’s ability to deliver, share new ideas, disagree constructively, and admit mistakes. As a leader, it is your responsibility to foster this trust within your team. By setting the tone and modeling trust, you can create an environment where your team can thrive and do its best work ever.

Image credit: Pixabay

Originally published on DavidBurkus.com on October 30, 2023

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.






Uncertainty Isn’t Always Bad

Uncertainty Isn't Always Bad

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

If you think you understand what your customers want, you don’t.

If you’re developing a new product for new customers, you know less.

If you’re developing a new technology for a new product for new customers, you know even less.

If you think you know how much growth a new product will deliver, you don’t.

If that new product will serve new customers, you know less.

If that new product will require a new technology, you know even less.

If you have to choose between project A and B, you’ll choose the one that’s most like what you did last time.

If project A will change the game and B will grow sales by 5%, you’ll play the game you played last time.

If project A and B will serve new customers, you’ll change one of them to serve existing customers and do that one.

If you think you know how the market will respond to a new product, it won’t make much of a difference.

If you don’t know how the market will respond, you may be onto something.

If you don’t know which market the product will serve, there’s a chance to create a whole new one.

If you know how the market will respond, do something else.

When we have a choice between certainty and upside, the choice is certain.

When we choose certainty over upside, we forget that the up-starts will choose differently.

When we have a lot to lose, we chose certainty.

And once it’s lost, we start over and choose uncertainty.

Image credits: Pexels

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.






Creating A Connected Human Experience

Empathy Meets Technology

Creating A Connected Human Experience

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Because of AI, so much has changed in the way companies do business. The technology hit a tipping point when ChatGPT and other generative AI solutions moved from behind the scenes to public awareness in November 2022. Even if the public didn’t know exactly what ChatGPT-type products were, they had an idea. This created both excitement and fear. For companies and brands, it created opportunities to employ more powerful technology at a lower price. It also created confusion about which technology to choose, how to implement it quickly and whether to implement something as new as this at all.

One company that quickly adapted and transformed itself is C1, a technology solutions provider that serves nearly half of the Fortune 500 (and many others) and partners with more than 140 technology vendors that they help match to their clients’ needs. I had a chance to sit down with Jeffrey Russell, formerly a “transformation leader” and president of Accenture Canada, and now the CEO of C1, who shared how he is leading his company to grow through acquisition and meeting the company’s and its customers’ ever-changing goals.

In our interview on Amazing Business Radio, Russell shared, “In a financial restructuring, you really need to have your story right from the outset.” His formula is simple.

  1. Know what you’re really good at—your company’s superpowers.
  2. Know how you want the organization to change and how you plan to get there. Clarity is essential to getting an ownership group and other stakeholders to support your plan.
  3. Everyone on the team must tell the same story and communicate it clearly. You can’t afford miscommunication. You want to communicate the company’s vision and its long-term value and demonstrate confidence in the company’s future success.
  4. Finally, you must have patience. Over-communicate throughout the process to keep everyone aligned as you move forward.

Russell states, “In the end, leading a change like this is about taking control of your destiny so you can come out on the other end as a financially stronger organization in a better market position to innovate, deliver value to customers and sustain growth.”

While leading C1’s growth and transformation in the era of the AI technology boom, Russell never took his eye off what was most important to a company: the human experience. In addition to taking us through that overview, he also shared how to create a powerful connected human experience for both customers and employees, which is the focus of what follows. Below are his ideas (in bold) followed by my commentary:

  1. Two words that aren’t typically found in the same sentence are technology and empathy. Russell says, “Technology is stark. It’s cold, and often a barrier between the company and its customers.” The easiest way to explain this is that companies must find a balance between technology and the human-to-human (H2H) experience. While technology expands capabilities, you can’t afford to do it at the cost of the relationship. The concept of empathy means understanding what matters to customers. People must be the No. 1 consideration in a plan to acquire and implement new technology.
  2. Ensure technology serves human needs. As you seek a balance between tech and H2H, consider how the technology helps people. Does it make life easier for both customers and employees? And, to emphasize Russell’s concern about the overuse of tech, will it enable better connections?
  3. Use human experience to add new levels of business value. Without technology, what would the experience look like? Then, after implementing the technology, be sure it supports rather than disrupts the experience.
  4. Walk in the shoes of your customer! As “cool” as technology can be, pretend you’re the customer who isn’t quite as savvy with technology as you are. What’s the experience like? It must be easy, intuitive and almost human-like.

As we came to the end of the interview, Russell shared three A’s people should consider when referring to AI:

  1. Authentic Intelligence: Even if it is artificial, does the solution promote an authentic experience? Or will the technology come across to the customer as cold or stark?
  2. Augmented Intelligence: Think of augmented reality and how it enhances the virtual experience. AI augments intelligence. It may or may not work by itself, but when combined with the H2H experience, it supports and makes it easier for employees to help customers with their questions and problems.
  3. Actionable Intelligence: When you activate artificial intelligence, the implementation process should begin with what happens to the customer experience when it is applied. Just having something new or cool isn’t the reason to implement it. This concept takes us back to how the best companies seem to master the balancing act between technology and the H2H experience.

Rapid advances in AI technology bring both opportunities and challenges for businesses. As companies and brands explore, experiment and make their choices for what works best, Russell emphasizes never losing focus on creating a meaningful and connected experience. By balancing technology with empathy and understanding, businesses can not only survive but thrive in this new era.

Image Credits: Pixabay

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.






A Toolbox for High-Performance Teams

Building, Leading and Scaling

A Toolbox for High-Performance Teams

GUEST POST from Stefan Lindegaard

Together with a client, we are developing a toolbox for building, leading, and scaling high-performance teams. We are about to begin the implementation phase and will share case stories in a few months, as there are valuable learnings in this process.

For now, you are welcome to use this toolbox. See the introduction and images below, and if you see a match, get in touch with your feedback and questions about utilization and implementation within your teams and organization.

Here’s a short overview of the toolbox. The attached images also provide a glimpse (let me know if I should send you an image deck with all of this combined):

Capability Gap Map

The Capability Gap Map tool helps identify and understand the current status, future desired position, and gaps that need to be filled across different focus areas. The key elements are 7-12 indicators that are prioritized, assessed today, and considered for the future position.

Steps for Using the Capability Gap Map:

  1. Identify Indicators: Select 7-12 key indicators relevant to the focus area.
  2. Prioritize Indicators: Rank the indicators based on their importance and impact.
  3. Rate Current State: Assess the current state for each indicator.
  4. Assess Future State: Define the desired future state for each indicator.
  5. Develop Action Plans: Create a one-pager outlining short, mid, and long-term actions to bridge the gaps.

SEBL (Stop, Enhance, Borrow, Learn)

SEBL is a tool to help leaders and their teams understand what to Stop, Enhance, Borrow, and Learn based on the Capability Gap Map. This tool can spur reflections and help drive specific actions.

Steps for Using SEBL:

  1. Stop: Identify and eliminate ineffective practices to free up resources and provide clarity.
  2. Enhance: Improve what’s already working well, capitalizing on strengths.
  3. Borrow: Look outward for inspiration and adapt successful practices from other sources.
  4. Learn: Push boundaries, innovate, and introduce entirely new concepts or skills.

Action Overviews

The Action Overview is a short document for leaders and their teams to create an overview of their upcoming actions. It can be used for individuals as well as teams and is useful for sharing the current focus with team members and stakeholders to get feedback and leverage networks.

Steps for Action Overviews:

  1. Focus & Description: Define your key action and relate it to your team’s objectives.
  2. Expected Outcomes & Metrics/KPIs: Detail what you aim to achieve and the metrics to measure these outcomes.
  3. Resources & Team Collaboration: Identify needed resources and potential for cross-functional collaboration.
  4. Stakeholders: Identify relevant internal and external stakeholders and their attitudes toward the action.
  5. Milestones/Deadline: Break down the action into manageable milestones, each with its own deadline.

Additional Tools

This toolbox is still in the early phases, and we are starting to implement it while developing other tools. If you are curious, we can also develop tailored Team Dynamics Cards, exercises, assessments, and other insights to support the above actions. You can access my library with over 250 images, 50+ cards on Team Dynamics and Leadership Growth, and more than 30 exercises. Custom materials can also be created for your teams or organization.

Feel free to use and share these tools. I look forward to your feedback and questions on implementing them within your teams and organization. If you’d like a complete image deck or more details, just let me know!

Image Credits: Unsplash, Stefan Lindegaard

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.






The Twelve Killers of Innovation

A Corporate Carol About Why You’re Not Getting Results

The Twelve Killers of Innovation

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

Last week, InnoLead published a collection of eleven articles describing the root causes and remedies for killers of innovation in large organizations.  Every single article is worth a read as they’re all written by experts and practitioners whose work I admire.

I was also inspired.

In the spirit of the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, I gave into temptation, added my own failure mode, and decided to have a bit of fun.

The Twelve Killers of Innovation

(Inspired by the Twelve Days of Christmas yet relevant year-round)

On the twelfth day of innovating, management gave to me:

Twelve leaders short-term planning

Eleven long projects dragging

Ten cultures resisting

Nine decisions made too quickly

Eight competing visions

Seven goals left unclear

Six startups mistrusted

Five poorly defined risks

Four rigid structures

Three funding black holes

Two teams under-staffed

And a bureaucracy too entrenched to change

Want to write a happier song?

Each of the innovation killers can be fended off with enough planning, collaboration, and commitment.  To learn how, check out the articles:

Twelve leaders short-term planning – 3 Examples of Why Innovation is a Leadership Problem by Robyn Bolton, MileZero

Eleven long projects dragging – Failing Slow by Clay Maxwell, Peer Insight

Ten cultures resisting – How to Innovate When Resistance is Everywhere by Trevor Anulewicz, NTT DATA

Nine decisions made too quickly – Red Light, Green Light by Doug Williams, SmartOrg Inc.

Eight competing visions – The Five Most Common Innovation Failure Modes by Parker Lee, Territory Global

Seven goals left unclear – Mitigating Common Failure Modes by Jim Bodio, BRI Associates

Six startups mistrusted – Developing a New Corporate Innovation Model by Satish Rao, Newlab

Five poorly defined risks – Strategic Innovation is too Scary by Gina O’Connor, Babson College

Four rigid structures – Corporate Innovation is Dead by Ryan Larcom, High Alpha Innovation

Three funding black holes – Failure Modes by Jake Miller, The Engineered Innovation Group

Two teams under-staffed – Why Innovation Teams Fail by Jacob Dutton, Future Foundry

And a bureaucracy too entrenched to change – Building Resilient Teams by Frank Henningsen, HYPE Innovation

How are you going to make sure that you receive gifts and not coal this year for all your innovation work?

Image credit: Pexels

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

Profiting From Fear and Mistrust

Profiting From Fear and Mistrust

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

When I lived and worked in Ukraine, it was commonplace to see men in camouflage fatigues and Uzi’s in the waiting rooms of offices around town. They weren’t there as security, or to rob the place, but to help transfer money between businesses. It was cumbersome and inefficient, but in an atmosphere of mistrust, it was a necessity.

In most countries, we’re still a long way from armed couriers as a daily routine, but according to Edelman’s recent Trust Barometer, we’re headed in that direction. Entitled “Innovation in Peril,” it details an overall collapse of confidence, finding that roughly two thirds believe that journalists, government leaders, and business executives, are “purposely trying to mislead.”

That’s a problem for all of us. Mistrust is corrosive to the norms that help our society run efficiently and the costs are very real. Our lack of trust in government prevents us from making needed investments. Suspicions about law enforcement undermine public safety. Mistrust in the workplace undermines performance. We desperately need to rebuild trust.

The Value Of Trust

Trust isn’t our natural state. Economists have developed a number of models to show how fragile it can be. For example, in a prisoner’s dilemma, two suspects are brought in for questioning. If they both stay true to each other, they get the best collective outcome, but if each follows his or her own self-interest, both will confess and get the worst overall outcome.

Related concepts are the tragedy of the commons, in which everybody has access to a common field to graze their livestock, depleting the resource so that everybody’s herd suffers, and the free rider problem which often occurs with respect to public goods. These situations are known as Nash equilibriums because nobody can change their preference without making themselves worse off.

When you take a moment to think, it’s kind of amazing that we operate with as much trust as we do. Local businesses faithfully serve communities for years, even decades. Corporations spend billions to build brands and governments work to earn legitimacy. That is what allows us to easily transact business throughout the day. When trust collapses, we get Uzis in waiting rooms.

Yet it doesn’t have to be that dramatic. Research by Accenture found that “trust events” cost businesses billions of dollars every year. For example, a consumer-focused company that had a sustainability-oriented publicity event backfire lost an estimated $400 million in future revenues. Another company that was named in a money laundering scandal lost $1 billion.

Profiting From Our Mistrust

Our brains are geared for mistrust in a number of ways. The first is a bias for loss aversion. We will do more to avoid a loss than we will for an equivalent gain. That makes trust hard to build and easy to lose, which is why the “trust events,” like those cited in the Accenture study, are so costly.

Another contributing factor is availability bias, our tendency to overweight easily accessible examples, such as a specific trust event, and ignore vague concepts, like years of good service. Once we accept a belief, our confirmation bias will lead us to seek out information that supports our prior beliefs and reject contrary evidence.

These effects are multiplied by tribal tendencies. We form group identities easily, and groups tend to develop into echo chambers, which amplify common beliefs and minimize contrary information. We also tend to share more actively with people who agree with us and, with little fear of rebuke, we are less likely to check that information for accuracy.

That, essentially, is the economics of disinformation. Fear breeds mistrust, which makes us feel insecure and leads us to seek out people we identify with to reinforce our beliefs. Research suggests media companies, especially social media companies, profit from the passions that the most polarizing information unleash in the form of greater engagement with their platforms.

Facts, Identity and Fear

We tend to think of truth as a simple matter of knowledge and understanding. We see the world as a set number of facts and believe that any disagreements arise from a lack of clarity about what the true facts are. In this view, mistrust can be corrected by better access to good information. Once people are informed, how could there be any disagreement?

Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way. In fact, a study at Ohio State found that, when confronted with scientific evidence that conflicted with their views, people would question the objectivity of the science. Another thing to consider is that, as Sam Arbesman explained in The Half-Life of Facts, our ideas about what’s true changes over time.

We can’t rigorously test every proposition, which is why we adopt the views of those around us, a phenomenon that psychologists call social proof. What makes the effect even more insidious, is that the relationship is reciprocal. We internalize the ideas of the tribes we join and then propagate those same ideas to others, intensifying the echo chamber.

Our beliefs are far more than mere acceptance of sets of facts, but become inherently part of our identity. Wars are not fought over ideologies because people disagree about empirical evidence, but because they see their sense of selves under attack. If truth is a force for good, then those who refuse to accept our version of it are, in the most basic sense of the word, evil.

From Victimization To Empowerment Through Purpose

Our ability to trust others is, to a great extent, a function of how we see ourselves and our situation. If we see ourselves as secure and in tune with our environment, it’s relatively easy for us to build bonds of trust. If we feel those around us share our values, it’s easier to feel a shared sense of identity and purpose.

However, if we see our surroundings as hostile, we will take steps to protect ourselves and that, to a great extent, is where we are at today. First the Internet, and then social media have tended to promote and juxtapose the most extreme elements, creating an atmosphere of heightened conflict among tribes, which further undermines our sense of security and trust.

This is what Marshall McLuhan meant when he wrote that the global village would result in a “release of human power and aggressive violence” greater than ever in human history. When we are confronted with ideas and values that are different from our own, it can feel more more like an assault and an affront than a refreshing interaction with the variety of life.

Here Ukraine offers a lesson. Over the past decade it has built a new identity and found a new purpose. Today most Ukrainians, especially the younger generations, feel a stronger affinity for European values than for their post-Soviet past. In fact, they have so internalized their European ambitions that they are willing to risk a war to maintain them.

We have a similar challenge before us. If a common identity is forged from shared values and shared purpose, on what foundation will we build our future? To what common project can we devote our energies? What are our ambitions and how best might we fulfill them? These are the questions that we need to answer if we are ever to rebuild the bonds of trust.

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

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.






Don’t Slow Roll Your Transformation

Don't Slow Roll Your Transformation

GUEST POST from Geoffrey A. Moore

Business pundits love to talk about transformation, and consultants drool at the opportunity to tap into a limitless budget, but the truth is, transformations suck.

At minimum, transformation consists of re-engineering your operating model while continuing to operate, with even greater disruption involved if you are revamping your business model at the same time. Now, if you are a privately held enterprise, you might be able to sell this to your board as a “pivot,” and indeed, in the venture world, there is some accommodation built in for such moves. Not so, however, for companies whose shares are publicly held. If this describes you, fasten your seatbelt and read on.

Transformations come with “J curves”—financial projections that have you swimming underwater for some considerable period before you emerge reborn on the other side. Public investors hate J curves. They also worry prospective customers, as well as ecosystem partners, not to mention your own employees. Only a VC loves a J curve, but their attention is on a younger generation.

Nonetheless, everyone understands there are situations where transformation is warranted. For public companies, the most common cause is when the entire franchise is under existential threat. A new technology paradigm is going to categorically obsolete the core franchise, as digital photography did to Kodak, as digital media did to BusinessWeek, as wireless telephony is doing to wireline. It was an existential threat that caused Microsoft to displace its back office software business with Azure’s cloud services, even though the gross margins of the latter were negative while the net margins of the former were stupendous. It was an existential threat that drove Lou Gerstner to reengineer IBM’s hardware-centric business model to focus on services and software. Failure to transform means dissolution of the enterprise. If you are to survive, there are times when you simply have to bite the bullet.

That said, you still have to confront the issue of time. Everyone understands that a transformation will take more than one year, but no one is willing to tolerate it taking three. That is, by the end of the second year you have to be verifiably emerging from the J curve, head out of water, able to breathe positive cash flow, or else you are likely to be written off. That means transformational initiatives should be planned to complete in seven quarters, plus or minus one. That’s the amount of time you can be in the ICU before you risk getting transferred to hospice care.

So, if a transformation is in your future, and you really cannot work around it, then start your planning with the end in mind and calendar that end for seven quarters out. Now, work backward to determine where you will have to be by each of the intervening quarters in order to meet your completion date. When you get back to the current quarter, expect to see you are already two or three quarters behind schedule (not fair, I know, but I already told you that transformations suck). Suppress panic, conduct triage, and start both your engines and the clock.

Final point: given the lack of time and the amount of risk involved, there is only one sensible way to approach a transformation. Prioritize it above everything else, and keep everyone focused on making the intermediate milestones until you are well and truly out of danger. Transformations are no joking matter. Most companies lose their way. Don’t let that be true of you and yours.

That’s what I think. What do you think?

Image Credit: Pixabay

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.