Don’t Blame Quiet Quitting for a Broken Business Strategy

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Don't Blame Quiet Quitting for a Broken Business Strategy

GUEST POST from Soren Kaplan

When it comes to “quiet quitting,” the bigger issue may be a lack of purpose and meaning in your company and culture.

The term “quiet quitting” recently exploded on social media and in business circles. It describes an approach to work that has you doing the very barest minimum to meet your responsibilities. You don’t go above and beyond what’s needed. You do exactly what’s in your job description. Nothing more.

Quiet quitting has become a term to describe the ultimate “disengagement” at work. It flies in the face of the thousands of employee engagement initiatives the exist across U.S. companies today. No wonder it’s a big concern.

I believe there are two ways to look at the uproar surrounding quiet quitting.

1. Quiet quitting has always existed and is normal

One way to look at quiet quitting is that it simply highlights what’s existed forever–that some people just go to work for a paycheck and their “central life interests” lie elsewhere. This topic was in fact the focus of my PhD research many years ago. I analyzed 50 years of workplace motivation data and ultimately concluded most people don’t view their work as their primary life interest. They may still perform at an acceptable level, so they don’t get fired, but they prefer other things like leisure time, family, friends, and community activities over work. They view their job as a means to the end of doing other things outside of work. There was one exception–for senior executives, work provided a greater sense of identify and central life focus.

So, the first way to look at quiet quitting is this: It’s normal. Khan’s TikTok video simply articulated what’s always been true. The uproar arose because the concept challenges the underlying assumption that companies can successfully influence people’s central life interests, so they become more focused on work. Perhaps all the resources we’ve poured into trying to do that for so many years may have actually been futile.

2. Quiet quitting results from a lack of meaning and purpose

Another way to view quiet quitting is that it’s the result of a lack of purpose and meaning in work. If you wholeheartedly believed in your company’s vision, wouldn’t you give it your all? If you felt deeply connected to your company’s purpose, wouldn’t you want to go beyond your job description to make it a reality?

From this perspective, it’s just a matter of clearly defining your purpose and a compelling vision, and then helping everyone see their role in achieving it. It’s a more empowering lens, especially for the internal business functions focused on employee engagement, communication, culture, and strategy.

The goal then is to outline the “why” of your company, including the positive contributions you’ll make for customers and the world. Build a strategy that’s so compelling people won’t want to quiet quit at all. They’ll want to step up and lead the charge.

Moving Forward with Your Quiet Quitting Strategy

The disruptions of the past few years have challenged fundamental assumptions about life and work. Quiet quitting may simply be a pithy word to describe a reality that existed long before the pandemic, but that was amplified because of it.

The two lenses I described don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Both can be true at the same time. If you hold both as valid, your goal is simple: Create a compelling strategy to bring people on board. Give people all the reason in the world not to quietly quit. Then, recognize that some may jump on, others might not. And that’s not just okay, but may also be the new (and old) normal.

Image Credit: Pexels

Check out my new book Experiential Intelligence. The first chapter is available for free download, and the book is available on Amazon.

This article was originally published on Inc.com and has been syndicated for this blog.

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Accelerating Innovation Cycles with AI

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From Idea to Impact

Accelerating Innovation Cycles with AI

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

The innovation landscape has always been a race against time. Ideas are plentiful, but transforming them into tangible impact—a new product, an optimized process, a groundbreaking service—often involves arduous cycles of research, development, testing, and refinement. In today’s hyper-competitive, human-centered world, this pace is simply no longer sufficient. As a thought leader in change and innovation, I believe the single most powerful accelerator for these cycles is Artificial Intelligence. AI isn’t just a tool; it’s a paradigm shift, enabling us to move from nascent concepts to measurable outcomes with unprecedented speed and precision.

For too long, the innovation journey has been characterized by bottlenecks: manual data analysis, slow prototyping, biased feedback interpretation, and iterative development that could stretch for months or even years. AI offers a compelling antidote to these challenges, supercharging every phase of the innovation process. It’s about augmenting human creativity and insight, not replacing it, allowing our teams to focus on the truly strategic and empathetic aspects of innovation while AI handles the heavy lifting of data crunching, pattern recognition, and rapid iteration.

The AI Accelerator: How AI Transforms Each Stage of Innovation

The true power of AI in innovation lies in its ability to enhance and speed up various stages of the innovation cycle:

  • Discovery & Ideation: AI can rapidly analyze vast datasets—market trends, customer feedback, scientific research, patent databases—to identify emerging white spaces, unmet needs, and potential synergies that human teams might miss. Generative AI can even assist in brainstorming novel concepts, providing diverse starting points for human ingenuity.
  • Concept Development & Prototyping: AI-powered design tools can generate multiple design variations based on specified parameters, simulate performance, and even create virtual prototypes in a fraction of the time it would take human designers. This allows for faster testing of diverse ideas.
  • Validation & Testing: Predictive AI models can forecast market reception for new products or features by analyzing historical data and customer behavior, reducing the need for extensive, costly live testing. AI can also analyze user feedback (sentiment analysis) from early tests to quickly identify areas for improvement.
  • Optimization & Launch: AI can optimize product features, pricing strategies, and marketing campaigns in real-time, learning from live data to maximize impact post-launch. For internal process innovations, AI can identify inefficiencies and suggest optimal workflows.
  • Learning & Iteration: Post-launch, AI continuously monitors performance, identifies emerging patterns in customer usage, and suggests further improvements or next-gen features, effectively creating a perpetual feedback loop for continuous innovation.

“AI doesn’t just speed up innovation; it fundamentally redefines the possible, turning months into days and guesses into data-driven insights.”

Human-Centered AI for Innovation: A Crucial Distinction

It’s vital to emphasize that integrating AI into innovation must remain human-centered. The goal is not to automate innovation away from people, but to empower people to innovate better, faster, and with greater impact. AI should serve as an invaluable co-pilot, handling the computational burden so that human teams can focus on:

  • Empathy and Understanding: Interpreting the emotional nuances of customer needs that AI cannot grasp.
  • Strategic Vision: Setting the direction, defining the ethical guardrails, and making the ultimate strategic decisions.
  • Creative Problem-Solving: Leveraging AI’s insights to spark truly original, human-relevant solutions.

Case Study 1: Pharma Research Acceleration with AI (BenevolentAI)

The Challenge:

Drug discovery is notoriously slow, expensive, and high-risk. Identifying potential drug candidates for specific diseases often takes years of laborious research, involving sifting through vast amounts of scientific literature and conducting countless lab experiments. The human-driven cycle from initial idea to clinical trial could span a decade or more.

AI as an Accelerator:

BenevolentAI, a leading AI drug discovery company, uses its platform to accelerate this process dramatically. Their AI system can:

  • Analyze Scientific Literature: Rapidly process and understand millions of scientific papers, clinical trial results, and proprietary datasets to identify relationships between genes, diseases, and potential drug compounds that human scientists might overlook.
  • Generate Hypotheses: Propose novel hypotheses for drug targets and disease mechanisms, suggesting existing drugs that could be repurposed or identifying entirely new molecular structures for development.
  • Predict Efficacy and Safety: Use predictive modeling to assess the likelihood of success and potential side effects of drug candidates early in the process, reducing wasted effort on less promising avenues.

The Result:

By leveraging AI, BenevolentAI has significantly reduced the time it takes to identify and validate promising drug candidates. For example, they identified a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease, successfully repurposing an existing drug, and advancing it to clinical trials in a fraction of the traditional timeframe. This acceleration means getting life-saving treatments to patients faster, transforming the innovation cycle from an agonizing crawl to a rapid, data-driven sprint, all while maintaining strict human oversight and ethical considerations.

Case Study 2: Generative AI in Product Design (Nike)

The Challenge:

Designing high-performance athletic footwear involves a complex interplay of biomechanics, material science, aesthetics, and manufacturing constraints. Iterating on designs to optimize for factors like weight, durability, and shock absorption used to be a time-consuming, manual process involving physical prototypes and extensive testing. The innovation cycle for a new shoe model could take 18-24 months.

AI as an Accelerator:

Companies like Nike have begun integrating generative AI into their product design processes. Generative design algorithms can:

  • Explore Design Space: Given a set of design parameters (e.g., desired weight, material properties, aesthetic guidelines), the AI can rapidly generate hundreds or thousands of unique sole structures or upper designs. These designs often push the boundaries of human intuition, creating novel geometries optimized for performance.
  • Simulate Performance: AI-powered simulation tools can instantly analyze the generated designs for factors like stress points, airflow, and energy return, providing immediate feedback on their potential performance without needing to build physical prototypes.
  • Suggest Material Optimization: The AI can also suggest optimal material combinations or placement to achieve desired characteristics, further speeding up the development process.

The Result:

The integration of generative AI allows Nike’s design teams to explore a vastly larger array of design possibilities and to iterate on ideas at an accelerated pace. What once took weeks or months of manual design and physical prototyping can now be achieved in days. This not only shortens the overall innovation cycle for new footwear (reducing time-to-market) but also leads to more innovative, higher-performing products that better meet the specific needs of athletes. The human designer remains at the helm, guiding the AI and making critical creative choices, but their capabilities are amplified exponentially.

Conclusion: The Future of Innovation is Intelligent

The journey from a raw idea to a market-ready innovation has never been faster, nor more critical. Artificial Intelligence is not merely an optional add-on; it is becoming an essential engine for accelerating innovation cycles across every industry. By intelligently augmenting human capabilities, AI allows organizations to move beyond incremental improvements to truly transformative breakthroughs.

As leaders, our role is to embrace this technological evolution with a human-centered approach. We must leverage AI to free our teams from mundane tasks, empower them with deeper insights, and enable them to focus their unique creativity and empathy where it truly matters. The future of innovation is intelligent, collaborative, and, above all, accelerated. It’s time to harness AI to build a future where every great idea has a fast track to impact.

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

Image credit: Microsoft CoPilot

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Bridging the Gap Between Strategy and Reality

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Bridging the Gap Between Strategy and Reality

by Braden Kelley

Recently I had the opportunity to interview Whynde Kuehn, author of the new book Strategy to Reality.

Whynde Kuehn is the Founder and Managing Director of S2E Transformation. Whynde is a recognized global thought leader and a long-time pioneer, practitioner and educator in digital transformation, strategy execution and business architecture, a foundational discipline for enabling end-to-end transformation and organizational agility. She regularly speaks, writes and chairs/co-chairs events with a mission to advance best practices and facilitate community and advocacy across the globe. Whynde is Co-Founder, Vice President, and Academic Committee Chair of the Business Architecture Guild®, a not-for-profit organization focused on the advancement of the business architecture discipline.

The interview dives into how to move big ideas into action, along with exploring several business architecture, strategy and digital transformation topics.

Without further ado, here is the transcript of that interview:

1. What is the difference between an enterprise architect and a business architect?

We can generally think of enterprise architects as professionals who facilitate the development and usage of enterprise architecture to enable effective strategy execution, decision-making, and macro-level design for their organization and the ecosystem in which it operates.
For reference, the Federation of Enterprise Architecture Professional Organizations (FEAPO) characterizes enterprise architecture as “a well-defined practice for conducting enterprise analysis, design, planning, and implementation, using a holistic approach at all times, for the successful development and execution of strategy. Enterprise architecture applies architecture principles and practices to guide organizations through the business, information, process, and technology changes necessary to execute their strategies. These practices utilize the various aspects of an enterprise to identify, motivate, and achieve these changes.”

Enterprise architecture is comprised of multiple architecture domains, which we can think of as business architecture + IT architecture, where IT architecture includes application architecture, data architecture, and technical architecture. In practice, some organizations structure with architects practicing within each architecture domain specialty who collaborate with each other (with no overall enterprise architect role) while other organizations have both an overall enterprise architect role in addition to the specialized architect roles. In the latter case, while an enterprise architect focuses across all architecture domains, they often tend to be T-shaped or V-shaped where they are deeper in one specialty over another.

So, what is the difference between an enterprise architect and a business architect? The answer is somewhat dependent on the context of an organization’s structure and practice, but generally speaking, an enterprise architect practices across all architecture domains, where a business architect focuses just on the business architecture domain (and partners with other architects). Additionally, here are a few important things to keep in mind:

  • All architects should share a base set of competencies as well as those specific to their area of specialization
  • All architects should be fluent in their organization’s business architecture
  • Close partnership and integration across all architecture domains and architect roles is critical for success, this includes cohesiveness of the architecture knowledgebase as well as how architects work together (and with other roles) to deliver value to the organization
  • To maximize value, the business architect role should be business-focused and strategically positioned
  • Business architects can focus on different scopes, from the full enterprise to a set of capabilities to a specific business domain; they always consider the bigger picture though regardless of scope

2. Why do organizations need business architects?

We know that organizations are going through a time of tremendous transformation, and that change and disruption are part of our new normal. A business architecture is most useful in the context of change, which is why we have seen an increase in adoption of the discipline worldwide. Business architects help organizations to create a clear and shared macro level understanding of where the organization is today, where it is going in the future, and how it will get there.

Business architects play a unique (and often missing) role to help inform and translate strategy into the cohesive set of changes needed across people, process, and technology to make that direction real (using value streams and capabilities as a key means to organize changes). They also help to ensure alignment across an organization. This includes both ensuring that the initiatives and solutions delivered meet the original business and architectural direction as well as ensuring that investments in capabilities (implemented through people, process, and technology) are appropriately harmonized across business units, products, and geographies.

Beyond their unique role in helping to inform, translate, and align strategy to execution, business architects also help to steward their organization’s business architecture knowledgebase. A business architecture is like a blueprint that provides a shared language and mental model for an entire organization, and it is owned by the business. A business architecture can and should be used by anyone in an organization for decision-making and an important part of the business architect role is to support others in doing so.

The diagram below reflects the contemporary practice of business architecture as context for questions 1 and 2. Business architecture lives in two worlds, first as part of the enterprise architecture umbrella (right) but also as a key contributor in a strategic management context (left).

Whynde Kuehn Business Architecture Diagram

3. What does it take to be a good business architect?

There are a few characteristics that encapsulate how good business architects think and act. For example, they are value-driven and focus on business value, outcomes, and results for their organization and its customers or constituents. Business architects are business-minded with a strong command of how business works, how to evolve business models and formulate strategies to win, and how to design an organization for effectiveness and agility (this includes having a command of technology and how to leverage it strategically). They are enterprise advocates, always bringing people together across organizational silos and back to the bigger picture of the enterprise. Business architects are bridge builders, knowing that it takes an ecosystem of teams to translate strategy into action and run an organization successfully. While business architects perform unique responsibilities, they also build close partnerships with others because they realize their own success – and the success of the organization – depends on making other people successful. Business architects are also visualizers and storytellers to create clarity and common understanding and they serve as change agents for new ideas. Business architects help to simplify, visualize, and explain complex concepts and show new connections.

Beyond these characteristics, a great business architect needs a depth of knowledge and experience including building a business architecture baseline (capabilities, information concepts, and value streams) at the enterprise level architecting change initiatives, and working across the life cycle from strategy to execution.

Becoming a great business architect is a journey that takes time, but a very rewarding one along the way. A truly successful business architect majors in business architecture, but minors in other disciplines and frameworks. The most adept business architects think strategically and architecturally to facilitate strategy execution and solve complex problems, leveraging business architecture as the foundation, blended seamlessly with many other approaches and abilities. This means that great business architects continually develop and leverage a wide range of knowledge and experiences – much of it beyond the realm of business architecture.

4. What are the key components of a business architecture?

Whynde KuehnThe foundation of a business architecture is comprised of capabilities (i.e., the reusable building blocks that describe what an organization does to deliver its products and services and support its operations), value streams (i.e., the high-level flows that deliver value to an external or internal stakeholder), and a cross-mapping between them (to depict where reusable capabilities are leveraged to deliver business value). In addition, a set of information concepts underpin the capabilities and value streams – and the entire business and IT architecture – and give people a truly shared definition of key terms such as customers, partners, products, assets, and so forth.

In addition to these three fundamental business architecture domains, there are seven additional business domains that are represented through an organization’s business architecture including business units (internal business units and external partners), products (the goods and/or services an organization offers to its customers/constituents), policies (external regulations and internal polices), stakeholders, strategies, metrics, and initiatives.

In addition, business architecture connects to the domains within other disciplines as well such as to journeys from the customer experience discipline, processes from the business process management discipline, requirements from the business analysis discipline, and applications and software services in the application architecture.

A business architecture is essentially an interconnected and multidimensional set of views, stored in a reusable knowledgebase, that can be used to inform many different business scenarios.

5. Who are the key stakeholders for a business architecture?

While the overall value proposition for business architecture is to enable effective strategy execution, business architecture is a bit like a Swiss army knife in that it can be used for a broad range of business usage scenarios and decision-making.

As a result, each organization needs to define its goals for leveraging the discipline for value. For example, while many organizations leverage business architecture for informing, translating, and aligning strategies and transformations, other organizations focus on leveraging the discipline for macro level simplification and effectiveness, business and IT alignment, or even a repeatable way to approach acquisitions.

As a result, the key stakeholders for business architecture within an organization can vary based on how the discipline is being used. However, some of the most common stakeholders for business architecture include strategy and transformation leaders and their teams along with portfolio managers, strategic planners, and technology leaders from CIOs and CTOs and down. Other key stakeholders include C-level business leaders, business unit leaders, product leaders, innovation leaders, risk managers, compliance managers, program and project managers, data management leaders, human-centered designers, organization designers, organizational change managers, business process professionals, business relationship managers, business analysts, IT architects, and many more.

6. How does one “use” a business architecture?

Generally, there are three categories of usage for a business architecture: to (1) facilitate effective strategy execution as mentioned earlier, to (2) help organizations design or redesign for effectiveness and agility, and to (3) inform a wide variety of business and technology decision-making scenarios.

For organization design and redesign, consider that we can assemble capabilities in different ways to deliver new value, products, and services. We can also design our organizations with increased efficiency, for example, by reducing the number of systems needed to automate the same capability.
For decision-making, consider that a business architecture knowledgebase is the go-to place for information about an organization at a macro level. As a result, we can get holistic answers framed in a shared business context to support decision-making around strategic alignment, customer experience, product management, investments, cost, risk, compliance, outsourcing, business and IT alignment, application portfolio management, technical debt, cloud strategy and migration, sustainability, mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, and more.

7. Why is it so challenging for organizations to move big ideas into action?

Organizations may formulate excellent strategies, but the challenge often occurs in the translation of those ideas across a large organization with many business units, products, and regions. I believe there are a few foundational challenges that contribute to this.

First, organizations do not always have a formalized, cohesive approach to strategy execution that knits together all the teams from end-to-end to develop strategies, architect changes, plan initiatives, execute solutions, and measure success. We may do this for parts of the process, but we do not necessarily look at the whole of strategy execution with the same criticality and accountability as we do with other functions such as sales, marketing, or finance.

Second, large organizations are still siloed in many ways, which shapes the behavior, thinking, and priorities of individuals. For example, when it comes to investments or problem solving, we may default to what is best for our business area versus thinking about what is best for the customer and the enterprise – especially when organizational structures, motivation mechanisms, and inertia enforce the status quo.

Finally, I believe that both of these challenges are also underpinned by a need to enhance business education to teach a more comprehensive approach from strategy to execution, and normalize the idea of business and IT architecture to supplement strategic thinking and decision making.

8. Digital transformation has become an overused phrase. What is a true digital transformation?

Strategy to RealityA true digital transformation is strategic and customer-driven, leveraging technology to establish business models and ecosystems that unlock new value for organizations to thrive in the digital economy. In other words, automation alone does not constitute a digital transformation. The Institute for Digital Transformation gives us clear guidance in the Digital Transformation Manifesto – that it should “lead to metamorphic change among an organization’s products, services, systems, operations, and culture – amplified by technology.”

I believe that collectively many organizations are now coming to terms with what digital transformation really means and are starting to move beyond the hype. I also think we are reaching the point where digital business is now just regular business – where digital is no longer something separate, but just part of how an organization delivers value, strategizes, and operates.

9. Where does a successful transformation begin?

A successful transformation starts with why. What does the business want to achieve and how will we know when we have achieved it? Clear business direction and outcomes provide the critical starting point so that people across an organization can accurately determine the change that is needed, both to people, processes, technology, assets, and locations – as well as the human side of change. Clear business direction also helps to inspire people to action on a collective vision that is greater than themselves.

10. Why do so many organizations fail to succeed at both strategy and execution?

Organizations can be challenged in formulating strategy, in ultimately executing upon a strategy, or both as suggested here. From a strategy formulation perspective, much has been written by strategy experts, but from my perspective, I see organizations challenged in a few key ways. For example, some organizations lack rigor in the definition of strategy itself, where the strategy does not reflect specific choices or specifies broad (and non-strategic) goals such as to improve operational effectiveness. I also see challenges with articulating strategy where different parts of an organization describe and decompose the strategy in different ways, making goals, objectives, and courses of action difficult to understand and reconcile from an enterprise perspective. Additionally, I see challenges with communicating strategy as it filters through the layers of an organization and becomes diffused – especially without a shared understanding of the courses of action and collective changes that help people relate to the direction and what it means for them.

From a strategy execution perspective, as shared in question #7, the challenges with execution (e.g., building solutions that do not meet business needs or are duplicative) often begin upstream without a well-defined translation through a common blueprint like an organization’s business architecture. This does not mean that improvements are not necessary to execution (and many shifts are happening worldwide today such as around agile delivery), but an organization should assess each major activity from strategy to execution both individually and together as a cohesive end-to-end process.

Achieving a strategy requires clear intent translated into organized effort and the structured methods from strategy management frameworks as well as business architecture and other design disciplines can help. Hopefully the increasing awareness of the opportunity – and necessity – for effective end-to-end strategy execution will inspire and enable organizations to take further action to prepare for an increasingly disruptive and exciting business landscape for years to come.

Conclusion

Thanks to you Whynde for sharing your insights with our global human-centered change and innovation community!

To learn more about Whynde’s views on making your strategy a reality, grab yourself a copy of her new book Strategy to Reality.

Image credits: Whynde Kuehn, Unsplash

 

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The Empathy Advantage

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How Human-Centered Leadership Fuels Adaptability

The Empathy Advantage

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

In an age of relentless disruption and unprecedented change, organizations are in a perpetual race for relevance. We talk endlessly about agility, innovation, and digital transformation, yet we often overlook the single most powerful catalyst for these traits: empathy. As a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I’ve observed that the most resilient and adaptable organizations aren’t just built on smart technology or clever strategies; they are built on a deep, abiding understanding of the human experience. At the heart of this is a new model of leadership—one that places empathy at its core.

Empathy in a business context is not merely about being “nice.” It’s a strategic superpower. It’s the ability to step into the shoes of your employees, your customers, and your partners to truly understand their motivations, frustrations, and aspirations. This isn’t a soft skill; it’s a hard competitive advantage. When leaders foster a culture of empathy, they unlock a cascade of benefits that directly fuel adaptability and innovation.

Why Empathy is the Bedrock of Adaptability

Adaptability requires a constant flow of honest feedback, a willingness to challenge the status quo, and the psychological safety to experiment and fail. Empathy is the foundation for all of these:

  • It Drives Deeper Customer Insights: True innovation begins with a deep understanding of customer pain points. Empathy allows teams to move beyond surface-level data to uncover unarticulated needs, leading to products and services that truly resonate and solve real-world problems.
  • It Creates Psychological Safety: When employees feel seen, heard, and understood by their leaders, they are more likely to take risks, share dissenting opinions, and contribute creative ideas without fear of retribution. This psychological safety is the engine of a truly innovative culture.
  • It Fosters Resilience: An empathetic leader understands the pressures and challenges their team members face, especially during periods of intense change. By showing compassion and providing the right support, they help their teams navigate stress and maintain motivation, preventing burnout and attrition.
  • It Builds Trust and Collaboration: Empathy builds a foundation of trust. When individuals trust their colleagues and leaders, collaboration becomes seamless, silos break down, and diverse teams can work together effectively to solve complex problems.

“Empathy is not just feeling for people; it’s a strategic tool for understanding, a catalyst for trust, and the wellspring of true innovation.”

How to Cultivate an Empathetic, Human-Centered Culture

Empathy isn’t a trait you’re born with; it’s a skill you can cultivate. Leaders can start by:

  1. Actively Listening: Move beyond just hearing words. Pay attention to body language, tone, and what’s left unsaid. Ask open-ended questions and listen with the intent to understand, not just to reply.
  2. Walking in Their Shoes: Spend time with front-line employees, customer service representatives, or even shadowing a customer. This direct exposure provides a level of insight that data alone cannot.
  3. Modeling Vulnerability: Leaders who admit their own struggles and uncertainties create an environment where others feel safe to do the same. This vulnerability fosters genuine connection and trust.
  4. Prioritizing Well-being: Understand that your team members are whole people with lives outside of work. Flexible work arrangements, mental health support, and a focus on work-life balance are not perks; they are essential elements of a human-centered workplace.

Case Study 1: Microsoft’s Cultural Turnaround under Satya Nadella

The Challenge:

In the early 2010s, Microsoft was widely seen as a stagnant, internally competitive company bogged down by a “know-it-all” culture. Its siloed divisions, intense internal rivalries, and a focus on defending legacy products made it slow to innovate and adapt to the rise of cloud computing and mobile technology. Employee morale was low, and collaboration was rare.

The Empathy-Driven Transformation:

When Satya Nadella took the helm as CEO, he didn’t start with a new product strategy. He started with a cultural one. He made a radical shift from a “know-it-all” to a “learn-it-all” mindset, and empathy was the central pillar of this transformation. Nadella famously challenged leaders to practice “deep empathy” and to understand the perspective of customers and employees. He encouraged leaders to listen more, to understand people’s “unarticulated needs,” and to lead with humility.

  • Empathy for Customers: Instead of focusing on locking customers into their ecosystem, Nadella championed an approach of putting Microsoft’s technology on other platforms (e.g., Office on iOS), demonstrating a deep understanding of how people actually work. This built immense customer trust and loyalty.
  • Empathy for Employees: By breaking down silos and rewarding collaboration over internal competition, Nadella created a psychologically safe environment. He actively listened to employee concerns and made well-being a priority, which energized the workforce.

The Result:

This empathy-led cultural change directly fueled Microsoft’s remarkable adaptability. The company successfully pivoted to a cloud-first strategy, revitalized its core products, and embraced open-source collaboration. The result was not just a soaring stock price but a profound shift in market perception, making Microsoft one of the most innovative and collaborative companies in the world. It’s a powerful testament to the idea that culture eats strategy for breakfast—and empathy is the key ingredient in that culture.

Case Study 2: Lululemon’s Journey to Resiliency Through Employee Support

The Challenge:

Lululemon, the global athletic apparel company, faced significant operational and cultural challenges as it scaled rapidly. The pressure to meet aggressive growth targets often led to burnout among store employees and a high turnover rate. This affected both the customer experience and the company’s ability to maintain its high-quality standards.

The Empathy-Driven Approach:

Recognizing that their success was directly tied to the well-being and engagement of their employees (or “educators,” as they are called), leadership made a conscious effort to build a more human-centered culture. They invested heavily in initiatives that demonstrated a deep empathy for their workforce’s personal and professional lives.

  • Well-being and Personal Growth: Lululemon went beyond standard training by offering extensive personal development and leadership programs. These programs, which included mindfulness and goal-setting workshops, showed that the company cared about employees as whole individuals, not just as cogs in a machine.
  • Building a Community: The company fostered a strong sense of community and belonging, which provided a crucial support system. During periods of operational change, this empathetic bond helped teams adapt more quickly and effectively, sharing knowledge and best practices.
  • Listening & Adapting: Leadership regularly solicited feedback from front-line educators to understand their pain points, from scheduling issues to product knowledge gaps. This direct line of communication allowed them to agilely address challenges, leading to smoother operations and a more resilient workforce.

The Result:

By putting empathy first, Lululemon’s employee engagement scores and retention rates significantly improved. This had a direct and positive impact on the customer experience and overall brand health. When the company faced challenges, such as supply chain issues or shifts in market demand, their highly engaged and resilient workforce was better equipped to adapt and innovate on the fly. Their empathetic culture became a key driver of their sustained growth and profitability, proving that caring for your people is a powerful business strategy.

Conclusion: Leading from the Heart for Future-Proof Organizations

The future of business is not about who has the fastest technology or the most capital; it’s about who can build the most adaptable, resilient, and human-centered organization. The greatest competitive advantage is the ability to connect with and understand your people—employees and customers alike. Empathy is not a soft skill to be delegated to HR; it is a fundamental leadership competency that belongs in the C-suite.

By cultivating a culture of empathy, leaders can create an environment where trust flourishes, innovation thrives, and adaptability is a natural byproduct. It’s a powerful shift from managing tasks to leading people, and it’s the single best way to future-proof your organization. It’s time to lead from the heart, not just the head.

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

Image credit: Pexels

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America is in Desperate Need of a Shared Purpose

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America is in Desperate Need of a Shared Purpose

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

In 1993, after being named IBM’s CEO as it was quickly careening toward insolvency, Lou Gerstner said, “There’s been a lot of speculation as to when I’m going to deliver a vision of IBM, and what I’d like to say to all of you is that the last thing IBM needs right now is a vision.” It was a peculiar thing to say, especially for an executive renown for his strategic acumen, and people took note.

What Gerstner meant was that IBM was broken internally. It had lost sight of itself and fallen into infighting. It no longer sought to serve the customer. Instead of collaborating, executives engaged in endless turf battles. Until IBM’s culture and values could be brought back into harmony with the market, it didn’t matter what the vision was.

Today, America has a similar plight. We are undergoing profound shifts in our racial makeup, urban concentration and generational demography in the midst of great geopolitical and technological disruption. We need to build a new social contract based on shared values that align with those shifts and, until we do that, any vision for the future will be irrelevant.

The Racial Divide

The recent incidents involving Amy Cooper and George Floyd outraged people across the world. In the former, a white woman leveraged her sense of privilege to threaten a black man in the most despicable way. In the latter, a black man was senselessly murdered at the hands of a police officer, while his colleagues sat back and watched.

What was notable about both incidents is that they were filmed and that the subjects involved knew they were being filmed but proceeded with their behavior anyway. How many times have they acted similarly off camera? There’s no way of knowing, but given the air of confidence they had in their actions, it’s hard to believe it was the first time for either.

At the same time, life expectancy for the white working class is actually declining, mostly because of “deaths of despair” due to drugs, alcohol and suicide. For those struggling and who see their friends and families undergoing similar travails, assertions of “white privilege” fall hollow. In fact, the very idea of “white privilege” intensifies the feeling that they are under attack.

The racial divide in America is wide and encompasses gaps in economic circumstances as well as values and attitudes. It doesn’t show signs of closing anytime soon. Yet until it does it’s hard to see how we can move forward as a nation.

The Urban-Rural Divide

In addition to the racial divide in America, we have a stark urban-rural divide that seems to keep widening. While having some gap between city and country dwellers is quite common all over the world, in America that gap is almost uniquely vast and encompasses a number of political and economic forces.

Politically, the fact that each state has two senators gives rural states with small populations an advantage in determining federal policy. On the other hand, because capitals tend to be in cities, those who work in government tend to be more liberal than their rural counterparts. Voting data has long shown that the urban and suburban areas tend to vote Democrat and exurban and rural areas tend to prefer Republicans.

On the economic side, cities wield enormous power. Most major corporations are headquartered in urban areas and large industries tend to agglomerate around specific cities, such as finance in New York, entertainment in Los Angeles and technology in San Francisco. Some observers have also noted that, as housing costs in key cities rise they are beginning to hemorrhage mid and low skill workers who tend to be less educated.

Much like the racial divide, the urban-rural divide is heavily rooted in values and attitudes. While city dwellers often dismiss rural areas as “fly-over country,” those who live in rural areas feel disrespected and unrecognized. They often complain that their communities are being dictated to by people in other places who live other kinds of lives, which leaves them angrily seeking political redress.

The Demographic Divide

In addition to the racial and urban-rural divides, we are also beginning to see a massive generational shift. Over the next decade, baby-boomers, many of whom came of age during the Reagan revolution, will be replaced by millennials, whose experiences with the Great Recession, debilitating student loan debt and rising healthcare costs, have very different priorities.

The main drivers of the Baby Boomer’s influence have been its size and economic prosperity. In America alone, 76 million people were born in between 1946 and 1964, and they came of age in the prosperous years of the 1960s. These factors gave them unprecedented political and economic clout that continues to this day.

Yet now, Millennials, who are more diverse and focused on issues such as the environment and tolerance, are beginning to outnumber Baby Boomers. Much like in the 1960s, their increasing influence is driving trends in politics, the economy and the workplace and their values often put them in conflict with the baby boomers.

However, unlike the Baby Boomers, Millennials are coming of age in an era where prosperity seems to be waning. With Baby Boomers retiring and putting further strains on the economy, especially with regard to healthcare costs, tensions are on the rise

A Problem of Identity and Dignity

In 1989, standing on Kosovo Polje, in a ceremony commemorating the Battle of Kosovo, in which the Serbian army was annihilated by the Ottomans in 1389, Slobodan Milošević told his followers, “No one should dare to beat you again!” Since then, we have seen a wide array of leaders, from Vladimir Putin to Donald Trump, leverage our innate need for recognition and collective identity to whip us into a frenzy.

Amy Cooper threatened a black man because he refused to recognize her privilege and she immediately called the police, with whom she obviously felt a shared identity. The Tea Party was driven, in large part, by older Americans who felt that younger Americans, who they did not feel a shared identity with, wanted to “freeload” off the country they worked their lives to build.

We can expect that as long as these divisions remain, there will be politicians and others who will seek to exploit them for personal gain. If we were still a white, Christian country in a simpler world, things would be easier, but we would lose all of the incalculable benefits that come with diversity, including more dynamism, innovation and culture. Much like IBM in the 90s, we cannot move forward until we heal our internal divisions.

Nothing about a multi-ethnic, multicultural society is simple. Building anything worthwhile takes work and no small amount of pain. Still, we need to try harder. We need to rebuild our society, culture and values based on a new basis of shared purpose. Until we do that, nothing else will really matter.

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

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The Anticipatory Organization

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Building Agility Through Foresight

The Anticipatory Organization

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

In a world defined by the relentless pace of change, the very concept of building an agile organization has become a non-negotiable cornerstone of modern business strategy. But what if true agility wasn’t just about speed or adaptability in the face of change? What if it was about the profound capacity to anticipate, prepare for, and proactively shape the future? This is the defining characteristic of what I call the Anticipatory Organization, and its secret lies in the powerful, symbiotic relationship between foresight and agility.

Most organizations treat agility as a reactive muscle—a means to respond quickly when a crisis hits or a new trend emerges. While this reactive agility is undoubtedly valuable, it’s often born from a necessity to catch up. The Anticipatory Organization, however, operates on a different plane. It practices proactive agility, built on a foundation of strategic foresight. This allows leaders and teams to look beyond the immediate horizon, identify emerging signals, understand potential disruptions, and strategically position themselves for success. It’s about being ready for what’s next, not just reacting to what just happened.

The Indispensable Partnership: Foresight Fuels Agility

Strategic foresight isn’t about attempting to predict the future with perfect accuracy—that’s a fool’s errand. Instead, it’s a systematic, human-centered discipline that explores alternative futures, identifies the driving forces of change (technological, social, political, economic), and uncovers potential opportunities and threats. When this discipline is combined with an agile operational model, it fundamentally transforms an organization’s capacity to:

  • Anticipate & Prepare: By understanding plausible future scenarios, organizations can develop contingency plans, identify necessary skill sets, and allocate resources more effectively before disruption becomes a reality.
  • Proactively Innovate: Foresight reveals unmet human needs and emerging market spaces, guiding innovation efforts towards creating future-proof products, services, and business models, rather than merely optimizing existing ones. This is about building the future, not just adapting to it.
  • Mitigate Risk: Identifying potential threats early allows for the development of robust strategies to reduce their impact or even pivot to turn them into new opportunities.
  • Strategic Decision-Making: Foresight provides a richer, more robust context for current decisions, ensuring they are not just optimized for today, but are also aligned with plausible future states.
  • Build Resilience: Organizations that systematically engage with foresight are better equipped to weather unforeseen challenges, bounce back faster, and even emerge stronger, because they have already mentally and strategically explored what a major disruption might entail.

Without foresight, agility can devolve into aimless thrashing; without agility, foresight remains a purely academic exercise. Together, they create a powerful engine for sustained competitive advantage in turbulent times.

“Agility without foresight is merely fast reaction; foresight without agility is just wishful thinking. The true power lies in their synergy, creating a truly anticipatory organization.”

Integrating Foresight into Your Organizational DNA

Shifting towards an anticipatory, foresight-driven agile culture isn’t a simple task; it requires intentional effort and a deep, systemic integration across the organization:

  1. Establish a Foresight Capability: This could be a dedicated team, cross-functional working groups, or leveraging external expertise. The key is to have a structured, ongoing process for scanning the horizon for weak signals.
  2. Democratize Futures Thinking: Do not confine foresight to the executive suite. Train employees at all levels to identify early signals of change, question core assumptions, and think critically about the long-term implications of their work.
  3. Develop Scenarios, Not Predictions: Instead of trying to pinpoint ‘the future,’ build multiple plausible future scenarios. This helps organizations think in terms of possibilities and prepares them to be agile in a range of potential outcomes.
  4. Link Foresight Directly to Strategy & Innovation: Ensure that insights gleaned from foresight directly inform your strategic planning, R&D roadmaps, and portfolio decisions. This is how ideas become action.
  5. Foster an Experimentation Culture: Foresight identifies promising areas for exploration. Agility provides the crucial framework to quickly prototype, test, and learn from these explorations in a low-risk environment, turning a potential future into a tangible reality.

Case Study 1: Nokia’s Missed Opportunity – A Cautionary Tale of Foresight Without Agility

The Challenge:

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Nokia was the undisputed global leader in mobile phones. They were agile in manufacturing, supply chain, and hardware innovation, dominating market share with their feature phones. However, despite conducting extensive research into future mobile trends, including internet-enabled devices and touchscreens, their internal structure and core assumptions prevented them from acting on these insights effectively.

Foresight’s Glimmer, Agility’s Blindness:

Nokia’s research teams, in many ways, did possess foresight. They explored concepts that predated the iPhone and had a deep understanding of evolving consumer needs. However, their organizational agility was fundamentally constrained by several factors:

  • The Incumbent’s Dilemma: An overpowering focus on optimizing their existing, highly successful business model (hardware sales, a proprietary OS, and strong operator relationships) overshadowed the need for the radical, transformative shifts that were clearly on the horizon.
  • Internal Silos: Different divisions often operated independently, hindering the necessary cross-functional integration of hardware, software, and services needed for a true smartphone experience.
  • Organizational Inertia: The company’s established decision-making processes were too slow and hierarchical to respond to the rapid market shift initiated by Apple and Google.

The Result:

Nokia possessed fragments of foresight but lacked the organizational agility to translate those insights into decisive, coordinated action. They saw the icebergs but couldn’t steer the ship fast enough, ultimately losing their market dominance to more anticipatory and agile competitors. This serves as a powerful reminder that foresight without the ability to act on it is ultimately ineffective.

Case Study 2: Netflix’s Continuous Reinvention – Foresight as a Compass for Agile Growth

The Challenge:

Netflix started as a DVD-by-mail service, a business model that, while innovative at the time, had a clear technological and human-centric expiration date. To survive and thrive, they needed to navigate seismic shifts in technology, content consumption, and competitive landscapes.

Foresight-Driven Agility in Action:

Netflix consistently demonstrated an exceptional ability to integrate foresight into its agile operating model, becoming the quintessential Anticipatory Organization:

  • Anticipating Streaming (Early 2000s): Even while dominating DVD rentals, Netflix saw the internet’s potential for content delivery. They began investing in streaming infrastructure and licensing content years before it became mainstream, showing incredible foresight and proactive preparation. They were building the future, not waiting for it.
  • Embracing Original Content (Early 2010s): Recognizing the future value of proprietary content and the rising costs of licensing, Netflix made a bold, foresight-driven move into original programming, transforming from a mere distributor into a global content powerhouse. This required massive investments and a fundamentally agile approach to content creation and production, all based on a future-focused bet.
  • Global Expansion & Localization: Foresight into global market potential and the need for localized content and user experience drove their aggressive, yet agile, international expansion strategy. They didn’t simply enter markets; they tailored their offerings to each region’s unique preferences.
  • Data-Driven Adaptation: Netflix uses vast amounts of data to continually understand viewer preferences, predict trends, and agilely adapt its content recommendations, production strategy, and platform features. Their A/B testing culture is a testament to their agile execution on foresight-driven hypotheses.

The Result:

Netflix’s journey from a DVD rental company to a global streaming and content production giant is a masterclass in building agility through foresight. They didn’t just react to market changes; they anticipated them, made bold strategic bets, and used their agile operational model to execute on those bets with remarkable speed and effectiveness. Their sustained success stems from a culture that actively scans the horizon, embraces potential futures, and then rapidly iterates and adapts to bring those futures to fruition.

Conclusion: Leading with Intentional Preparedness

In an unpredictable world, organizations cannot afford to merely be agile in reaction. True competitive advantage stems from intentional preparedness — the powerful combination of strategic foresight guiding proactive agility. By developing a robust foresight capability, democratizing futures thinking, and systematically linking insights to strategy and innovation, leaders can empower their organizations to not just survive change, but to actively shape the future for their customers and themselves.

Embrace foresight as your compass, and agility as your engine. Together, they will navigate your organization through the fog of uncertainty, positioning you to not just adapt to the future, but to create it. It’s time to build not just a faster ship, but one that knows where it’s going, long before the storm hits.

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

Image credit: One of 900+ FREE quote slides for your meetings and presentations at http://misterinnovation.com

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Should a Bad Grade in Organic Chemistry be a Doctor Killer?

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NYU Professor Fired for Giving Students Bad Grades

Should a Bad Grade in Organic Chemistry be a Doctor Killer?

GUEST POST from Arlen Meyers, M.D.

A recent article described the termination of an NYU organic chemistry professor in response to a student petition. When the professor pushed students’ grades down, noting the egregious misconduct, he said they protested that “they were not given grades that would allow them to get into medical school.” The reporter noted that, in short, this one unhappy chemistry class could be a case study of the pressures on higher education as it tries to handle its Gen-Z student body. Should universities ease pressure on students, many of whom are still coping with the pandemic’s effects on their mental health and schooling? How should universities respond to the increasing number of complaints by students against professors? Do students have too much power over contract faculty members, who do not have the protections of tenure?

And how hard should organic chemistry be anyway? One faculty member said, “Unless you appreciate these transformations at the molecular level, I don’t think you can be a good physician, and I don’t want you treating patients.”

I know the feeling. While organic chemistry is termed a “doctor killer” by premedical students, getting any grade less than an “A”, typically in science, technology, engineering, or math subjects, can doom your application. When I saw that B I got in physics in my junior year of college, I started thinking about Plan B. Then I really learned the gravity of the situation.

Despite the noise and groaning, medical school applications continue to rise, driven by many factors. However, the medical school education model dates back to the Flexner report issued in 1910. Many are trying to address the challenges of how to train the biomedical research and practice workforce to win the 4th industrial revolution, but progress has been slow. Here were the challenges facing medical schools in 2015. Things have not radically changed. Medical educators, particularly those in public medical schools, will continue to face several basic problems in the coming years. The “invisible enemy” has exacerbated many.

We should rethink how we recruit and accept medical students.

Here are some questions that should inform that transition:

1. Do doctors really need to be that “smart”? GPAs can vary significantly across different medical schools, so it pays to do your research before applying. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) reported an average GPA for medical school of 3.60 across all applicants for the 2021-2022 application cycle. For the same year, applicants had an average science GPA of 3.49 and an average non-science GPA of 3.74.

2. What kind of intelligence do doctors need to meet the needs of their stakeholders and communities?

Types of Intelligence by Mark Vital

3. Do patients really care what grade their doctor got in organic chemistry, or, for that matter, whether they graduated last in their class from medical school?

4. How has the pandemic and the persona of Gen Z changed medical education?

5. What do doctors and patients need to know to win the 4th industrial revolution? Organic chemistry?

6. How does the present system and its reliance on undergraduate STEM academic performance impact inequitable socioeconomic and demographic acceptance rates?

7. How should we transform premedical, medical, and post-graduate pedagogy? Examples are project-based learning and peer reviewed feedback.

8. Why do we insist that undergraduates declare a major?

9. Is the purpose of a medical school education solely to graduate students who have the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies to take care of patients, or should we provide them with exit ramps too?

10. How do we balance a medical culture of conformity with a culture of creativity?

11. What will be the future of medical work?

I’m lucky that I dodged the bullet. But I still have Plan B.

Image Credits: Adioma (Mark Vital), Pixabay

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Shifting Your Innovation Measurement Focus

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From Outputs to Outcomes

Shifting Your Innovation Measurement Focus

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

In the world of innovation, we often find ourselves caught in the trap of measuring what’s easy to count: outputs. We tally up new ideas generated, patents filed, prototypes built, or features launched. While these metrics offer a semblance of progress, they often obscure the true impact of our efforts. The real game-changer isn’t how much we produce, but what difference that production makes – the outcomes.

It’s time for a fundamental shift in how we approach innovation measurement. Instead of focusing solely on the tangible outputs of our innovation processes, we must pivot our gaze towards the meaningful outcomes that those outputs are designed to achieve. This isn’t just a semantic distinction; it’s a strategic imperative that can transform how organizations foster, fund, and ultimately succeed with innovation.

Why the Shift Matters: The Limitations of Output-Centric Measurement

Measuring outputs alone can lead to several pitfalls:

  • False Sense of Progress: An abundance of ideas doesn’t necessarily mean valuable ideas. A high number of prototypes might just indicate a lack of clear direction or rigorous testing.
  • Misguided Incentives: When individuals or teams are rewarded for outputs, they naturally prioritize quantity over quality, potentially leading to wasted resources on initiatives that lack true market fit or user value.
  • Lack of Strategic Alignment: Without a clear link to desired outcomes, innovation efforts can become disconnected from broader business objectives, failing to contribute meaningfully to the organization’s strategic goals.
  • Difficulty in Learning: If we don’t measure the impact, how do we learn what truly works? Without understanding outcomes, it’s challenging to refine our innovation processes and improve future endeavors.

The goal of innovation isn’t merely to create something new; it’s to create something valuable. This value is almost always found in the outcomes – whether that’s increased customer satisfaction, improved operational efficiency, new revenue streams, or enhanced brand perception.

“Innovation isn’t about the number of ideas you generate, but the value those ideas create for your customers and your organization.”

Defining Outcomes: What Are We Really Trying to Achieve?

Before you can measure outcomes, you must clearly define them. This requires a deep understanding of your customers, your market, and your strategic objectives. Ask yourselves:

  • What problem are we trying to solve for our customers?
  • How will this innovation improve their lives or work?
  • What business results do we expect to see as a direct consequence of this innovation?
  • How will this innovation impact our competitive position?

Outcomes should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). They should go beyond simple financial metrics and encompass a broader view of value creation, including customer experience, employee engagement, and societal impact where relevant.

Consider the difference: instead of measuring “number of new features released,” measure “increase in user engagement with new features” or “reduction in customer support calls related to previous pain points.” The latter two directly reflect the value delivered to the user and the business.

Case Study 1: Transforming Customer Experience in Banking

The Challenge:

A large retail bank was struggling with declining customer satisfaction and an outdated mobile banking experience. Their innovation team was measured on the number of new app features released quarterly – a pure output metric.

The Old Approach (Output-Centric):

The team consistently delivered a high volume of new features, including minor UI tweaks, new calculator tools, and incremental additions. Despite this, customer satisfaction scores remained stagnant, and app usage, while present, didn’t show significant shifts in how customers managed their finances.

The Shift to Outcomes:

Recognizing the disconnect, the bank redefined its innovation objective for the mobile app. The new outcome goal was to “increase active mobile banking users by 15% within 12 months by enabling frictionless self-service and personalized financial insights, leading to a 10% reduction in branch visits for routine transactions.”

The innovation team began focusing on features directly tied to these outcomes: a simplified bill pay process, AI-driven spending insights, and integrated chat support. They measured:

  • Outcome Metric 1: Percentage increase in active mobile banking users.
  • Outcome Metric 2: Percentage reduction in branch visits for specific routine transactions (e.g., balance inquiries, transfers).
  • Outcome Metric 3: Net Promoter Score (NPS) specific to mobile banking users.

The Result:

Within 10 months, active mobile users increased by 18%, and branch visits for routine tasks decreased by 12%. NPS for mobile banking saw a 20-point jump. This success wasn’t due to more features, but better, more impactful features driven by clearly defined customer and business outcomes. The team learned to prioritize based on potential impact rather than sheer volume.

Implementing the Shift: Practical Steps

Making this transition requires intentional effort and a cultural change:

  1. Start with the “Why”: For every innovation project, clearly articulate the problem it solves and the desired impact. Why does this innovation matter?
  2. Define Key Outcome Indicators (KOIs): Identify the specific metrics that will tell you if you’ve achieved your desired outcome. These are distinct from Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that track overall business health. KOIs are directly linked to the specific innovation.
  3. Embed Outcomes into the Innovation Process: From ideation to commercialization, constantly ask: “How does this contribute to our desired outcome?” Use outcome-based criteria for project selection and stage-gate reviews.
  4. Embrace Experimentation and Learning: Measuring outcomes requires a willingness to test hypotheses and learn from failures. If an innovation isn’t delivering the desired outcome, pivot or iterate.
  5. Communicate and Celebrate Outcomes: Share stories of how innovations have positively impacted customers and the business. This reinforces the importance of outcomes and motivates teams.

Case Study 2: Developing Sustainable Packaging Solutions

The Challenge:

A global consumer goods company aimed to reduce its environmental footprint by developing more sustainable packaging. The initial innovation mandate was to “develop 5 new sustainable packaging materials by year-end” – another output-focused goal.

The Old Approach (Output-Centric):

The R&D team generated several promising material prototypes, including biodegradable plastics and recycled content designs. They met their target of 5 new materials. However, many were either too expensive for mass production, lacked the required durability, or didn’t significantly reduce overall carbon emissions across the product lifecycle once tested in real-world scenarios.

The Shift to Outcomes:

The company realized that simply developing new materials wasn’t enough; the true goal was measurable environmental impact and economic viability. Their refined outcome goal became: “Reduce the carbon footprint of our top 3 product lines by 25% within two years by adopting commercially viable and scalable sustainable packaging solutions that maintain product integrity and consumer appeal.”

Innovation efforts shifted. Instead of just developing materials, teams focused on:

  • Outcome Metric 1: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) scores showing percentage reduction in carbon footprint per product unit.
  • Outcome Metric 2: Packaging cost-per-unit impact (ensuring solutions were scalable).
  • Outcome Metric 3: Consumer acceptance testing (maintaining or improving perception of product quality).

The Result:

By focusing on these outcomes, the team prioritized innovations that offered the best balance of environmental benefit, cost-effectiveness, and consumer experience. They adopted a single, highly innovative recycled plastic solution for one product line and completely redesigned the packaging for another to eliminate unnecessary material, exceeding their 25% carbon reduction goal for those lines within 18 months. The shift ensured that sustainability innovations were not just developed, but actually adopted and impactful.

Conclusion: The Future of Innovation Measurement

The journey from output to outcome measurement is a critical evolution for any organization serious about driving meaningful change and innovation. It demands discipline, a deeper understanding of value creation, and a willingness to challenge traditional metrics. By focusing on the true impact of our efforts, we move beyond simply doing things right to doing the right things, ensuring our innovations not only exist but thrive and make a tangible difference in the world.

Embrace this shift, and watch your innovation efforts transform from a series of activities into a powerful engine of sustainable growth and competitive advantage. The future belongs to those who measure what truly matters.

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

Image credit: Pixabay

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Using Storytelling to Galvanize Action

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From Vision to Reality

Using Storytelling to Galvanize Action

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

In the complex landscape of modern business, where data often reigns supreme, we sometimes overlook one of humanity’s oldest and most powerful tools for influence: storytelling. As a human-centered change leader, I’ve seen countless brilliant visions and innovative strategies gather dust because they failed to capture the hearts and minds of the people who needed to bring them to life. The gap between a visionary idea and its tangible implementation is often bridged not by spreadsheets and Gantt charts alone, but by compelling narratives. Storytelling is the essential ingredient that translates abstract concepts into emotional resonance, galvanizing individuals and teams to move from passive understanding to inspired action.

Think about it: our brains are hardwired for stories. From ancient myths to modern advertisements, narratives help us make sense of the world, connect with others, and remember information far more effectively than facts and figures alone. In a corporate context, a well-crafted story can do more than just inform; it can align, motivate, and inspire. It allows leaders to articulate a compelling future, explain the ‘why’ behind challenging changes, and create a shared sense of purpose that unites diverse stakeholders. When people see themselves as part of a larger, meaningful narrative, they are far more likely to embrace change, overcome obstacles, and commit their energy to achieving a common goal. This is the essence of human-centered leadership: connecting with people on an emotional level to drive tangible results.

To effectively use storytelling to galvanize action, consider these human-centered principles:

  • Identify Your Core Message: What is the single, most important idea you want to convey? This becomes the central theme of your story.
  • Know Your Audience: Tailor your story to resonate with the specific experiences, values, and concerns of your listeners. What are their challenges? What inspires them?
  • Craft a Compelling Arc: Every good story has a beginning (the current state/challenge), a middle (the journey/change), and an end (the desired future/impact). Build tension, introduce characters, and show transformation.
  • Emphasize Emotion and Empathy: Stories connect emotionally. Use vivid language, relatable characters, and appeals to shared values to evoke empathy and build a deeper connection.
  • Call to Action: Your story should naturally lead to a clear, actionable next step. What do you want people to do after hearing your story? Make it clear how they fit into the narrative.
  • Be Authentic: The most powerful stories come from a place of genuine belief and vulnerability. Share personal experiences or anecdotes that lend credibility and humanize your message.

Case Study 1: Steve Jobs and the “1,000 Songs in Your Pocket” Story

The Challenge: Introducing a Revolutionary Product in a Skeptical Market

When Apple launched the iPod in 2001, portable music players were not new. However, existing devices were often clunky, had limited storage, and were difficult to use. Steve Jobs faced the challenge of not just introducing another gadget, but convincing the world that this new device was fundamentally different and would change their relationship with music.

Storytelling in Action:

Jobs didn’t lead with technical specifications. Instead, he painted a vivid, relatable picture of a future where music was effortlessly accessible. His iconic phrase, “1,000 songs in your pocket,” wasn’t just a feature; it was a powerful narrative that spoke to a common human desire for convenience, abundance, and personal connection to music. He described a frustration (carrying CDs), then offered a magical solution (the iPod), making it easy for people to envision themselves experiencing this future. He framed the iPod as a gateway to personal freedom and enjoyment, not just a piece of hardware. This simple, elegant story immediately resonated, contrasting sharply with the technical jargon typically used in product launches.

The Impact:

The iPod became an instant sensation and revolutionized the music industry. Jobs’s ability to tell a compelling story about what the product meant for users, rather than simply what it did, was crucial to its adoption. It galvanized both consumers and developers, creating a powerful ecosystem around Apple’s vision for digital music. This case highlights how storytelling can transform a product launch into a movement, demonstrating that emotional connection, not just technical specifications, is key to galvanizing action and achieving market dominance.

Key Insight: Framing innovation as a solution to a relatable human problem, told through a simple yet powerful narrative, can create emotional resonance that drives widespread adoption and market transformation.

Case Study 2: Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” Speech

The Challenge: Uniting a Nation and Inspiring Action Towards Social Justice

In 1963, the Civil Rights Movement faced immense challenges, including systemic discrimination, violence, and deeply entrenched racial inequality. Martin Luther King Jr. needed to articulate a vision for a just future that could unite diverse groups, give hope to the oppressed, and galvanize an entire nation towards moral and political action.

Storytelling in Action:

King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is a masterclass in using narrative to galvanize action. He began by acknowledging the historical context and the “shameful condition” of racial injustice, creating a shared understanding of the problem. He then transitioned into a vivid, aspirational story of a future America where equality and freedom reigned. Using powerful metaphors, biblical allusions, and repetition, he painted a picture that was both deeply personal and universally resonant. His “dream” was not a policy paper; it was an emotionally charged vision of a better world that listeners could see, feel, and believe in. He skillfully evoked both the pain of the present and the promise of the future, compelling his audience to become active participants in fulfilling that dream.

The Impact:

The speech became a defining moment of the Civil Rights Movement, inspiring millions and contributing significantly to the legislative changes that followed, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. King’s storytelling didn’t just communicate a message; it ignited a shared sense of purpose and urgency. It demonstrated that by articulating a compelling vision through a narrative framework, leaders can inspire collective action on an unprecedented scale, transforming societies and achieving profound human-centered change.

Key Insight: A compelling, emotionally resonant narrative that bridges the gap between present struggles and an aspirational future can unite diverse groups and inspire collective action for profound societal change.

Bringing Your Vision to Life Through Story

Whether you’re launching a new product, leading organizational change, or advocating for a social cause, the ability to tell a compelling story is your most potent tool for human-centered innovation. Data provides the evidence, but stories provide the meaning. They transform abstract visions into vivid realities, allowing people to see themselves within the narrative and understand their role in bringing it to fruition. By mastering the art of storytelling, leaders can move beyond simply informing their audience to truly inspiring them, galvanizing the action necessary to turn even the boldest visions into tangible, impactful realities.

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

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Your Brand Isn’t the Problem

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Your Brand Isn't the Problem

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

Cigarette companies rebranded themselves because their products caused cancer and they wanted to separate themselves from how their customers experienced their products. Their name and logo (which stand for their brand) were mapped to bad things (cancer) so they changed their name and logo. The bad things still happened, but the company was one step removed. There was always the option to stop causing cancer and to leave the name and logo as-is, but that would have required a real change, difficult change, a fundamental change. Instead of stopping the harm, cigarette companies ran away from their heritage and rebranded.

Facebook rebranded itself because its offering caused cancer of a different sort. And they, too, wanted to separate themselves from how their customers experienced their offering. The world mapped the Facebook brand to bullying, harming children, and misinformation that destroyed institutions. Sure, Facebook had the option to keep the name and logo and stop doing harm, but they chose to keep the harm and change the name and logo. Like the cigarette companies, they chose to keep the unskillful behavior and change their brand to try to sidestep their damaging ways. Yes, they could have changed their behavior and kept their logo, but they chose to change their logo and double down on their unhealthy heritage.

The cigarette companies and Facebook didn’t rebrand themselves to move toward something better, they rebranded to run away from the very thing they created, the very experience they delivered to their customers. In that way, they tried to distance themselves from their offering because their offering was harmful. And in that way, rebranding is most often about moving away from the experience that customers experience. And in that way, rebranding is hardly ever about moving toward something better.

One exception I can think of is a special type of rebranding that is a distillation of the brand, where the brand name gets shorter. Several made-up examples: Nike Shoes to Nike; McDonald’s Hamburgers to McDonald’s; and Netflix Streaming Services to Netflix. In all three cases, the offering hasn’t changed and customers still recognize the brand. Everyone still knows it’s all about cool footwear, a repeatable fast-food experience, and top-notch entertainment content. If anything, the connection with the heritage is concentrated and strengthened and the appeal is broader. If your rebranding makes the name longer or the message more nuanced, you get some credit for confusing your customers, but you don’t qualify for this special exception.

If you want to move toward something better, it’s likely better to keep the name and logo and change the offering to something better. Your brand has history and your customers have mapped the goodness you provide to your name and logo. Why not use that to your advantage? Why not build on what you’ve built and morph it slowly into something better? Why not keep the brand and improve the offering? Why not remap your good brand to an improved offering so that your brand improves slowly over time? Isn’t it more effective to use your brand recognition as the mechanism to attract attention to your improved offering?

In almost all cases, rebranding is a sign that something’s wrong. It’s expensive, it consumes a huge amount of company resources, and there’s little to no direct benefit to customers. When you feel the urge to rebrand, I strongly urge you to keep the brand and improve your offering. That way your customers will benefit and your brand will improve.

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