20 Not So Secret Red Flags

Welcome back Humantific Journal readers. So hot in New York City and Madrid these days! Hope everyone is staying cool out there. Keeping the faith, we are here today to share with our readers, a build on an earlier post entitled Strategic Psychological Safety / True & Now: 15 Tips for Organizational Leaders. We are not surprised to see interest in the subject, also known as Cognitive Inclusion, Cognitive Diversity continuing to rise and rise.

In this sharing, one context setting thing we might mention today; We do notice that every subject that Humantific is involved in seems to have an on-line tonality that is, in the context of LinkedIn discussion threads, often highly charged. In an ever shifting competitive marketplace, that is not so surprising.  For our readers we are happy to point out that those on-line discussion tonalities often significantly differ from the tonality of the subject in real-world practice.

For us, those subjects include Innovation Enabling, Complexity Navigation, SenseMaking for ChangeMaking, Advanced Creative Problem Solving, Reinvention of Design, Design for Complexity, Design Futures, Team Dynamics, Innovation Methodologies, Think Blending, Maximizing BrainPower, Organizational Ambidexterity, Organizational Transformation, Complex Facilitation, Cognitive Inclusion/Psychological Safety and Inclusive Culture Building.

Whether we all like it or not, some of these subjects on-line have taken on tonalities that range from mildly charged to take-no-prisoners argument war zones. I’m sure we can all name a few war zones. This contradictory duality of dynamics is an entire subject for another day.

Being practice-based, playing our small part in forward motion, we do from time to time, post from one tonality zone to another..:-) So here we are!

To cut to the chase; It might not be clear to everyone that in Innovation Enabling Practice there tends to be much more nurturing then is visible in heated online discussion dynamics. In this regard one thing we do keep in mind is that the highly charged behaviors often seen online arguments most often do not transfer well to real organizational contexts...:-)

Cognitive Inclusion/Psychological Safety is one of those subjects that requires, not heated arguments, but rather some quiet understanding of the human condition. Speaking up for this kind of advocacy is often a heavy lift. The building of inclusive cultures requires, not just nurturing, not just advocating cognitively open work environments but the strategic ability to connect the dots between strategy, innovation ambitions, stated values, behaviors, methods and outcomes. Since Cognitive Inclusion butts up against table-top power dynamics we do understand that getting there is often not going to be a walk in the park.

We could not do what we do at Humantific, in terms on enabling innovation in organizations, without that advocacy and without the building of cognitive inclusion. To be clear, how it is enabled in real world organizations has nothing to do with the adoption and or mastering of online discussion tonalites.

In our earlier post we did not have room to include Red Flags related to Psychological Safety. In this post we return to share the most often appearing Not So Secret Red Flags that we often see restraining the possibility of creating Psychological Safety.

In this sharing we do think about what would be good for our readers and all innovation leaders to know. Can the absence of something be a red flag and blockage to the creation of Cognitive Inclusion/Psychological Safety? From our Humantific perspective: Big yes!

20 Not So Secret Red Flags 

Blocking Psychological Safety

The presence and absence of twenty dynamics that impact an organizations ability to realize their Strategic Psychological Safety/Cognitive Inclusion / Innovation ambitions:  

1.    Not yet recognizing that decision-making is convergent thinking.

2.    Missing recognition that convergent thinking is one aspect of innovation, not the entire cycle.

3.    No inclusive definition regarding what innovation value creation actually means and is from strategic and behaviors perspectives.

4.    Unconsciously or consciously positioning decision-making/convergent thinking as the highest form of value at a time when the organization is facing continuous external change and rising complexity requiring reinvention and proactive adaptation.

5.    Creatively/confusingly positioning decision support orientation as innovation enabling, two very different things.

6.    No connection being made between cognitive preferences of organizational leaders and the strategic and innovation objectives of the organization.

7.    Teams being formed for important and expensive project initiatives with no understanding of cognitive thinking style preferences.

8.    Absence of open to change mindset. Lots of arguments, no nurturing.

9.    Heavy emphasis on content knowledge over process knowledge. Knowledge of process dynamics abscent.

10. Absence of a strategic framework that explains the connections between rising complexity, cognitive inclusion and the challenges facing the organization.

11. The absence of the voice of generative thinking in the organization, in everyday work culture, in value systems, rewards systems and leadership.

12. Recurring organizational problems resulting from Think Imbalance, such as unable to build Pattern Creation streams, often with heavy emphasis on convergent thinking and Pattern Optimization.

13. The presence of force-fit, pet niche methods containing unacknowledged dynamics that directly conflict with strategic objectives and the creation of psychological safety. It is known that methods with heavy emphasis on convergent thinking make poor common innovation language for use across diverse disciplines and challenges. Often pet niche methods don’t scale to psychological safety, effectively leaving half the team cognitively behind. The push for pet niche methods is often politically motivated, serving to maintain deeply entrenched power dynamics, owned by one sub-group, blocking broader innovation dynamics and change.

14. The absence of a common adaptable innovation language that is expressed visually to enable shared understanding linked directly to stated strategic objectives.

15. No understanding at the leadership levels regarding the differences between decision support leadership and innovation enabling leadership.

16. The assumption that the presence of the “please be nice to each other” approach means that psychological safety is already present when it is not.

17. No heavy lifter innovation leader present to tackle the table-top power dynamics that are undercutting psychological safety, inclusive culture and innovation outputs.

18. High employee turnover and general dissatisfaction with working culture as expressed by folks, not seeing a cognitive place for themselves, walking out the door.

19. Absence of a clear skill-building program connecting strategy to innovation to inclusion to improving outputs and employee retention.

20. No senior dot-connecting executive leader championing the maximization of brainpower in the face of VUCA+ and an array of complex organizational challenges.

How many of these Not So Secret Red Flags exist in your organization? Are you responsible for the table-top dynamics in your team?, in your organization? Does your organization take cognitive diversity, cognitive inclusion, psychological safety seriously?

Where can you begin?

We are always happy to engage with organizational leaders facing such challenges. We love inclusive culture building innovation projects.

 Hope this was helpful readers.

 End.

Previously Published:

Humantific: Strategic Psychological Safety / True & Now: 15 Tips for Organizational Leaders:

Humantific: Cognitive Inclusion, Cognitive Diversity, Cognitive Bias in the Context of Innovation:

Humantific: Inclusive Culture Building: