In this podcast episode, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Stephanie Van Meter about talent enhancing development and employee engagement within your team. As Chief Operating Officer at Ammunition, Stephanie is a distinguished leader known for fostering teamwork, strengthening communication, and driving organizational growth. Joining Ammunition in 2022, she advanced from Chief of Staff to Chief Operating Officer in 2024, a testament to her leadership and impact across the agency. Her strategic guidance has been instrumental in Ammunition’s recognition by Adweek’s Fastest Growing Agencies, Inc. 5000, The Financial Times, and the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Previously, as Director of Operations, Process, and Development for Barry’s, an international boutique fitness brand, she launched the company’s first learning management system and optimized operational best practices. Stephanie’s passion for people development, operational excellence, and clear communication continues to drive her success and the success of the organizations she leads.  Check out all of the podcasts in the HCI Podcast Network (https://www.podbean.com/podcast-network/HCI) !

Leaders today face a paradoxical crossroads where immense excitement about future opportunities coexists with deep anxiety about risks and uncertainty. The rapid pace of technological change, evolving markets, and shifting consumer needs create a thrilling landscape for innovation but also a terrifying fog of ambiguity. This results in a tension between the impulse to accelerate and the instinct to pause, which can lead to paralysis and missed opportunities. The most effective leaders do not wait for certainty; instead, they cultivate specific mental tools and organizational habits that enable purposeful action amid uncertainty. Research identifies five core traits that leaders develop to navigate this landscape successfully: a positive change orientation, opportunity framing, uncertainty tolerance, failure fluency, and grounded optimism. These skills transform fear into motivation and hesitation into deliberate experimentation and learning. By embracing change as opportunity, reframing problems to uncover new value, conducting small, controlled experiments, openly learning from failure, and maintaining honest yet hopeful communication, leaders build momentum and resilience. This approach fosters psychological safety, accelerates innovation, and ensures organizations can adapt and thrive despite the inherent risks of an unpredictable future. Highlights 🌟 Leaders face a tension between excitement for innovation and fear of uncertainty. 🔄 Positive change orientation means actively seeking and embracing change as opportunity. 💡 Opportunity framing shifts focus from fixing problems to creating new value. 🎯 Uncertainty tolerance enables quick, decisive action on partial information through experiments. 🛠 Failure fluency treats mistakes as learning opportunities, fostering a culture of psychological safety. 🔥 Grounded optimism combines hope with brutal honesty to maintain momentum and unity. 📈 The cost of inaction often outweighs risks of imperfect but thoughtful first steps. Key Insights 🌐 The Complexity of Leadership at a Crossroads: Leaders today operate in an environment marked by rapid, often unpredictable change, where the potential for breakthrough innovation is matched by significant risk. The resulting psychological dynamic is not simple indecision but a complex stasis—a tug of war between the desire to move fast and the impulse to hold back. This underscores that leadership now requires mastering the ability to act decisively amid ambiguity rather than waiting for clarity. 🚀 Positive Change Orientation as a Mindset Shift: More than optimism, this trait redefines how leaders perceive change—not as a threat to defend against but as a catalyst for improvement. Leaders who embody this mindset actively seek change and use it to drive evolution, encouraging teams to adopt a forward-leaning posture. This reframing is crucial to overcoming resistance and inertia that typically stifle innovation. 🔍 Opportunity Framing Unlocks Creative Potential: Traditional problem-solving often narrows focus to mitigating risks or restoring status quo, but opportunity framing flips the script. By asking “What new value can we create?” instead of “How do we fix this?”, leaders unlock creative freedom and psychological safety. Embedding rituals that prioritize identifying opportunities before threats trains teams to spot upside potential faster and act more boldly. ⚖️ Uncertainty Tolerance Enables Experimental Leadership: In a world where perfect information is rare, the ability to take small, decisive steps based on partial data is essential. Labeling these decisions as experiments lowers the stakes and encourages rapid learning cycles. This experimental approach reduces paralysis by making action manageable and reversible, fostering agility and continuous improvement. 🧠 Failure Fluency Cultivates a Learning Culture: Treating failures as valuable data rather than indictments reshapes organizational responses to setbacks. Open discussion and systematic deconstruction of mistakes build institutional memory and prevent repeated errors. Psychological safety is foundational here, as it encourages transparency and honest reflection, which in turn accelerates learning and innovation. 🔥 Grounded Optimism Balances Hope and Reality: Unlike blind positivity, grounded optimism combines an unwavering belief in success with a clear-eyed assessment of challenges. This balanced perspective unites teams around a shared understanding of the situation and a confident plan of action, preventing panic and maintaining momentum. Structured communication that presents hard facts alongside clear next steps helps sustain this balance. If this helped, please like and share the video with fellow leaders. #Leadership #DecisionMaking #EmotionalIntelligence #AdaptiveLeadership #Neuroscience

This segment provides a discussion of the major forces transforming human resources. They discuss the confluence of technology, talent, and organizational shifts—specifically the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence and automation, evolving workforce demographics, and the shift toward globally distributed, fluid work arrangements. They examine the profound impact these trends have on core HR functions, such as recruitment, performance management, and talent development, noting that legacy HR models are insufficient for the emerging reality. Finally, they prescribe a set of evidence-based organizational responses and capability-building strategies—like fostering technology stewardship, promoting ethical AI integration, and reimagining the employee psychological contract—that HR leaders must adopt to drive competitive advantage.

In this HCI Webinar, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Lamell J. McMorris about his book, THE POWER TO PERSIST: 8 Simple Habits To Build Lifelong Resilience. Lamell J. McMorris is a nationally recognized entrepreneur, activist, and changemaker dedicated to advancing equity and revitalizing underserved communities. Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, he went on to find phenomenal success as a D.C. policymaker, a consultant in the financial and professional sports arenas, and a civil and human rights advocate. McMorris is the founder and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based company Phase 2 Consulting, which offers strategic insight and external affairs services to some of the nation's leading decision-makers in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors, including Fortune 100 companies. He is also founder and managing principal of Greenlining Realty USA, a comprehensive urban redevelopment firm dedicated to neighborhood investment, redevelopment, housing rehabilitation, and home improvement in low-income communities. He holds a BA in Religion and Society from Morehouse College, a MDiv in Social Ethics and Public Policy from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a DLP in Law and Policy from Northeastern University.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping organizational operations in ways that extend far beyond technical implementation. While 85% of IT leaders report that CIOs are becoming organizational changemakers, most continue to focus primarily on operational functions rather than the cultural and organizational transformations AI demands. This gap creates significant risks, as evidenced by high-profile failures at companies like Zillow and Air Canada. Research indicates that 91% of data leaders identify cultural challenges—not technology—as the primary barrier to data-driven transformation. This article examines why traditional technology leadership roles often lack the bandwidth and mandate to address AI's human and organizational implications, proposes an expanded leadership model combining technical expertise with organizational psychology and change management, and explores early examples of organizations successfully implementing this approach through roles that bridge innovation, transformation, and cultural change.

This video presents a critical examination of AI implementation failures and underscores the importance of integrating human factors into AI-driven transformations. It opens with a cautionary tale of a large logistics company that deployed an AI-powered routing system intended to optimize delivery efficiency but instead caused serious operational disruptions, driver dissatisfaction, and significant financial losses exceeding $100 million. The core lesson is that AI is not purely a technical endeavor but a sociotechnical system involving technology, processes, and people. The narrative stresses that AI outputs require human interpretation, judgment, and cultural adaptation within organizations. Highlights 🤖 AI failures can cost millions, damage trust, and harm reputations. 🚚 Ignoring human factors in AI leads to operational chaos and employee turnover. 🧠 AI is a sociotechnical system—technology and people must work together. 👩‍⚕️ Human judgment is essential in interpreting AI outputs, especially in sensitive fields like healthcare. ⚙️ Traditional CIO/CTO roles focus on stability, not transformation. 🌉 The Chief Innovation and Transformation Officer (CITO) bridges technology and human-centered change. 📊 Practical AI success requires governance, workforce planning, and iterative testing. Key Insights 💸 Cost of Ignoring Human Factors in AI Deployment: The logistics company’s $100 million loss illustrates that AI systems ignoring human workflows and expertise can lead to operational failure. AI outputs must be integrated with human experience to avoid costly disruptions and morale collapse. This case highlights that technological sophistication alone is insufficient for success. Organizations must consider the lived realities of frontline workers who interact with AI daily. 🤝 AI as a Sociotechnical System: AI is not just algorithms and data; it is a system that includes people and processes. This insight reframes AI from a purely technical challenge to a complex organizational change. Decision-making becomes a shared responsibility between AI outputs and human judgment, requiring new workflows, communication practices, and cultural adjustments. This perspective mandates interdisciplinary collaboration and staff involvement in AI design and deployment. 👩‍⚕️ The Role of Human Judgment in AI-Augmented Decisions: The example of AI assisting doctors shows that even highly accurate AI models must be contextualized by human expertise. Doctors interpret AI diagnoses, apply ethical considerations, and communicate empathetically. This demonstrates that AI should augment rather than replace human decision-making, especially in fields with high stakes and ethical dimensions. 🛑 Limitations of Traditional Tech Leadership in AI Transformation: CIOs and CTOs focus primarily on operational stability—cybersecurity, system uptime, and risk mitigation—which are critical but often hinder innovation. Their risk-averse mindset and workload leave limited bandwidth for transformative AI initiatives. Recognizing this limitation is crucial for organizations looking to harness AI’s full potential. 🌐 Emergence of the Chief Innovation and Transformation Officer: The new leadership role represents a paradigm shift. The CITO’s mandate is broader than technology management; it includes fostering cross-functional collaboration, embedding ethical AI governance, and aligning technology with human and business needs. By acting as a bridge between technical teams and frontline operations, the CITO ensures AI initiatives are designed with stakeholder input, increasing ownership and reducing resistance. ⚖️ Governance and Ethical Frameworks Are Essential: Establishing clear rules for AI usage, including fairness, bias prevention, and human oversight, is foundational. Without governance, AI projects risk ethical failures and legal complications. The governance council unites technology, legal, ethics, and business perspectives to create trust and accountability, which are prerequisites for sustainable AI adoption. 🎯 Practical Steps for Successful AI Adoption: The video outlines actionable recommendations: (1) empower the transformation role with executive authority, (2) build governance structures to define ethical AI use, (3) plan for workforce changes by anticipating role impacts and training needs, and (4) pilot AI solutions in controlled environments to measure both business outcomes and employee morale. These steps emphasize intentionality and continuous learning, contrasting with ad hoc or purely technical rollouts.

Abstract: Trait Activation Theory (TAT) provides a powerful framework for understanding how personality traits manifest as workplace behaviors in response to situational cues. This systematic review synthesizes recent empirical evidence on TAT's applications in organizational settings, examining its predictive validity for job performance, innovation, knowledge sharing, and employee well-being. Drawing on interdisciplinary research spanning organizational psychology, human resource management, and leadership studies, this article demonstrates that trait-relevant situational cues—including task demands, social interactions, and organizational structures—significantly moderate the relationship between personality and work outcomes. Evidence suggests that organizations achieving optimal person-environment fit through TAT-informed talent strategies report measurable improvements in individual performance (15-25% gains), team effectiveness, and innovation outputs. The review identifies evidence-based interventions across recruitment, job design, leadership development, and organizational culture that enable practitioners to activate beneficial trait expressions while minimizing counterproductive behaviors. Implications for building adaptive, trait-conscious talent ecosystems are discussed.

The video explores the concept of Trait Activation Theory (TAT) as a transformative approach for improving organizational performance by aligning employee personality traits with the right environmental cues at work. Traditional hiring focuses on identifying static personality traits such as conscientiousness, agreeableness, or extraversion, assuming these traits predict success regardless of context. However, TAT reveals that personality traits are latent potentials activated only by specific situational cues, meaning an employee’s effectiveness depends heavily on how well their role and environment trigger their strengths. Highlights 🔑 Trait Activation Theory reveals personality traits as dormant potentials activated by specific situational cues. 🚀 Proper alignment of job cues and employee traits can boost performance by up to 25%. 🧩 Environmental cues are categorized as demand, allow, and constrain, each influencing trait activation differently. 🎯 Hiring strategies should focus on situational assessments that mimic job cues rather than relying on generic personality tests. 👥 Leaders play a crucial role as “cue managers” who design and adjust environments to maximize employee strengths. ⚠️ Poor person-environment fit leads to ego depletion, disengagement, turnover, and significant business costs. 🌟 The shift from finding perfect people to designing activating environments empowers organizations to unlock untapped human potential. Key Insights 🔍 Personality Traits Are Context-Dependent, Not Fixed: Traditional hiring often treats traits like conscientiousness or extraversion as fixed predictors of job success. TAT challenges this by demonstrating that traits are latent potentials, activated only by the right environmental signals. This insight shifts the paradigm from static personality assessment to dynamic environment design, emphasizing the interplay between person and situation. Organizations must reconsider how they evaluate talent and recognize that an employee’s success depends on whether their work environment calls forth their best qualities. 🛠️ Environmental Cues Shape Behavior and Performance: The theory categorizes situational cues into demand cues (which require specific behaviors), allow cues (which permit expression of traits), and constrain cues (which restrict behaviors). For example, a tight deadline (demand cue) activates conscientiousness, whereas an unstructured brainstorming session (allow cue) activates openness to experience. Understanding these categories helps leaders intentionally craft work environments that strategically trigger desired traits, turning the workplace into a catalyst for performance rather than a limiting factor. 🎯 Strategic Job Design and Hiring Enhance Trait Activation: Instead of relying on generic personality tests, organizations should use behavioral interviews, situational judgment tests, and work simulations that replicate real job cues. This method assesses candidates’ trait activation in context, providing more predictive and actionable insights. Additionally, job crafting—allowing employees to reshape tasks to align with their strengths—enables continuous activation of positive traits, boosting engagement and job satisfaction. This approach moves beyond “fit” as a static concept to an ongoing dynamic process. 👩‍💼 Managers as Environmental Architects: Managers are pivotal in managing situational cues through task assignments, deadlines, feedback, and cultural signals. By training leaders to recognize team members’ personality traits and adjust cues accordingly, organizations can cultivate an environment that unleashes collective strengths. This empowerment of leaders transforms them into “cue managers” who orchestrate high-performing teams through thoughtful environmental design rather than solely focusing on individual talent acquisition. ⚠️ Consequences of Poor Person-Environment Fit Are Significant: When there is a mismatch between employee traits and job cues, individuals experience ego depletion—a state of mental exhaustion caused by constantly suppressing natural tendencies. This leads to decreased engagement, burnout, and poor well-being. The organizational implications include higher turnover rates, increased recruitment and training costs, reduced productivity, more mistakes, and stagnated innovation. These costs underscore the urgency of adopting trait activation principles to prevent talent waste. Like the video if you found it useful and share with your team to start trait-conscious talent planning today. #TraitActivation #PersonEnvironmentFit #TalentManagement #HR #Leadership #Innovation #JobDesign OUTLINE: 00:00:00 - Intro to Trait Activation + 25% Hook 00:01:54 - How Situations Unleash Potential 00:03:36 - From Evidence to Action (Leaders & HR) 00:05:04 - Blueprint for Leaders & Culture 00:06:33 - The High Cost of Misfit; The Gains from Fit 00:07:59 - Gains from Getting It Right + Call to Action