In this HCI Webinar, I talk with Cyndi Wenninghoff about creating a magnetic culture in your organization. Cyndi Wenninghoff has over 10 years of experience working in human resources in various industries including advertising, insurance, and technology. She currently works as the Director of Employee Success at Quantum Workplace in Omaha where she oversees employee engagement, recruiting, DE&I, onboarding, and retention efforts. Previously she was the Director of Human Resources at SilverStone Group, a HUB International company as well as the Head of Talent at Bailey Lauerman. Outside of work, she is a member of the Human Resources Association of the Midlands (HRAM) and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Additionally, she serves as the Director-Elect for the HR Nebraska State Council. She is also the Communications and PR Coordinator for RISE Omaha, a motivating speaker series designed to inspire and unite women throughout Omaha, helping to connect women leaders and build the next generation of female business leaders.

Many organizations invest heavily in training to improve employee performance, yet persistent errors and struggles under pressure remain common. This recurring issue stems not from a lack of skill, but from a lack of readiness—the fluctuating ability and will to perform effectively at any given moment. Readiness is dynamic, influenced by five interconnected states: cognitive, emotional, motivational, physiological, and interpersonal readiness. Each state plays a critical role in enabling consistent, reliable performance. Highlights 🔑 Many organizations confuse skill gaps with readiness gaps, leading to ineffective training investments. 🧠 Cognitive readiness is crucial for focus and decision-making, and can be enhanced by minimizing interruptions and simplifying workflows. 💖 Emotional readiness influences behavior; managing emotions through mindfulness and creating safe spaces improves collaboration. 🚀 Motivational readiness drives engagement by linking work to purpose and granting autonomy. 🛌 Physiological readiness depends on health, rest, and energy; proper scheduling and breaks are essential for sustained performance. 🤝 Interpersonal readiness, built on trust and psychological safety, prevents hidden risks and fosters openness. 🛠️ Leaders must design systems that nurture all five readiness states to reliably translate skills into performance. Key Insights 🧩 Readiness is a dynamic, multidimensional state essential for performance: Unlike static skills, readiness fluctuates moment-to-moment based on cognitive, emotional, motivational, physiological, and interpersonal factors. Recognizing this dynamic nature helps break the cycle of blaming individuals or training programs for recurring errors. Organizations must monitor and support readiness continuously to maintain high performance under pressure. 🧠 Cognitive readiness can be significantly improved by environmental design: Overload and interruptions reduce mental capacity and increase errors. Leaders can protect cognitive readiness by simplifying processes, using clear checklists, and creating “no interruption” zones. This highlights the critical role of work environment and design in enabling skillful execution rather than relying solely on individual effort. 💡 Emotional management is as important as technical ability: Strong negative emotions impair rational thinking and teamwork, while positive emotions broaden creativity. Teaching emotional regulation techniques such as mindful pauses and reappraisal, combined with blameless debriefings, cultivates a psychologically safe workplace that encourages learning from mistakes rather than fear-driven concealment. 🎯 Motivational readiness hinges on meaningful work and autonomy: When employees connect their tasks to a larger purpose and feel empowered to make choices, their intrinsic motivation and ownership increase. This drives innovation and productivity, especially in knowledge-driven sectors like technology, where creativity is critical. 🛌 Physiological readiness underscores the interplay between body and mind: Physical exhaustion, poor sleep, and extended shifts critically undermine cognitive and emotional readiness. Sustainable scheduling practices, enforced breaks, and discouraging overtime are vital interventions. This insight emphasizes that human performance is holistic and must consider health as a foundation for mental acuity. 🤝 Interpersonal readiness fosters trust and psychological safety, reducing hidden risks: In environments where blame and shame dominate, people hide problems, allowing small issues to escalate into crises. Cultivating a culture where asking questions and admitting mistakes is encouraged ensures transparency and collective problem-solving, which is critical in high-stakes fields like healthcare. 🛠️ Leaders must transition from training purchasers to readiness architects: Investing solely in skills development misses the broader system that enables skills to be reliably applied. By educating teams on the five readiness states, embedding readiness checks in meetings, and modeling openness and self-care, leaders can build resilient organizations that sustain humane and reliable performance over time. If this helped you, please like and share the video. #DBRS #BehavioralReadiness #OrganizationalPerformance #Leadership #TrainingFailFix OUTLINE: 00:00:00 - Why More Skills Aren't the Answer 00:00:26 - From Skills To Readiness (DBRS Overview) 00:01:04 - The Five Readiness States (Cognitive, Emotional, Motivational, Physiological, Interpersonal) 00:01:52 - Physiological + Interpersonal Readiness 00:02:36 - Readiness in Action (Real-World Examples) 00:03:19 - How Leaders Can Implement DBRS Today + Culture of Readiness

This research introduces the Dynamic Behavior Readiness System (DBRS), a framework that explains why employees often fail to perform despite having the necessary skills. It argues that consistent performance is not a fixed trait but a result of five fluctuating states: cognitive capacity, emotional regulation, motivation, physical energy, and interpersonal safety. Rather than relying solely on repetitive training, the authors suggest that organizations must engineer environments that protect these states from depletion. By addressing systemic issues like excessive cognitive load and lack of psychological safety, leaders can ensure that staff are mentally and physically prepared to apply their expertise. Ultimately, the source advocates for a shift from measuring static competencies to managing real-time readiness to achieve sustainable organizational success.

In this podcast episode, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Cyndi Wenninghoff about creating a magnetic culture in your organization. Cyndi Wenninghoff has over 10 years of experience working in human resources in various industries including advertising, insurance, and technology. She currently works as the Director of Employee Success at Quantum Workplace in Omaha where she oversees employee engagement, recruiting, DE&I, onboarding, and retention efforts. Previously she was the Director of Human Resources at SilverStone Group, a HUB International company as well as the Head of Talent at Bailey Lauerman. Outside of work, she is a member of the Human Resources Association of the Midlands (HRAM) and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Additionally, she serves as the Director-Elect for the HR Nebraska State Council. She is also the Communications and PR Coordinator for RISE Omaha, a motivating speaker series designed to inspire and unite women throughout Omaha, helping to connect women leaders and build the next generation of female business leaders. Check out all of the podcasts in the HCI Podcast Network (https://www.podbean.com/podcast-network/HCI) !

Abstract: Organizations invest billions annually in capability development—training programs, operational frameworks, digital tools—yet performance remains inconsistent when conditions shift or pressure intensifies. This discrepancy suggests that traditional skill-based interventions address only part of the performance equation. Drawing on cognitive load theory, affective neuroscience, self-determination theory, and organizational behavior research, this article introduces the Dynamic Behavior Readiness System (DBRS) framework. DBRS reconceptualizes workplace behavior not as a stable individual trait but as an emergent system property shaped by five interdependent readiness states: cognitive, emotional, motivational, physiological, and interpersonal. Rather than defaulting to remedial training or dispositional attribution when performance falters, the DBRS approach equips leaders to diagnose state-level compromises and engineer organizational conditions that restore and sustain behavioral readiness. Evidence from healthcare, aviation, manufacturing, and professional services demonstrates that system-level interventions targeting readiness states yield more reliable performance outcomes than capability-building initiatives alone.

This video explores the critical role of uniquely human skills in an era dominated by rapid technological advancement, automation, and artificial intelligence. While technical expertise in coding, data science, and system management is essential, the video argues that an exclusive focus on these hard skills overlooks the human qualities that technology cannot replicate—qualities that will define success in the future workplace. These “human skills” include creativity, resilience, empathy, curiosity, and collaboration. Despite widespread acknowledgment of their importance by leaders, these skills are rarely prioritized in hiring, development, or evaluation processes, representing a significant blind spot in talent management. Highlights 🤖 The rise of AI and automation is reshaping work, but human skills remain irreplaceable. 💡 Creativity, resilience, empathy, curiosity, and collaboration are the core human skills needed for future success. 🚫 Despite their importance, human skills are often overlooked in hiring, training, and performance measurement. 🔄 Human skills are like muscles—they atrophy without deliberate practice and reinforcement. 📈 Companies that prioritize human skills improve innovation, productivity, and employee well-being. 🛠️ A three-step approach: communicate expectations, build practice spaces, and assess/credential skills. 🌍 The future is humans leveraging technology, not competing against it; the “human edge” is the ultimate advantage. Key Insights 🤔 Human skills as the “secret sauce” of innovation and resilience: While technology executes tasks efficiently, it is human creativity and emotional intelligence that drive innovation and adaptability in unpredictable environments. Organizations ignoring this risk stagnation and loss of competitive edge. This insight highlights that technical skills alone cannot prepare businesses for complex, ambiguous challenges—only human ingenuity and social intelligence can. 🎯 The disconnect between belief and action in talent management: Leaders universally recognize the value of human skills, yet fail to integrate them into hiring criteria, training programs, or performance metrics. This disconnect creates a strategic blind spot, where organizations invest heavily in technical training but leave critical human potential untapped. The insight stresses the importance of aligning organizational processes with stated values to unlock workforce potential fully. 🧠 Human skills require deliberate cultivation, not passive hope: Unlike technical skills that can be learned through formal training, human skills degrade without practice. The pandemic illustrated how resilience and creativity fell during prolonged stress, showing that organizations must proactively embed these skills into daily work through simulations, projects, and safe environments where experimentation is encouraged. This insight reframes human skills as trainable competencies, not fixed traits. 🌱 Psychological safety as a foundation for developing human skills: Empathy and collaboration thrive in cultures where employees feel safe to express ideas without fear of ridicule. Psychological safety fosters creativity and innovation by allowing diverse perspectives to emerge. The video’s emphasis on this point reveals that culture and environment are key levers for nurturing human skills, not just training or policy changes. 📊 Measurement and credentialing unlock value and recognition: What gets measured gets managed. By incorporating human skills into job descriptions, performance reviews, and credentialing systems such as digital badges, organizations can make these skills visible and valued. This insight points to the need for practical tools to assess and reward human skill development, bridging the gap between soft skills and formal organizational structures. 🔄 Human skills enable career mobility and organizational agility: The ability to navigate different roles, industries, and changing circumstances depends heavily on skills like resilience and collaboration. Employees with strong human skills adapt better to disruption and are more likely to advance. This insight underscores the role of human skills in long-term career development and workforce flexibility. If this helped you, please like and share to spread the human-centric skills conversation. #HumanSkills #FutureOfWork #EmotionalIntelligence #Creativity #Resilience #SkillsDevelopment #AIImpact OUTLINE: 00:00:00 - Human Skills: The New Competitive Edge + Defining Our Human Advantage 00:02:15 - Evidence, Gaps, and Consequences 00:04:00 - From Neglect to Blueprint to Action 00:06:13 - Invest in People to Secure the Future (Finale)

This article synthesizes emerging evidence on human-centric skills—creativity, resilience, emotional intelligence, and adaptive thinking—within contemporary labor markets shaped by artificial intelligence (AI), demographic shifts, and geoeconomic fragmentation. Drawing on global employer surveys, workforce analytics, and comparative education data, it examines the paradox whereby these skills are increasingly valued yet systematically under-recognized in hiring, under-developed in education systems, and inconsistently credentialed across borders. Analysis reveals that although employers project creative thinking and resilience as critical to 2030 competitiveness, only 72% of US job postings explicitly mention any human-centric skill, and fewer than half of executives perceive their workforces as proficient in curiosity, resilience, or lifelong learning. Regional variations underscore distinct strengths—Sub-Saharan Africa in creativity and collaboration, Eastern Asia in curiosity—yet global weaknesses persist in curiosity and structured skill development. The article advances evidence-based organizational responses including transparent communication of skill expectations, capability-building through experiential learning and psychologically safe environments, and credentialing innovations that make skills visible and portable. It concludes with a strategic framework for building long-term human capital resilience through integrated assessment, development, and recognition systems anchored in shared standards and enabling conditions of equity, common language, and responsible technology use.

This conversation introduces the Dynamic Behavior Readiness System (DBRS), a framework that explains why employees often fail to perform even when they possess the necessary skills. It argues that workplace performance is not a fixed trait but a fluctuating outcome dependent on five key states: cognitive, emotional, motivational, physiological, and interpersonal readiness. Rather than relying solely on traditional training, they suggest that leaders must engineer organizational environments that support these states to ensure consistent execution under pressure. By addressing systemic issues like cognitive overload, burnout, and psychological safety, companies can bridge the gap between an individual's capabilities and their actual on-the-job behavior. Ultimately, the text advocates for readiness engineering as a sustainable strategy for improving both organizational productivity and employee well-being. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.