In this HCI Webinar, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Andy Crocker about what losing to Musk and Bezos taught him about real leadership. Andy Crocker is an aerospace executive with three decades of experience building high-performance teams and leading ambitious projects, including NASA’s Human Landing System. He holds degrees in engineering, humanities, management, and leadership and is an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His multidisciplinary educational background and diverse career shaped his unique perspective that led him to write The Unconditionals in which he reveals the foundational, timeless values that help readers unlock the potential for their greatest personal and professional fulfillment. He recently founded Overview Affection, a company that aims to extend the values contained in The Unconditionals to individuals and organizations. 🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍 https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5000388458315776

In this HCI Webinar, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Wendy Lipton-Dibner about how leaders build impassioned engagement, unrivaled loyalty, and boundless growth by measuring real-world impact. Wendy Lipton-Dibner, MA, author of WHAT MATTERS MATTERS MOST®: How Leaders Build Impassioned Engagement, Unrivaled Loyalty, And Boundless Growth By Measuring Real-World Impact, is the leading authority on organizational development through strategic and operational impact. A multiple-time bestselling author, sought-after strategist, and serial entrepreneur, Lipton-Dibner is known for her unparalleled ability to help organizations increase profitability by maximizing and capitalizing on the Real-World Impact they create for all stakeholders. President, Founder, and CEO of Professional Impact, Inc., Lipton-Dibner is the developer of Organizational Impact Strategy, inventor of Real-World Impact Metrics, and creator of the companion app. She has helped thousands of enterprise, healthcare, small business, and non-profit leaders increase team effectiveness and revenue as the direct result of making a measurable difference in people’s lives. 🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍 https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5000388458315776

This video explores the critical strategic choice companies face between adopting an open or closed ecosystem model, a decision that fundamentally shapes their growth, innovation, and market position. An ecosystem, in business terms, includes a company’s products, customers, partners, and developers—the entire network that supports and extends the business. The open ecosystem resembles a collaborative festival where anyone can contribute, exemplified by platforms like Android and Linux. This model fosters rapid innovation, diversity, and a powerful network effect but entails less control, variable quality, and potential competitive risks. In contrast, the closed ecosystem acts like an exclusive resort, with companies tightly controlling every aspect of product and service delivery, as Apple does. Highlights 🌐 Open ecosystems foster collaboration, innovation, and rapid growth by inviting diverse contributions. 🔒 Closed ecosystems ensure high quality, strong branding, and seamless user experiences through tight control. ⚖️ Choosing between open and closed models depends heavily on industry requirements and customer expectations. 🚗 The automotive sector demonstrates that both open and closed ecosystems can coexist and succeed. 🔄 Hybrid models that blend openness with control allow companies to balance innovation and quality. 🎯 Understanding your company’s core strengths and your customers’ needs is crucial for ecosystem strategy. 🔄 Flexibility and adaptability in ecosystem strategy are key to long-term success in evolving markets. Key Insights 🌍 Open ecosystems drive exponential innovation through community collaboration: Open ecosystems like Android and Linux harness global developer communities, which accelerates innovation by leveraging countless external talents and ideas. This leads to a diverse product offering and rapid iteration that a single company’s internal teams could rarely match. However, this model sacrifices centralized control, potentially resulting in inconsistent quality and the risk of competitors leveraging the platform against the host company. 🔐 Closed ecosystems trade flexibility for control, quality, and brand integrity: Companies like Apple demonstrate how closed ecosystems deliver a polished, seamless user experience with tightly integrated hardware and software. The trade-off is reduced customization and slower innovation limited to the company’s own R&D capabilities. This model is especially effective in markets where customers value reliability, security, and a consistent premium experience over variety or freedom. 🏭 Industry context heavily influences optimal ecosystem choice: Different industries have distinct demands that shape ecosystem strategies. For example, cloud computing thrives on openness and interoperability because collaboration and resource-sharing are fundamental to cloud services. Conversely, highly regulated sectors such as healthcare or finance require closed systems to ensure data security, compliance, and oversight. 🎯 Customer-centricity is crucial in ecosystem design: Understanding what your customers truly want—whether it is endless choice and customization or simplicity and reliability—is essential. Customers’ preferences should guide ecosystem openness or closure. For instance, tech-savvy users might demand open platforms that allow extensive customization, while mainstream consumers may prioritize user-friendly, hassle-free experiences. 🚗 The automotive industry exemplifies contrasting ecosystem strategies: Android Automotive represents an open ecosystem approach where the core platform is provided by Google, but automakers maintain control over hardware and customization. Tesla exemplifies a closed ecosystem model, controlling everything from manufacturing to software and customer interfaces. Both approaches succeed because they cater to different market segments with distinct priorities. 🔄 Hybrid ecosystems offer strategic flexibility and competitive advantage: Many leading companies adopt hybrid approaches, combining openness in some areas with strict control in others. Microsoft’s Windows platform keeps hardware compatibility open while locking down source code, balancing flexibility with security. Apple selectively opens parts of its ecosystem to trusted partners via frameworks like HealthKit, blending innovation with control. 📈 Ecosystem strategy should be dynamic and adaptable: The video concludes that ecosystem decisions should not be static or permanent. Market conditions, technology, customer preferences, and competitive landscapes evolve, demanding companies remain flexible and willing to adjust their openness or closure levels. OUTLINE: 00:00:00 - Open or Closed? 00:01:52 - Power to the People! 00:04:07 - Our Way or the Highway 00:04:46 - It's Not a One-Size-Fits-All Race 00:07:20 - Mixing the Best of Both Worlds

In this podcast episode, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Andy Crocker about what losing to Musk and Bezos taught him about real leadership. Andy Crocker is an aerospace executive with three decades of experience building high-performance teams and leading ambitious projects, including NASA’s Human Landing System. He holds degrees in engineering, humanities, management, and leadership and is an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His multidisciplinary educational background and diverse career shaped his unique perspective that led him to write The Unconditionals in which he reveals the foundational, timeless values that help readers unlock the potential for their greatest personal and professional fulfillment. He recently founded Overview Affection, a company that aims to extend the values contained in The Unconditionals to individuals and organizations. Check out all of the podcasts in the HCI Podcast Network (https://www.podbean.com/podcast-network/HCI) !

This video transcript explores the critical importance of candidate experience during the hiring process by contrasting two fictional engineers named Sarah who undergo vastly different recruitment journeys. Sarah A encounters a frustrating, impersonal, and outdated hiring process that leaves her feeling undervalued, resulting in a negative impression of the company. In contrast, Sarah B experiences a respectful, streamlined, and engaging process that makes her feel appreciated and genuinely considered, regardless of the hiring outcome. The narrative emphasizes that candidate experience is a two-way evaluation where companies are scrutinized just as candidates are. Positive candidate experiences foster advocacy, enhance employer branding, and improve talent attraction, while negative experiences damage reputation and deter potential applicants. Highlights 🌟 Two contrasting candidate experiences highlight the impact of respect and care in recruitment. 💻 User-friendly application portals and clear communication improve candidate engagement. 🤝 Personalized and well-prepared interviews create positive impressions and foster advocacy. 📉 Poor candidate experiences lead to negative word of mouth and damage employer reputation. 🔄 Hiring is a two-way street: candidates evaluate companies as much as companies evaluate candidates. ⏳ Streamlined processes that respect candidates’ time increase satisfaction and attract top talent. 📈 Continuous feedback and improvement in hiring processes strengthen employer branding. Key Insights 👩‍💻 Candidate Experience Directly Reflects Company Culture: The hiring process is often the first real interaction candidates have with a company. A disorganized or impersonal process signals deeper cultural issues, such as lack of respect, transparency, and collaboration. Conversely, a well-run and empathetic process reflects a positive culture that values people, setting the tone for future relationships. 🔄 Hiring Is a Mutual Evaluation: Candidates are not passive recipients of a company’s judgment; they actively assess the organization’s culture, values, and professionalism throughout the process. This two-way evaluation means that companies must treat candidates as valued individuals, not mere data points or obstacles. 📱 Technology and User Experience Matter: A clunky and outdated application portal, as experienced by Sarah A, creates frustration and disengagement. In contrast, a smooth, intuitive website that simplifies application submission respects candidates’ time and effort, contributing to a positive experience from the outset. 📞 Communication Is Key to Respect and Engagement: Timely, transparent, and empathetic communication throughout the hiring process is crucial. Simple actions such as acknowledging applications promptly, sharing interview timelines upfront, providing feedback, and sending thoughtful rejections maintain goodwill and build trust. 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Interviewers as Brand Ambassadors: Interviewers represent the company’s brand and culture. Being well-prepared, professional, and genuinely interested in candidates’ stories creates a welcoming atmosphere that encourages open dialogue and reveals true potential. ⚖️ Balancing Company Needs with Candidate Experience: While companies have requirements for hiring, the process must be designed with candidates’ journeys in mind. This includes minimizing unnecessary steps, avoiding requests for excessive unpaid work early on, consolidating interviews to reduce burden, and personalizing communications. 📊 Continuous Improvement Through Feedback: Candidate experience is not a one-off checklist but an ongoing journey. Actively seeking feedback from candidates on what worked and what didn’t enables companies to iteratively enhance their processes. 🌍 Wider Impact on Brand and Business: Every candidate is a potential customer, partner, or brand ambassador. Negative recruitment experiences can lead to diminished sales, lost referrals, and reputational harm that extends beyond hiring. Conversely, positive experiences become authentic marketing tools, amplifying goodwill and community trust. 💡 Small Gestures Make a Big Difference: Personalization—such as using candidates’ names, referencing shared interests, and showing empathy—builds a sense of belonging and signals genuine care. 🔥 The Ripple Effect of Candidate Stories: In today’s hyper-connected digital world, candidate experiences spread rapidly through social media, review sites, and personal networks. These narratives shape employer branding far beyond the immediate hiring process, influencing future applicants’ decisions. #CandidateExperience #HiringSuccess #TalentAcquisition #RecruitmentStrategies #EmployerBrand OUTLINE: 00:00:00 - Why First Impressions Last Forever 00:03:31 - How One Candidate's Journey Shapes Your Brand 00:05:32 - Mastering Communication 00:06:11 - Designing a Human-Centered Hiring Process 00:07:35 - Continuous Improvement and Personal Touches

Abstract: This article explores how pervasive issues like micromanagement and lack of trust are inadvertently driving top talent away from organizations. The article argues that toxic leadership behaviors that undermine employee performance, engagement, and retention are commonly harming businesses. Two such behaviors, micromanagement and lack of trust, are examined in depth. Examples are provided of how micromanagement stifles initiative and innovation while lack of trust becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, the article offers a solution in the form of building a culture of empowerment, trust, care, transparency, accountability, coaching and flexibility. When leaders genuinely care about developing both people and outcomes, empower employees and embrace accountability over micromanagement, businesses can mitigate dysfunction and maximize human potential to retain top performers.

This video explores the profound and rapid transformation occurring in today’s world, driven by technological innovation, globalization, and evolving social values. It argues that traditional leadership models—characterized by rigid, long-term planning and hierarchical control—are no longer effective in navigating this dynamic and interconnected landscape. Instead, leaders must embrace agility, flexibility, and adaptability, viewing change not as a threat but as an opportunity for growth and innovation. The concept of leadership goals is reframed from fixed “stone-set” objectives to malleable “clay-like” aspirations that can evolve based on continuous learning, feedback, and experimentation. This adaptive approach fosters resilience, enabling organizations to thrive amid uncertainty and disruption. The video emphasizes the importance of a clear, unchanging vision as a guiding star, while encouraging incremental, testable initiatives and a culture of transparency, open communication, and psychological safety. Exemplary companies like Netflix and Amazon are cited as models of adaptive leadership, successfully pivoting their business models in response to shifting environments. Ultimately, the video concludes that true leadership today is defined not by control or prediction but by the ability to shape and reshape strategies and organizations with creativity, flexibility, and responsiveness to change. Highlights 🌍 The modern world is evolving at an unprecedented pace, driven by technology and global connectivity. 🔄 Traditional, rigid leadership approaches are obsolete in today’s dynamic environment. 🏆 Agility, flexibility, and experimentation are essential leadership qualities for survival and success. 🧩 Goals should be adaptable “clay,” not fixed “stone,” allowing organizations to pivot as needed. 🔍 Continuous learning, feedback, and transparency create resilient and innovative cultures. 🎯 A strong, unchanging vision acts as a guiding star amidst turbulent change. 🚀 Companies like Netflix and Amazon exemplify successful adaptive leadership and strategic flexibility. Key Insights 🌐 Hyper-Connectivity Transforms Leadership Complexity: The acceleration of information flow, capital movement, and global interconnection means that even minor events can have global ripple effects. Leaders must understand that their decisions and strategies no longer operate in isolated silos but within a complex, interconnected ecosystem requiring heightened awareness and agility. 🔄 Agility as a Core Competency: The video stresses that progress is no longer linear or predictable. Leaders must abandon static, long-term plans and instead adopt an iterative approach involving continuous learning and adjustment. 🧱 Adaptive Goal Setting Enhances Resilience: Traditional fixed goals can become dangerous anchors in volatile environments, preventing organizations from seizing emergent opportunities. By conceptualizing goals as flexible “clay,” leaders encourage experimentation and hypothesis testing rather than blind execution. 🔭 Vision as the North Star: While goals must remain adaptable, the underlying vision should be clear, unchanging, and deeply motivating. This vision provides coherence and purpose, guiding teams through uncertainty and helping them prioritize efforts. 📊 Data-Driven Experimentation: Breaking big ambitions into smaller, testable initiatives (short sprints) allows organizations to gather real-time feedback and refine their strategies without risking catastrophic failure. 💬 Culture of Transparency and Psychological Safety: For adaptive leadership to thrive, organizations must cultivate an environment where knowledge is openly shared, honest feedback is welcomed, and failure is destigmatized. 📈 Real-World Examples Validate Adaptive Leadership: Netflix and Amazon illustrate how companies can maintain a consistent vision while radically evolving their business models. Netflix transitioned from DVD mail service to streaming and content creation, while Amazon expanded from bookselling to cloud computing. #AdaptiveLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #GoalSetting #ChangeManagement #VUCA #OrganizationalGrowth OUTLINE: 00:00:00 - The Shifting Sands of Our Modern World 00:02:35 - The Perils of Stone-Set Goals 00:03:04 - A New Approach 00:04:02 - A Blueprint for Thriving in Flux 00:06:21 - The Future Belongs to the Flexible

Abstract: This article explores common signs of ineffective leadership that consultants and managers can learn to identify. The article outlines several red flags that indicate poor leadership competency. Specifically, the paper discusses lack of strategic vision, poor communication skills, low self-awareness, inability to develop talent, weak decision-making, and lack of integrity as hallmarks of incompetent leaders. Practical examples from various industries provide illustrations of these behaviors. The article argues that recognizing these signs early allows those overseeing leadership to make better hiring and supervision decisions that can positively impact employee engagement, productivity and the long-term success of the organization.