In this HCI Webinar, 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.

A surprising stat opens this video: 44% of employees reported significant stress yesterday. Stop Pushing Resilience—Build Thriving Teams Instead explores Dr. Westover’s blueprint for shifting corporate survival culture to genuine thriving by cultivating agency and connection. Learn actionable interventions—resource stewardship, the AIR method (Awareness, Inquiry, Reframing), cognitive flexibility, and procedural justice—plus real-world case examples from healthcare, tech, and manufacturing. Perfect for leaders, HR pros, and team managers seeking sustainable performance, retention, and wellbeing. Like and share if this helps you transform your workplace. #WorkplaceCulture #Thriving #Leadership #EmployeeWellbeing OUTLINE: 00:00:00 - The Resilience Trap 00:01:36 - The Cost of Survival vs The Case for Thriving 00:02:46 - A New Definition of Success: Agency at the Core 00:03:52 - From Resources to Mindset to Trust 00:05:13 - Trust, Case Examples, and Leader Actions 00:06:44 - The Leader's Playbook and Call to Action

Abstract: Corporate America's long-standing emphasis on resilience has inadvertently normalized a "survival mode" workplace culture characterized by chronic stress, reactive decision-making, and burnout. This article examines how organizations can shift from demanding resilience to fostering genuine thriving by cultivating employee agency—the capacity to make intentional choices supported by belief in their efficacy. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, self-determination theory, and recent organizational scholarship, we analyze the organizational and individual costs of survival-oriented cultures and present evidence-based interventions across three domains: resource stewardship, cognitive flexibility development, and social connection infrastructure. Case narratives from healthcare, technology, and manufacturing sectors illustrate practical implementation strategies. We argue that thriving workplaces require systemic commitment to reducing demands, expanding resources, empowering choice, and prioritizing relational wellbeing—shifts that simultaneously enhance talent retention, performance, and sustainable competitive advantage.

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.