Abstract: A troubling pattern is emerging across organizations: high-performing employees increasingly decline leadership opportunities not from lack of capability, but from calculated assessment of unsustainable role demands. This phenomenon represents a structural failure in how organizations design, support, and incentivize leadership positions. Drawing on organizational behavior research, leadership studies, and workforce analytics, this article examines five core drivers of leadership avoidance—chronic burnout normalization, political navigation requirements, autonomy-responsibility misalignment, inadequate compensation structures, and the compliance-courage paradox. Evidence suggests that without fundamental redesign of leadership value propositions, organizations face depleted succession pipelines and diminished competitive capacity. The article presents research-backed interventions across sustainable role design, outcome-based reward systems, decision rights restoration, equitable incentive models, and stewardship-centered leadership cultures. Organizations that reframe leadership from status hierarchy to meaningful impact creation can re-engage talent and build resilient leadership ecosystems for long-term effectiveness.

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.

This video explores the evolution, promises, and pitfalls of the open plan office, a workplace design that has become widespread across industries. Initially embraced for its cost-effectiveness, space efficiency, and supposed enhancement of collaboration and creativity, the open office model removes physical barriers to create a shared environment aimed at fostering communication and teamwork. However, despite its popularity, research and real-world experiences reveal significant drawbacks. Noise, distractions, lack of privacy, and the inability to focus deeply undermine employee well-being, productivity, and job satisfaction. Studies, including a comprehensive 2021 systematic review, provide strong evidence that open offices increase stress, sick leave, and reduce overall performance, often negating any financial savings gained from reduced real estate costs. The video contrasts the open plan office with the traditional cellular office, which offers private, enclosed spaces that support focused work and autonomy. It argues that neither model alone is sufficient, emphasizing the need for nuanced, human-centered workspace designs that balance collaboration and concentration. Highlights 🏢 The open plan office aims to reduce costs and promote collaboration by removing walls and creating shared spaces. 🔇 Noise and distractions in open offices significantly impair focus, stress levels, and productivity. 🧠 Research shows employees in open offices report higher stress, more sick leave, and lower job satisfaction. 🛑 Open offices often reduce face-to-face interactions, as workers seek privacy through digital communication. 💰 Initial real estate savings can be wiped out by productivity losses and increased absenteeism. 🎯 Effective office design requires balancing collaboration spaces with quiet, private areas for focused work. 🤝 Employee involvement in workspace design improves outcomes and fosters a true workplace community. Key Insights 🏗️ Open Plan vs. Cellular Offices Represent Contrasting Philosophies: The open plan office embodies a collectivist philosophy prioritizing constant accessibility and serendipitous interactions, often at the expense of individual needs such as privacy and focus. In contrast, cellular offices emphasize autonomy, control, and solitude, supporting deep, uninterrupted work. This fundamental psychological difference explains why neither model is universally successful and why a hybrid, nuanced approach is necessary. 📊 Empirical Evidence Challenges the Open Office Utopia: The 2021 systematic review synthesizing 31 studies provides robust, multidisciplinary evidence that open offices increase physiological stress and psychological strain. This challenges the foundational belief that open offices enhance creativity and satisfaction, highlighting the importance of relying on data rather than trends or aesthetics when designing workplaces. 🤯 Cognitive Impairment from Noise and Distraction is a Critical Issue: The human brain struggles to filter out background speech and visual distractions, causing “perpetual partial attention.” This undermines memory, task accuracy, and overall cognitive performance, making it difficult for many employees to do high-value, focused work in open environments. The issue is not just annoyance but a fundamental barrier to productivity. 🦠 Health Consequences Extend Beyond Mental Well-Being: Open offices facilitate germ transmission due to shared air and surfaces, compounding the effects of chronic stress on immune function. The resulting increase in sick days has significant operational impacts, linking office design directly to employee health outcomes and organizational resilience. 💸 Financial Savings on Real Estate Can Be Illusory: While open offices reduce upfront facility costs, these savings are often offset by hidden costs related to lost productivity, increased absenteeism, and employee burnout. The video’s example calculation shows that even a modest productivity decline can erase hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings, highlighting the need for holistic cost-benefit analyses. Like and share if this helped you rethink office strategy. #OpenPlan #WorkplaceDesign #EmployeeWellBeing #Productivity #Acoustics #HotDesking #OfficeDesign OUTLINE: 00:00:00 - The Allure And The Reality 00:01:05 - Signals From The Floor 00:01:57 - Open-Plan Vs. Cellular 00:02:59 - Psychology Of Space 00:04:11 - The Verdict And The Cost Math 00:05:33 - Attention Erosion And Collaboration Myths 00:06:45 - When Savings Become An Illusion 00:07:39 - The Example That Changes Minds 00:08:20 - Strategy Over Hype 00:09:19 - Zoning, Control, And Participation

Abstract: Organizations worldwide continue to adopt open-plan office designs, primarily motivated by cost savings, purported collaboration benefits, and space efficiency. This evidence-based review synthesizes findings from a comprehensive 2021 systematic review comparing open-plan and cellular office environments across health, satisfaction, productivity, and social dimensions. Analysis of 31 peer-reviewed studies reveals that open-plan designs consistently correlate with negative outcomes across multiple domains: elevated stress, reduced job satisfaction, compromised concentration, and deteriorating interpersonal relationships. Contrary to widespread assumptions, evidence for enhanced collaboration remains inconclusive. While open-plan configurations may reduce physical infrastructure costs, organizations face substantial intangible expenses through decreased productivity, increased sick leave, and diminished employee well-being. This review presents evidence-based organizational responses including acoustic management, flexible zoning strategies, and individual control mechanisms. Long-term capability building emphasizes psychological contract recalibration, distributed choice architecture, and continuous environmental optimization. Organizations contemplating office redesign must weigh documented human capital costs against facility savings, recognizing that staff expenses represent approximately 82% of organizational operating costs versus 5% for physical workspace.

This conversation explores an article titled "AI Shaming in Organizations: When Technology Adoption Threatens Professional Identity," which appears to be published in the Human Capital Leadership Review. The article introduces the concept of "AI shaming," detailing how workers systematically reduce their reliance on AI recommendations when that usage is visible to evaluators, fearing it signals a lack of competence or independent judgment. Drawing on field-experimental evidence, the author explains that this social image concern leads to performance declines and billions in unrealized productivity gains across various industries. The majority of the text discusses the organizational and individual consequences of this stigma and synthesizes numerous evidence-based organizational responses, including structural changes, procedural justice, and psychological contract recalibration, to encourage effective human-AI collaboration. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this podcast episode, 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. Check out all of the podcasts in the HCI Podcast Network (https://www.podbean.com/podcast-network/HCI) !

This conversation explores an article, "Organizational Learning from Crisis: Evidence-Based Strategies for Building Adaptive Capacity," authored by Jonathan H. Westover, PhD, which is published in the Human Capital Leadership Review. This article synthesizes empirical research to address how organizations can systematically learn from crises like pandemics or technological failures to build long-term resilience and adaptive capacity. The content identifies specific evidence-based interventions, such as structured reflection processes and fostering a culture of psychological safety, spanning the anticipation, coping, and adaptation phases of a crisis. Furthermore, the surrounding source context reveals that the article is part of a larger Human Capital Innovations (HCI) ecosystem, including the HCI Academy, HCI Press, and the HCL Review, highlighting a focus on organizational development, research, and professional learning solutions. Ultimately, the resource aims to provide actionable guidance for leaders on converting disruption into sustainable competitive advantage and organizational renewal. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This conversation explores an academic article titled "The AI Skills Paradox: Why Meta-Competencies Trump Technical Know-How in the Age of Intelligent Automation," published by the Human Capital Leadership Review and authored by Jonathan H. Westover, PhD. This research argues that meta-competencies—like adaptive learning, strategic agency, and empathy—are far more crucial for successful AI implementation and organizational performance than mere technical AI proficiency. The article synthesizes evidence from leading consulting firms and academic institutions, including McKinsey, Harvard, and MIT, to demonstrate that organizations must focus on building sustainable AI fluency and understanding automation economics to capture genuine productivity gains. It further identifies six core meta-competencies that separate high-performing workers from those engaged in superficial tool usage, emphasizing that the failure to develop these strategic capabilities leads to significant organizational costs and professional risk. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.