Happy New Year, Community! This is a new weekly practice I’m trying to build—a companion to our live monthly Innovating Out Loud recording. Every Sunday, I’ll share research and sense-making in progress. Faster synthesis. Five iterations instead of fifty. Stopping before it’s perfect, once I feel there’s value worth sharing. Not treating it as precious—putting it on the table so we can pretty it up together. Building on it in my own thinking throughout the week, and hopefully in yours too.
In other words: saying it ugly. Which, as it turns out, is exactly what this week’s research is about—modeling the behavior we want to see more of.
Listen here or read the full article at innovatingoutloud.substack.com
And, if you want to join the practice, leave a comment or question.
Here’s a question I have:
What’s one way you’re moving from “done to” to “done with” in your organization? I’d like to hear what’s working—and what’s not.
Sources
* Behavior Change Research Compilation, Perplexity — https://www.perplexity.ai/search/find-recent-articles-and-resea-Yr7gtUUgTLe25thuLeGdMg and https://www.perplexity.ai/search/2473db6e-56c1-4a95-9ed0-73524d3e797f
* Forrester, “Build Trust Through Strategic Communication During Reorganizations” (January 2026) — Report RES190191
* McKinsey, “Transformational Behavior Change” (2025) — referenced in source 1
* HR Executive, “5 Ways to Build Transformations That Really Matter in 2026” (December 2025) — https://hrexecutive.com/5-ways-to-build-transformations-that-really-matter-in-2026/
Connections to The Insider’s Guide to Innovation at Microsoft: B2Me Journey (emotional appeals precede cognitive ones), Trust Levers (establish trust, create personal connection, minimize uncertainty), Do The Work (bridge the knowing-doing gap through practice), Boundary Crossers (translation teams that ensure consistent interpretation across functions), Pattern #2-Innovating Over the Years (building change capacity as ongoing capability, not one-time event).
AI Disclosures: Written with Claude and my custom AI writing partner persona. Infographic created by Gemini nano banana from Perplexity research.
