On Culture: The Organizational Nervous System

Myste Wylde
2 days ago
6 min read

Dear Culturati Insider,

Every organization has a nervous system. Most leaders get acquainted with it only after it activates.

Last week we explored how external instability shapes how people show up to work. This week focuses on what happens inside organizations during disruption. Under duress, strategy competes with instinct, and instinct usually wins. As AI makes technical skills less of an advantage and increases visibility into decision-making, leadership performance is shifting toward how power is exercised and sustained under scrutiny. IQ and EQ remain foundational, but DQ, decency, was named at Davos as the emerging infrastructure for trust, fairness, and accountability. LQ (love) further extends leadership into stewardship, reinforcing long-term performance and institutional credibility.

Neuroscience helps explain why this shift is accelerating. Research shows uncertainty produces stronger stress responses than guaranteed negative outcomes. Change becomes especially destabilizing when people tie identity to role or expertise. Instead, leaders who anchor identity in purpose, create space for reflection, and treat resilience as a trained capability protect decision quality during transformation. The organizations that thrive in volatility do not eliminate uncertainty. They regulate it.

This pressure shows up in how leaders communicate and connect. Nearly half of Americans avoid difficult conversations even though most hold moderate views. Structured, respectful dialogue improves collaboration. Vulnerability follows the same rule. Teams read stability before they process words. Transparency builds trust when it is grounded in self-trust. Meanwhile, the surge in conversation about nervous system regulation (178,500 videos on TikTok!) proves workplace stress has reached a level where employees are actively trying to manage it themselves — and if their nervous systems are under fire, so is your organization’s.

These dynamics are exactly what we will unpack in next week’s Culturati: LIVE with Dr. Katie Pritchett. She will introduce the Organizational Nervous System lens and show how stress, identity threat, and uncertainty drive decision behavior, trust, and performance during change. If your organization is navigating AI adoption, cultural reinvention, or sustained volatility, this session will offer practical insight into how leaders build regulation and capacity so transformation actually takes.

Proactively yours,

Myste Wylde, COO

Most transformation efforts fail because organizations revert to familiar stress behaviors under pressure, regardless of strategy. In next week's Culturati: LIVE session, leadership researcher Dr. Katie Pritchett introduces the Organizational Nervous System lens, a neuroscience-based framework that helps leaders understand how stress, uncertainty, and identity threat shape decision quality, trust, and performance. As AI accelerates change and amplifies questions around value, capability, and stability, leaders will learn how organizations default into patterns like urgency, avoidance, and burnout disguised as productivity. Dr. Pritchett will share practical tools to help leaders strengthen regulation and capacity, two capabilities that allow teams to stay steady under pressure, make better decisions faster, retain top talent, and sustain innovation through continuous change.

The Future Of Leadership: From IQ And EQ To DQ And LQ

Forbes

By Shelley Dalis

Summary: Leadership performance is shifting from intelligence and emotional awareness toward how authority is exercised and sustained under scrutiny. The emerging framework of quotients IQ (intelligence), EQ (emotional), and DQ (decency) reflects growing expectations that leaders demonstrate fairness, consistency, and accountability in decision-making, particularly as AI makes technical skills less of an advantage and increases transparency into behavior. At the 2026 World Economic Forum, executives (including Ida Liu, CEO of HSBC Private Bank who named DQ) emphasized that decency functions as operational infrastructure by shaping access, trust, and risk tolerance across organizations. The addition of LQ (love) by Jamie Dimon or responsibility-driven care for people and institutional longevity, reinforces a longer-term leadership horizon tied to sustainable performance. Together, these capabilities signal a measurable evolution in leadership expectations where competitive advantage increasingly depends on credibility, ethical consistency, and the ability to steward power responsibly across complex stakeholder environments.

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The Cognitive Science Behind Sudden Change

Harvard Business Review

By Dr. Maya Shankar and Adi Ignatius

Summary: Cognitive scientist Dr. Maya Shankar explains why sudden change is so deeply disruptive for leadership and teams. Research shows uncertainty produces stronger stress responses than certainty, with participants reporting higher stress facing a 50% chance of electric shock than a guaranteed one. Change is especially destabilizing when people tie their identity to their role or expertise. Shankar recommends grounding identity in purpose, treating resilience as a trainable capability, and using routines that interrupt rumination and expand future options. She highlights cognitive traps that distort judgment, including the end-of-history illusion and poor forecasting of emotional impact, while showing how challenge and failure trigger neuroplasticity and accelerate learning. Leaders who pause to observe signals, address meaning gaps behind burnout, and create space for reflection protect decision quality, adaptability, and execution during large-scale transformation, including AI-driven change.

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Psychology Says Civil Conversations Can Change Minds More Than You Think

Inc.

By Jessica Stillman

Summary: New psychology data shows people consistently underestimate how open others are to civil disagreement, driving avoidance that deepens polarization and weakens collaboration. In controlled studies, participants discussing divisive topics for 10 minutes expected conflict and resistance, yet conversations produced measurable attitude softening that continued influencing opinions a week later. Survey data highlights the perception gap: 45% of Americans avoid political conversations, 62% feel unable to share beliefs openly, and only 16% believe they can discuss politics with anyone, even though most people hold moderate views. Researchers found participants underestimated shared reasoning and overestimated defensiveness, while separate studies show a small minority generates most extreme online content. The findings reinforce that structured, respectful dialogue can strengthen trust, improve alignment, and accelerate decision quality in high-pressure environments.

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Vulnerability Without Self-Trust Isn’t Courage

Psychology Today

By Kyle Emanuel Brown

Summary: Research shows vulnerability strengthens trust only when paired with emotional regulation and self-trust, making discernment a critical leadership skill. Studies in affective neuroscience and emotional contagion show teams read tone and internal stability as signals of safety, with leaders’ emotional states directly shaping morale, performance, and psychological security. High performers often swing between emotional distance and oversharing under pressure, both of which erode credibility and create instability. Effective vulnerability requires three conditions: internal regulation, intention focused on connection rather than relief, and context that supports productive disclosure. Research on interoceptive awareness shows leaders who accurately read internal cues make stronger social and emotional decisions under pressure. Leaders who process uncertainty internally before sharing project steadiness, strengthen trust, and sustain team confidence during volatility and transformation.

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Everyone on TikTok is ‘Regulating Their Nervous System’

Fast Company

By Eve Upton-Clark

Summary: A growing workplace trend around “nervous system regulation” reflects a deeper signal about sustained stress and burnout across modern work environments, with over 178,500 videos tagged #nervoussystemhealing as employees share coping behaviors ranging from micro-breaks to movement and breathing techniques. Neuroscience explains the surge: the body processes deadlines, notifications, and constant digital stimulation through the same fight-or-flight response designed for physical danger, which can drive anxiety, fatigue, and irritability when stress systems remain activated. Broader workforce indicators reinforce the pattern, with Glassdoor naming fatigue the word of the year for 2025 and trend forecasters predicting 2026 as a period of widespread exhaustion. Experts point to practical regulation strategies such as posture changes, walking meetings, movement, and vagus nerve stimulation to restore cognitive balance. Work environments that operate in sustained urgency degrade resilience, decision quality, and performance, while cultures that build recovery rhythms support steadier execution and long-term productivity.

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In last week's Culturati: LIVE session, Gwen Hammes, co-CEO of Cro Metrics, joined Al Dea, founder of The Edge of Work, to examine how AI is redrawing the boundary between automation and human judgment inside organizations. Drawing on new research and operator-level examples, the conversation surfaced a core shift underway: as AI absorbs routine work, advantage moves to leaders’ ability to decide what gets automated, where human accountability remains essential, and how clearly those choices are communicated. The discussion underscored that AI’s real cultural impact shows up in trust—how people interpret decisions, experience protection or displacement, and understand their value as intelligent systems become ambient. Rather than positioning AI as a productivity upgrade, the session framed it as a test of executive judgment, context, and responsibility, pushing leaders to rethink roles, incentives, and decision rights around discernment, transparency, and human verification.