The Dumbest Move Leaders Could Make Going Into 2024

I was reading a report earlier today that blew my mind.

It was looking at predictions for organizational trends going into 2024.

What shocked me was how much of a drop was estimated in organizational investments in the Employee Experience.

The results from this choice that Leaders are making look extremely bleak.

The Bleak Results

The report estimated Employee Engagement would drop by nearly 20% from where it was in 2022 (which is already astronomically low).

They also estimated that there would be a drop of nearly 15% in Employee's beliefs and efforts put into organizational Culture (also historically low).

Part of these estimates were due to organizations changing their investments toward AI instead of the Employee Experience.

Now, I'm not saying that investing in AI is necessarily bad.

For some organizations, AI will be an incredible tool.

However, investing in AI at the expense of Employee Engagement, especially when everything is at these excessively low levels, is a horrible idea.

The AI Shortsightedness

I've written quite a few articles on AI.

At the end of the day, AI is just a tool (a powerful tool to be fair).

But, a tool is only as good as the individual(s) using the tool.

You could have the best hammer in the world, but what happens when you don't have anyone to use the hammer?

Or worse, what if you are paying people to use this hammer, but they refuse to do any work?

This is the dilemma that organizations are already facing which will get worse if they choose to overinvest in AI and fail to change the trends in the Employee Experience.

As the Employee Experience crashes, organizations will struggle to have any form of success, no matter how pretty their tools are.

Now, what is at the heart of these declining trends from Employees?

Dis-Stress - especially its worst form, Burnout.

Failure to solve Dis-Stress in the workplace will lead to worse and worse Employee Experiences, which will lead to an organization with a Dead Culture.

AI can't revive a Dead Culture.

AI cannot create a Culture of Innovation or a Culture of Creativity.

If anything, overreliance on AI will create a Culture of Overabundant Mediocrity, as we are already seeing.

As any business person will tell you, Overabundant Mediocrity is a quick trip to the grave of any organization.

The Understandable Problem

However, I also can't necessarily say that I blame businesses for reducing funding in current Employee Experience programs.

They are failing HORRIBLY to produce any results.

Leadership Development programs have an 80% Failure Rate.

I'd argue it's significantly higher because "Limited Success" is not success.

With this, Wellness programs are also failing.

When nearly 80% of the workforce is in Burnout, and the trends continue downward, these programs are having NO effect.

So why invest more into these programs when they OBVIOUSLY aren't working?

The right answer is to stop investing in these current solutions.

But the wrong answer is to stop investing in the Employee Experience altogether.

The problem isn't investing in the Employee Experience - failure to invest in the most important aspect of ANY business will simply lead to greater problems.

• More Disengagement (as well as Active Disengagement).
• More losses to Cultural Vitality, and therefore losses to Creativity and Innovation.
• More Businesses that simply collapse.

Rather, the problem is the current solutions employers typically turn to.

Leadership Development fails to work for a plethora of reasons.

• There is the problem of what type of Leadership is being "Developed".
• You also have the Modularity problem that is pervasive in the industry.
• Plus, there is the underlying problem that Leadership Development completely Fails to understand human Psychophysiology.

This last point is also why Wellness Programs continually Fail.

• They Fail to understand and fix the underlying causes of Dis-Stress.

Some Wellness programs may bring "momentary" relief to individuals, but the root problem is only getting worse which leads to further Burnout.

If Leaders want to succeed in the Future they will need a new solution.

The New Solution

What does this solution need?

Well, it needs to both solve the Employee Engagement problem and the Culture problem.

They need a Leadership Cultivation program that understands Leadership Psychophysiology (such as Legendary Leadership) and produces a Regenerative Legacy.

The program needs to help Employees with the challenges they have at the time they need them, which is what Leadership Cultivation does.

A proper understanding of human Psychophysiology geared towards Leadership will solve the Dis-Stress and Burnout problems.

For Employees to buy into an Organization's Culture, nothing will work as well as an organization that is creating a Regenerative Legacy.

There are a lot of problems in the world and not enough solutions.

Current solutions only do "less bad", but that is not enough.

I have been trying to wrap my brain around how organizations can overcome this for months, and it has led me to a Regenerative Legacy.

A Regenerative Legacy is about organizations banding together to contribute to solutions to the world's problems so that future generations will not have to worry about them.

Real Change.

Any business could do this, regardless of their industry, it doesn't matter what they do.

This is also what Employees are DESPERATE to find, but are not finding anywhere.

This kind of Change leads to Fulfillment, which is what Employees want from an Organization's Culture.

Leaders at the forefront of a Regenerative Legacy will be who Employees seek out and will be desperate to work for.

If businesses are going to survive and if Leaders are going to Succeed, this is the solution they need.

Starting it now (or at least going into 2024) will determine which businesses will Thrive over the next decade.