Introduction | Afraid New World

FEAR

An emotion so powerful it can colour everything we do.

How does this impact output, culture, relationships?

We were curious too.

This is 'Afraid New World: Fear and Innovation in the Workplace'. A piece of original &us research into what it really means to feel fear at work, what’s causing it, and what we can do to build better working cultures.

Start reading

FEAR

An emotion so powerful it can colour everything we do.

How does this impact output, culture, relationships?

We were curious too.

This is 'Afraid New World: Fear and Innovation in the Workplace'
A piece of original &us research into what it really means to feel fear at work, what’s causing it, and what we can do to build better working cultures.

Start reading

Who we are

We're a community of problem solvers that partner with organisations to tackle their biggest challenges. As expert strategists, designers and coaches, we partner with your teams to create bold products and services, and develop your own capabilities to work braver and innovate smarter. We support organisations on transformative journeys with a hands-on approach that accelerates the way value is created.

Methodology

We designed our research approach to give us a picture of what people say and think about fear, how it looks in practice, and how we can be braver:

We sent a survey to 3,000 people slices by gender, age, ethnicity, seniority, and sector to measure the scale of fear and its perceived effects

Interviews - we spoke to the brightest and boldest minds in innovation, to understand how fear shows up and how it might be mitigated

Experiment - a behavioural experiment conducted with 50+ people to test the impact of fear on speed, collaboration, and creativity

Click here to read more about our methodology

How we think about fear

There's the thing we fear, then our emotional response to fear, then how we behave when we feel fear and how it affects our work, and finally the cultural or environmental impact

Five big themes

1. Ambiguity scares people

Roles and responsibilities in innovation often lack clarity, and most organisations fail to explain what innovation means to them. Unclear goals lack clear definitions of success and failure which results in a lack of the confidence needed to bolster experimentation and ideation.
When it comes to business change, communication is often a puzzle with half of the pieces missing. Leaving employees to grow suspicious that details are being left out for a reason - eroding trust, creating divisions, and perpetuating a cycle of the fear of change.

2. Moments of visibility and exposure are the most fear-inducing

Ceremonies where all eyes are on you, such as presentations, make individuals feel vulnerable, and fearful of judgement.
The same applies to taking a leap of faith or pursuing a risky idea - if a concept has your name next to it, it can incur a personal cost to your reputation, leading some to disengage with great, but innovative ideas.

3. Fear can seep into everything

Fear can cause a sense of dread and discomfort in general day-to-day tasks.
Individuals who feel persistent workplace fear often feel frustrated by their professional situations, while also feeling a lack of control, ability or desire to change it.
The effects of fear can be lasting, those with negative past experiences of workplace transformation have higher levels of fear now.

4. The emotional spectrum is relative

Fearful people may just be more emotionally cognisant. Individuals with persistent fear experience a broader spectrum of associated emotions alongside fear, from anger and sadness to excitement. Conversely, low fear individuals underestimate the personal impact of fear, as well as their ability to change the conditions that cause it.

5. Harnessed well, fear can be a force for good

It's tempting to see fear as wholly negative. However, fear rarely exists as an emotion on its own. In fact, when we feel it alongside excitement, fear can push us beyond what we believe we are capable of. We also saw that in low-stakes scenarios, with good support, fear can enhance focus and diligence.
Knowing this, and knowing you can't ever completely eliminate fear, means in some scenarios, we have the power to harness the sense of challenge as a way to push ourselves forward.

It sounds obvious but unaddressed, fear in the workplace can affect everything we do. By looking at fear as something that goes beyond an immediately emotional reaction, we put ourselves in a better place to build bravery.

Next, discover the scale of fear, and how it affects different people and industries...

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