Center for Inclusive Growth New Haven
Location: Connecticut, USA
Sector(s): Nonprofit, Economic Development
The Approach:
Humane Connection™ with AI-Driven System Design
Natasha Zena LLC was hired to conduct a two-day, in-person professional development training centered on effective communication. The entire curriculum was delivered through the lens of the proprietary Humane Connection™ Framework—a practice that moves teams from transactional to relational communication through five core expressions: Presence, Empathy, Recognition of Humanity, Clarity, and Adaptability.
The approach uniquely fused standard communication training with a protected AI-driven diagnostic system and human-facilitated exercises.
Phase I: Personalized Diagnostics and Ethical Alignment
Proprietary Assessment: Staff completed an advanced personality assessment that included an identity spectrum, capturing emotional nuances and individual responses to stress.
AI-Driven Role Suitability: The AI system cross-analyzed these inputs against each employee’s Job Description.
Personalized Intervention: The AI delivered hyper-personalized insights, highlighting potential friction between an employee’s natural tendencies and their role’s demands. This data was then used to tailor both individual self-awareness and the content of subsequent training modules to ensure maximum relevance.
Impact:
Deepened Trust, Strategic Clarity, and Systemic Growth
The integration of the Humane Connection framework with the AI-driven diagnostic system delivered measurable systemic change, shifting the team's focus to purposeful, aligned collaboration.
Phase II: Data-Informed Team Dynamics & Human Connection
AI-Generated Strategic Blueprint: The AI system aggregated and analyzed the diagnostic data to generate a Team Dynamics Blueprint for leadership. This provided crucial datasets, giving the Executive Director insights into team structure that were previously latent themes.
Revealing Patterns: The Blueprint revealed key behavioral patterns and team dynamics that were previously latent themes—offering leadership a strategic view into how the team functions under pressure and where alignment or support could unlock stronger execution. This critical macro-level data allowed the Executive Director to better understand the team's operating culture and address underlying friction points rather than surface symptoms.
Facilitated Interdependence: The insights directly informed a powerful, human-facilitated Interdependency Mapping exercise. This exercise reshaped how team members viewed their roles and contributions by providing a structured, data-backed foundation for candid conversations about communication preferences and work styles.
Key Outcomes:
Team Cohesion and Trust
Measurable Outcomes for IGNH
Sparked candid, productive conversations about preferences and work styles, fostering empathy and alignment
Facilitated revealing team dynamics work that deepened trust and day-to-day collaboration
Systemic Change Driven
Relational Shift: Moved the team to a higher level of psychological safety, necessary for high-stakes, fast-paced mission work
Strategic Talent Acquisition
Measurable Outcomes for IGNH
Team Leader had a clear, data-backed idea of the type of work habits and execution needed for the vacant position based on current team gaps
Systemic Change Driven
Systemic Alignment: The AI diagnostic informed a precise, preventative hiring strategy, ensuring the new hire would complement the team's existing dynamic and mitigate collective risks
Leadership Development
Measurable Outcomes for IGNH
Increased leadership confidence across all levels
Staff were equipped with practical tools to manage communication challenges unique to their role
Systemic Change Driven
Adaptive Leadership: Supported organizational growth through training rooted in IGNH's mission, equity values, and pace of work
The engagement successfully equipped IGNH’s staff with the practical, human-centric tools needed to sustain growth, demonstrating that by using proprietary AI systems to achieve complexity analysis, organizations can focus human capacity on empathy, connection, and purposeful collaboration.
Learn more: