Awe-full Research: Opening Minds in High-Stakes Meetings Through Wonder

Did you know Minnesota has more shoreline than California, Florida, and Hawaii combined? Or that Montreal, beating Boston, has the highest concentration of post-secondary students of all the major cities in North America? No wonder it is a great city for academic conferences and track discussions! These surprising facts are more than trivia—they can induce awe, a powerful emotion defined as a sense of wonder capable of reshaping our mental models or the way we think (Keltner & Haidt, 2003). Awe can lead to increased openness, perspective-taking, and creative thinking—qualities that are often missing in high-stakes collaborative meetings, where biases, fixed mindsets, and rigid agendas can limit innovation (Perlow et al., 2017). Although strategies like virtual reality, meditation, and yoga have been shown to promote openness, we seek to address a practical gap. Specifically, we aim to identify how and whether simple, affordable, and scalable interventions prime openness, creativity, and shared understanding in collaborative IS meetings where business outcomes are on the line, such as requirements gathering, vendor negotiations, strategic IT planning, and system implementations. We propose a multi-phase study to answer these questions. In Phase 1, we plan to pilot test awe-inducing stimuli across the five senses using small focus groups, followed by a survey to determine the most effective stimuli per sense. In Phase 2 we will, in random order, assign participants all seven effective stimuli (within subjects design) identified during Phase 1, using observation, interviews, and surveys to measure awe responses and effectiveness. Phase 3 will use small groups (treatment and control) of randomly assigned students participating in lab-based, collaborative, brainstorming sessions simulating high stakes via time pressure, competition, and big rewards based on performance. Observations, interviews and surveys will assess effects on openness, creativity, and performance. By our conference presentation, we will have completed Phases 1 and 2 and identified the most effective scalable interventions for inspiring awe. While initial participants are students, we aim to extend Phase 3 to field studies, particularly among professionals in IS roles. Our ultimate goal is to develop accessible interventions to prime high-stakes meetings for open minds and innovation.

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