Coming November 10, 2026
The Signal Gap
The new book from Henna Pryor - how to boost believability and influence in an age of doubt.
Pre-order The Signal GapSocial atrophy is the gradual weakening of everyday people skills - asking for help, navigating conflict, starting hard conversations - that sets in when face-to-face interaction shrinks at work. Henna Pryor calls it Social Muscle Atrophy (SMA).
Our groundbreaking national study reveals the hidden social behaviors that impact collaboration, performance, and engagement in today’s workplaces.
As companies optimize for speed and efficiency, they’ve neglected social muscle strength—and it’s costing them.
Leaders who take action now—who intentionally design structures that strengthen social muscle across dimensions—will see the greatest long-term gains.
Henna Pryor
CEO & Founder, Pryority Group
1 in 3 employees would rather scrub a toilet than ask for help.
What does that say about today’s workplace?
Every second that passes is a missed chance for business growth, collaboration, innovation, and client connection. There’s a hidden challenge quietly draining modern workplaces of connection and communication:
Social Muscle Atrophy
When face-to-face interactions shrink, so does our ability to navigate conflict, ask for help, and start the conversations that drive success. We call this Social Muscle Atrophy—and it’s quietly eroding workplace performance.
- This isn’t just a soft-skill issue — it’s a real, measurable problem that affects how teams function and how businesses perform.
- It results in real consequences like burnout, team breakdowns, and stalled conversation and creativity. How can you be a leader in your industry and community if you don’t have a fully-functional team?
- Until now, no one has explored this issue deeply and our research data is clear: rebuilding social muscle strength isn’t optional. It’s essential for organizations that want to stay competitive and create healthier, high-performing work environments.
Henna Pryor’s groundbreaking national research study uncovers the state of social muscle in the modern workplace.
The intangible connection points within organizations and relationships that significantly impact and affect everything, including communication, connection, leadership, revenue growth, and much more.
Henna and her team are thrilled to lead this pioneering work that helps leaders and changemakers understand how professionals build, lose, create, and sustain critical social muscle strength that drives key business outcomes, and teach them the tools, tactics, and strategies they need to transform this workplace challenge into an organizational opportunity.
See the groundbreaking findings inside - scroll for a sneak peek!
KEY DISCOVERY
56%
of employees prefer to work alone, instead of with coworkers.
While 84% of employees believe that strong social skills are critical for navigating change, a striking 56% admitted they’d rather tackle projects solo. This contradiction suggests that even when people know collaboration is important, they actively avoid it due to discomfort or lack of trust. This is the first mindset issue we tackle.
KEY DISCOVERY
44%
describe their social relationships at work as "superficial."
Including 52% of Gen Z, the highest of any generation. If organizations don’t take action now, they risk losing engagement, innovation, and ultimately, their competitive edge. Exploring generational differences in communication and dynamics is crucial to our work together.
KEY DISCOVERY
43%
of executives believe they must handle challenges alone.
SMA affects even the highest levels of leadership. 43% of executives reported struggling with “false self-sufficiency” (the belief that they must handle every challenge alone), compared to 28% of managers and 27% of employees. This contradicts the common assumption that leaders naturally excel at communication and collaboration, and we prioritize working with leaders to create transformation that starts at the top.
KEY DISCOVERY
1 in 3
employees would rather clean a toilet than ask for help.
Communication breakdowns are so severe that employees actively avoid asking for help. Nearly 1 in 3 (30%) admitted they’d rather clean a toilet than ask a coworker for help, signaling just how much discomfort, avoidance, and lack of trust have infiltrated workplace interactions. We prioritize actionable insights and techniques to ensure this doesn’t happen.
KEY DISCOVERY
$62.4M
is the average yearly cost to organizations for poor team communication.
The Grossman Group found the financial cost of weak communication and collaboration isn’t just theoretical—it’s staggering. As a leading contributor to burnout, turnover, and workplace silos, Social Muscle Atrophy is worsening this problem.
Not only that, but 65% of employees in hybrid or remote work environments say relationship-building is harder than ever—which means the need for structured, intentionally-designed social muscle development is at an all-time high. Designing these new social structures for today’s workplace is at the heart of our work.
Why This Matters Now
This isn’t just about awkwardness — it’s costing businesses billions.
- Teams are breaking down. Conversations are stalling. Innovation is slowing.
- Weak social skills are actively driving turnover. SMA is the #1 organizational challenge tied to turnover. Gen Z workers report 27% more SMA-related struggles than Boomers, signaling a retention crisis.
- Executives prioritizing social strength saw 23% higher leadership effectiveness scores.
- 78% of working Americans are more likely to stay longer at a company if they develop closer relationships with their coworkers, and replacing a top performer doesn’t come cheap.
The fix starts with rebuilding Social Muscle Strength – the everyday habits that keep connection and collaboration alive where it counts. There’s a bigger cost underneath, too: when those muscles weaken, capable people stop being believed and their best ideas stop landing. That’s the gap Henna examines in depth in her new book, The Signal Gap.
Workplace Performance Expert and global keynote speaker Henna Pryor shares the exact tools, strategies, and action steps to close it.
Unlock the Insights - Download the Full Report!
What can we do next?
The research is clear: companies that ignore Social Muscle Atrophy will see declining engagement, innovation, and retention. The study provides science-backed solutions to reverse SMA and build Social Muscle Strength (SMS) to drive business performance.
“Leaders who take action now—who intentionally design structures that strengthen social muscle across dimensions—will see the greatest long-term gains,” says Pryor. “It’s not about ‘forced fun’ or team-building exercises. It’s about creating an environment where social strength is a deliberate, daily practice.”
1. Make Social Skill-Building a Business Strategy—Not Just an HR Initiative
Treat workplace connection like a core competency by embedding structured social development into daily operations—through problem-solving frameworks, conflict navigation drills, and cross-team collaboration exercises.
2. Rebuild Workplace “Public Spaces” for Organic Connection
Move beyond forced social events and design built-in interaction points—like “Unfinished Meetings” that encourage follow-ups, or cross-team “Thought Partner” sessions that foster real-time problem-solving.
3. Train Leaders to Be Social Architects, Not Just Decision-Makers
Equip leaders to model strong social muscle—by practicing open communication, healthy conflict resolution, and fostering environments where help-seeking and collaboration thrive.
4. Assign “Social Bridgers” to Strengthen Workplace Connection
Create designated roles focused on mapping silos, facilitating mentorship, and reinforcing team cohesion—before disengagement and friction escalate into turnover.
Secure your date with Henna today!
With this new research loading and already receiving buzz and significant media attention, event dates are already filling fast, so to book Henna for your next corporate meeting, professional conference, association event, or offsite – please visit www.pryoritygroup.com/book-henna or email: info@pryoritygroup.com.
THE HIDDEN FACTOR BEHIND HIGH-PERFORMING TEAMS: How to Strengthen Social Muscle and Prevent Team Atrophy in a Fast-Changing World
We’ve never been connected — or more disconnected. Technology has made it effortless to reach anyone, anywhere, anytime… yet, 44% of workers describe their workplace relationships as “superficial,” and 1 in 3 employees would rather scrub a toilet than ask a colleague for help.
So, the real question is: How can we feel as connected socially as we are technologically?
In this high-energy, insightful, and first-of-its-kind keynote, Henna Pryor reveals what’s really holding teams back—and it’s not lack of skill, resources, or talent. It’s Social Muscle Atrophy (SMA) — a hidden performance killer that weakens trust, silos collaboration, and slows innovation. The good news? Social Muscle Strength (SMS) isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something you build.
You’ll learn the Social Muscle Framework — an actionable, digestible, and easy-to-implement process that addresses the two key levers that unlock peak team performance: Design and Dimension.
She’ll share how today’s top leaders are rethinking relationship-building, reengineering communication, and creating conditions where collaboration and innovation happen naturally, so teams can perform even better with the resources they already have.
By the end of this keynote, you’ll be able to:
- Recognize the early warning signs of Social Muscle Atrophy — and stop them before they derail your team
- Implement the Social Muscle Framework to create smarter, faster, and stronger collaboration, communication, and innovation
- Design systems that encourage trust, idea-sharing, and problem-solving in today’s modern world
If you’re ready to future-proof your team’s ability to perform at the highest level — this is the keynote that will change the way you think about team success forever.
- What is social atrophy in the workplace? Social atrophy is the gradual weakening of everyday people skills – like asking for help, navigating conflict, and starting hard conversations – that sets in when face-to-face interaction shrinks at work. Henna Pryor calls it Social Muscle Atrophy (SMA).
- What causes Social Muscle Atrophy? It’s driven by the drop in regular, in-person interaction, made worse by hybrid and remote work. In Pryor’s national study, 65% of employees in hybrid or remote environments said relationship-building is harder than ever.
- How does social atrophy hurt business performance? It fuels turnover, disengagement, and stalled collaboration. Pryor’s research found SMA is the top organizational challenge tied to turnover, and the Grossman Group estimates poor communication costs organizations an average of $62.4M a year.
- How do you fix social atrophy at work? You rebuild what Pryor calls Social Muscle Strength – by making social skill-building a business strategy, designing spaces for organic connection, training leaders as social architects, and assigning “social bridgers” to reconnect siloed teams.
This study was conducted by
Henna Pryor
Henna Pryor is a dynamic Workplace Performance Expert who speaks and writes about performance mindset, interpersonal dynamics, high-impact communication, and embracing bumps in a world that keeps optimizing for smoothness.
She’s a regular Expert Columnist for Inc. Magazine, 18x award-winning author of Good Awkward, and an in-demand global keynote speaker. Her playful personality and insightful talks blend 2 decades of working with corporate leaders and teams with a fresh, science-based approach to taking more strategic risks and boosting social and mental fitness for success at work.
She’s been invited to speak twice for TEDx in NYC and Wilmington, DE, and brings her expertise to a variety of global organizations including Google, Workday, Johnson & Johnson, and JPMorganChase. She’s also frequently tapped for her fresh perspectives by top media outlets like INSIDER, NBC, Washington Post, Fast Company, Business.com, HuffPost, and more.
In addition to speaking for TEDx, SXSW, and being frequently tapped by media outlets like Business.com, FastCompany, INSIDER, HuffPost, NBC, FOX, and more, she’s a SUCCESS Magazine Woman of Influence, LinkedIn Learning Instructor, and Glassdoor WorkLife Pro. Her book was also named a Kirkus Reviews’ Best Book of the Year.
This study was fielded by
The Center For Generational Kinetics
The Center for Generational Kinetics is a custom research, speaking, and advisory firm dedicated to separating myth from truth through data.
CGK has led more than 65 research studies in multiple languages on four continents. Their clients include many of the most recognizable brands in the world as well as private equity firms and market-shaping start-ups.
CGK’s team members have been featured in hundreds of media outlets from a cover story in The New York Times to over 200 TV appearances on shows such as 60 Minutes and The Today Show.
Adweek called their President a “research guru.”
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