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As companies like Amazon and Meta lay off thousands of employees to cut costs, they lose something valuable in the process that can’t be quantified: workplace culture. Whatever the business criteria used, cuts must pass the culture test if organizations are to avoid paying the consequences of long-term toxicity in the workplace. Read more.
Calls for employees to go back to the office have multiplied lately. Some noted that while working from home, workers cannot possibly feel part of something bigger. What more, employees risk their professional dignity if they continue working in their pajamas.
Trust, one of the most vulnerable assets of our time, may prove critical to companies' ability to thrive when, as in remote work, uncertainty is high. In these settings, employees' confidence in the organization and its internal stakeholders will be crucial to their engagement and willingness to stretch. Read more.
Is Google on the cusp of a significant cultural change? Known for its keen eye to workplace issues, over the past two years the tech giant has seen its status as one of the top cultures in the tech sector slowly erode. There is no denying that Google has been consistently committed to building the ultimate workplace. Read more.
Despite the apparent polarization in employees’ views, the bigger story behind this workplace phenomenon may not be politics but the gap in voice and change expectations it underscores. While organizations cannot fix the current ideological divide, they can use specific cultural levers to bridge the potential gap. Below is a roadmap on how to do that. Read more.
For the past five years, Microsoft has been on a profound culture journey. The company of know-it-alls has been transforming itself into an organization of learn-it-alls. The change in core beliefs at the center of this shift has taken Microsoft from seeking perfection to cultivating a growth mindset—a genuine openness to trying, failing, learning and embracing the endless possibilities of growth. Read more.
With Zoomers seeking security and employers not relenting on control, the workplace is set to become the stage of new clashes. In search of leadership and authentic dialogue, the emerging workforce may give the impression it will settle for a convenient deal. But employees want a reckoning. Read more.
Avoiding alienation, increasing authentic living and balancing external pressure are the three pillars of an authentic workplace culture. From a values offering consistent with employees' personal values to practicing empathy and listening, companies must take some radical changes to the old culture. Read more.
Purpose does more than make a brand unique. It can shine a light on a business’ evolutionary path. At a basic level, purpose can simply express what an organization aspires to be and do. But at a more advanced one, it becomes a conscious expression of how an organization intends to evolve and transform itself. Read more.
Mary Barra is the chairman and CEO of GM, and the first female CEO of a major global automaker. One of the "smallest biggest" things Barra did at GM was to change a multi-page, highly prescriptive dress code to simply encouraging employees to “dress appropriately. Read more.
The parable of Elizabeth Holmes and her company, Theranos, is not an unfamiliar one. It involves a dream, a mission, a plan, a vision and quite possibly monumental corruption. Behind this particular corporate failure lies a cautionary tale...Read more.
The endemic ethical failures of the humanitarian industry shed light on an unexpected fact: the non-profit sector is hardly immune to ethical fiascos, likely facing the same poor decision-making outcomes that affect the for-profit sector. This may seem odd given that the non-profit industry was born purpose-led and values-based. Read more.
With ambitious profit targets to meet, stringent delivery deadlines to honor, and high-quality standards to abide by, something had to give at Kobe. And that ended up being quality. Though on the surface this was one more example of greedy business straying from its values, the multiple layers of Kobe’s story caution against drawing conclusions too quickly. Read more.
Salesforce has announced that it is loosening its non-disclosure agreements, allowing all its employees to share information about on-the-job harassment and discrimination. For the CRM software leader, this policy change marks a new milestone toward a more transparent workplace culture. Read more.
Truly diverse and inclusive teams and organizations do not just include diverse backgrounds; that’s table-stakes. They also welcome, preserve and leverage differences, making sure that those with minority perspectives do not assimilate to the dominant group’s norms over time. Only then can a team enhance its collective intelligence and fully unleash the value of diversity. Read more.
Gender equality remains a mixed bag for women. On the one hand, the progress has been far too slow. On the other, the setbacks remain too many, chief among them the grim statistics on women leaving the workforce during the pandemic.
Still today, women are perceived to lack the ability to manage business challenges and make complex decisions—a dangerous view that unfairly holds them back. By curbing women's rights, the Supreme Court offers those prone to embrace these biased, outmoded notions more authoritative proof that women should not be trusted. Read more.
While diversity is often linked to performance and innovation, its effects on the decisions made by senior governance bodies (e.g., Congress, executive teams, boards etc.) are as important. Diversity of beliefs, perspectives and styles can have a de-biasing impact on complex decisions. Read more.
The fact that Microsoft has focused on capacities that are highly instrumental to its new strategy shows it is not simply building a nice culture, but one geared towards business growth. By placing emphasis on learning and empathy as critical assets, for example, Microsoft has already demonstrated a deeper understanding of what developing a large ecosystem of partnerships truly entails. Read more.
Having a growth mindset—holding the belief that setbacks are an opportunity to refine and strengthen our talents—is critical to the depth of desire to keep on going and refuse to ever give up. But in the context of fulfilling our potentialities and helping others to do the same over the long-term, we shouldn’t neglect the link between grit and authenticity. Read more.
From claiming aliens built the pyramids, to lamenting that the government is taking people’s freedom away, to forewarning layoffs, to doing his best to help the underpopulation crisis, to buying Twitter and then pulling out of it, Elon Musk continues to surprise and unsettle business watchers. Read more.
There is listening, and there is listening. A leader may pay attention to the recent civil unrest through the filter of their preconceived notions or focus more deeply on the meaning of what is happening on the streets of America today. For example, a CEO might conclude that a debate on social justice doesn’t belong in the workplace. Read more.
Power is the one currency that all leaders have, but it is also one of the most misunderstood assets in leadership. How leaders relate to power, and their beliefs about effective leadership, are two hidden factors that shape their ability to maintain an ethical focus while guiding business through change and continued growth. Read more.
Transactional leadership requires a constant exchange of valued resources (e.g. votes/support vs. political promises, etc.). Although leading by giving (or taking away) high-value assets can earn a leader significant influence, it only works as long as the leader maintains control over the outcomes about which his/her followers care. Read more.
Self-sacrifice becomes less of a hard choice when everybody does their part. In the presence of a genuinely shared effort, not only are the costs of isolation more fairly spread, but it’s easier to appreciate that one’s personal interest is aligned with everyone else’s. Read more.
Leadership in the new decade will require the courage of bringing problems worthy of collective attention and action to the forefront, creating a sense of urgency around them, framing the challenges those problems entail, recognizing that coalitions of diverse stakeholders will be necessary to arrive at the right solutions and setting firmly on the goal of promoting action. Read more.
Questions about Twitter’s future have been relentless since Elon Musk took over. With each passing day, the stream of queries has grown larger, spilling over to concerns about the impact of Twitter on Musk's other enterprises. Read more.
While remote work poses certain limitations, when managers act like mission enablers it can be a source of employee engagement. We found this pattern within Shopify Support. Read more.
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