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The hidden cost for women of being ‘easy’ to work with

<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Heather (a pseudonym) was a senior leader at her firm, one level below the C-suite. And the C-suite had some really big personalities.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Heather was excellent at reading those personalities. She understood them, anticipated what they needed and often served as the go-between among these higher-ups, playing emotional regulator for them independently and as a group.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">These roles made her indispensable, but they were not actually part of her job and they took up a lot of her time. The whole team functioned much better because she was doing these things. But it was never part of her performance review and never put toward her promotion, and in the end, it kept her stuck without credit for the work.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">I see versions of this all the time in my work with women leaders—women who are “easy to work with” because they are doing a second, usually unrecognized and uncompensated, job.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Another classic example was Lucy (also a pseudonym), the only woman in leadership at her startup, who essentially became the workplace therapist for the male CEO. Every time there was a problem, whether interpersonal, product or logistical, she would get called in. While she liked helping and solving these problems, and was quite skilled at doing so, it didn&#8217;t contribute to her getting promoted. Instead, it started to interfere with her actual work and her home life.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">We are getting better at talking about invisible labor at home and in caregiving. We understand that noticing, anticipating, smoothing, and remembering are real work and make everything else possible. Yet we are less likely to recognize how the same pattern plays out at work. We don’t always see where the cognitive and emotional labor of anticipating, translating, mentoring, preventing, regulating, and more makes everyone else’s visible contribution possible.</p> <h2 id="h-invisible-work-at-work" class="wp-block-heading">Invisible work at work</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Recent research by <a href="https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-empathy-tax-female-leaders-pay/">Colleen Ammerman and Deepa Purushothaman</a> at Harvard Business School found that more than 80% of women managers surveyed spent at least 30% of their workweek on caring tasks, and nearly 60% said that emotional labor had increased in the past year.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">But emotional labor is only one piece of this invisible work. There is also the mental load: catching errors, anticipating hurdles, figuring out who needs what, and keeping things running behind the scenes without credit.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">In my book <a href="https://www.drannewelsh.com/ambitious-mother-book"><em>Ambitious Mother</em></a>, I talk about three specific patterns at play that help keep women stuck here: perfectionism, people-pleasing, and pretending. These patterns are shaped by gender socialization, and women are often rewarded for them, especially early on.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Women and girls are socialized to be perfect, to not make mistakes, to chase achievement and the A-plus over risk-taking. They are taught to put everybody else&#8217;s needs first while ignoring their own, and to do it all with a smile.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">At work, perfectionism is noticing the detail that got missed and fixing it before anybody else notices. It&#8217;s stepping in when the presentation isn&#8217;t quite up to snuff and smoothing all the details. Nobody sees you do it, and someone else might get credit for the finished product.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">People-pleasing is saying yes to everything that is asked of you and not pushing back, even if there&#8217;s a personal cost. In school, this girl might be called a &#8220;pleasure to have in class:” She is good at doing what she is told to do, anticipating what&#8217;s needed, and doing it without complaining. These patterns get us the grades, and then follow us into work.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Pretending means we&#8217;re not letting other people see us struggle. That can be rewarded at work. But it also hides all of the time, skill, and labor that went into making everything look easy.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">We end up covering up other people&#8217;s mistakes, making everybody else feel good, and not letting anyone else in on how much work it causes us.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">And this is where the issue becomes bigger than any one woman&#8217;s perfectionism or people-pleasing. Workplaces reward these behaviors, at least initially. These women are seen as dependable, calm and helpful. They make it look easy. And their reward for that competence is often that people both ignore it and ignore any limits to their capacity.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Historically, when we talk to women about these patterns, we tend to talk about them in silos and call them a woman’s individual problem to fix. We tell women to lower their standards, set better boundaries, or stop caring so much about what other people think.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">None of that advice is necessarily wrong. Sometimes we do need to tolerate mistakes and recognize that 80% is enough. We need boundaries around our time.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">But individual advice only gets us so far when workplaces are rewarding the very behaviors we&#8217;re telling women to change, and not recognizing the benefits to the organization.</p> <h2 id="h-when-useful-work-isn-t-promotable-work-for-women" class="wp-block-heading">When useful work isn&#8217;t promotable work (for women)</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Being seen as helpful doesn&#8217;t necessarily translate into being seen as a leader for women. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122420962080">Shelley Correll, an organizational behavior professor at Stanford, and her colleagues</a> studied performance reviews at a Fortune 500 technology company. Women were more likely than men to be seen as communal, including being helpful and considerate, but being seen as communal didn&#8217;t lead to the highest performance ratings. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10869-020-09703-6">Research on “office housework”</a> found a similar disconnect. Women did more of this work overall, particularly social maintenance work, and while the relationship between doing office housework and promotion was significant for men, it was not for women.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257%2Faer.20141734">Linda Babcock, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon, and her colleagues</a> found that women were more likely than men to volunteer for tasks with low promotability. They were also more likely to be asked to do them and more likely to say yes when asked.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">For a junior employee, maybe this is taking notes in a meeting, helping a new employee get settled, or being on a million committees. At senior levels, it can look more sophisticated: stabilizing a dysfunctional team, mentoring employees, keeping a CEO functional, or managing complicated relationships across an organization.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">And sometimes the work becomes visible only when someone else gets credit for it.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">One of my clients spent two years essentially doing two jobs. Alongside her formal leadership role, she developed an entirely new AI program for her organization. Eventually, leadership realized it was too much work for one person. So they took the <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/section/artificial-intelligence" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="1" title="AI">artificial intelligence</a> work off her plate, promoted one of her direct reports, a man she had mentored, to be her peer, and gave him the role she had created.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">She had expected all of this additional work to either lead to her own promotion or become a role underneath her, with credit for the fact that she had essentially created it. But instead of getting a promotion for all the work she did, she got a new peer.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Not all invisible work is relational. It can also be catching errors, anticipating problems, or doing the work behind the work. That said, much of what I see women doing is relational—and we don&#8217;t always value relational work. </p> <h2 id="h-relational-work-is-leadership-work" class="wp-block-heading">Relational work is leadership work</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The irony is that much of this invisible work is incredibly valuable.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">As a psychologist, I know that relational work is at the heart of how we perform. We do not work in independent silos. We work together as teams, and interpersonal relationships can be a valuable tool for <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/section/productivity" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="9" title="Productivity">productivity</a>. Research from Harvard Business School backs this up. <a href="https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=65056">Jorge Tamayo and colleagues</a> analyzed 88 million transactions across 62 restaurants and found that rapport between managers and employees affected training, flexibility, productivity and sales. Women managers were particularly effective at developing rapport in mixed-gender teams.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Organizations depend on relational work while continuing to measure what is highly visible: revenue, public wins, exposure, ownership of major projects.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">In psychology, we talk about construct validity: Are you measuring what you think you&#8217;re measuring?</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">When it comes to leadership, I&#8217;m not sure workplaces always are.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">A second issue is this: Sometimes the result is that something bad didn&#8217;t happen. With Heather, there isn&#8217;t a blowup between the CEO and COO. They avoid a fight, but no one gives her credit for having avoided it. Everything just appears to be going smoothly. Her organization wasn’t tracking her work because the outcome was prevention rather than cure. </p> <h2 id="h-make-the-invisible-visible" class="wp-block-heading">Make the invisible visible</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Yet the answer here is not that women should become less empathic or collaborative, make themselves harder to work with, or stop doing relational work. This work matters.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Instead, organizations have to get better at seeing it. There are four specific ways they can do that:</p> <ol class="wp-block-list"> <li>Identify where the labor is happening. Who is mentoring employees, managing relationships across teams, mediating conflict or doing the work behind the work? How much time does it take?</li> <li>Define and assign it. Maybe some of this work gets rotated. Maybe it becomes part of someone&#8217;s actual role. Maybe it gets distributed among multiple roles. Sometimes we may discover that what someone has been doing informally is an entire job. If the work matters enough that somebody needs to do it, give that person credit and authority to do it. </li> <li>Make performance reviews connect relational labor to outcomes. Who was retained? What conflict didn&#8217;t happen? Who is collaborating better? What team navigated change and came out on the other side?</li> <li>Protect people&#8217;s time. When women become indispensable in this way, they lose access to time for strategic thinking, recovery, and planning. The organization loses access to that as well.</li> </ol> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Being “so easy to work with” can feel like a compliment. But sometimes it means a woman is doing an enormous amount of work that nobody has learned to see.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Instead of telling women to be harder to work with or to just say no, organizations need to stop assuming they will always say yes, and start recognizing the invisible work that is holding everyone else together.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"></p>

2026/8/22
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Here’s what employees are looking for in their CEOs—and what they avoid

<p class="wp-block-paragraph">In a new analysis by job and recruiting platform Glassdoor, employees say career development and mentorship are among the most desired traits in their company&#8217;s leadership.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/best-ceos-2026-themes/">analysis</a> looks into Glassdoor reviews of senior leadership collected from May 2025 to May 2026 for the site’s Best CEOs 2026 award winners, which is based on employee ratings of CEO approval. The data comes from over 150,000 reviews from U.S.-based non-intern employees who mentioned management or senior leadership topics in their reviews of their CEOs. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The analysis compared the frequency of terms employees used when rating the best CEOs against reviews&nbsp;from&nbsp;companies of executives who didn’t win. It then measured the increase in the share of reviews that mention certain keywords.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Among the positive reviews of the best CEOs, employees mention keywords related to career development: Some of them include “mobility” (mentioned over&nbsp;253% more than in the reviews of non-winning CEOs),&nbsp;“growth opportunities” (+159%), and “career growth” (+111%).&nbsp;<a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/satisfaction-drivers-remain-intact/">Research from 2023 by Glassdoor</a>&nbsp;already showed that access to career opportunities within an organization is one of the main factors for employee satisfaction in the U.S.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">“Mentorship”, “culture”, and “work-life balance” are other key terms used in the reviews of the CEOs who were ranked at the top of the platform’s award. Other keywords include “coaching”, “training”, and “inclusive” as strengths setting apart the best corporate leaders.&nbsp;</p> <h2 id="h-what-workers-dislike" class="wp-block-heading">What workers dislike</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Employees under the leadership of CEOs who didn&#8217;t secure a spot on the Best CEOs 2026 award list report a range of themes they see as weaknesses, such as communication, culture, strategy, and job security.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Communication (76%) and transparency (109%) are mentioned more often as drawbacks among executives who didn’t win the award, when compared to those who did.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">“Strategy,&#8221; “direction,&#8221; and “alignment” are listed as weaknesses among executives who weren’t recognized—pointing to the lack of confidence among employees that their leadership will be able to create and execute a strategy, the analysis says.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">While culture-related words were among the most listed in the strengths of CEOs, they are also listed as weaknesses among CEOs who didn’t make the cut: Keywords like “respect” (+162%), “trust” (+151%), and “toxic” (+111%) are listed as issues where executives need to improve. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Keywords such as “layoffs” (+304%), “turnover” (+130%), and “fear” (+91%) hint that employees have concerns over their job stability and may be attributing their worries to the role CEOs and management play in their employment security.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The analysis of reviews also found that non-winner CEOs were called out more often by name in the reviews, whereas the best ones are not mentioned. One possible explanation, the analysis says, is that if the CEO is doing a good job, they’re not going to be at the top of their employees’ minds, whereas if employees are thinking about executives, it is probably because they did something wrong. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">“Put another way, to be regarded as a top CEO, it’s as simple as ‘just don’t mess up’,” writes Daniel Zhao, chief economist at Glassdoor.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Employees want to be listened to. Reviews of non-winner leaders show that employees want their executives to work on their weaknesses, especially those affecting the culture of the company. Some of the most mentioned keywords in the feedback section were “respect” (+103%), “trust” (+88%) and “toxic” (+45%). Also, phrases widely used include “listen to employees” (+68%),&nbsp;“communication” (+39%) and “transparency” (+11%).</p> <h2 id="h-who-are-some-of-the-best-ceos" class="wp-block-heading">Who are some of the &#8220;best&#8221; CEOs?</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">At the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/Award/Best-CEOs-LST_KQ0,9.htm">top of the list&nbsp;</a>is Jensen Huang, CEO of the tech company Nvidia, who has a 99% approval rating as CEO,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-NVIDIA-EI_IE7633.11,17.htm">according to Glassdoor ratings</a>. He is followed by Jason Johnson, CEO of the express car wash company Quick Quack Car Wash, who has a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Quick-Quack-Car-Wash-EI_IE1191101.11,31.htm">92% approval rating as a leader</a>; and by&nbsp;Kevin A. Lobo, CEO of the medical technology company Stryker.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Also at the top of the list are Alan D. Schnitzer, CEO of the American insurance company Travelers; Chris Czarnecki, executive of the global real estate franchise Keller Williams; and Larry Culp, CEO of the aerospace and aviation company GE Aerospace.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Among the best female CEOs are Lynsi Snyder, CEO of In-N-Out; Tricia Griffith from Progressive Insurance; and Abby Johnson from Fidelity Investments.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Other highly ranked CEOs are in industries ranging from fast-food companies, medical devices, hotels and banking, proving that good leadership can be found in a wide spectrum of organizations.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

2026/8/21
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Small employers are winning over the next generation

<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When my son called me recently to tell me about his new job, I was not surprised I hadn’t heard of the organization before.&nbsp;When I asked, he had a clear story about why he chose them, and it had little to do with fancy perks, a high salary or a brand name, and everything to do with how it matches his personal values, lifestyle needs, and dreams.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">As a young father, he wanted a job that had clear boundaries around family time so that if weekends and nights were required, he could plan for them on a weekly basis. He sought a role that would help him discern if his next steps for development (grad school) weref right for him and if the career path would feel worth making the investment grad school requires. He wanted a role that was not taking place on computer screens but in person, local to his hometown. He sought a regular wage and health insurance, since his previous gig-worker pattern lacked predictability. He wanted a team and a leader that he could relate to and work well with, rather than working in isolation.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Lucky for him, and his employer, they found each other.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Could he have taken a role working remotely for a big online retailer or tech company? Perhaps. But most of what he wanted from work would not exist. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Media attention today focuses largely on the big companies, especially tech, that dominate headlines, particularly with the <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/section/artificial-intelligence" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="1" title="AI">AI</a> adoption story and ongoing hopes for optimization and efficiency.  But, small companies employ many of us anyway. Firms with fewer than 500 employees make up <a href="https://advocacy.sba.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Frequently-Asked-Questions-About-Small-Business_2024-508.pdf">99.7% of all US employer businesses</a>. Small businesses <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/22/a-look-at-small-businesses-in-the-us/">employ about 46% of the private-sector workforce</a>. Firms under 20 employees created more than <a href="https://www.adpresearch.com/the-power-of-mom-and-pops/">525,000 jobs in 2025,</a> more than any other size group. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The future of good work is not at the corporate giants, despite the headlines. It is at the mid-size, the private, the purpose-driven, the ones most of us have never read about anywhere. The trend follows the overall decline in the public’s trust of corporate. <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/712436/confidence-institutions-remains-near-time-low.aspx">According to Gallup</a>, 67% of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in small business, but only 17% say the same of big business. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">In areas that matter to young workers, big companies are losing ground. Flexibility, highly valued by entering workers, is far more possible in SMEs: <a href="https://flexindex.substack.com/p/hot-off-the-press-the-q3-flex-report">67% of US companies</a> under 500 employees have fully flexible work options.  Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/office/more-than-half-of-fortune-100-employees-are-in-office-full-time-130262">54% of employees at Fortune 100</a> companies were under full-time in-office mandates as of July 2025, up from 11% of employees in July 2024. And <a href="https://www.cultureamp.com/blog/fixing-the-enterprise-engagement-gap">Culture Amp</a> showed employees at companies with more than 5,000 people score their leaders 10 percentage points lower than employees at companies with 0 to 100 people, on whether they have confidence in their leaders, whether leaders show that people matter, and whether leaders communicate a motivating vision. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Today, young workers will trade the paycheck, the benefits, and the brand name to get purpose and a life they want, and they will leave big corporations to find it. The employers paying attention are the ones positioned to win.&nbsp; Deloitte&#8217;s recent survey points to over 40% of Gen Z and millennials having rejected a potential employer based on their personal ethics or beliefs.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The aspiration today for “good work” falls in areas far more nuanced than historical notions of what a good job once meant, like a paycheck, company loyalty, benefits, brand cache, promotion potential, and security. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">There are seven fundamental needs workers have today when they look for a workplace:</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>1.</strong> <strong>A purpose-driven culture:</strong> Young workers want to work for companies that are conscious about the organization’s impacts on employees, the environment, and the world; one in which actions are consistent with stated values and profit is not the only north star. Workers today will walk away from cultures that clash with their values. <a href="https://www.deloitte.com/global/en/about/press-room/deloitte-2024-gen-z-and-millennial-survey.html">Research from Deloitte finds</a> 50% of Gen Z and 43% of millennials have turned down an assignment over their ethics while 44% of Gen Z and 40% of millennials have rejected an employer outright for the same reason.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>2. Connected relationships</strong>: Relationships at work build on trust and respect, and in which employees feel seen and heard.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>3.</strong> <strong>A job that matches their skills:&nbsp;</strong> Responsibilities that align with individual talents, skills, and aspirations.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>4. Financial compensation:</strong> A place where pay is fair and total compensation facilitates meeting basic needs (food, water, shelter, safety, and security). When we feel paid fairly compared to others and we can meet our basic needs, pay drops in priority for employees. It matters, but it is not a key motivator.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>5. Lifestyle:</strong> An employer with policies and practices that support life outside of work, including flexibility, autonomy, and trust. <a href="https://www.deloitte.com/global/en/about/press-room/deloitte-2024-gen-z-and-millennial-survey.html">Good work-life balance ranks</a> as a top priority when these generations choose an employer, ahead of both learning and pay.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>6.</strong> <strong>Growth:</strong> Employers who offer opportunities to grow, expand skills, and develop over time. According to the Deloitte report, one of the top factors for choosing a job for Gen Z and millennials is the ability to learn.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>7.</strong> <strong>Meaning:</strong> Work that has purpose and makes a difference to someone or something beyond just production or profit. For example, <a href="https://www.deloitte.com/global/en/about/press-room/deloitte-2024-gen-z-and-millennial-survey.html">20% of Gen Z have already changed jobs</a> or industries over environmental concerns, with roughly a quarter more planning to do so.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">We are seeing that what young workers seek from a job today has gotten far more complex, nuanced, and specific than ever before, and yet, employers still find it hard to design their human systems in ways that consistently support these needs.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">If your business depends on a pipeline of hardworking, engaged people to accomplish its work tomorrow, you ought to be designing the human systems that appeal to the young workers you want to attract.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Here are some starting points:</p> <ul class="wp-block-list"> <li>Design your size and your managerial spans (structure) specifically to ensure that every employee has a connected, direct relationship with a leader whose job it is to bring out their best and build a cohesive, high trust team. Managers account for <a href="https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/182792/managers-account-variance-employee-engagement.aspx">70% of the variance</a> in team engagement, according to Gallup.</li> <li>Consider where you can provide flexibility over when, where, and how people do good work.&nbsp;For example, work from home options, hours flexibility, collaboration platforms, and more.</li> <li>Visibly demonstrate your commitment to the well-being of people, especially in the realm of mental health. Tend to manageable workloads, psychological safety, supportive leadership, and healthy team dynamics. Do this through training people leaders to be skilled at human connection, empathy, and care. Promote people who are good at courage, vulnerability, and emotional intelligence into leadership. Train teams on what it means to be a contributing team member. Establish team norms that are grounded in healthy behaviors. Seek out regular input on how workloads are impacting employees and make modifications based on what you learn.</li> <li>Invest in writing a clear and compelling mission, vision, and purpose for your organization and make sure that the whole world knows why you exist. This should extend beyond the product you make or the service you deliver into the reasons it matters in the world.</li> <li>Ensure that your values are not only written down, but exist as behaviors that are visible every day in what people do, how they show up, and what they say.</li> <li>Create meaningful, two-way performance conversations that happen at least monthly between employee and boss where clarification, support, and hard feedback are delivered in both directions resulting in accountability, feeling seen, and results.</li> <li>Make sure people leaders, who are the gateways through which we know our company, are trained and practiced at connective labor and activating the talents of humans for success.</li> </ul> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">An organization that meets these needs is where my kids work. That is where your kids are going to work or want to work.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Build one of these.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The employees you need will come, they will work hard, and they will stay, which matters to whether your organization will exist 3, 5, or 15 years from now.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"></p>

2026/8/21
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The goal of every meeting should be a decision

<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Nothing quite triggers a collective exhale like the “ding” of a canceled meeting. These days, people have come to dread meetings. It’s no wonder companies are <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/3048815/how-12-companies-make-meetings-memorable-effective-and-short">getting creative</a> in their attempts to revamp them, from starting with coloring sessions to holding them on basketball courts (while shooting hoops) and more.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">But injecting fun into meetings is like putting lipstick on a pig—it can’t save a bad, unproductive meeting.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"><a href="https://www.ted.com/podcasts/worklife/why-meetings-suck-and-how-to-fix-them-transcript">Research</a> has found that nearly a third of meetings are patently unnecessary, and they waste $25 million a year for every thousand people. That’s a figure that leaders can’t afford to ignore.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Meetings don’t just waste financial resources—they drain energy and steal time from more meaningful work. But the problem isn’t meetings themselves—it’s how we use them. Too often, we view them simply as time slots for getting together and discussing things. Sometimes, we’re just rehashing ideas or discussing points that could have been resolved with an email.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Today’s high-performing organizations know how to separate discussion from action. They ensure that meetings aren’t just group chats, but catalysts for decisions and action—inflection points for moving work forward.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Here’s how leaders can reduce meeting drag and create faster, cleaner decisions.</p> <h2 id="h-build-a-system-with-clear-ownership" class="wp-block-heading">Build a system with clear ownership</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">There’s a tendency to go along with standard practices for the sake of continuity. We persist in doing something the same way because that’s the way it’s always been done. In terms of meetings, that usually looks something like this: invite everyone potentially interested, maybe circulate a bullet-point list of things to cover, show up with a notepad. Sometimes there’s a designated notetaker. Sometimes, an attendant brings an <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/section/artificial-intelligence" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="1" title="AI">AI</a>-powered notetaking tool, which may even automatically draw up a summary of the meeting. But there’s no guarantee that everyone will leave with a clear idea of the next steps.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’ve always been drawn to systems. Even when I was a kid, growing up in Turkey, I loved building them. Be it a kitchen chemistry experiment or some cobbled-together contraption, the concept was the same: they receive input and have a clear cause and effect. If you want to improve or change the system, just tweak it until you get the result you’re after. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Meetings are no different. You can organize them like systems, and tweak them if they’re not achieving the result you want.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">At my company, Jotform, meetings are their own systems, with standard inputs and predictable results. An essential part of our meeting system is that beforehand, the organizer has to draw up an agenda of questions to be answered, and afterward, the decisions and action items, each with a clear owner. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Assigning ownership ensures that meetings deliver value. No more waiting around, unsure of who’s tasked with what. Instead, conversations convert into actions without unnecessary delays.&nbsp;</p> <h2 id="h-come-prepared-to-decide" class="wp-block-heading">Come prepared to decide</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Another dilemma that hinders effective meetings is a lack of context for making decisions. Nothing slows momentum—and loses attention—like a frantic mid-meeting Google search, followed by someone reading the results aloud for the first time, without even being sure how relevant or accurate they are. Personally, these are the moments when I suggest “putting a pin in it” and circling back in the next meeting, once everyone has had an opportunity to do their own research and clarify their ideas.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Giving participants the relevant context and information ahead of time not only ensures everyone is informed but also gives people time to mull things over. They can arrive at the meeting ready to confidently weigh in or voice any lingering doubts or questions. In other words, less “put a pin in it,” more “decision made.”</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">At my company, we build automated tools into our system to slash the busywork of organizing meetings and reduce communication errors. When it comes to pre-meeting prep, AI-powered platforms like Notion are a great way to ensure participants are on the same page. They can share research and insights and establish ahead of time the decisions they need to make.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">GenAI tools like ChatGPT help to lower the cost (and individual lift) of getting everyone up to speed. Rather than each participant scouring through documents, emails, research, and meeting notes, they can synthesize information and offer everyone the same clear, concise picture. The result is a meeting where everyone arrives informed, prepared to contribute, and ready to make decisions.</p> <h2 id="h-keep-the-feedback-loop-open" class="wp-block-heading">Keep the feedback loop open</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Remember the first rule (and the second rule) of Fight Club? You do not talk about Fight Club.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The movie is a classic, but as a leader, the rule runs contrary to everything I’ve learned about running an organization over the past two decades. It’s important to communicate about day-to-day tasks, but it’s equally vital to talk about your company and how the processes are working (or not). Meetings are an essential part of that conversation.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">You don’t want to spend precious meeting time on… talking about how well the meeting went. But you do want to create a communication channel where employees can offer feedback on meetings—techniques and tools they’ve found useful, ideas on how to improve them, instances where meetings ran awry, and when decisions and next steps stalled. Act on those insights, tweak your system, and continually improve it.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Having a clear and comprehensive picture of success, as well as what you could have done differently, helps companies ensure every meeting serves its purpose—to accomplish the kind of work that couldn’t have been done without a collective, real-time effort. That’s the only way to keep employees showing up fully, rather than dreading meetings.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"></p>

2026/8/20
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These 3 unexpected practices helped me grow my startup

<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I launched <a href="https://l.gourl.es/l/8c679ec210566f111d9debee5797272a7e95311c?u=10622044" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">RiseGuide</a>, a self-improvement platform letting people become their best by learning from the best, I wanted to offer a beneficial alternative to doomscrolling. We aggregated thousands of hours of expert knowledge into short, interactive, and practical daily lessons. Now, more than 500,000 users are putting their screen time toward something genuinely useful. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">But realizing my vision hasn’t always been easy, especially as CEO. You need feedback to build confidence, identify issues, learn, and improve. But these are all things that are difficult to get as a CEO. You don’t have a formal manager to provide performance reviews, personal development plans, or one-on-ones, so you have to find alternative ways to evaluate how you’re doing and where you can improve.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">These are the three practices that helped me scale my startup.</p> <h2 id="h-1-hire-employees-who-challenge-you" class="wp-block-heading">1. Hire employees who challenge you</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Affinity bias unconsciously draws us towards candidates who think, communicate, and work as we do. That can lead to groupthink and create teams where everyone offers the same input. During the <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/section/hiring" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="5" title="Hiring">hiring</a> process, I consciously trained myself to look out for two varieties of what I call &#8220;special&#8221; hires.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The first attribute I looked for in candidates was high standards that they stick by. People with the confidence to turn the tables and essentially interview me. Kate, RiseGuide’s senior creative producer, is the perfect example. During our first meeting, she asked me a lot of questions, and she crowned it by insisting I show her around the office after I’d casually mentioned the view. I used to be wary of people who refused to let me lead, but I’ve come to realize that true stars choose their employer and naturally take charge.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">I also looked for people who thought differently from me. Sometimes, the right hire is someone who is your opposite and brings an entirely different perspective. Take my CMO, Stas. While I prefer to come up with the big ideas, he figures out how to execute them. He comes to every meeting with an agenda, and I’ve never seen him lose his cool.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">What makes these hires so valuable is that they never stop challenging you. There’s always somebody in the room who is going to question your thinking or offer a different approach, which provides constant feedback and ensures you reach the best decision.</p> <h2 id="h-2-give-everyone-an-opportunity-to-share" class="wp-block-heading">2. Give everyone an opportunity to share</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">It’s important that you not rely only on senior management to offer insight into your performance. After all, your leadership impacts the entire organization, yet it can be tough for those lower down to share their frustrations. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">I decided to run an organization retro, a team-wide meeting where everyone had permission to share their honest thoughts. This led to people raising many issues that had never occurred to me. The team had a clear picture of our goals for the week, but no real sense of what we were trying to accomplish beyond that. I also had a habit of sharing information in meetings, over lunches, or during water-cooler conversations and expecting it to spread to the 70% of our team members who work remotely. Before having this meeting, I believed we were all on the same page. But I found out that some people expressed feeling uninformed or left out. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The point that stuck out most was that we weren’t celebrating wins. I’m not someone who dwells on triumphs. I view them as the natural result of hard work, but I came to realize that not everyone thinks like me.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">It’s important to note that feedback is valuable only if you act on it. In addition to the meeting, I started writing two long-form updates each week that I sent to the entire team, covering strategy, performance, hiring, and the wider market. Now, everyone is clear on where the company is heading over the next five years. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">We also started celebrating. Big or small, we now give credit for achievements and reward hard work with fun, informal activities, whether that be Zoom wine tasting sessions or team-wide quizzes.</p> <h2 id="h-3-encourage-boardroom-conflict" class="wp-block-heading">3. Encourage boardroom conflict</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Six months after the retro, RiseGuide was in a strong position, and the internal feedback reflected that. However, board meetings had become a formality. I would share stats and be told everything looks great. No one asked questions or raised issues. Without that feedback, I felt there was a risk of complacency creeping in. So I set out to find someone who would challenge me even when times were good.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">After plenty of thought about the person I wanted on board, I came up with the following criteria, which have since led me to many perfect board hires. I want someone who:</p> <ul class="wp-block-list"> <li>has enough experience that I would genuinely respect their input, even when it goes against mine,</li> <li>is an independent thinker, and won’t go with the crowd or follow the leader when they disagree,</li> <li>speaks up and argues until the end, not because of a personal stake but because they care, and</li> <li>disagrees only when they believe it’s necessary, not simply to show they can.</li> </ul> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">It is important to give them the means to get to know you as a leader. Two of my board members, for instance, now join our weekly, monthly, and informal meetings, and they’re in our main Slack channels. They know what’s going on and feel the atmosphere within the team, so they can provide feedback based on more than a slideshow of metrics.</p> <h2 id="h-the-benefit-of-building-opposition" class="wp-block-heading">The benefit of building opposition</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Many founders avoid friction because they believe it will slow them down and undermine their authority. And it does, but I don’t think that’s a negative. Growing as a leader isn’t about staying comfortable. It’s about keeping yourself accountable to do what’s best for your company—and that requires your best people challenging and questioning you in the process.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"></p>

2026/8/19
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How Airbnb reinvented its HR department

<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“Don’t mess up the culture as we scale!” That’s the family-friendly version of what one of the founders of Airbnb told the employee experience specialist Mark Levy when he arrived at the company in 2013 and was cotasked with modernizing the human resources function.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">I have always admired Levy’s work from afar and, recently, I was fortunate to interview him for a deep dive into how he helped transform the company while working there from 2013 and 2018.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">During our conversation, Levy explained that when he joined Airbnb, the company’s HR team wasn’t exactly cohesive. Several teams supported employees in different ways—but reported to different parts of the business. The question, Levy points out, was not whether to modernize the department, but <em>how</em> to modernize it.</p> <script type="application/json" data-block="mv-promo-block">{"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/07\/p-3-91570540-why-we-still-hate-hr-100-business-leaders-advice-how-to-fix-it.jpg","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2005\/08\/i-mobile-91570540-why-we-still-hate-hr-100-business-leaders-advice-how-to-fix-it.jpg","eyebrow":"","headline":"Why we still hate HR—and 100 business leaders on how to fix it","dek":"","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Read More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/91570540\/why-we-still-hate-hr-100-business-leaders-advice-how-to-fix-it","theme":{"bg":"#2b2d30","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#3b3f46","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91581354,"imageMobileId":91582211,"shareable":false,"slug":"","wpCssClasses":""}}</script> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Levy notes that Airbnb was not looking for a traditional approach to HR and he had a mandate from the founders to create something unique. According to Levy, one of Airbnb’s cofounders told him that everything he had heard about HR, he didn’t like. The cofounder asked Levy whether Airbnb could do HR differently.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Levy and his team pulled all the company’s various HR functions under one roof, and added functions like wellness and social impact to create a new remit of employee experience. Airbnb renamed the department Employee Experience, a change that was more than cosmetic. The new name sent a clear message that the accumulation of all Airbnb’s HR functions should focus on a singular outcome—enhancing employee engagement. The freshly baked department played a vital role in cultivating a sense of infectious belonging among employees that spread to Airbnb’s hosts all over the globe, and in the process helped Airbnb elevate its global brand.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">What Levy and his team also did differently was facilitate a culture of cocreation where, in Levy’s words, HR does things <em>with</em> employees (not <em>to </em>them) and where employees help determine priorities and design solutions to problems. For example, when Levy’s team redesigned performance management, he engaged with the head of engineering, then designed and piloted a new process with the engineering team as a test group before introducing it to the rest of the company. Rather than being designed in isolation, the new process was codesigned with employees to ensure performance management was creating solutions that employees valued.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Throughout my conversation with Levy, who is the coauthor of the book,<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Employee-Experience-Design-Co-create-Organizations/dp/139432958X"> Employee Experience Design: How to Co-Create Work Where People and Organizations Thrive</a>, I listened for nuggets of wisdom that other business leaders could use to modernize their HR departments. Here is what I took away:</p> <h2 id="h-be-intentional-about-what-you-want-out-of-hr" class="wp-block-heading">Be intentional about what you want out of HR</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Airbnb wanted to ensure that its mission to “create a world where anyone can belong anywhere” and its values of “Champion the mission,” “Be a host,” “Embrace the adventure,” and “Be a cereal entrepreneur” were preserved as the company expanded. [The latter slogan derives from the time in Airbnb&#8217;s early stages when the founders sold collector cereal boxes for $40 apiece to pay down debt.] If you want your HR team to help anchor your culture as you grow, be intentional about what you want, letting the team know in no uncertain terms what your expectations are when it comes to the areas you want them to focus on, and the outcomes you expect your organization to achieve as a result of HR’s work.</p> <h2 id="h-embrace-nontraditional-approaches-to-hr" class="wp-block-heading">Embrace nontraditional approaches to HR</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Airbnb knew that a traditional approach to HR wouldn’t align with its unique culture, and the company could benefit from a nontraditional approach. One of the elements of this approach at Airbnb was Ground Control—a self-organizing team of employees who focused on two-way internal communications&nbsp;between employees and senior leadership, creating opportunities for employee recognition and celebration, helping embed the company’s mission and values into its culture, and assessing how company initiatives would impact employees. Empowering employees to organize this function instead of taking a command and control approach allowed them to play an important role in shaping the culture and HR&#8217;s contribution. The lesson for senior leaders? Don’t be afraid to configure your HR team in new and innovative ways to meet the organization&#8217;s needs.</p> <h2 id="h-reposition-your-hr-department-in-the-eyes-of-employees" class="wp-block-heading">Reposition your HR Department in the eyes of employees</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Many business leaders, as well as employees, have a poor view of HR—especially when it’s limited to transactional roles where HR is considered to be the organization’s “policy police” or “compliance cops.” If you want to set your HR team up for success, you need to reposition the importance of HR to your organization. Your employees need, and deserve, to understand what modern HR is all about, how it has evolved from its origins as an administrative function, and the value it brings to the organization—especially in developing and maintaining a workplace culture where employees are highly engaged and excited by the work they are doing.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Airbnb helped reposition HR’s role by having employees involved in designing and owning the culture. One notable example: Employees were enlisted to help design the physical workplace, choosing a listing from one of Airbnb’s hosts and creating a living room that replicated a home environment to be used at the Airbnb office for meetings.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">This simple but meaningful activity helped HR reposition itself in the eyes of Airbnb employees as being more than the department responsible for compliance and policy observance. If you want your HR department to be effective and respected by employees, find ways to demonstrate to employees—not just tell them—that HR is interested not only in enforcing policies, but also in company culture, employee engagement, internal communications, and the overall employee experience.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <h2 id="h-evolving-your-hr-department-requires-support-from-the-very-top" class="wp-block-heading">Evolving your HR Department requires support from the very top</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Levy’s mandate to create something different from what might typically be expected of HR at other companies came straight from the top. If you want your HR department to evolve, you need to provide it with the support and resources required to carry out its mandate.&nbsp;</p> <h2 id="h-have-a-singular-focus" class="wp-block-heading">Have a singular focus</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">When it comes to outcomes, your HR department should have a singular focus. Even though modern HR can comprise several roles—recruitment, onboarding, talent nurturing, etc.—the collective outcome of HR&#8217;s day-to-day tasks should result in engagement that nudges your employees to love the organization they work for and the work they do on a daily basis.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Airbnb revolutionized its HR function, ensuring that it brought tangible and measurable results, by cocreating a workplace environment where employees feel valued, engaged, and inspired to help the company achieve its long-term strategic goals. You can too!</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Empower your employees by allowing them to have a say in how HR goes about building its ecosystem in the workplace. Employees are in an ideal position to know what type of support and leadership they need from their HR team—so, rather than projecting what you <em>think</em> your employees need, ask them directly. Your employees are more likely to embrace initiatives that they helped to create. By allowing your employees to cocreate your HR landscape, you increase the chances of developing an HR function that is not just effective in carrying out its role, but is also embraced and trusted by employees.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"></p>

2026/8/18
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Leadership lessons from America’s fastest-growing private companies and news from the new Susan G. Komen CEO

<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><em>Hello and welcome to&nbsp;</em>Modern&nbsp;CEO<em>!&nbsp;I’m&nbsp;Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of </em>Inc.<em> and </em>Fast Company<em>. If you&nbsp;received&nbsp;this newsletter from a friend, you can </em><a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/newsletters" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>sign up to get it yourself</em></a><em> every Monday morning.</em>&nbsp;</p> <hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Every CEO&nbsp;is&nbsp;managing&nbsp;uncertainty and complexity. Now&nbsp;imagine layering on exponential revenue growth—like&nbsp;percentage growth in the triple or quadruple digits.&nbsp;That’s&nbsp;what CEOs of&nbsp;companies on the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.inc.com/inc5000" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Inc. 5000</a>—<em>Inc.’</em>s annual list of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in America—deal with every day.&nbsp;“I&nbsp;liken it&nbsp;to&nbsp;standing&nbsp;in the&nbsp;‘ready position’&nbsp;in sports,” says Anne Fulenwider, cofounder and co-CEO of Alloy Health. The company’s 4,503% three-year revenue growth rate earned&nbsp;it&nbsp;the&nbsp;No. 61 spot on the list.&nbsp;“You have&nbsp;to&nbsp;be&nbsp;knees bent, ready to move in any direction at any time,” she says.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Fulenwider is one of&nbsp;several&nbsp;Inc. 5000 founders I spoke with about the special&nbsp;leadership issues&nbsp;fast-growth CEOs face, from&nbsp;retaining&nbsp;their company cultures as their businesses scale to figuring out how to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.inc.com/rob-verger/they-bootstrapped-a-pistachio-brand-to-4-5-million-but-a-dream-costco-order-nearly-broke-them/91376894" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fill a big order</a>&nbsp;that outpaces their production capabilities.&nbsp;Their experiences are inspiring&nbsp;and instructive. After all,&nbsp;many&nbsp;of these&nbsp;founders&nbsp;<a href="https://www.inc.com/ben-sherry/vcs-laughed-at-plumbers-buying-software-now-this-blue-collar-startup-is-closing-in-on-100-million/91376908" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">defied skeptics</a>,&nbsp;launching&nbsp;their ideas&nbsp;without the resources enjoyed by their&nbsp;larger&nbsp;counterparts,&nbsp;yet producing&nbsp;gains that are the envy of the business world.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Together, Inc. 5000 honorees racked up&nbsp;$385 billion&nbsp;in 2025 revenue, employed&nbsp;nearly&nbsp;1.5&nbsp;million people, and posted a median three-year growth rate of&nbsp;130%. The top 500 companies&nbsp;posted a median&nbsp;three-year&nbsp;growth rate of 1,338%.&nbsp;</p> <h2 id="h-ready-set-grow-nbsp" class="wp-block-heading">Ready, Set, Grow&nbsp;</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Donie Yamamoto, founder and CEO of Vital Pet Life, No. 3170, dealt with last year’s sweeping tariffs (<a href="https://www.inc.com/melissa-angell/the-supreme-court-just-struck-down-trumps-ieepa-tariffs-get-ready-for-a-refund-frenzy/91305475" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">struck down</a> by the U.S. Supreme Court in February) and the disruptions they caused her international supply chain by “going back to the values of why we started a company and staying true to it,” she says. Yamamoto began the company, which sells natural health products for cats and dogs, in 2017 when she couldn’t find a clean product to help relieve her dog’s dry skin. She adds, “By just staying true to our mission, it got [us] through the challenges.” </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Ali Ansari, CEO of Micro1, says he has learned to embrace the chaos of being a fast-growth company. Micro1, No. 37, works with experts around the world to train <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/section/artificial-intelligence" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="1" title="AI">artificial intelligence</a> models. Despite the fast pace, Ansari says he is working to build a culture that is “hardcore in the way that we work, but we’re also very kind to each other.” The company distributes a quarterly form titled “Are You Happy?” inviting employees to answer questions about compensation, staff interactions, and other issues. Ansari reads every response himself, then routes feedback to the people who can act on it. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Ultimately though, for Inc. 5000 companies, capitalizing&nbsp;on&nbsp;fast&nbsp;growth&nbsp;<em>is</em>&nbsp;their superpower. Matt McKinney, founder and CEO of the AI-powered logistics platform Loop, No. 10, tells&nbsp;<em>Inc</em>.:&nbsp;“If you can outcompete on speed, that’s a competitive advantage.”&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <h2 id="h-bringing-speed-to-the-nonprofit-world" class="wp-block-heading">Bringing speed to the nonprofit world</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"><em>Fast Company </em>has had the opportunity to work with the advertising agency McCann on a few projects, and <em>Modern CEO</em> recently caught up with McCann New York&#8217;s CEO, Amber Guild, who just announced that she would become the next CEO of Susan G. Komen, a leading breast cancer organization. Guild, who was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer in 2020, says her diagnosis made the nonprofit’s mission deeply personal and also made her acutely aware of how many women don&#8217;t get the access and care that she did. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Like the Inc. 5000 CEOs I spoke with this week, Guild is thinking about speed as she steps into her new role on October 1. “My vision is to build a more modern, more connected Komen, one that uses everything technology and data now make possible to bring in more people, move faster, and have more impact,” she says. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Is your company a fast-growth&nbsp;organization? If so, how do you keep your teams moving quickly? Send your answers to me at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:stephaniemehta@mansueto.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">stephaniemehta@mansueto.com</a>. We will publish the best insights in a future newsletter.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Read more:</strong> inspiration from the Inc. 5000&nbsp;</p> <ul class="wp-block-list"> <li>Oprah loved&nbsp;their&nbsp;<a href="https://www.inc.com/annabel-burba/oprah-loved-their-charcuterie-boards-now-their-next-day-gifting-brand-makes-85-million-a-year/91376888" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">charcuterie boards</a>. Now the brand generates $85 million in sales a year&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul class="wp-block-list"> <li>A nurse practitioner’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.inc.com/amaya-nichole/bask-and-lather-nurse-practitioner-replaced-salary-3-months-hair-care-brand-269-million/91376904" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">hair care company</a>&nbsp;is on track for $269 million&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul class="wp-block-list"> <li>Inside&nbsp;Replit’s&nbsp;$1 billion&nbsp;<a href="https://www.inc.com/ben-sherry/replit-founders-built-a-1-billion-vibe-coding-empire-now-their-biggest-partners-are-coming-for-it/91376870" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">vibe-coding empire</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</li> </ul> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"></p>

2026/8/17
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What to do when your new team expects to be micromanaged

<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Emily stepped into the VP of Finance role ready to implement new financial and billing systems that would change how her company does business.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Yet one year in, she was still telling experienced team members what to do next on routine processes and making decisions that should never reach her, such as approving a $500 invoice credit.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Meanwhile, the new systems she had promised senior leadership had barely moved. She did not have the capacity to be the strategic, forward-looking executive she knew she could be.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’ve seen this time and time again coaching executives. Companies looking to drive change often turn to outsiders to lead it. Those leaders are then caught off guard when the long-tenured teams they inherit seem to expect to be micromanaged.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The answer is not to step back or take over. Teams rarely want to be micromanaged. More often, they have little incentive to take on greater risk or lack the skills to operate at the level the new leader expects. Your job is to determine what’s driving the dependence, align incentives and resources, and then build autonomy gradually.</p> <h2 id="h-1-diagnose-why-the-work-reverts-to-you" class="wp-block-heading">1) Diagnose why the work reverts to you</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">If you find yourself giving step-by-step directions or approving minor details on long-established, repetitive work, get curious about what is driving your team’s reliance on you. It could be<a href="https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amr.1982.4285559"> conditioning from a prior boss</a> who stayed extremely close to the work; a gap in skill, motivation, or confidence; or your own habit of <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/91360379/12-signs-youre-micromanaging-without-realizing-it">stepping in</a>.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Map one or two key work streams with the team, asking them to walk you through the critical path, why each approval exists, and what has happened when someone moved forward without one. If there is a step that no one can rationalize, it may no longer be needed.<br><br>The process-mapping exercise Emily did with her team revealed that the prior VP had a “his way or the highway” mentality, creating “apprehension in offering up any kind of comments.” Some of the team’s dependence was not about capability at all, but a response to how work had historically been managed.</p> <h2 id="h-2-secure-support-for-working-differently" class="wp-block-heading">2) Secure support for working differently</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">If your team has learned that the risk of taking initiative outweighs the reward, you need to change the system around them before asking them to work differently. Align with your boss on what you believe team members should now own and why it matters, then secure the resources they need. This may also mean updating job expectations, performance goals, or recognition so people are rewarded for taking ownership. Give peers who depend on your team a heads-up on your plans, particularly if lead times will increase.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">As Emily explained to her CFO, “Having been here for a year, I’m spending 80% of my time off my core job. The team, operating as it does today, will not get us where we need to go.” She then instituted a weekly meeting with her leader to manage expectations on what could be accomplished as the team transformed, often discussing what would get deprioritized or delayed for now.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">While it’s tempting to step in and work more hours to close the gap yourself, this will only keep the team dependent on you.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">If you do not have explicit permission and support from leadership, the first complaint may confirm the team’s caution and undo the progress you’ve made. With that support, you’re able to show that the rules really have changed.</p> <h2 id="h-3-sell-the-change" class="wp-block-heading">3) Sell the change</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">How you position the change will make or break its success. People want to be heard, so connect the shift directly to the feedback they gave you on the workflow, and explain how working differently would be a win for each of them and the organization. Name your own role in perpetuating the problem, which makes it safer for them to be candid about what isn’t working. People are more likely to support a change when they can see how their own feedback has shaped it and it’s not framed as you vs. them.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">As Emily told her team, “I’ve heard that I can be the bottleneck and it’s frustrating. I’d like to align on a process so you don’t have to wait for me.”</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Then make the<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/91415334/the-one-question-every-leader-should-answer-in-high-stakes-moments-high-stakes-situations-leadership"> benefit personal</a>. For an ambitious employee, it may be that empowerment is a way to grow their career. For someone who is content at their current level, it may mean fewer delays or more say in how the work gets done. And sometimes there is no natural upside for the individual, so you need to explain<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/91384291/how-to-truly-change-your-organization"> what happens</a> if nothing changes, and what the organization stands to gain. </p> <h2 id="h-4-start-small-and-hold-the-line" class="wp-block-heading">4) Start small and hold the line</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"><a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/91323191/19-methods-for-leading-organizational-change-with-minimal-disruption">Start small</a> and<a href="https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/leadership-skills-daily/participative-leadership-what-it-can-do-for-organizations/"> cocreate</a> the day-to-day solutions with your team, rather than handing them answers. Ownership transfers only if the process is built with the team, not delivered to them. Bring a straw man proposal for one discrete, repeatable process, then say something like, “I have an idea of what this could be, but let’s align on it together, so you don’t have to come to me for the next step.”</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Inevitably, work will bounce back to you, so resist the urge to catch it “just this once.” Leave the ownership with the team by asking what they’d recommend or offering coaching if needed. That one rescue is the exact dependency you set out to end.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">A team that has learned that taking initiative is too risky will keep waiting for permission. Change the math by supporting and rewarding ownership, and it will begin to lead itself.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"></p>

2026/8/17
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‘Holiday hoarding’ is a workplace crisis

<p class="wp-block-paragraph">There is a certain irony in writing this piece during the summer. This is usually when <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/91568854/pto-maxxing-isnt-the-problem-your-companys-culture-might-be" type="link" id="https://www.fastcompany.com/91568854/pto-maxxing-isnt-the-problem-your-companys-culture-might-be" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">offices begin to thin out</a>, when conversations drift toward flight deals and city-break plans, and when out-of-office auto-replies get drafted by the dozens. Yet leaders might look around to find the opposite: desks that are normally vacant remain occupied, and holiday requests that normally flood their inboxes are nowhere to be seen. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">If this is your experience, your organization may be swept up in the “holiday hoarding” crisis, characterized by the growing tendency for workers to hold onto their paid time off (PTO) rather than use it. New data from <a href="https://www.breathehr.com/en-gb/burnout" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Breathe HR</a> shows that around half of U.K. workers didn’t take their full PTO last year, and U.S. figures from Pew <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/10/more-than-4-in-10-u-s-workers-dont-take-all-their-paid-time-off/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">paint a similar picture</a>. And the trend is worsening: At Breathe HR, we found that 1 in 4 workers plan to take less vacation time this year than last year.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">There are a plethora of reasons why workers are choosing to forgo PTO, but it can be partly attributed to the <a href="https://fortune.com/2026/04/10/job-market-pessimism-fed-reserve-covid-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tough job market</a> on both sides of the pond. It’s fueling a wave of <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/703280/worker-thriving-declines-job-market-pessimism-grows.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">job insecurity</a> that’s prompting many employees to worry that stepping away from work—even briefly—will be perceived as a lack of commitment. According to our poll, 1 in 5 workers admit they’re worried about redundancy and the tough job market, so they hold back from taking their full PTO in case it negatively impacts how managers view them.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The causes of holiday hoarding also stretch into the cultural and structural fabric of organizations. We found that a fifth of workers say that their employer doesn’t encourage them to use their PTO. A third say their workload prevents them from taking a vacation, and Pew reports <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/10/more-than-4-in-10-u-s-workers-dont-take-all-their-paid-time-off/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">nearly half</a> feel guilty knowing their colleagues may have to pick up the slack in their absence. When workloads are unsustainable, and rest is seen as an indulgence rather than a necessity, staff won&#8217;t feel able to take the time off that they’re entitled to.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">And then there’s technology, which has blurred the boundary between “on” and “off” the clock beyond recognition. With over a third of holiday hoarders getting contacted by managers while on holiday, time off rarely means switching off. It’s no wonder employees are starting to question whether it’s worth taking PTO at all.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The holiday-hoarding crisis should concern leaders, and it is as much a <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/section/productivity" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="9" title="Productivity">productivity</a> issue as it is a well-being one. Breathe HR’s research shows that almost half of holiday hoarders feel burnt out by year-end. This is not the foundation for a healthy and productive workforce.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">We all know the saying, “You can’t pour from an empty cup.” The same logic applies at work. If employees are expected to show up with energy, focus, and sharp judgment, their cups need to be full—and having the time and space to rest is what fills them up. A culture that fails to treat regular breaks as a normal part of working life is a culture that will eventually buckle under its own weight. Decision-making and performance will suffer, and poor employee health could end up costing <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/keep-britain-working-review-final-report/keep-britain-working-technical-note" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">businesses billions</a>.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">It’s therefore critical that leaders view rest and paid time off as a strategic priority if they want their organization—and those within it—to thrive.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The first step is to model, and actively encourage, good holiday-taking habits from the top. Employees aren’t only consulting company handbooks to understand an employer’s approach to PTO. They’re also watching how senior leaders behave to understand what’s <em>actually </em>expected. This means that the example leaders set has to go beyond booking time off to genuinely disconnecting while away. This means not replying to emails, lurking on Slack, or offering to be “available if needed” to colleagues. Leaders also need to monitor workers’ holiday habits and remind those who are underutilizing their vacation time to book a break. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The next step is to start evaluating performance based on output, not just hours logged. More time spent at our desks does not guarantee greater productivity. In fact, if someone works for weeks—or months—without rest, burnout could set in and the quality of work can drop. Shifting to an outcomes-based outlook will enhance productivity and is essential for abating workers’ fears that taking time off will hurt their career and dismantling the holiday-hoarding mindset. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Leaders must also address the workload issue. When every third employee says their workload is stopping them from taking paid time off, it suggests the problem is structural. And if people can’t pause for even a few days without falling behind, that’s an indicator that workloads are unsustainable. Managers need to keep a keen eye on team members’ task lists and ensure that handover processes are clear and consistently followed, so staff feel genuinely able to take leave and disconnect fully whilst they’re away from their desks. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Finally, make scheduling time off frictionless. We found that over a quarter of workers find it difficult to track how much leave they have taken or have remaining, and this could prevent them from taking more. So make it easy for staff to find out how much PTO they’re entitled to. </p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The holiday-hoarding crisis is real, but it’s not irreversible. And fixing the culture around taking holidays starts with leaders. When we treat time off as a necessity and build cultures that genuinely encourage rest, we give our people, and the organization as a whole, the best chance to thrive year-round.</p>

2026/8/16
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Who is pointing out your blind spots?

<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“I don’t understand. The deal was moving forward. My team’s reports said we were on track. I had lunch with their CEO last month, and everything felt solid.”</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Andy was talking about a client who had just walked away from a major deal his team had been reporting as “progressing well” for months. He believed the relationship was strong based on all the status meetings, as well as a lunch he’d hosted where the client had been cordial and talked about the future.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">As Andy’s executive coach, I helped him reflect on what had unfolded, and he realized that the warning signs had been there all along. He’d simply not seen them. The client’s procurement team had raised concerns about the implementation timeline, but these were downplayed in internal updates. When Andy conducted a review, his own sales engineering team acknowledged that they’d sensed the client&#8217;s hesitation, but didn’t think it important enough to flag it, assuming others senior to them would have a better view and make that call.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">With the benefit of hindsight, Andy recognized that the client’s CEO had hinted at competing priorities during their lunch conversation. But Andy didn’t connect the dots at the time. He’d heard what he wanted to hear, that the deal was moving ahead, and had overlooked the warning signs.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The clues were there, like breadcrumbs, only Andy hadn’t followed the trail. One more question or moment of genuine curiosity, and Andy may have seen the fuller picture and been able to turn things around.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Andy wasn’t negligent. He is smart, experienced, and genuinely invested in the client relationship. Like many leaders, he relied on his experience. He hadn’t realized that the team around him, internal and external, had become a filter, not a lens, to the information he needed most.</p> <h2 id="h-the-leadership-highlights-reel" class="wp-block-heading">The leadership highlights reel</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The reality is that as leaders advance through their careers, information passes through more and more organizational layers before reaching them. Each layer creates its own filter. Marshall Goldsmith calls this &#8220;adding too much value&#8221; in his book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1401301304?lv=shuf&amp;channelId=500&amp;plpRedirect=mhFallback"><em>What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There</em></a>. In proving their own value, each person inadvertently alters the original message without realizing the impact.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">If you ever played the telephone game as a child, you know how quickly a message changes when it passes through just a few people. Now imagine that game being played daily across your organization, except nobody’s laughing at the end.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">It starts below your direct reports. The team beneath your team condenses, interprets, and adds their perspective to the data before it reaches the people who report to you. By the time the report is ready for your attention, you’re reading a version of reality that’s been through a professional game of telephone, except this version makes sense. The final report is well structured and tells a plausible story, and so you stop asking deeper questions.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Even when you do ask, your team has learned which questions you’ll raise. They’ve either included the answer in the report so you don’t have to ask, or rehearsed their answers in case you do. As a result, when you do ask a question and receive a confident reply, you move on.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Your team has learned what grabs your attention. Which ideas land. Which suggestions cause that little wrinkle between your eyebrows. Their goal is to iron out those wrinkles. Gradually, what reaches you becomes a curated version of reality, as everyone optimizes for your preferences without realizing it. The curiosity cycle gets shortened and we’re lulled into an&nbsp; increasing sense of certainty with which to make our decisions.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Cornelia Choe, who with Goldsmith cowrote <a href="https://amplifypublishinggroup.com/product/nonfiction/business-and-finance/leadership-and-management/the-panoramic-leader/"><em>The Panoramic Leader</em></a>, calls this “perspective blindness”—seeing your part of the map and believing that’s the whole map. “The information, knowledge, and perspectives of the landscape that we need aren’t all in one place,&#8221; Choe told me during her appearance on my podcast <em>People First! </em>&#8220;They&#8217;re distributed in the minds of many different people.<br><br>&#8220;It’s important to understand these perspectives and bring them together so that we can fill in our blind spots,&#8221; she said. &#8220;In order to really understand different people, we need to create a relationship with them. Trust isn’t a given. We have to earn access to other people’s perspectives.”&nbsp;</p> <h2 id="h-your-relationships-are-a-leadership-intelligence-system" class="wp-block-heading">Your relationships are a leadership intelligence system</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">What many leaders will assume, much like Andy did, is that the answer is to consume more information, more meetings, additional reports, or increasingly complex dashboards. But the problem was never the volume of information. It was the <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/91481920/the-hidden-risk-of-building-a-leadership-team-with-people-you-know" type="link" id="https://www.fastcompany.com/91481920/the-hidden-risk-of-building-a-leadership-team-with-people-you-know">nature of the relationships</a> through which that information travels.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">In my book, <a href="https://skyeteam.com/books/cultivate-book/"><em>Cultivate: The Power of Winning Relationships</em></a>, I present four relationship dynamics: Ally, Supporter, Rival, and Adversary:</p> <ul class="wp-block-list"> <li>Allies are your &#8220;best friend at work.&#8221; They don’t just bring you news; they’re also willing to tell you the toughest messages that others may not. They’ll flag the potential issues before they derail the deal. </li> </ul> <ul class="wp-block-list"> <li>Supporters may possess valuable insights but may not feel comfortable challenging your perspective—especially if your seniority means that your perspective is the HIPPO (Highest Paid Person&#8217;s Opinion) in the room.&nbsp;</li> <li>Rivals can often identify the weaknesses in your approach that other colleagues might overlook, and enjoy the devil&#8217;s advocate role.&nbsp;</li> <li>Even Adversaries offer perspectives that, while you may not agree with them, can provide information that strengthens your decision-making—if you choose to listen.</li> </ul> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">If you aren’t paying attention to the relationship dynamics around you, you can find yourself making decisions inside a bubble that feels like clarity, but isn’t.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">That was where I met Andy. He didn’t lose the deal due to a lack of data. He lost it because he lacked an Ally, internally or externally, who could’ve said: “I think you’re hearing what you want to hear. Let me tell you what I’m actually seeing.”</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most leaders have built their careers on having answers, with a heady dose of self-confidence that grows from being right, and feeling like the smartest person in the room. It’s often what got them promoted. They recognize patterns quickly, connect dots in ways others miss, and move decisively. These are real strengths. But in a world that’s changing faster than any individual can track, yesterday’s pattern recognition can become today’s blind spot.</p> <h2 id="h-more-connections-aren-t-the-answer" class="wp-block-heading">More connections aren’t the answer</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">This isn’t an argument for adding another dozen coffee meetings—more caffeine, more networking—to an already impossible calendar.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Instead, it’s about cultivating the relationships you already have in your network. It&#8217;s about understanding who you depend on for your success; which relationships provide the edge and challenge you need; and which have become comfortable or predictable, and as a result may be limiting versus broadening your perspective.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">An easy first step is to pause and ask yourself: Whose opinion do you routinely seek out? Who challenges your thinking? Who might know something you don’t? And who have you stopped listening to because you’ve labeled them as difficult, or because they don’t see the world the way you do?</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Each of these questions provides one additional moment to open up the information landscape that you are navigating.</p> <h2 id="h-right-isn-t-the-same-as-seeing" class="wp-block-heading">Right isn’t the same as seeing</h2> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">You can absolutely be right about what you see and still be missing half the picture. If I were to hold my hand up to you, you’d describe my (hopefully) long lifeline, the palm of my hand; and yet from my perspective I’d see my knuckles, the ring I wear. Both perspectives are right, but it’s only when we bring them together that we see the whole hand.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">In an information-rich environment, the leadership advantage we all need to cultivate isn’t necessarily about knowing more, but from seeing differently. As Choe describes, a panoramic leader builds relationships, curiosity, and humility to uncover the perspectives that your own vantage point can&#8217;t reveal.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Who sees something you don&#8217;t, and when did you last ask them what they&#8217;re seeing?</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph"></p>

2026/8/15
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