In 2017, Uber’s executive team reached a critical turning point. The world saw headlines about leadership changes, valuation drops, and cultural upheavals. Beneath the noise, however, lay a deeper issue.

It wasn’t rogue culture or aggressive expansion. It was misalignment at the very top.

An all-too-familiar scenario had taken root: Executives were operating in silos. They weren’t facing challenges to key decisions, and they overlooked red flags. The result? A $20 billion valuation adjustment and a leadership overhaul that forced Uber to rethink how alignment works at the highest levels.

And that’s where the real story begins. Instead of crumbling, Uber recalibrated. The company realigned its leadership, rebuilt trust, and restructured cultural processes. The company turned misalignment into an opportunity for transformation. Today, it stands as a case study in how great organizations use misalignment as a catalyst for growth.

These challenges aren’t unique to Uber. Misalignment is present in companies of all stages and sizes. Unfortunately, many teams don’t realize it until it’s too late.

What leads to misalignment

Most executive teams think they’re aligned. But the data says otherwise. Only 18% strongly agree their teams consistently demonstrate the behaviors that define true alignment—like communication, integrity, accountability, and follow-through.

This gap between perception and reality is where organizations lose their edge. You can’t build alignment out of assumptions or beliefs. It requires discipline. If leaders aren’t actively testing for alignment, they simply hope it exists.

Misalignment doesn’t happen loudly. It doesn’t announce itself from the center stage. Instead, it creeps in during everyday interactions. A CFO notices a financial red flag but assumes someone else will address it. A CMO defends their budget so fiercely it hinders collaboration. Or a CEO shares a vision for the future, unaware their team is nodding in agreement while quietly disengaging.

These moments don’t feel like failures. But that’s what makes them dangerous.

The cost of misalignment

Misalignment is more than an internal struggle, it’s an existential threat. In our work with executives across industries like healthcare, technology, government, and finance, the following patterns typically lead to misalignment: 

1. Conflict avoidance: Leaders sidestep difficult conversations, allowing minor issues to grow into major problems.
2. Transactional meetings: Discussions lack depth and critical debate, reducing meetings to routine updates instead of platforms for innovation.
3. Superficial trust: Leaders hesitate to ask for help, fearing it signals weakness, while their teams avoid raising strategic concerns out of distrust or fear.
4. Team disengagement: When trust diminishes, team members stop challenging one another and wait for top-down directives, turning from proactive problem-solvers into task-oriented executors.

These issues are not failures of leadership competency. They are symptoms of false alignment, which is the consequence of overlooking the need for deliberate cohesion.

Signs your executive team is out of sync

Think your team is aligned? Consider the following questions:

• Does alignment depend entirely on your CEO? If your team waits for top-down answers, it isn’t aligned.
• Are your meetings mostly informational updates? If real collaboration happens only in smaller groups, trust is lacking.
• Are silos the norm? If asking for help feels risky, your leaders are functioning as individuals, not as a team.
• Is constructive conflict avoided or punished? If problem-solving debates feel unsafe, innovation is stalling.

If any of these scenarios resonate, your team isn’t just underperforming—it’s likely holding itself back, forfeiting innovation and strategic agility.

What great executive teams do differently

You can’t build alignment in the boardrooms. It’s built-in moments—the way leaders interact, debate, and trust each other. Aligned teams outperform their peers, not because alignment is easy but because it is deliberate.

In our experience, companies need to take a two-step approach to fix misalignment:

Step 1: Work on internal issues

1. Elevate trust. Companies need to treat trust as a mission-critical value. Facilitate open discussions where executives can address challenges without fear of retaliation.
2. Establish feedback loops and accountability. Integrate structured feedback mechanisms to foster a culture of continuous improvement.
3. Embed professional development. Prioritize coaching and mentorship to make learning and growth central to your team’s strategy.

Path 2: Bring in outside experts

Executive coaches act as mirrors, revealing blind spots, building trust, and uniting teams before fractures lead to failure. They provide the safe space needed for honest discussions and alignment.

A CEO’s Final Test: Are You Aligned?

Finally, great leaders don’t assume alignment, they test it. If you want to know whether your team is truly aligned, ask your executives—privately and anonymously—to rate your team’s trust, collaboration, engagement, and alignment on a scale from 1 to 10. Compare the results. If the scores vary wildly or skew low, your team isn’t aligned, it’s merely coexisting.

Start to think about how you can fix it. Remember, misalignment isn’t just an operational challenge, it’s a threat to your organization’s survival.

Because hiring staff is typically a time-consuming and costly process, many companies are now opting to interview multiple candidates at once. The Society for Human Resource Management reported that group interviews have become increasingly popular among employers. 

For applicants, this changes the interview experience significantly. Instead of fielding questions about your résumé in a one-on-one setting, you’ve now got to vie for a role alongside other applicants and take part in real-world workplace scenarios designed to showcase your leadership skills.

Tech companies and brands such as Disney, Starbucks, and The Gap are choosing to adopt the trend. Not only can interviewers see how candidates work in high-pressure situations, but fewer interviewers need to be trained in the company.

“By screening multiple candidates at once, this style of interview can save employers time, while also allowing them to observe candidates’ critical thinking and communication skills in action,” says Sarah Skelton, managing director of recruitment company Flourish. 

Skelton adds that this interview style can not only be a timesaver for companies, but it can also save applicants time, too. “For the candidates, this can give an opportunity to showcase their skills in one day.”

But it can also be a stressful process, especially if you’re used to the traditional interview experience. The next time you’re asked to participate in a group interview, here’s what to keep in mind in order to make sure you stand out to the hiring managers: 

Practice your networking skills

When taking part in a group interview, try networking to make you feel calm, grounded, and present. “It may be helpful to warm yourself up by having a couple of light touch questions you ask other interviewees before the interview starts, for example, ‘How was your journey?’” says leadership coach Keren Blackmore from Leap of Thought.

Being interviewed alongside others might actually help reduce the amount of stress you feel, as you’re all in the same boat. You can also use the opportunity to increase your network. “The people you meet at the interview may be interesting contacts for the future, [so] why not, for example, connect on LinkedIn?” says Blackmore.

Think about your body language

While it may be more difficult to stand out in a group interview, you can still make your presence felt, even when you’re silent. Psychologist Albert Mehrabian said that 55% of our communication is through body language, rather than speaking. Beth Hope, an executive coach who specializes in resilience, says your body language in these group interview settings should reflect calm confidence. 

“Sit tall, ground your feet, keep your shoulders relaxed and open. This will help calm your nervous system and give you a boost of confidence,” says Hope. “Use purposeful gestures when speaking and avoid nervous habits like fidgeting or crossed arms. Confidence [is] about owning your space, staying grounded, and showing you’re comfortable being yourself.”

Executive coach Joseph Ball adds that to “show engagement, you should nod, smile, [and] make eye contact with the speaker.”

Know when not to talk

Group interviews may be embraced by extroverts, but the key is knowing when not to talk. “The best way to stand out in any setting is not to be the loudest voice, but to be the clarifying voice,” says Mike Manoske, executive coach at The Wharton School. “The way to do that is through active listening and playback: replaying back what you’ve heard, followed by adding additional ideas to move things forward.”

Make sure to keep your tone respectful. Leadership development trainer Andy Coley says you should avoid the word “but” when responding to someone else’s idea or perspective. “A ‘but’ can be seen as confrontational,” says Coley. “Instead say ‘yes, and this is my perspective.’ [This] implies you’ve acknowledged the other person’s point of view, whereas ‘but’ comes across as a disagreement, which can lead to egos getting hurt,” he says.

You can also show support for others without affecting your chances, says Coley. “If someone shares a good idea, a simple comment like ‘That’s a great point,’ shows that you’re thoughtful and team-minded,” he says. “That kind of behavior stands out because it shows you care about the whole group, not just yourself—and that’s real leadership.” 

Treat other applicants as peers, not competition 

Another way to gain confidence in this group setting is to view the other people as peers, rather than competition, says Blackmore. “This helps frame them as equals rather than a threat. Don’t spend your time distracted by how the other candidates may or may not be a better fit. They are no better or worse, but they do have different skills and experiences. If you’re in the interview, you are there for a reason. How you show up in the group environment is likely to be just as important as your [credentials] and experience.”

Work psychologist Dr. Marie-Hélène Pelletier says a group interview presents a good opportunity to work on your mental toughness. “Identify what may get you off track and prepare. If another candidate saying a [great] point puts you at risk of losing your confidence, prepare now to put this aside mentally.”

If you don’t have the typical skills for the role, view this as a superpower. “A great way to stand out is to connect insights from your nontraditional background to help move the group forward,” says executive coach Kelly Ling. For example, if you are moving from a business development role into a product manager role, you can bring in your experience of understanding customer’s needs.

Keep an eye on the time

The whole idea of the group interview is to find someone who can do the job and even uncover a future leader. Skelton says that group interviews often include a timed component, so it’s important for candidates to demonstrate strong time management skills and help keep the group focused. “Successful participants will guide the team toward hitting key milestones throughout the session and ensure a clear conclusion is reached by the end,” says Skelton.

If the tariff-triggered drop in your 401(k) balance has got you sobbing into a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, you’re not alone. U.S. and global markets have yo-yoed in reaction to the current administration’s inexplicable tariff wars. And since this market downturn is a direct result of American foreign economic policy, we may not be able to just wait for a recovery in the next few months (or years).

While there’s no promise of fiscal unicorns and rainbows at the other end of this, economic history may offer some guidance.

The Smoot-Hawley Tariffs

None of us has ever lived through a tariff-triggered market crash, which is part of the reason why we’re all chewing our fingernails. But just because this is a new worry for modern investors doesn’t mean our current situation is unprecedented. America has been through a tariff trade war before, thanks to the work of the improbably named Utah Senator Reed Smoot and Oregon Representative Willis Hawley—two men without a single first name between them.

You may only remember the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930 as part of the mind-numbing lecture Ferris Bueller missed on his day off, but this act raised import duties in an attempt to protect American farmers and businesses. Unfortunately, the Smoot-Hawley tariffs prompted retaliatory tariffs, which further entrenched the financial crisis known as the Great Depression.

Here’s why the history with Messrs Smoot and Hawley is important: it gives us a precedent to look to. Any financial adviser worth their salt will tell you that past performance is no guarantee of future returns—but understanding how markets have reacted in the past can offer some perspective on how markets may react in the future.

What’s different about this market volatility

The current financial turbulence stems from the president’s tariffs rather than a market crash like the 2008 housing bubble collapse. That’s important because we know how to plan for the worst-case scenario of a market crash.

While anything but fun, market crashes are relatively common and repeat on a somewhat predictable seven-to-ten-year pattern–followed by an average recovery time of 1.4 years.

Since our current heartburn-inducing market ride stems from America’s global retaliatory trade war, we can’t necessarily count on the “natural” rebound that has occurred after every other destabilizing market event in recent memory. Any countries angry about America’s tariffs could make financial or policy changes that will continue to affect the U.S. market for years to come. There is simply no way of knowing what long-term effects there will be on our investments.

Let tariff history be your guide

Even though none of us can personally remember a tariff trade war, we can learn from the devastating effects of Smoot and Hawley teaming up, bleach and ammonia style, to impose massive tariffs. 

Looking back to see how other countries reacted to America’s isolationist financial and foreign policy in the 1930s and how the market responded to the subsequent tariffs being flung back and forth across borders like a game of hot potato, we can make plans and predictions based on the historical worst-case scenario.

Specifically, Smoot and Hawley showed us that tariffs often lead to retaliatory tariffs, which can have a negative impact on the market. Even though there is no way of knowing what will happen, it’s probably a good idea for investors to buckle up for a bumpy ride.

Best practices for surviving Trump’s tariffs

You can get to the other side of this economic nightmare if you keep a cool head and follow these strategies:

Remember that the market will eventually recover

For anyone who is 10 or more years out from retirement, you can feel confident that things will improve. Unless we’re in a “dogs and cats living together–mass hysteria!” type of extinction-level event, consider ignoring your 401(k) balance for a little while.

Your investments will do better if you back slowly away from your portfolio and let the market recover.

Forewarned is forearmed

Just because the market will return to some semblance of normalcy without any effort on your part doesn’t mean you should do nothing.

Now is the time to shore up your finances by paying off high-interest debt, setting aside money into an emergency fund, finding ways to lower your expenses, and starting some secondary income streams in case of job loss or involuntary retirement.

All of these actions will help your finances whether we’re in for a long stretch of tariff-induced market nastiness or things are about to come up roses.

Invest conservatively as you get closer to retirement

Your asset allocation is supposed to get less risky as you approach retirement, since that will protect your principal in case of a market downturn at the wrong time. If you’re planning to retire in the next few years, you can make sure any new contributions you make to your retirement accounts are invested in low-risk-lower-return assets, like bonds, treasury funds, CDs, or other cash equivalents.

While these investments aren’t going to grow like the market normally would, the market also may not grow like it normally would. Stashing your contributions into these kinds of investments will offer you more peace of mind that the money will be waiting for your retirement.

You still have time for market recovery

Once you’re no longer in the flush of youth, you may assume you don’t have the luxury of investing for the long-term. It’s not like a 60-year-old can afford to wait out the market like a 30-year-old can.

Except, you can invest like you have decades ahead of you. Because you do!

Even while you approach retirement and during your retirement, you will keep a portion of your portfolio invested for the long haul. When you retire, you don’t need all of your money right away. You’ll keep a significant chunk invested for a longer time horizon, which helps ensure that your money will last your entire life.

How to respond if you’re already retired

By far, retirees are the most vulnerable to a protracted market plunge. Going back to work or waiting out the market weirdness are generally off the table for retirees, so it can feel like there are no good choices.

But that doesn’t mean retirees are helpless in the face of larger economic forces. As with current workers and near-retirees, retirees can make plans now for the worst-case scenario. This might include:

• Reducing expenses: This is easier said than done, considering the price of eggs and everything else, but start thinking about ways to downsize your costs.
• Selling items: If you have a lifetime’s worth of home goods, collectibles, or Precious Moments figurines sitting around, you may want to start selling some off. This could be a good way to increase your retirement income without having to take money from your investments.
• Considering a reverse mortgage: Since your home is likely your most valuable asset, a reverse mortgage could be a decent way to access cash from something other than your investments.

Don’t panic—plan

Panic is the leading cause of selling at the market’s low point. Instead of selling off your investments to staunch the flow of tariff-induced anxiety, make a plan instead.

If you assume the market may be bumpy for the foreseeable future, how will that change your financial decisions?

Making investment choices based on that assumption will serve you well no matter what happens. In the best-case scenario, things will recover sooner than expected and this will be a footnote in your investing career. But even in the worst-case scenario, planning for volatility will help you make more rational decisions—and protect you from making your paper losses real by getting out of the market.

It may be a bit of a grim sounding win-win, but it’s a heck of a lot better than crying into a pint of Chunky Monkey.

Greg Walton, PhD, is the co-director of the Dweck-Walton Lab and a professor of psychology at Stanford University. Dr. Walton’s research is supported by many foundations, including Character Lab, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. He has been covered in major media outlets including The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Los Angeles Times.

What’s the big idea?

Stanford psychologist Greg Walton reveals how small psychological shifts—known as wise interventions—can create profound change in our lives. Through vivid storytelling and cutting-edge research, he shows how simple reframes can build trust, strengthen relationships, and unlock potential. From a teacher’s encouraging words to a brief moment of self-reflection before conflict, these subtle shifts can shape our futures in powerful ways. Ordinary Magic is a compelling guide to harnessing everyday moments for extraordinary impact.

Below, Greg shares five key insights from his new book, Ordinary Magic: The Science of How We Can Achieve Big Change with Small Acts. Listen to the audio version—read by Greg himself—in the Next Big Idea App.

1. Little things can make a big difference.

Ordinary Magic is about change, and how to create it.

Sometimes, problems in our lives can seem fixed, like there’s nothing you could do to make things better. Persistent struggles in school. Conflict in a relationship. Self-doubt. But we don’t just have to wish things were better.

It starts with noticing our little thoughts and feelings—what I call surfacing—and then creating the right space to address them.

Say you’re married. It’s a happy marriage, but you and your partner have a persistent conflict. Will you have the right space to think through your conflict? One study found that seven minutes answering three reflection questions every four months for a year made conflict less distressing for couples, and helped stabilize marriages. Twenty-one minutes to save a marriage.

Or say you’re a teacher. You work hard for your students, giving them feedback so they can improve. But many of your students don’t take up that opportunity. Why? Another study found that just 17 words increased the rate at which 7th graders took up their teacher’s feedback to improve their work for a higher grade—and increased their trust in teachers over the rest of the school year.

Change like this can feel magical. But this—this is ordinary magic. These solutions require no special degree. They’re the kind of thing all of us can learn from, and put to work in our own lives. Everyone can be an ordinary magician. And all of us benefit from ordinary magicians around us.

What this magic requires is a deeper understanding of ourselves—understanding the icky questions that pop up as we travel through life. And learning how, individually and together, we can answer these questions well.

2. Big problems can start small.

A little thought, a shadow of doubt. Often, it starts with a question. But then things spiral out of control.

Suppose you wonder, “Does my partner disrespect me?”

Left to their devices, questions like this drive us down. If you think a fight means your partner doesn’t love you, then you might hold back and be less forgiving next time. If they’re late, again, you might feel confirmed in their lack of respect. Then you withdraw or lash out. That undermines a relationship.

“Left to their devices, questions like this drive us down.”

Or say you’re the first in your family to go to college. You wonder, “Do people like me belong in college?” Then you’re excluded from a social outing. A professor says something unkind. You think, “Maybe it’s true—maybe people like me don’t belong here.” You stop going to office hours, stop asking questions in class, skip that welcome event for a student group. Fast-forward and, six months later, you don’t have close friends on campus. No mentor to guide your growth. You’re thinking about dropping out.

Negative questions make us spiral down. They make themselves true. Then, they put our relationships, our achievements, and our health at risk.

3. Change starts when we understand the questions we face, or another person faces.

Let me share an example: When our kids were little, we took them to and from a campus daycare by bike. So, at the end of a long day, we’d bike home, the kids on tiny 12-inch wheels. Sometimes, they’d stop two blocks from home and 20 minutes past dinner time. They’d sit on the curb and wail, “I’m tired!”

I thought of research by my good friend Veronika Job. Veronika showed that sometimes people take little cues of tiredness as a reason to stop, to pull back from their efforts, even on things they care about. It’s like we have range anxiety—you feel you’re running out when you work hard on something, long before you reach any actual limit. Then you hold back, even on something you care about.

So, I decided to reframe the meaning of feeling tired to them. I took to saying, “It’s when you’re tired and you keep going that you get stronger.”

It didn’t always work. But I think it helped.

A little later, our daughter Lucy was trying to bike up a steep and winding path on our way home. We’d taken to bringing chalk to mark how far she’d gotten. One time, Lucy not only beat her previous record but crushed it. As Oliver and I whooped and cheered, Lucy said, “You know how I did it? When I wanted to stop, I kept going.”

Isn’t that lovely?

In that story, I offered Lucy a new way to think about her efforts—that tiredness need not be a reason to stop. That she could keep going. That tiredness might even be an opportunity—to get stronger. It freed Lucy to succeed. She used that way of thinking to achieve her goal. As I write in the book, “Thinking is for becoming.”

This kind of change is quiet, not loud. But it frees us to spiral up. A small initial insight, a small change in direction, can lead us to vast new lands.

4. The icky questions we ask are reasonable, but they aren’t necessarily true.

The questions come from the context we’re in. Of course, the first-gen college student wonders if people like her belong in college. Her family literally hasn’t belonged in college before. That reasonableness is important. First, it means you’re not alone. When you’re asking a question like Do I belong?, Can I do it?, or Am I inadequate? there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not irrational or disordered or weird. You’re normal. You’re responding to the world as it is. But even as that question is reasonable, it needn’t be true. It’s answers you’re looking for.

Because questions like these are reasonable, we can learn to predict when people will ask them. When we see these questions clearly, we can learn to address them with grace and dignity, which can transform our lives.

“That’s an hour to change a life.”

In one study, my colleagues and I developed a 60-minute session early in college to help new students address the question, “Do people like me belong in college?” Students of color are often underrepresented in college, and sometimes, they’re represented as less able and less deserving. So, that question is most pressing for them.

The exercise we developed shared stories from older students, who showed that almost everyone worries at first if they belong in college. Students reflected on their belonging worries, why they’re normal, and how they can improve with time.

That improved African American students’ achievement through the next three years of college. A decade later, they reported being more satisfied in their lives, more successful in their careers, and taking on more leadership roles in their communities. That’s an hour to change a life.

That didn’t happen because students just remembered that experience. At the end of college, students couldn’t even remember it clearly. And they didn’t credit any of their success to it. Instead, addressing a persistent question about belonging—a reasonable question that comes from the history of exclusion in education—freed students to build friendships and mentor relationships, and those supports that helped them succeed.

5. This is work we do together.

The most toxic questions are about who you are and who you can become.

In the most difficult circumstances, when people look at you and all they see is something horrible, there must be space to tell your own story, a chance to tell that story in a way that other people can hear, a way to make that story real together.

For more than a decade, I’ve worked with leaders in the Oakland Unified School District to support students returning to school from juvenile detention. This circumstance poses terrible questions to both students and teachers. These students have been told, more or less unambiguously, that they do not belong here and are not wanted here. And it’s easy for teachers to wonder, “Will this student care? Will they try? Or will they just cause trouble?”

“The most toxic questions are about who you are and who you can become.”

So, we created a platform for young people, a way for them to introduce themselves to an educator of their choice—to share their values in school, such as being a good role model for a younger sibling, their goals, and the challenges they face. We find that young people use this platform to express, essentially, “I’m a good kid, and I want to succeed, but I need help. Can you help me?” Then, we present this information to the educator the child selected. We emphasize that all kids need support from adults. This child has chosen you. Here’s what they would like you to know about them. Please help. And then we say, Thank you for your work.

We find this letter opens the hearts of educators to justice-involved youth. It helps them see that this is a kid—a kid who wants to succeed. They respond with support. In a first trial, this approach reduced the rate of student recidivism to juvenile detention by 40 percentage points, from 69 percent to 29 percent, in the following school term. It’s the most powerful way I know to remedy mistrust in school.

This is the change we need to help us achieve what we want to achieve, to do what we want to do, and to become who we want to be. It’s a way to help other people in their journeys, too. In the process, we can make our society a little healthier, a little more together, and a little kinder.

This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.

The 2025 Kentucky Derby is horse racing’s most exclusive starting gate. Twenty horses will post at Churchill Downs on May 3—an elite field, even by exclusivity’s standards. Y Combinator admits less than 3% of startups. Fewer than 1% of those who apply to NASA become astronauts. Google famously hires less than 0.2% of applicants.

Yet these standards look almost lax compared to the 0.11% of North American thoroughbreds that make the Kentucky Derby each year, as only 20 of the 17,146 thoroughbred foals eligible earn the honor of participating in the race.

Here’s how the fortunate 20 get to Churchill Downs.

A sophisticated global qualification system

The Kentucky Derby is limited to 3-year-old thoroughbreds that qualify through a points system called the “Road to the Kentucky Derby.” This system, implemented in 2013, transformed horse racing’s premier event from an earnings-based qualification into a data-driven meritocracy.

There are three distinct roads to the Kentucky Derby. Internationally, the European-Middle East Road offers one invitation through seven qualifying races across England, Ireland, UAE, and France, while the Japan Road awards one invitation through four races. The North American Road fills the remaining 18 starting spots through a 36-race gauntlet divided into two phases. The Prep Season (September–February) features 20 races with modest point awards, while the high-stakes 16-race Championship Series (February–April) cranks up the pressure with escalating rewards.

But not all points are created equal.

The brilliance of this system lies in its gamified structure. Early prep races award a conservative 10-5-3-2-1 distribution among the top five finishers, while Championship Series races raise the stakes dramatically to a 50-25-15-10-5 split, then to a game-changing 100-50-25-15-10 for the final major preps. In Silicon Valley terms, these would be “rising stakes rounds,” forcing trainers to make strategic decisions about where and when to position their contenders for maximum return.

For 2025, Churchill Downs fine-tuned its algorithm, adding the Virginia Derby as a qualifying race and implementing dynamic point scaling that reduces awards for smaller fields—an anti-gaming mechanism to ensure equitable competition so there are no shortcuts to the derby.

The result is a ruthlessly efficient funnel that winnows 17,146 eligible thoroughbreds down to just 20 elite qualifiers—an acceptance rate that makes Harvard or MIT look like open enrollment.

Closing the economic divide

While most Kentucky Derby contenders emerge from million-dollar yearling sales and the larger stables of trainers like Bob Baffert—whose financial resources, connections to wealthy owners, and experience make him a derby mainstay—racing’s most compelling narratives often feature horses from humbler origins.

The ultimate underdog story belongs to Rich Strike, who in 2022 became the first claimed horse to win the Derby.

Claiming races—where every entered horse is available for purchase at a listed price—represent racing’s blue-collar backbone. Trainer Eric Reed spotted potential in Rich Strike and claimed him for just $30,000 at Churchill Downs in 2021. Seven months later, this bargain-basement purchase stunned the racing world by winning the derby as an 80-1 longshot who wasn’t even in the field until another horse scratched the day before.

The 2025 Derby features its own Cinderella story in Coal Battle, trained by 72-year-old Lonnie Briley, who has been training horses for 34 years without a single premier racing event starter. Purchased for $70,000, Coal Battle has already earned over $1 million by winning multiple prep races, including the Rebel Stakes.

For Briley, who first visited Churchill Downs just three years ago with a horse that finished dead last, this represents the democratic promise at the heart of the Derby—that with the right horse, even the smallest stable can compete on racing’s biggest stage.

A look at this year’s Kentucky Derby field

Coal Battle is one of 20 thoroughbreds in the 2025 Kentucky Derby field, which represents the various paths to Churchill Downs.

Here’s how each horse in this year’s field made it to the Run for the Roses:

1. Burnham Square: From earning four points in the Holy Bull to capturing 100 in the Blue Grass Stakes (winning by a nose over East Avenue), Burnham Square ranks first on the Kentucky Derby points leader board with 130.
2. Sandman: This $1.2 million purchase accumulated 129 points across multiple races, culminating in an impressive Arkansas Derby victory by 2.5 lengths over Publisher.
3. Journalism: The current Derby favorite enters with a four-race winning streak, including the Santa Anita Derby.
4. Rodriguez: Maximizing the Northeast corridor by winning the Wood Memorial for 100 points, this colt represents trainer Bob Baffert’s return to the Derby since 2021.
5. Tiztastic: Converted a 100-point Louisiana Derby win into a prime position with 119 points, giving trainer Steve Asmussen (0-for-26 in the Derby with three runner-up finishes) another chance at his elusive first Derby victory.
6. Tappan Street: Florida Derby champion (110 points) who will attempt to become just the fifth horse to win the Kentucky Derby after only three career starts, following Regret (1915), Big Brown (2008), Justify (2018), and Mage (2023).
7. Sovereignty: Fountain of Youth winner who also finished second in the Florida Derby and totaled 110 points, Sovereignty gives Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai, another chance at his first Derby win after 12 previous attempts.
8. Final Gambit: Jeff Ruby Steaks winner (100 points) who rallied from last to win by 3.5 lengths and will be making his first start on dirt in the Derby after previously racing on turf and synthetic surfaces.
9. Coal Battle: The quintessential rags-to-riches narrative with 95 points on the leaderboard, led by 72-year-old trainer Lonnie Briley, who had never even entered a horse in a premier racing event before Coal Battle’s Rebel Stakes victory at 11–1 odds.
10. Chunk of Gold: Consistent performer with 75 points who cost just $2,500 at auction and has never finished worse than second in four career starts, including runner-up in the Louisiana Derby.
11. Citizen Bull: Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner who captured the 2-year-old championship and earned 71.25 points, attempting to become the first Juvenile winner to capture the Derby since Nyquist (2015-16).
12. Owen Almighty: Tampa Bay Derby champion (65 points) owned by Dutch Bros Coffee Company cofounder Travis Boersma.
13. East Avenue: Blue Grass Stakes runner-up (60 points) who narrowly missed victory by a nose, but whose sire (father), Medaglia d’Oro, finished fourth in his own Derby attempt in 2002.
14. Publisher: Arkansas Derby runner-up (60 points) who will become just the 13th maiden (winless horse) to start in the Kentucky Derby since 1937.
15. American Promise: Virginia Derby winner (55 points), capitalizing on the newly added qualification race with a 7.75-length victory and giving 89-year-old legendary trainer D. Wayne Lukas his shot at a fifth Derby win.
16. Flying Mohawk: The Jeff Ruby Steaks runner-up (50 points), who is co-owned by former MLB All-Star outfielder Jayson Werth, will be making his first start on dirt after racing exclusively on turf and synthetic surfaces.
17. Grande: Wood Memorial runner-up (50 points) with just three career starts who will attempt to become the fifth horse to win the Derby with so few races, guided by three-time Derby-winning jockey John Velazquez.
18. Built: Accumulated 45 points across multiple Fair Grounds preps, including a second in the Lecomte, third in the Risen Star, and fifth in the Louisiana Derby.
19. Luxor Café: The son of 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah is the Japan Road qualifier and ships in on a four-race winning streak.
20. Admire Daytona: Europe-Middle East Road qualifier who won the UAE Derby by a nose and previously was beaten twice by fellow Derby contender Luxor Café.

The fastest two minutes in sports

For many trainers, the Kentucky Derby is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Since only 3-year-old thoroughbreds are eligible, unless you’re a Baffert-level trainer with seemingly endless resources and a deep stable, there are no second chances.

This brutal math explains why veterans like Briley wait decades for their moment, while elite trainers seem to have regular seats at racing’s most exclusive table. It’s why Coal Battle’s presence in the starting gate represents both a statistical anomaly and the enduring dream that keeps trainers like him in the game for decades, hoping for that one special thoroughbred who defies the 0.11% odds.

Coal Battle is currently a 20–1 underdog to win the 2025 Kentucky Derby. Journalism is the 3–1 favorite, followed by Sandman (8–1) and Sovereignty (8–1). But in the world’s most exclusive starting gate, each thoroughbred in the 20-horse field has already beaten the longest odds just by showing up.

Getting your tax refund is the only fun part of filing your taxes every year—which can make it especially galling when Uncle Sam takes his sweet time sending your money. Waiting for a refund in 2025 has some added stress, considering the recent IRS layoffs, the department’s plans for a 25% reduction in force, and the heartburn-inducing game of acting director musical chairs that played out during this year’s tax season.

With all of that turmoil in the IRS, any taxpayer still waiting on a refund may worry their tax return got lost in the shuffle.

The good news is that the IRS is still processing tax returns and refunds at a steady clip, even with a reduced workforce. Additionally, this department offers taxpayers a number of resources to soothe your worries about the status of your refund.

Here’s what you need to know about receiving your tax refund this year if it still hasn’t hit your bank account.

Believe it or not, tax refunds are on track

If you’ve waited more than the 21 calendar days the IRS claims it takes to process your refund, you can be excused for assuming the DOGE cuts are responsible for the delay. But the IRS filing season statistics tell a different story.

Despite the reduced workforce, the IRS is processing returns and refunds at a similar rate to last year. As of April 11, 2025, the IRS has processed 74,858,000 refunds for the 2025 tax season—a 0.2% increase compared to the 74,685,000 refunds processed as of the same time frame in 2024.

It’s also instructive to look at last year’s statistics from later in the tax season. The 2024 refunds processed by mid-April last year represented 71.2% of all refunds for the calendar year. That means it’s not unusual for more than a quarter of taxpayers to still be refund-less at this point in the tax season.

Additionally, by May 10, 2024, nearly 90% of refunds had been processed for the year—which correlates pretty well to the nearly 92% of taxpayers who file on time. The remaining refunds paid out after mid-May 2024 were generally owed to late filers who got an extension.

If you filed your taxes as of the April 15 deadline, you’ll probably receive your owed refund by mid-May at the latest.

So is there a tax refund delay?

While the beleaguered IRS is working full steam ahead under difficult circumstances, there are several global and individual reasons why you may not have received your refund:

• Filing volume: The volume of tax returns received by the IRS goes up steeply the closer it gets to April 15. The increased filing volume creates a bottleneck for IRS workers, which can delay your refund.
• Paper filing: Uncle Sam prefers e-filing, and taxpayers who file a paper return may have to wait four or more weeks to receive their refunds.
• Refund via check: If you requested a paper check instead of ACH deposit, that can also delay your refund.
• Tax credits: If you claimed the Earned Income Tax Credit or the Child Tax Credit, that can delay your refund.
• Errors: An error on your return can delay your refund.
• Amended return: Filing an amended return can also cause your refund to take longer to process.

Where’s my refund?

One of the best updates to modern taxation is the IRS Where’s My Refund? tool, which allows you to check the status of your refund. Typically, you can use this tool within 24 hours of e-filing your current-year tax return.

To check your refund status, you will need your Social Security number (or individual taxpayer ID number, or ITIN), your filing status, and the exact amount of your refund.

There are three potential refund statuses:

• Return Received: This status indicates the IRS has received your tax return and is currently processing it.
• Refund Approved: This status shows that your refund has been approved and will be submitted as of the date listed.
• Refund Sent: This status indicates that the IRS has sent the refund either via ACH or paper check through the mail. ACH could take up to five days to appear in your bank account, and a paper check could take several weeks to show up in your mailbox.

When to pick up the phone

Calling the IRS for help is about as appealing as a colonoscopy, especially if you expect the wait time for reaching a real live human being to rival the run time for Wicked—the director’s cut.

However, you may need to reach out to the IRS by phone if there is no change to the refund status listed on the Where’s My Refund? tool after 21 calendar days or if the tool asks you to contact the IRS. Just remember that the IRS can’t answer questions about your delayed refund until you’ve hit the 21-day mark.

If you’re ready to call the Taxpayer Assistance hotline, you can reach it at 800-829-1040 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time.

The IRS is still working as designed—for now

The 2025 tax season may seem more fraught than usual, but the IRS is still processing about the same number of returns and refunds as it has in past years. The delay on your refund may be related to when or how you filed your taxes, whether you took any tax credits, or if there is an error on your return.

You can check the status of your refund using the online Where’s My Refund? tool, and give the IRS a ring if the status hasn’t changed after 21 days.

Just remember that if you do need to call, the IRS worker who answers the phone is almost definitely having a worse tax season than you are.

The traditional model of leadership, where a single individual is expected to provide all the answers, is becoming obsolete. In a world of accelerating complexity, hyper-specialization, and rapid change, no leader can single-handedly navigate the full spectrum of challenges facing modern organizations. 

The future of leadership is about curating the best insights, talent, and ideas, not dictating the direction. The best leaders will be those who act as architects of collaboration, assembling diverse perspectives and fostering an environment where expansive thinking thrives.

This shift in leadership isn’t just about delegation—it’s about creating conditions for continuous learning, adaptability, and innovation. Leaders who embrace a curation mindset are best equipped to drive organizations forward in an unpredictable world.

Why Curation is the New Leadership Superpower

In a world overflowing with expertise, no single leader can master every domain. The leaders who thrive are those who:

• Curate Talent. They don’t just hire smart people; they intentionally build diverse teams with complementary skills and perspectives. Studies show that diverse teams outperform homogeneous ones by 39% in problem-solving efficiency.
  
• Curate Ideas. They create spaces where unconventional thinking is not only encouraged but strategically leveraged. Google’s 20% time policy, which allows employees to spend part of their workweek exploring passion projects, has led to breakthroughs like Gmail and Google Maps.
  
• Curate Innovation. They design environments where experimentation, iteration, and cross-disciplinary collaboration drive meaningful breakthroughs. IDEO, a global design consultancy, uses cross-industry ideation sessions to unlock unexpected solutions, from healthcare innovation to urban design.

Rather than positioning themselves as the ultimate expert, these leaders act as orchestrators, ensuring that the right voices are heard at the right moments.

How Leaders Can Adopt a Curation Mindset

The shift from traditional leadership to curation requires intentional practices. Here’s how leaders can start:

1. Seek Out Outliers.
   Conventional wisdom often leads to conventional results. The best leaders actively engage with voices outside their immediate circles—contrarians, industry outsiders, and emerging thinkers who challenge the status quo. For instance, Netflix’s early decision to pivot from DVD rentals to streaming came from its leadership’s ability to absorb trends from tech, media, and consumer behavior research.
   
2. Design for Collaboration, Not Just Efficiency.
   Many organizations optimize for productivity at the cost of creative collision. Leaders must create structured serendipity, allowing ideas from different disciplines to intersect in unexpected ways. Pixar’s open office architecture, where animators, writers, and tech teams share communal spaces, has fostered storytelling innovation.
   
3. Facilitate, Don’t Dictate.
   Instead of being the sole decision-maker, adopt a facilitator’s mindset—guiding discussions, posing better questions, and allowing collective intelligence to emerge. Jeff Bezos’s “Disagree and Commit” principle at Amazon encourages debate, ensuring that the team moves forward with informed risk-taking even if consensus isn’t reached.
   
4. Champion Psychological Safety.
   The best ideas often come from environments where individuals feel safe to challenge, experiment, and even fail. Research from Google’s Project Aristotle found that psychological safety was the top predictor of high-performing teams.

Unlocking Cross-Disciplinary Breakthroughs

History’s most significant breakthroughs didn’t come from isolated silos but from cross-disciplinary collisions—where physics met art, where biology informed engineering, and where technology reshaped storytelling. Here are a few inspiring examples:

• NASA & The Sports Industry: NASA’s space suit advancements have directly influenced sportswear technology, improving gear used by Olympians.
  
• Bioengineering & Architecture: The Eastgate Centre in Zimbabwe was designed using biomimicry principles based on termite mounds, leading to a 90% reduction in cooling costs compared to conventional buildings.
  
• AI & Music Composition: IBM’s Watson has been used to compose symphonies, merging artificial intelligence with classical music expertise to create never-before-heard compositions.

Organizations that embrace curation-minded leadership will be better equipped to solve complex, multidimensional challenges. 

The organizations that thrive in the future will not be those with leaders who know the most—it will be those led by individuals who know how to bring the right minds together to figure things out. 

The ability to curate talent, ideas, and innovation will define the next generation of transformational leadership. 

So, as you reflect on your own leadership approach, ask yourself: Are you accumulating knowledge, or are you assembling the right people and perspectives to unlock something greater? 

The future belongs to curators. Are you ready to lead like one?

Job interviews are the fortune cookies of hiring—vague and often misleading. But companies keep using them, despite research suggesting that typical job interviews are mostly unreliable predictors of future job performance, because they give hiring managers the illusion of insight, and a convenient way to validate gut instinct with zero data.

It’s not that all interviews are useless; some formats, like structured behavioral interviews with scoring rubrics, including AI-based scoring algorithms that match responses to actual outcomes and future performance, can be moderately predictive. But the typical unstructured interview? Oftentimes, it conveys the illusion of predictability by allowing hiring managers and interviewers to unleash their biases and subjective preferences during the interview, and then reactivate those same biases during their job performance ratings and evaluations of those candidates, once they become employees. It’s mostly a personality contest masquerading as a talent evaluation.

The candidates who perform best in interviews are often the ones with the most confidence, charisma, and charm. Unfortunately, these traits are also the calling cards of narcissists, Machiavellians, and the occasional smooth-talking psychopath. What passes for “leadership gravitas” can often be ego dressed in a blazer.

In fact, studies show that narcissists are more likely to be seen as competent in interviews—especially by less experienced, trained, or qualified interviewers who confuse bravado with ability.^. So how do you stand out in an interview without sounding like you’re auditioning for a TED Talk titled “Why I’m Amazing (and You’re Lucky I’m Here)”?

Here are five science-based recommendations:

1. Quantify your brilliance instead of announcing it

It’s one thing to say you’re “a strong leader.” It’s another to say you managed a team that increased revenue by 35% in under a year during a hiring freeze. Guess which one gets remembered? Vague self-praise triggers skepticism. Data builds trust. Candidates who provided specific behavioral examples—especially with measurable outcomes—are generally rated significantly higher in competence and hireability. Swap generic lines like “I’m results-oriented” for “I led a cross-functional team that reduced churn by 28% in Q3.” And when you do this, resist the urge to sound smug. If your data is good, it speaks for itself. No need to add a drumroll.

2. Be confident enough to admit what you don’t know

Ironically, one of the most confident things you can do in an interview is say, “I don’t know.” Not followed by silence, of course—but followed by “. . . but here’s how I’d go about figuring it out.” This signals humility and problem-solving, a combo that’s far more attractive than pretending you’ve mastered every domain from supply chain to quantum physics. As psychologist and author Tasha Eurich suggests, self-awareness—particularly awareness of one’s own limitations—is a key marker of effective leadership. If you mention a skill you haven’t mastered, follow it with a brief story of how you’ve successfully learned something similar.

Now you’re not just self-aware—you’re coachable. In today’s volatile and unpredictable job market, people should care less about what you know, and more about your ability, disposition, and willingness to learn in the future.

3. Show you have empathy 

Narcissists tend to lack empathy. So, if you want to distance yourself from that ego-obsessed camp, demonstrate that you can see the world through someone else’s eyes. Empathy isn’t just about being “nice” in interviews. It’s about showing an ability to collaborate, manage conflict, and not derail an entire Slack thread with your emotional immaturity or self-centered delusional rants.

Same rule applies to the job interview: When you describe past experiences, include others in the narrative. What were their challenges? How did they feel? How did you adapt your approach to help? How did you realize they felt and reasoned? Ask your interviewer thoughtful questions about the team dynamics, not just your potential title. It shows you care about humans, not just your LinkedIn profile.

4. Let your achievements shine, but don’t dwell on them for too long

The bigger the accomplishment, the more chill you should be when you mention it. There’s a fine line between “that’s impressive” and “wow, do you talk about anything else?” We’ve all met someone who peaked in high school sports and never got the memo. 

Think of it this way: if you’re a big deal, you don’t need to say it—your story should do the heavy lifting. Let your success land quietly and let the interviewer be the one who leans in. For example, instead of “I turned around a failing division single-handedly,” try “I was fortunate to be part of a turnaround effort that ended up boosting performance by 40%.” In other words, same data, less ego.

5. Read the room

Here’s a wild idea: Focus more on the people interviewing you than on your own performance. Read the room. Listen actively. Make eye contact. Nod (at appropriate times, not like a bobblehead). Pause to check if your answers are clear. It sounds basic, but narcissists are notoriously bad at this. They monologue. They steamroll. They mansplain. They “circle back” to points no one asked about.

So if you want to distinguish yourself, be the person who not only speaks well—but listens even better. For example, after you answer a question, try asking, “Did that answer what you were hoping to learn?” or “Would you like more detail on that?” It’s called being a kind and socially skilled human, and it’s rarer than you think.

Final thought: Be the antidote to the ego parade

The truth is, narcissists can be magnetic in interviews. But so can people who are competent, thoughtful, and self-aware. The latter are just more unusual—and in far greater demand once the honeymoon phase is over and actual work begins. So, the next time you walk into an interview, remember: You don’t have to dazzle with hype.

You just have to seem real, competent, and curious enough to connect. Confidence is great, but only if it helps you persuade others that you are competent. In contrast, humility in the face of complexity will make you stand out, because modest competence beats delusional confidence (most of the time).

Mel Robbins’s best-selling book, The Let Them Theory, has captured the imagination of millions of people, earning critical acclaim and resonating deeply with those seeking peace in a chaotic world. The core premise is simple yet powerful: let people be who they are, let them make their own choices, and most importantly, don’t waste your energy trying to change others. It’s a philosophy of radical acceptance—an invitation to stop being burdened by the expectations, behaviors, and opinions of those around us.

At first glance, this mindset seems liberating. Who wouldn’t want to shed the weight of trying to control the uncontrollable? In a time where burnout is rampant and people are constantly drained by personal and professional obligations, the Let Them philosophy offers a reprieve—a way to step back and prioritize emotional well-being.

And yet, as compelling as this idea may be, it raises an important question: Is “letting them” always the right approach?

The Appeal of Letting Go

There’s undeniable wisdom in Robbins’s message. Far too many people spend their lives tangled in the choices and behaviors of others, investing enormous emotional energy in situations they have no real power to change. Parents stress over grown children’s choices. Friends stay in draining relationships, hoping people will evolve. Professionals lose sleep over colleagues’ attitudes and behaviors.

In these cases, Robbins’s philosophy is a wake-up call: Stop trying to fix what isn’t yours to fix. Let them.

Let them be irresponsible. Let them be distant. Let them succeed, let them fail. Let them love you or walk away. Let them hold on to outdated beliefs. Let them go down a path you don’t agree with. The argument is that by surrendering control over others, you reclaim control over yourself—your happiness, your peace, your emotional freedom.

It’s an enticing philosophy, and for certain moments in life, it’s the exact right thing to do. But what happens when letting go becomes an excuse for disengagement? What happens when “let them” is applied too broadly?

When ‘Let Them’ Becomes an Excuse

If Let Them is about relinquishing control over what we cannot change, then where does that leave the things we can change? What about the injustices in our world? What about the relationships that are worth fighting for? What about the responsibilities we carry toward our families, our communities, our workplaces?

There are times in life when “letting them” isn’t the right answer—when stepping back is an abdication of responsibility, not a path to freedom. If a colleague is sabotaging team morale, do you simply let them? If a friend is struggling with self-destruction, do you let them spiral? If a system is broken, do you let it stay that way?

The truth is, some things are worth our time and effort. Some battles are worth fighting. Some people are worth engaging with, even if change isn’t immediate or easy. To withdraw entirely under the banner of Let them is to risk apathy in moments that require action.

A Luxury Not Everyone Can Afford

Then there’s another reality—Let Them is a philosophy that, in some ways, is easier for those who have already secured success, influence, or financial stability.

For a young professional trying to establish a career, the idea of simply letting things happen may not be practical. For parents raising children, letting them doesn’t always work—you can’t let a child make every decision unchecked. For leaders steering a company, a community, or a movement, stepping back at the wrong moment can mean failure, chaos, or even harm.

The ability to disengage from unnecessary drama is a privilege, one that grows more accessible with financial independence, career success, and age. It’s no coincidence that many of the most enthusiastic adopters of this philosophy are those who have already reached a place where they can afford to say, “Time is precious. I won’t waste it.”

In fact, this may be the true strength of Let Them—not as a universal directive, but as a philosophy particularly well-suited for those in the later stages of life. For those who have already built their careers, raised their children, fought their battles, and established their reputations, Let Them can be a tool for cutting away unnecessary distractions and spending their remaining years in peace.

But for those still climbing, still building, still fighting? “Let them” might not always be the right answer.

Be Selective, Then Commit

So where does this leave us? If we reject a total embrace of Let Them, do we go back to exhausting ourselves in battles we cannot win? Do we spend our lives trying to fix people who don’t want to be fixed?

Of course not.

The balance lies in discernment—in knowing when to let go and when to lean in. Not every battle is worth fighting, but some are. Not every relationship is worth saving, but some are. Not every system is worth engaging with, but some demand our full attention.

The key isn’t to detach from everything but to be highly selective about where you invest your energy. And once you decide something is worth your time, you don’t go halfway—you go all in.

I’ve never been one to do things halfway. I don’t believe in a life of passive observation. I believe in engagement, in purpose, in fighting for what matters. And while I agree that some things—some people—are best left to their own devices, I also know that meaningful change requires effort. If everyone simply “let them,” where would progress come from?

Lead Them

There’s real value in Let Them, but like all philosophies, it’s not one-size-fits-all. It works best when applied strategically—when used to free ourselves from unnecessary burdens while still engaging with the things that truly matter.

For those in the final chapters of life, those who have earned the right to be selective, it may be a mantra of peace. But for those still in the fight—building, growing, leading, advocating—the call isn’t to let go entirely. The call is to choose wisely, and when the moment demands it, to step in fully.

Because sometimes, the answer isn’t Let Them. Sometimes, the answer is Lead Them.

Leaders of today’s workplace recognize coaching as a core leadership skill. More and more companies are expecting managers to actively develop their employees and support their growth through regular development conversations.

For leaders who embrace this responsibility, coaching can be incredibly rewarding. But it’s not always clear how to do it well. Most managers feel comfortable helping employees build technical skills or prepare them for their next role. But when it comes to coaching social and emotional skills, leadership qualities, or behavioral changes, many leaders get stuck. Because the path to success is less clear-cut, more complex, and requires sustained effort over time.

How to coach for behavioral change

As companies increasingly expect managers to step up as coaches, we’re seeing more and more resources that help leaders build their coaching skills. Doing that requires leaders to learn how to build trust, ask open-ended questions, actively listen, and provide constructive feedback. Frameworks like the GROW model provide a structured approach to coaching conversations.

But when it comes to coaching employees on behavioral changes and social-emotional skills, many managers hit a wall. Traditional coaching methods don’t always work. That’s where an evidence-based framework—originally used by executive coaches—can help.

The Development Pipeline

The Development Pipeline, created by David Peterson and Mary Dee Hicks, breaks down the often complex process of personal growth into five essential conditions for lasting development. It’s a game-changer for managers because it helps them diagnose and address where employees might be stuck in their development process.

This method relies on five key elements to facilitate behavioral development: Insight, Motivation, Capability, Practice, and Accountability. Think of them as interconnected pipelines—each one needs to stay open and balanced for growth to happen. If one element is blocked, progress can stall.

As a manager, keeping these five conditions in mind will help you guide your direct reports through meaningful conversations. Here’s how you can help facilitate the presence of these conditions in your regular coaching chats as part of your one-on-ones

1. Insight: Do they understand what to develop and why it matters?

Development starts with awareness. Employees must recognize the gap between their current behaviors and desired outcomes.

Sabina, a Customer Success Director, wanted to help one of her team members exude more confidence in high-stakes meetings. In their one-on-one, Sabina highlighted specific moments where this happened and discussed the impact. This helped her direct report see why building confidence was crucial—not just for herself, but not to undermine her credibility and influence. They made it a specific development goal.

2. Motivation: Are they motivated and committed to making a change?

Even with insight, change won’t happen without motivation. Employees need to see personal value in their development goals.

One way to gauge motivation is to ask,  “On a scale from 1 to 10, how motivated do you feel to work on this?”. Pay attention to verbal and nonverbal responses to gain a greater understanding of how motivated your employee feels to put in the time and effort it takes to change. The key is ensuring the goal aligns with what matters most to them. That means their values, career aspirations, and measurement of success in their role.

3. Capability: Do they know how to improve?

Employees need clear, practical ways to develop a skill or shift a behavior. Without knowing how to improve, insight and motivation alone won’t lead to progress.

Naomi, a Product VP, needed to coach an employee on receiving feedback without shutting down. The employee wanted to handle feedback more gracefully but didn’t know where to start. Together, they broke down the goal into small actionable steps: proactively asking for feedback, deeply breathing while listening, taking notes, visualizing feedback landing in front of her, and looking at it more neutrally from a distance. Doing this allowed the employee to move from awareness to action.

4. Practice: Are they actively experimenting and refining?

New behaviors require practice and repetition. Employees need opportunities to test, tweak, and refine their skills in real situations.

Michael, an Engineering VP, wanted to support his direct report in being more positive and encouraging in team discussions. So they worked on being more positive in meetings. First, he focused on recognizing team contributions. Later, he practiced framing ideas more constructively—acknowledging a colleague’s perspective before sharing his own. Over time, this intentional practice made positivity more of a habit.

5. Accountability: Are they following through?

Progress stalls without follow-ups. You need to conduct regular check-ins to keep the momentum going. Simple questions like “How is it going with [goal]? What’s getting easier? What’s still challenging? What do you want to focus on next?” help reinforce commitment.

The importance of keeping development on track

At any given time, your employee may be stuck in different parts of their development. As their manager, your job is to identify the bottleneck and provide specific support. Are they lacking insight? Do they need a clearer action plan? Do they require more practice opportunities?

By focusing your coaching conversations on the specific condition that needs reinforcement, you can help them sustain progress. You don’t need to know this ahead of your conversation, but you can explore this together by asking open-ended questions and fully listening to what emerges.

Remember, meaningful development doesn’t happen overnight. It requires your support along the way. Regular, short coaching conversations—rooted in curiosity and attentive presence—can make a significant impact over time.

People are often under the false impression that making their language complex or using jargon enhances their credibility.

That might be true in certain circumstances. If you’re an academic talking to other academics or a software engineer talking to other software engineers, using jargon makes sense. However, if you‘re talking to people outside of your field of expertise, it can alienate them.

And when you alienate someone, it can cause them to switch off. It also reduces the likelihood that they take away anything useful or do what you’d like them to do.

That’s probably the last thing you want to happen when communicating with someone. So if you’re prone to using jargon, you might want to consider taking the time to figure out how to communicate in simpler language.

Why people use complex language

Many people often use complex language because they’re insecure. When a person ties a big part of their identity to academic prowess, but they don’t feel particularly successful, they can use complexity to serve as a “security blanket” that hides them.

It’s a way of making people perceive them as clever, or even obfuscate the truth. After all, it’s a lot harder to question or challenge something that your conversation partner doesn’t understand.  

Secondly, many gifted executives simply lack social awareness. Unfortunately, many leaders don’t give emotional intelligence the same weight they assign to developing technical expertise when climbing the corporate ladder. Quite simply, that means that there’s a disconnect between what you find meaningful and important as the communicator, and what your audience finds meaningful. And when you choose to ignore the audience’s perspective in your communication, issues arise.

If you want the audience to listen to what you have to say, you need to consider how your audience would prefer to consume the information. Once you have that information, you can present the information in a way that will engage them and make them more likely to listen to you.

The best communicators communicate simply

I’ve heard the argument before that history, physics, software engineering, and so on, are too complex to explain in a nontechnical way. I disagree. It is always possible distill complex subject matter down to simple language for a nontechnical audience.

My argument is to look at Professor Brian Cox, who is a professor of particle physics at the University of Manchester. Few subjects are as complex as astrophysics. Yet Professor Cox explained it so well and so simply that he filled auditoriums on a Friday night with people wanting to learn about physics.

If he can do it, anyone can do it. It simply comes down to whether you’re prepared to put in the effort to learn the art of simple communication.

The “acid test” for simple communication

I often use this question with my clients: “Would a 10-year-old child understand what you just said?”

If the answer to that question is no, then, I encourage my clients to go back to basics. In the same way that children’s stories often contain an underlying message, you can use analogies and stories to engage your audience, evoke emotion, and simplify complex topics.

Understanding what matters to your audience

If you’re trying to convince people to take a specific course of action, it will benefit you to walk people through it in a clear, step-by-step way.

To do that well, you need to get into the mind of the audience and use the language that they use, not the language that you are comfortable with.

Whether you are talking to the board or trying to convince a customer to buy—you need to understand the factors that will convince them. Make sure to find out what’s important to them and structure your communication around those key things.

Being a successful executive shouldn’t be about being the smartest-sounding person in a room. Rather, it’s about being able to persuade and influence others to buy in and work towards your vision. No amount of jargon is going to do that, but distilling complex concepts down in a way that your employees understand can go a long way.  

A strong résumé can make all the difference. It demonstrates to hiring managers that you’re the best person for the job by summarizing your career highlights and accomplishments. 

We know it’s important to customize your résumé for each job you apply to, and to ensure that you’re including quantitative accomplishments whenever possible, to show the impact you’ve had. But despite the amount of time we all spend writing and refining our résumés when job searching, there’s still a fair amount of debate about the ideal format.

One common question is whether or not to include an objective statement at the top of your résumé in order to provide a snapshot of the type of position you hope to acquire. Does it help you stand out to recruiters or does it look dated? We asked four career experts what they recommend: 

When it makes sense to skip an objective statement

Objective statements can come off as generic and full of tired clichés, says Amanda Augustine, a résumé writer, career expert at résumé.io, and Fast Company contributor. 

“Including a career objective on your résumé can actually hurt, more than help, your candidacy,” she says. The statement may date you: Hiring managers instantly recognize it as an old-school practice, she says. “At one time, it was common advice to put a career objective at the top of your résumé, but if you’re still following that advice, it’s time to update your approach,” says Augustine.

Even though an objective shares what you’re hoping your next career move will be, some job experts say adding the statement states the obvious and your employment history should speak for itself. 

What to focus on instead

Highlight your qualifications instead, says Stacie Haller, chief career adviser at ResumeBuilder, as those are more relevant to companies looking for a strong candidate. “The focus has become more on what the candidate’s qualifications are rather than what [the candidate] wants,” Haller explains.

After all, you only have a few seconds to capture a recruiter or hiring manager’s attention, Haller notes, and the top of your résumé is prime real estate. “Use the top of your résumé to capture a recruiter’s attention,” says Haller. “This concise segment should highlight your most relevant skills and accomplishments that align with the job you’re applying for. It is not a place for stating career objectives; rather, it’s an opportunity to showcase why the candidate is the ideal fit for the role.”

Another tip is to tailor the top section for a specific position, so hiring managers will want to delve deeper into your résumé. Create a summary that’s impactful, succinct and directly related to the job you’re applying to. 

For example, she says, if you were applying for an accounting job, yours might say: “Detail-oriented and results-driven accountant with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and CPA certification. Skilled in financial reporting, budgeting, and compliance, with proven success in managing audits and streamlining accounting processes to improve accuracy and efficiency. Adept at using QuickBooks, Excel, and ERP systems to analyze data and support sound financial decision-making. Committed to delivering value to organizations through accurate financial stewardship and strategic insights.”

Why keywords matter more than ever

Instead of including a tired objective statement packed with clichés, use the space on your résumé to include keyword-rich words to match a job description, says Jasmine Escalera, career expert at LiveCareer.

Tech-savvy job seekers know that companies are using AI in the recruitment process, and according to a MyPerfectResume report, 39% of HR professionals now use AI for résumé screening and analysis. 

“Résumés have to be optimized to show how they match the role,” says Escalera. A vague objective about what you want won’t help you get through the AI screening, but she insists a “targeted professional summary with the skills, keywords, and achievements that match the job sure will.”

When an objective statement makes sense

If you’re a recent college graduate, adding a career objective is acceptable, says Haller with ResumeBuilder. “College grads are an exception to this as they do not typically have as much direct experience to highlight,” she says. But Haller thinks even entry-level applicants should still make sure to demonstrate when their skills align with the job description.

But when they do include an objective or statement, Haller emphasizes it should not just be “seeking an opportunity to learn and grow with an organization,” but more focused on what the job is and what they can offer. 

Likewise, Jill Chapman, director of early talent programs at Insperity, agrees that including a career objective or mission statement on your résumé can be a smart move, especially for new graduates or those pivoting into a new industry. “This is especially valuable because many candidates, particularly recent graduates, may not check every traditional box on a job description,” Chapman explains. “Hiring managers are looking for people who are coachable, motivated, and aligned with their mission. A strong objective signals all of that, right from the start.” 

She says this type of objective statement includes your intended career direction, a glimpse of what drives you, and how you can contribute. “Keep it under 50 words and use it to connect the dots between who you are and the opportunity in front of you,” she recommends. 

The tech industry is often cautious about tying layoffs to performance, even if it might play a role in who gets dismissed during widespread job cuts. But this year has signaled a noticeable shift in how some of the biggest players in tech approach layoffs: Earlier this year, Meta cut more than 3,000 employees in a move that the company framed as “non-regrettable attrition.” The number of Amazon employees on performance improvement plans reportedly surged in recent years, leading up to layoffs—and Microsoft has allegedly cut thousands of employees who were classified as “low performers.”

Now Microsoft is giving low performers the option to accept a payout and leave the company rather than being placed on a performance improvement plan (PIP), according to a new Business Insider report.

Separation agreement or a PIP

An internal email obtained by Business Insider outlined Microsoft’s new performance management system, which the company’s chief people officer described as having “clear expectations and a timeline for improvement.” For those who want to forgo performance management, Microsoft is reportedly offering a separation agreement that would be the equivalent of 16 weeks of pay. (Microsoft declined to respond to a request for comment from Fast Company.)

Any Microsoft employees who are eligible for a buyout reportedly have five days to accept the offer; if they opt to get on a performance improvement plan instead, they forfeit the option to voluntarily resign and receive a payout at a later time. A previous Business Insider report also claimed that Microsoft is now barring low performers who leave the company or get terminated over performance issues from rejoining for at least two years.

Shifting strategies for low performers

Microsoft’s new strategy for managing low performers is not unheard of in the tech industry. Amazon uses a program called Pivot that presents similar options to employees who are deemed low performers, and Meta reportedly also employs a “block list” of former employees who should not be hired back by the company.

But navigating performance-based layoffs can be tricky: At Meta, some employees who were affected by the recent job cuts claimed they had received high ratings on their performance reviews and expressed frustration over the fact that they were publicly characterized as low performers. (Meta did not comment on all such claims, but in response to one report, a company spokesperson said: “Simply because someone had a history of meeting or exceeding expectations, does not mean they continue to consistently meet the bar.”) It’s possible that some of these employees were impacted to meet the 5% quota Meta reportedly set for layoffs across departments, in spite of their performance reviews.

Even otherwise, experts say relying solely on performance ratings to determine layoffs can put certain employees at a disadvantage, given the potential bias that is baked into the process. There is also quite a bit of variability across managers and departments, and in some cases employees may not have been performance-managed properly. At a moment when many tech companies are already facing employee dissent and low morale over culture issues—including strict return-to-office mandates—resorting to performance-based layoffs could also engender further mistrust.

Even as the right to disconnect movement has picked up steam, true work-life balance is still hard to come by for many employees. Fielding emails and other work-related messages after hours continues to be the norm across workplaces, despite ample evidence that it can contribute to burnout and actually decrease productivity.

Part of the issue may be that the average workday is punctuated by a mounting number of drains on productivity. A new report from Microsoft, which compiled input from 31,000 workers across more than 30 countries, sheds light on the scale of interruptions and hurdles workers are currently facing on the job, as well as the degree to which the average workday has stretched beyond traditional business hours.

The price of near-constant interruptions

While 53% of leaders say they want to see a spike in productivity, the overwhelming majority of employees and managers alike—about 80% of workers globally—claim that they don’t have the time or energy to effectively do their jobs.

Employees say they are being interrupted near constantly during the workday, juggling emails, meetings, or real-time messages every two minutes. That can amount to 275 daily interruptions on the whole, when taking into account the additional time employees spend on the job beyond standard working hours.

In fact, the report also captures a marked increase in the number of pings that workers receive after hours: Chats outside of the 9-to-5 window increased by 15% year over year, yielding an average of 58 messages when tallied over the course of four weeks.

An expanding workday

Even meetings appear to be happening around the clock, according to the report, in part because so many companies now employ people who are working across time zones. Meetings that take place after 8 p.m. had increased by 16% year over year, and 30% of meetings involve employees in different time zones.

Part of this shift could also be driven by the fact that the majority of meetings—60%—are unscheduled and convened on an ad hoc basis. (Also of note: The number of PowerPoint edits jump by 122% in the 10 minutes leading up to a meeting, a stark contrast to PowerPoint activity in the hours prior.)

What could help reduce burnout

All this points to a broader disconnect between the business needs of many companies and what their workforce can reasonably accommodate, a strain that both employees and leaders seem to be feeling. According to Microsoft’s findings, 48% of employees and 52% of leaders claim their workload is “chaotic and fragmented.”

The report makes the case for why companies will need to use AI agents to bridge the gap, and almost half of all leaders have already said using “digital labor” to augment the existing capabilities of their workforce is a top priority for the next 18 months. But AI alone won’t alleviate the many pains of modern work for employees or managers—and it certainly won’t put a stop to superfluous meetings overnight.

We’ve all heard the familiar directive: “We’re going through another reorganization and will be cutting 20% of headcount, but priorities remain the same and, in fact, may expand.” Meanwhile, you’re being told to “just make it work” without offering additional resources, guidance, or support.

This conversation, unfortunately, isn’t unique. It represents the silent crisis engulfing middle management across America.

Middle managers—who oversee 90% of the U.S. workforce—are facing unprecedented challenges in 2025. Recent KPMG data reveals nearly one-third are actively disengaged, while 62% report unsustainable stress levels as they struggle with expanded responsibilities amid shrinking teams. At the same time, Gallup’s findings show employee dissatisfaction at 15-year highs.

The economic uncertainty plaguing the U.S. has created a perfect storm for middle management burnout. Organizations are seemingly undergoing constant reorgs and scrambling to eliminate redundancies, optimize productivity and reduce resources to do more with less. Middle managers find themselves caught between the demands from top leadership to cut costs and maintain output while keeping their teams productive and motivated at the same time.

“The concrete middle”

Middle managers are what I call “the concrete middle”—the foundation bearing pressure from both the top echelon of organizations and the functions and teams reporting to them. They understand the real flow of work, the network connections, and who the true “magic makers” are in the organization. They’re facing tightening budgets from above while trying to maintain an engaged, high-performing workforce below.

What makes this crisis particularly acute in 2025 is that the job market is reported as “healthy” but remains very tight. Employers may be in a wait-and-see mode, and struggling leaders may not see viable alternatives. This creates a dangerous apathy—what I’ve observed as “doing just enough to survive.”

But here’s the concern: When the pendulum swings the other way and market conditions improve, companies will feel real pain—because employees remember. They remember which organizations honored their values during difficult times and which simply treated people as disposable resources.

Break the cycle of disempowerment

One of the biggest challenges middle managers face is maintaining a sense of autonomy and growing their employees’ talent and potential. How do you keep top talent feeling they can contribute meaningfully and advance their careers amid constant change and disruption?

The truth is, during volatile periods, trust and empowerment often take a back seat to numbers. While financial responsibility is certainly necessary, organizations need a more nuanced approach—particularly for functions that drive growth.

During these unprecedented times, I’ve coached leaders to advocate and empower themselves by harnessing this moment as a chance to reinvent and reimagine how their work is being done. Because amid the volatile and unpredictable times lies opportunity—an opportunity to change and employ new strategies, tactics, and ways of working that may not have been supported during more stable, constant, and calm periods. Middle managers, with their unique vantage point, often see possibilities that senior leadership overlooks or never considers. We need to give them the tools, trust, and ability to reimagine their work in ways that might actually achieve growth in a down period while achieving cost savings by simply doing things differently and better.

This approach requires a fundamental shift in perspective—from viewing middle managers as mere implementers to recognizing them as the crucial bridge between strategy, execution, and market growth.

Move from platitudes to real development

Many middle managers have been told, “Nobody owns your development but you.” Translation: It’s up to you to grow yourself, learn, and improve.

Traditional leadership development approaches are not meeting the needs of today’s leaders. The solution isn’t another perfunctory annual performance-review exercise—it’s creating intentional support systems that address well-being, professional growth, trust, and empowerment.

Organizations must implement scenario planning into their talent management process. This means preparing leaders for all market conditions—growth, stable, uncertain, and competitive landscapes. Building this muscle prevents paralysis during challenging times and empowers managers to push for a strategic repositioning of their teams to restructure, realign, and optimize team performance.

The development of top talent isn’t just about surviving difficult periods—it’s about positioning them to deliver in different ways that might not have been possible before. In times of disruption, there’s often more support and openness for working differently, adopting new tactics, approaches, and novel ways of working than during periods when business as usual comes with a playbook of what to do and how to do it.

Cut the consensus culture

Perhaps the most insidious barrier to middle-management effectiveness is what I call “consensus culture”—the endless cycle of meetings and layers of review and approvals that exist primarily to stroke egos rather than drive decisions and unleash innovation and potential.

During my time leading organizational development initiatives, we introduced the philosophy of GEPO (Good Enough, Proceed On). This wasn’t about compromising the operational excellence of what you’re doing, but about streamlining how ideas are socialized. Do you really need three to five meetings with people at all levels to make a decision? Can you eliminate the pre-meetings prior to the decision meetings and the “I’m just being informed” meetings that clog calendars without adding value?

By streamlining decision-making and trusting and empowering the people who own and support the work, organizations can reduce the time-to-decision and allow experts to take true accountability. This approach isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about restoring purpose and autonomy to the manager’s role while empowering them to do their jobs effectively with minimal bureaucracy.

In the absence of this trust, we handicap our middle managers. They become dependent on groupthink and consensus-driven approaches, operating in a highly risk-averse fashion because they fear making independent decisions without extensive backup and group support. This is the opposite of innovation—and organizations simply cannot afford this handicap if they want to innovate, disrupt, and improve performance.

Embrace AI as ally, not threat

The AI revolution adds another layer of complexity and also an opportunity for middle managers in 2025. Too often, leaders view these technologies through a lens of fear rather than as an efficient resource that enables productivity and output.  

It’s a genuine fear of replacement. But I don’t believe AI will replace good managers. Instead, organizations must be transparent about AI’s business value while generating excitement about its possibilities. AI should be positioned as a complement to human talent—just like we would approach any new technology.

Leaders at the top need to create engagement and excitement around AI as a strategic lever that can help streamline processes and improve decision-making. This isn’t about replacing jobs but freeing up time and attention for the work that truly matters—the strategic thinking and human connection that AI can’t replace.

The path forward requires moving beyond traditional development approaches to build resilient leadership pipelines capable of sustaining organizations through continuous transformation. By elevating and empowering middle managers, companies can stabilize their operations while preparing for future challenges in an increasingly complex business environment.

The companies that will thrive in this era of disruption will be those that transform their middle management from a burnout risk into an innovation advantage through empowerment, trust, autonomy, and accountability for their work.

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Conflict management is one of the most critical leadership skills today, yet many leaders are struggling to get it right. Companies are implementing return-to-office mandates; shifting stances on diversity, equity, and inclusion; and dealing with climate change and an uncertain economy. All of these factors put pressure on businesses and the people who work for them. Over 80% of workers report escalated tensions in the workplace, and 90% of workers say they have witnessed political clashes between coworkers.

Employees are feeling uncomfortable because they are unsure how they fit into company goals, or don’t feel clear about where the company is headed. This tension leads to conflict, and it’s up to the leaders to manage the situation.

When we teach conflict management, there are several classic models and approaches. Some call for weighing goal achievement versus relationship orientation, while others look to balance assertion versus cooperation. In all scenarios, there is an underlying assumption: Leaders foster the climate that determines whether employees will engage in collegial discourse. In other words, people who disagree should be comfortable advocating for their position while listening to others’ points of view. While this notion works well in theory, the practical manager knows this is not always the case.  

In recent years, hybrid work has made free-flowing communication opportunities and seeing things eye-to-eye more challenging, literally. While it’s widely recommended that you should not accept what you read, having a conversation to ask for more clarity is not always natural (or even possible) in a hybrid setting.

So, what do you do when mixed-work modality team members are in conflict with one another, with the company, or even with you? As the leader, your job is to manage the situation. The challenge is determining how to approach conflict in a way that is both constructive and comfortable.

The Remote​​ Work Factor

There are many efficiencies afforded by flexible work arrangements, but a side effect of remote (and sometimes asynchronous) work is that conversations between coworkers are often limited to scheduled check-ins and meetings. Consequently, coworker interactions are relatively two-dimensional. Employees make inferences and judgments from emailed statements or Slack DMs that rarely, if ever, tell the full story of one’s perspective and context.

Compounding this issue is the fact that today’s multigenerational workforce has significantly different comfort levels using different modalities for collaboration. Gen Z and millennial employees have learned communication norms that entail a heavy reliance on direct messaging and video calls versus talking things through with one another. In fact, 46% of workers report they have engaged in full arguments over chat-based applications. Meanwhile, members of all generations have varying preferences for direct communication—whether in person, via phone, or video.

The shift toward remote and hybrid work has complicated communication particularly as it pertains to giving feedback. In traditional office settings, mentorship and sharing feedback often occur naturally through hallway conversations, post-meeting discussions, or informal manager check-ins. One of the drawbacks of remote work can be the elimination of these spontaneous opportunities.

Without casual in-person interactions, employees must deliberately schedule feedback conversations, which can make the process feel more formal and high-stakes than a quick chat in the office. As a consequence, performance itself can become a source of conflict since remote employees are 32% less likely to receive real-time feedback, including what has been working well, and what needs to change.

Navigating the Next Era of Workplace Conflict

When teams realize that what they are doing is not working, conflicts will happen. Due to not having the opportunity to bring issues up until they become undeniable, conflicts may have festered and therefore may be emotionally charged. We recommend three considerations for those ready to rise to the challenge of hybrid or remote conflict management.

1. Be honest about what you’re seeing—and why it’s a problem

A first crucial element to managing conflict is that leaders call out what they are seeing and then discuss observations with their team. For example, although sentiments are mixed when it comes to how politics should be brought into or left out of the workplace, there is no denying that stakeholders and stockholders alike have been impacted by various international events and executive orders. From the impact tariffs may have on a company’s ability to import materials, to the impact layoffs may have on staffing, what needs to be considered in our work today is different than it was a few weeks ago.

Leaders can’t ignore what is going on around them. One of the tenets of psychologist and author Daniel Goleman’s model of emotionally intelligent leadership posits that a leader’s primary responsibility is to be in sync with their followers. In order to be able to react in a way that resonates with one’s team, leaders should know whether something may cause apprehension, excitement, or concern among their reports. In fact, if managers are oblivious to or ignore any elements of the world that concern their employees, they will cause further frustration or be dismissed themselves.

One option is for leaders to start their weekly check-ins with a current events update. Share top headlines and explain how news may impact the organization in the coming week or months. If a company does change its policies due to shifts in federal or state sentiments, acknowledge these and explain how this shift will affect your team members directly or indirectly.

If you don’t know how to get discussions going, it’s likely that your company’s communication department has created talking points for managers to use. In smaller companies, ask the human resources department for some guidelines on how to explain changes to employees. You should not feel alone in what you say, but you should take responsibility for bringing changes up.

2. Get to know your team

If a leader doesn’t know what the team cares about in the first place, it will be impossible to connect their perceptions to conflicts that may erupt. Meanwhile, those employees who have not learned how to self-advocate may struggle finding the right time and place to raise their concerns (and voices) constructively. Leaders who bridge these two scenarios can mitigate conflicts or manage them when they arise.

As mentioned earlier, resonant leaders are those in sync with their followers emotionally. They understand that an employee who is seeking international relocation may see global affairs differently than one who has a domestic promotion agenda. If your company conducts business with countries involved in tariff discussions, some company leaders may worry about how financial reporting will be adversely impacted. Knowing what is important to your team enables you to proactively manage topics that may become conflicts.

Because of this, it’s important that leaders take the time to listen to their employees when they share what matters to them. Whether there is data from a formal performance review and goal-setting session, or you’ve gone to lunch with a member of your team, take inventory of what you know about each individual and what is important to them.

If you are not already in the habit of doing so, use your one-on-one meetings as opportunities to bring up what you know, and ask your team members to share how they are feeling about a related element of their job or development plan they had established. 

If employees don’t share topics of frustration or worry, ask open-ended questions that provide the opportunity to express their concerns or identify paths they wish to explore. And, if you’re not having in-person or virtual on-on-ones, now is a very good time to start.

3. Learn to communicate proactively and address conflict remotely

If you were walking down a hallway and heard someone complaining, you’d know they are unhappy. But if your interactions with your team members are limited to when they choose to turn their webcams and microphones on, you will not have the same windows of insight. Identifying potential conflicts and managing ones that have already come into focus require an adjustment of management techniques.

Similar to knowing and understanding what team members may value, it’s incumbent upon a manager to know some of their direct reports’ attitudinal tells. If an employee shakes their head a little more than usual in agreement or asks the same question more than once and does not seem to apply what they learn, these may be signs that remote workers are struggling to stay focused or engaged.

It has been said many times before, but when working with a remote workforce, you cannot overcommunicate. Leaders need to establish a cadence of regular meetings and also be sure to casually check in with informal conversations and temperature checks. Information that is verbally shared in a meeting should also be documented and distributed via written communiqués to avoid miscommunication or misunderstanding, which can also lead to conflict.

When remote employees are simply not performing according to expectations, leaders need to manage their performance in the same way they would for in-person employees. Letting issues go or looking the other way is not an option. 

On the flipside, it’s important to understand that sometimes what you—the leader—are doing is the cause of the conflict. One-third of employees have indicated that their bosses are too aggressive in text messages. Therefore, to avoid greater conflicts, leaders must address the situation directly and manage just as they would if the employee worked in the office.

To preempt any issues, leaders must become comfortable saying, “Hey, can you stay on the line for a minute?” Use this time after the regular meeting to acknowledge what you are seeing and ask for feedback on the initiative, the players, or the process being employed to address the work.

If the opportunity to talk right after another meeting is missed, it’s okay to email or send a Slack message to an employee to ask: “Do you have time later to hop on a quick Zoom? I want to go over X topic.” It’s important to be specific about the agenda so that there isn’t cause for alarm as to the subject of the conversation. That said, we also suggest doing this when you are able to jump on a call in the not-too-distant future, as requesting a meeting may still induce anxiety.

Bring People Together to Manage Conflict

When workers are not in the same physical space, facilitating conflict management is not easy. While it’s easy enough to ignore what may be distressing your team or assume that everyone interprets things the same way, managers should openly address differences, ask questions, and demonstrate flexibility when conflict arises.

By deliberately managing communication in a way that normalizes healthy conflict, leaders create an environment where everyone feels heard and understood.

If you’re feeling detached from work and lacking motivation lately, know that you are not alone.

Gallup’s most recent State of the Global Workplace report revealed that employee engagement fell to 21% in 2024, declining 2 points from the previous year. In the last 12 years, employee engagement has only fallen one other time, in 2020, due in part to COVID-19, the shift to working from home, and increased isolation.

The report “offers what may be our last snapshot of a workforce on the cusp of seismic change,” Gallup CEO Jon Clifton said in the report. “We are witnessing a pivotal moment in the global workplace—one where engagement is faltering at the exact time artificial intelligence is transforming every industry in its path.”

The most recent decline can be linked to disruptions in the workplace over the last five years, including layoffs, the introduction of AI across industries, ongoing friction around return-to-office (RTO) policies, and more.

Broken down by region, the U.S. and Canada tied with Latin America and the Caribbean for the region with the highest engaged employees—although the percentage was still low, with less than a third being engaged. The region also ranked at the top for employees experiencing daily stress.

Managers need help

The report found that the global decline in engagement centers around one particularly affected group: managers. Managers under 35 years old and female managers were the most affected, with engagement declining by 5 and 7 percentage points, respectively.

The findings suggest that a lack of engagement from the top is trickling down to employees, and resulted in a loss of $438 billion in productivity to the world economy.

Despite the declining rates, Gallup identified ways that employers can take action and lean toward a productivity boom:

• First, training managers on basic roles may boost engagement, with 44% of managers reporting a lack of training.
• Second, Gallup suggests teaching managers techniques for effective coaching, which could boost performance by up to 28%.
• Lastly, improving manager well-being should be prioritized, with manager development training and an encouraging peer working environment boosting well-being by up to 50%.

Welcome to Pressing Questions, Fast Company’s mini-advice column. Every week, deputy editor Kathleen Davis, host of The New Way We Work podcast, will answer the biggest and most pressing workplace questions.

Q: What should I do about a coworker who dresses inappropriately at work?

A: My first instinct is to advise you to keep it to yourself. Commenting on someone’s appearance is fraught and how someone dresses or styles their hair, etc. very often falls into the category of none of your business.

But, there are nuances and circumstances where something is actually inappropriate. Before you say anything, run though these checks:

Does your workplace have an official dress code policy?

Not all workplaces do, and many are unhelpfully vague. (After all, who actually knows what “business casual” means?) If there is a policy and it states a guideline that your coworker is very clearly violating, you can bring the issue to the person’s manager or HR to handle.

Consider what is truly ‘inappropriate’

Just because you think sweatpants are unprofessional doesn’t mean you need to police other’s clothing choices. Issues with appearance usually only rise to the level of intervention in a few scenarios.

For example, if someone is in a client- or customer-facing role and there is an expectation to dress formally when meeting a client, or to dress in a way that respects the culture in the place you are doing business. Or if there is a need to dress safely for workplace hazards (like closed-toe shoes on a construction site, for example). 

Among internal colleagues, the only reason to intervene is if their appearance is causing a legitimate issue in a workplace. Clothing with political messages or graphic images likely falls in the same bucket as displaying similar content at your desk—if it’s not allowed there, it’s not allowed on your body.

As for “inappropriate” in the context of “too revealing,” tread very lightly and ask yourself if it’s more of a “you” problem than a “them” problem. There’s a long sexist history of rules around women’s appearance at work—from requiring things like high heels and skirts to punishing women for dressing in a way that “distracts” men. If you truly think that someone’s appearance is holding them back from getting a promotion or being taken seriously, you can have a conversation with them where you don’t blame or shame them.

Want some more advice on dress codes at work? Here you go:

• This is why we need to end dress codes for work
• How to dress for every stage of your career
• Managers, this is how to encourage new employees to adopt a more formal dress code
• Do dress codes at the office work?

It takes a lot of chutzpah to walk up to television personality and Skinnygirl founder Bethenny Frankel, put a pair of sunglasses in her hands, and tell her, “These are for an oblong face.”

But that bold act paid off for Kari Dowiak, founder of sunglass brand Memorí  Eyewear, which specializes in sunglasses for petite and narrow faces. The result? Frankel posted a 47-second TikTok video recounting the exchange and showing off the sunnies, calling them “cute” and high quality. The video went viral, racking up more than 1.3 million views as of mid-April, and skyrocketing the company’s sales.

Of course, it wasn’t all happenstance. Dowiak had signed up for a networking event and noticed that Frankel was a late addition to the speaker lineup. The founder immediately went to work analyzing Frankel’s social media posts to find out more about her interests and figure out a strategy to get the sunglasses in front of her.

She refined and rehearsed her six-second pitch in advance—including noting that Frankel had called her face “oblong” in a post and adopting that language. Dowiak positioned herself at the location where speakers entered and exited the stage, ensuring she would have access to Frankel. It was a professional event, so approaching Frankel wasn’t “making it weird,” she says.

“You have to be aware of your environment. I would never have approached Bethenny if she was getting out of the Uber with her daughter,” Dowiak says. “But the situation was right.”

ASK to receive

Negotiation and leadership expert Linda Swindling says a research-based approach like Dowiak’s is essential if you want to turn a big introduction or chance meeting into an opportunity. She uses the acronym ASK to map out her action plan when sussing out the potential for a sale or collaboration.

First, comes awareness. You may be aware of the person or that they have a similar interest. Then, you seek greater understanding. That may require asking questions or doing research. Finally, the “know” phase is “know your next step,” once you’ve gathered your information, refined your pitch, and are ready to make the ask.

Natalie Dawson and her husband, Brandon, used a similar approach when they sought out entrepreneur and investor Grant Cardone to partner with him on a business opportunity. They purchased front-row tickets to a 35,000-person event at which Cardone was speaking. When they had the opportunity to meet him face-to-face, they came prepared, which Dawson says is a key step in turning intros into relationships and opportunities.

“We’d already done enough research to know what they were offering and what they weren’t offering, and we created a solution for an opportunity that they didn’t even know that they had,” she recalls. “We already had a track record. It wasn’t like we were asking him for a favor.”

Orchestrating networking introductions

With social media making many folks just a post away, some of these introductions don’t even need to be face-to-face. Tim Sharp found his next big opportunity on LinkedIn. He noticed Michael Browning, the founder and CEO of Unleashed Brands, pop up on his feed and was impressed by the entrepreneur’s energy and enthusiasm as well as the company’s Urban Air Adventure Parks, which are indoor adventure parks for children. He began interacting online, responding to some of Browning’s posts.

The engagement caught Browning’s attention, and he asked Sharp to get in touch with members of his management team. Sharp met with some of the company’s senior executives—and soon became one, being named vice president of operations in 2019. Within a few days, he was in Toronto, opening a new park. That year, the company opened 54 parks in 52 weeks. This year, Sharp was named brand president.  

Leveraging opportunity for the long-term

Natalie says asking Cardone to partner on business consultancy Cardone Ventures was just the first step. Their pitch made the business opportunity potentially lucrative for Cardone, offering a 50% partnership. In addition, she says, the couple “kept showing up.” In other words, they put in the time and effort consistently to make the business successful. Last year, the company’s gross revenue was $220 million. “But what’s more impressive is the thousands of business owners whose businesses have grown since working with us,” Natalie says. 

Sharp says that authenticity drove his relationship with Browning and his team from the start. “Sometimes, people get caught up in trying to sell themselves. The best way to find the right fit is—well, don’t sell yourself and listen to what the appeal is,” he says. “If it speaks to you, and you’re able to match that energy and that feeling, you’ll find that once-in-a-lifetime game changer on both sides.”

Playing the long game

And if you don’t? Swindling says that sometimes, an introduction or meeting is the first play in a long game. If you get a “no,” ask questions about why to get to the heart of that decision. It could be as simple as asking, “I heard you say no. Can you tell me about that?” You might find that getting to “yes” simply requires more information, adherence to a process, or some other “fixable” step. And, if not, it may be the start of a relationship where you build trust and interest and get to “yes” over time.

And while Dowiak doesn’t know what the future holds with Frankel, she is using the cash infusion from the sales uptick to invest in her business, negotiate better terms with her supplier, and even invest in some advertising, all of which will help make her business stronger.

“Before Bethenny, I never ran a single ad,” she says. “Now the kind of return on ad spend that we’re going to be able to get is so much higher because so many people have interacted.”

Every day, people are constantly learning and forming new memories. When you pick up a new hobby, try a recipe a friend recommended, or read the latest world news, your brain stores many of these memories for years or decades.

But how does your brain achieve this incredible feat?

In our newly published research in the journal Science, we have identified some of the “rules” the brain uses to learn.

Learning in the brain

The human brain is made up of billions of nerve cells. These neurons conduct electrical pulses that carry information, much like how computers use binary code to carry data.

These electrical pulses are communicated with other neurons through connections between them called synapses. Individual neurons have branching extensions known as dendrites that can receive thousands of electrical inputs from other cells. Dendrites transmit these inputs to the main body of the neuron, where it then integrates all these signals to generate its own electrical pulses.

It is the collective activity of these electrical pulses across specific groups of neurons that form the representations of different information and experiences within the brain.

For decades, neuroscientists have thought that the brain learns by changing how neurons are connected to one another. As new information and experiences alter how neurons communicate with each other and change their collective activity patterns, some synaptic connections are made stronger while others are made weaker. This process of synaptic plasticity is what produces representations of new information and experiences within your brain.

In order for your brain to produce the correct representations during learning, however, the right synaptic connections must undergo the right changes at the right time. The “rules” that your brain uses to select which synapses to change during learning—what neuroscientists call the credit assignment problem—have remained largely unclear.

Defining the rules

We decided to monitor the activity of individual synaptic connections within the brain during learning to see whether we could identify activity patterns that determine which connections would get stronger or weaker.

To do this, we genetically encoded biosensors in the neurons of mice that would light up in response to synaptic and neural activity. We monitored this activity in real time as the mice learned a task that involved pressing a lever to a certain position after a sound cue in order to receive water.

We were surprised to find that the synapses on a neuron don’t all follow the same rule. For example, scientists have often thought that neurons follow what are called Hebbian rules, where neurons that consistently fire together, wire together. Instead, we saw that synapses on different locations of dendrites of the same neuron followed different rules to determine whether connections got stronger or weaker. Some synapses adhered to the traditional Hebbian rule where neurons that consistently fire together strengthen their connections. Other synapses did something different and completely independent of the neuron’s activity.

Our findings suggest that neurons, by simultaneously using two different sets of rules for learning across different groups of synapses, rather than a single uniform rule, can more precisely tune the different types of inputs they receive to appropriately represent new information in the brain.

In other words, by following different rules in the process of learning, neurons can multitask and perform multiple functions in parallel.

Future applications

This discovery provides a clearer understanding of how the connections between neurons change during learning. Given that most brain disorders, including degenerative and psychiatric conditions, involve some form of malfunctioning synapses, this has potentially important implications for human health and society.

For example, depression may develop from an excessive weakening of the synaptic connections within certain areas of the brain that make it harder to experience pleasure. By understanding how synaptic plasticity normally operates, scientists may be able to better understand what goes wrong in depression and then develop therapies to more effectively treat it.

These findings may also have implications for artificial intelligence. The artificial neural networks underlying AI have largely been inspired by how the brain works. However, the learning rules researchers use to update the connections within the networks and train the models are usually uniform and also not biologically plausible. Our research may provide insights into how to develop more biologically realistic AI models that are more efficient, have better performance, or both.

There is still a long way to go before we can use this information to develop new therapies for human brain disorders. While we found that synaptic connections on different groups of dendrites use different learning rules, we don’t know exactly why or how. In addition, while the ability of neurons to simultaneously use multiple learning methods increases their capacity to encode information, what other properties this may give them isn’t yet clear.

Future research will hopefully answer these questions and further our understanding of how the brain learns.

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William Wright is a postdoctoral scholar in neurobiology at the University of California, San Diego.

Takaki Komiyama is a professor of neurobiology at the University of California, San Diego.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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