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Tag: Management

  • ‘He was very proud, but never said it’: One of the greatest soccer managers alive on how his dad motivated him to work harder | Fortune

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    The extraordinary success achieved by some of the world’s greatest leaders often traces back to formative, and sometimes complicated, childhood environments. For Jurgen Klopp, one of the most celebrated soccer managers of the modern era, the drive that fueled his relentless career was rooted in the silent pride and unwavering expectations of his father.

    The former Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool manager announced his retirement from coaching in January 2024, taking up a new role working for the sports drink-turned soccer empire Red Bull GmbH as its Head of Global Soccer. Widely regarded as one of the greatest managers alive, his credentials include league titles in both Germany and England with the aforementioned clubs as well as a Champions League title — something like European soccer’s Super Bowl — with Liverpool. This was extra significant because Klopp helped restore Liverpool to the summit of the English game, a status the formerly dominant club had lost since the late 1980s, when Manchester United’s legendary manager Alex Ferguson swore to knock them off their “perch.” His 10-year rivalry with another modern managerial great, Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola, saw the flowering of a new Golden Age for the English Premier League.

    Klopp appeared on the Diary of a CEO podcast to talk about his coaching style, why he ended up at Liverpool instead of Manchester United, and if he was really done coaching. But much of the discussion centered on the influences that made him the way he is. Reflecting on his upbringing, Klopp said his father “loved me to bits and he loved me, he was very proud but never, never said it.” This dynamic created an intense pressure that shaped the manager’s famed competitive spirit.

    ‘Afraid that I might not be ambitious enough’

    Klopp is something of a folk hero in both England and Germany for his coaching exploits, as he has a history of dragon-slaying — he led Borussia Dortmund to an unlikely league title in 2010-11, unseating the dominant Bayern Munich, before replicating the trick later with Liverpool. In 2020, Klopp’s childhood coach Ulrich Rath told the BBC that Klopp’s father, Norbert, “had a big influence on him, he shaped him.” Nodding to Klopp’s exuberant, competitive spirit, Rath added: “When Jurgen is jumping up and down, I can see Norbert in him. But when he closes the door behind him at home, he finds peace and quiet and collects his strength. That’s his mother.”

    Klopp told a similar story to Bartlett, saying his childhood home was defined by a critical mix of influences. He said he had a “very confident dad,” paired with a “very caring mom, who was “just happy that I was there.” Klopp also described his mother as “very caring” and “loved people.” His father, who was a travelling salesman and former amateur goalkeeper, carried definite expectations, Klopp added. He was “a bit afraid that I might be not ambitious enough” and wanted his son to be a sportsman, excelling in everything from football and tennis to skiing.

    Klopp described being constantly challenged by his father, who was tough because “he wanted to bring the best out of me,” he said. Klopp told Bartlett his father would race him on ski slopes and in sprints, “never letting you win.” The manager admitted it “was not nice in a way” to experience this relentless competition.

    The power of sheer will

    This relentless pursuit of excellence, instilled by his father’s high standards, forged a foundational belief that sheer will could overcome natural talent. The manager admitted that initially he was “absolutely useless in most of the things,” and even his “teammates were better than me” at football. He realized he could only compete by being a “warrior on the pitch” from the first minute until the last — alluding to his favorite phrase for how he liked his teams to play, “like a heavy metal band.” This compensatory effort, spurred by the need to meet expectations, made him the competitive person he is today. He explained that his aggressive nature during his playing days stemmed from knowing “I’m not good enough” and trying to “squeeze everything out on from an aggressive point of view.”

    The resulting character became a blend of both parental influences: the confidence and ambition from his father, and the empathy and love for people from his mother. This combination became central to his leadership philosophy. He noted that his ability to speak publicly and confidently, necessary for a leader, is “probably from him,” while his “love for people unintentionally, that’s from my mom.”

    As a manager, this combination translated into a bespoke leadership style where he treated players “50% of the time completely the same, and 50% what he needs.” He stressed that effective leadership is not about what the coach wants to shout, but understanding “what they need to hear to deal with their situation.” By combining high expectations — telling his players, for example, “if you would believe as much in yourself as I do that will be a start” — with patience and support, he created an environment where players felt seen as individuals.

    Sometimes, though, the two sides of Klopp’s coaching personality left hurt feelings, even broken hearts behind. Numerous beloved members of Klopp’s great Liverpool team, including Roberto Firmino, Jordan Henderson and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain have described sudden ruptures in communications with Klopp as he ruthlessly moved them out of the club after previously showering them with support, belief and affection. In 2023, Firmino described how things changed that year as he was given no explanation as to why a new contract wasn’t forthcoming, and his playing time was shrinking. “The boss was avoiding me,” Firmino wrote in his 2023 autobiography. Still, Firmino insisted that Klopp was the best manager he ever played under.

    These dynamics took a toll on Klopp as well. His departure from Liverpool shocked the soccer world at the time, as he was in the prime of his career at 56 years old, and Klopp spoke openly of the burnout that prompted his decision. Several years later, he’s loving life. He told CBS News earlier this month while visiting Red Bull’s operations in New Jersey that after a 25-year stint in coaching he was relishing stepping away from his own self-imposed standards. “We go on holiday when we want and not when we are allowed to,” he told CBS.

    Klopp also described how his body gave out as soon as he wasn’t coaching full-time, almost as if the psychic toll of his heavy-metal football was manifesting physically. “I was not ill for 24 years or whatever,” he said, but after just two weeks out of the Liverpool job, he described catching a cold “like I’ve never been ill before in my life. Two weeks, couldn’t lift my head … my body needed two weeks or whatever.” Still, when pushed by Diary of a CEO host Steven Bartlett, Klopp admitted it was “theoretically possible” that he could return to coaching one day, surely setting Liverpool hearts astir.

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    Nick Lichtenberg

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  • The No. 1 Hire You’re Overlooking

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    Many business owners have an executive assistant. It’s simply common sense.

    As the primary driver of your business, your time is best spent on high-payoff activities like participating in leadership meetings, improving processes that ripple through the company, and networking—not on low-payoff activities like expense reports or managing your inbox or calendar.

    That’s why many business owners have an executive assistant who takes routine tasks off their plate, enabling them to grow their businesses.

    So it’s surprising more companies don’t embrace departmental assistants.

    A departmental assistant is essentially an executive assistant who supports an entire department—whether that’s marketing, sales, finance, or any other cohesive team in your business.

    Let’s look at why this role is worth considering, and the potential payoff.

    The rising need for departmental assistants

    According to Gallup, 64 percent of employees were given additional job responsibilities last year, while 42 percent of companies reported budget cuts.

    When teams are pushed beyond capacity, it results in missed opportunities, slipping client expectations, and top performers starting to look elsewhere. This is backed up by another Gallup poll, citing 68 percent of U.S. workers are either unengaged or actively disengaged.

    Traditionally, businesses might respond by adjusting their targets and dialing back their goals. Of course, that could have a negative ripple effect across the organization.

    Or, they could try adding more key hires to the team. But that approach often adds a significant expense that compresses already pressured margins.

    Forward-thinking business owners are taking a different route: supporting overloaded teams with a shared departmental assistant.

    Research shows knowledge workers spend 41 percent of their day on low-payoff activities. If a departmental assistant could take even a fraction of that —let’s say 1-2 hours a day—off your team members’ plates, imagine the time they’d gain for business-driving activities that move the company forward.

    Departmental assistants in action 

    One reason I have so much enthusiasm for this strategy is that we implemented it in my business, WorkBetterNow.

    Our sales team was at maximum capacity, and the need for a new hire was imminent. That would have been costly, time-consuming, and the ROI wouldn’t be realized for months.

    While we waited to make that hire, we hired Paola to serve as our sales department assistant, taking over important but low-payoff activities so our sales reps could focus on driving revenue. The results have been outstanding.

    Freed from low-payoff tasks, our reps had more time to follow up with clients, reducing our sales cycle by 21 percent. Further, we were able to hold off on hiring a new sales rep for 6 months due to Paola’s support of our team. And not surprisingly, the timeliness and accuracy of our data and reporting has improved by having a detail-oriented administrative professional handling those duties instead of our sales team.

    Ultimately, we accelerated revenue and delayed additional costs, while also keeping our salespeople happy—a win-win all around.

    Another example of departmental assistants fueling growth is at Eastman Cooke, a full-service NYC-based commercial construction firm. On a recent episode of my podcast, Great Talent, Great Business, their CEO Peter Morandi told a story about how his estimating department doubled their output.

    The construction projects they do typically cost millions of dollars. Each proposal involves multiple phases, subcontractors, and detailed material estimates for each proposal, and the margins are razor-thin. An inaccurate estimate could wipe out their profits on a project completely.

    Facing increased demand on their estimating department in 2023, Peter added assistants to their estimating department—freeing estimators to ensure the company is putting out winning and profitable bids. Further, estimate accuracy has improved to the point that they’ve almost eliminated nonbillable change orders—safeguarding their margins and reputation.

    Take action

    So, where do you begin?

    Start with one department that’s under the most pressure. For us and many other companies, that would be sales. A departmental assistant gives your sales team more time for revenue-generating activities without adding a new sales rep.

    On the other hand, there could be departments in your business, like finance or operations that are creating costly bottlenecks. Wherever your team is buried in admin, a departmental assistant can relieve the burden and boost performance.

    If it sounds like a high-risk experiment, it doesn’t have to be. In each case I shared above, the departmental assistants were remote nearshore professionals—proving you can access highly skilled support that helps your business grow without breaking your budget.

    Sometimes, the smartest move you can make as an entrepreneur isn’t a dramatic restructure. Rather, it’s a simple shift in how your team is supported. Adding a departmental assistant could be the hire you’ve been overlooking, but one that could drive significant impact.

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    Rob Levin

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  • Workplace Enhancements Can Improve Employees’ Lives

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    We spend around 90,000 hours of our lives at work. That’s around 15 years, and it’s no small thing.

    Because work takes up such a large chunk of our time, it has a large impact on people’s overall health and wellbeing. Which is why Gallup’s newest workplace insights are so concerning.

    Life evaluation ratings in the U.S. are at an all-time low, and the percentage of employees who are struggling and suffering are on the rise:

    • 45 percent of employees say they’re struggling to know what’s expected of them at work
    • 5 percent of employees say they’re suffering

    Only half of employees feel like they’re thriving—a new record-low since 2009. It’s no coincidence that this drop coincides with the fact that only 24 percent of employees feel like their organizations care about their wellbeing.

    Some leaders may assume that overall employee life satisfaction is not the company’s responsibility—but I argue it’s the most important thing any organization can focus on. By doing so, employees will be happier, more satisfied, more engaged, and more productive.

    The state of workplace wellness

    With only a quarter of employees agreeing their companies care about their wellbeing, the state of workplace wellness is bleak. Another clear sign is the emotions people feel at work throughout the day:

    • 52 percent of employees who are not engaged feel stress a lot of the day
    • 40 percent of those not engaged feel worry 
    • 21 percent of disengaged employees feel sadness
    • 17 percent of them feel anger

    In addition, overall employees’ satisfaction with their jobs has dropped to a record low, while the percentage of employees actively looking for a new job is the highest it’s been since 2015.

    The picture is clear: Employees aren’t happy at work, and it’s affecting their overall happiness and their intent to stay.

    The connection is also clear. Organizations are failing when it comes to caring for overall employee wellbeing, which has ramifications on satisfaction, engagement, turnover, and more. How do organizations break the mold and make work a place where employees are happy to spend 40+ hours a week?

    3 ways to focus on supporting managers

    Managers are the connection point between organizational leadership and on-the-ground people. They can either support or tear down the culture leadership wants to build by the example they set for their direct reports.

    But there’s more bad news: only 31 percent of managers are engaged, and only 22 percent of them agree their organization cares about their wellbeing.

    To better support your managers, consider these three strategies:

    • Offer more training and development, ensuring managers have the confidence and skills they need to truly lead their teams and excel at their jobs. The training should include soft skills, like communication, and role-specific hard skills, to ensure managers know how to accomplish their various responsibilities. Coaching and mentorship with senior managers and leaders can be a huge positive, too.
    • Be open to restructuring workloads. Managers are being asked to handle more and more, often without greater resources to help. Take time to listen to managers’ thoughts about their workloads and restructure responsibilities as needed to ensure managers feel challenged and fulfilled, not overwhelmed.
    • Build a support network between managers. By building a community between all the managers at an organization, you’ll create a space where managers can collaborate, coordinate, and provide best practices and advice to help each other. Use a Slack channel, a monthly get together, or something similar to foster this connection.

    When managers feel good at work, they’ll spread that to their teams, modeling the positive and productive behaviors the company wants to establish.

    Aim for structural improvements

    Individual-level improvements are nice—a wellness app, fitness incentives, financial education courses—but structural improvements are the bedrock needed before individual improvements can take effect.

    Improvements such as ensuring workloads are healthy to manage burnout, eliminating micromanaging to build trust, and building a sense of belonging will make a huge difference for every employee. These will power the success of other wellness-focused programs as you build them.

    Build better social systems

    According to research, the main driver of wellness at work is the social element—specifically, employees’ sense of belonging.

    Do employees have friends? Do they have the chance to take a break and socialize each day? Are manager-employee relationships healthy? Does the company find ways to show the employee they’re cared for as an individual? These are all questions that directly impact employees’ sense of belonging.

    A great way to build more belonging is through Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). ERGs should provide places of connection, support, and fun for various groups, such as working women, the LGBTQ community, and multi-cultural employees.

    Well-being: The key to organizational success

    People are getting less happy, and work is a big reason why. With negative emotions on the rise, and life evaluations sinking, it’s on organizational leadership to make the changes needed to better support employee wellbeing.

    Why? According to the World Economic Forum, the Work Wellbeing 100 index consistently outperforms other stock market indexes, such as S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Russell. In a nutshell, this means that the companies that invest in wellbeing can expect impressive ROI.

    There’s a clear link between happiness and a 13 percent increase in productivity, too—showcasing the impact of wellbeing support.

    Buck the trend, invest in employee happiness, and watch as your efforts bear the fruit of greater productivity, loyalty, and overall satisfaction.

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    Steve Sonnenberg

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  • 7 Lessons I’ve Learned About Confidence the Hard Way

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    I’ve been at this entrepreneurship game long enough to have earned a few scars—some from competitors, some from economic hurricanes. But truthfully, the deepest wounds have come from my own leadership missteps. And nothing brings that out more than the urge to hover, direct, and correct every move my team makes. That’s micromanagement, and if there’s a more effective way to stomp out confidence in yourself and others, I haven’t met it.

    If you’re a founder, CEO, or new manager, let me spare you the suspense: Micromanagement makes you a bottleneck, grinds down trust, and leads to a work culture that’s heavy on anxiety but light on results.

    Here are seven lessons I’ve learned the hard way—and what I wish someone had hammered into my head earlier.

    • Micromanagement kills initiative
      Remember your first job? The nerves, the butterflies, the questions you were dying to ask but didn’t want to sound dumb? Now imagine your boss watching over your shoulder, critiquing every keystroke. Would you feel bold enough to take risks or learn on the fly? I doubt it. When I hovered, my people stopped making decisions. They waited for me to tell them what to do and, as a result, I had to do all the thinking—and that’s how organizations get stuck.
    • It signals lack of trust
      I used to think giving “helpful input” showed my commitment. What I didn’t see: Every time I “guided” a project down to the smallest detail, I was actually communicating, “I don’t believe you’ll get it right.” That kind of judgment squashes confidence. Trust isn’t built by standing over people; it’s built by letting them show you what they can do.
    • You become the bottleneck
      Micromanagers pride themselves on spotting every flaw before it hits the client. But soon enough, decisions pile up on your desk, and everything slows to a crawl. I’ve watched high-potential teams stare at their inboxes, unable to move forward until they’d gotten my official say-so. In the end, I became the problem I’d paid them to solve.
    • People leave or tune out
      Here’s the ugly truth: Good people won’t stick around to be told what brand of pen to use, or exactly how to format an email. I’ve lost sharp, hungry employees to companies that offered more autonomy, and I’ve seen other talented folks mentally check out—doing just enough to avoid attention. If you want loyalty and energy, you have to grant breathing room.
    • Creativity evaporates
      You can’t innovate in a culture where every idea needs preapproval. Micromanagement is like landscaping with concrete instead of soil—nothing takes root, nothing surprising happens. The best solutions I’ve seen often came from giving a little direction, a lot of encouragement, and then getting out of the way.
    • Growth plateaus
      It’s no accident that my businesses grew fastest when I was the busiest—too busy to meddle. When you step back, your team steps up. Leaders who invest time up front in hiring, onboarding, and setting clear goals can and should let their people own the “how.” In my experience, this makes for happier employees and a healthier bottom line.
    • Your own confidence suffers
      Micromanagement isn’t just bad for your team—it’s poison for your own sense of worth. I went through stretches where I believed the business could only function if I was involved in every decision. That insecurity becomes a feedback loop: The more you meddle, the less capable everyone seems, and the more you feel required to step in. It’s exhausting and unsustainable.

    How to break the habit

    If you see yourself in any of this, don’t panic—you’re in good company. All entrepreneurs are control freaks at some point; it’s almost a rite of passage. Here’s how to grow out of it:

    • Hire people you trust, then trust them.
    • Set clear expectations—and what a “win” should look like—but let people pick their route.
    • Give regular, honest feedback, but resist the urge to give unsolicited advice unless there’s risk of real damage.
    • Celebrate mistakes as learning opportunities, not failures.
    • Remind yourself: The business should keep humming when you’re gone for a week.

    Why confidence is the antidote

    At the end of the day, the opposite of micromanagement is confidence. It’s not arrogance—it’s a steady hand, a belief that you, and the people you’ve chosen, are capable of handling what comes your way. When my confidence rises, I loosen my grip and let talent bloom. That’s when teams exceed the sum of their parts, and when businesses outgrow even the founder’s original vision.

    I know it isn’t easy. But it’s worth it.

    If you’re running a business, the scariest—and most rewarding—thing you’ll ever do is trust in your people, set them free, and resist the siren song of the to-do list. In the end, your culture reflects your confidence. Will it be a wide-open sky—or a box with the lid on tight? The choice is always yours.

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

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    Levi King

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  • 3 Words the Most Effective Leaders Always Use, Backed by Leadership Science

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    Since great leaders are great communicators, choosing your words carefully — both what to say and when to say it — is crucial.

    After all, words matter, and some words more than others, especially if you hope to increase performance, build more effective teams, forge better relationships, and gain buy-in.

    Here are three.

    Because

    As Steve Jobs said, asking for help is “what separates, sometimes, the people who do things from the people who just dream about them.”

    So if you need something, asking politely is effective. (As Mark Cuban says, being nice is one of the most underrated skills in business.)

    But providing a reason is even more effective.

    As described in Robert Cialdini’s book Influence, researchers asked people to try to butt in line to use a copier, using one of three phrases. 

    Phrase 1: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?”

    The result? Sixty percent of the people standing in line let the individual in ahead of them. Most people like to be nice, or, at the very least, like to avoid confrontation.

    Phrase 2: “I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I am in a rush?”

    The result? Ninety-four percent of the people standing in line let the individual in ahead of them. Also makes sense; most people like to be helpful.

    Phrase 3: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make copies?” The result? Ninety-three percent of the people standing in line let the individual go ahead of them.

    Which makes no sense. The second phrase provides a real reason; you’re in a hurry. The third phrase is where things get goofy: everyone in line needs to make copies, otherwise they wouldn’t be in line. “I have to make copies” isn’t a reason to jump ahead, yet nearly everyone let that person cut the line.

    Why? As Cialdini writes, “A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.”

    Whenever you want the people you lead to do something — to do anything — always include the word “because.” But don’t stop there. Make sure your “because” is clear, logical, and compelling.

    Then people will want to work with you, not just for you.

    Could

    After you describe a problem, you ask, “What should we do?”

    The first thing you should do is subsitute “could” for “should.” Research shows “should” typically limits possibilities by implying a finite set of choices. A study published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes found that using “should” typically results in people coming up with just two choices, which limits you to an either/or decision.

    Unfortunately, most leaders tend to use “should” when they ask for input or feedback. If you’ve given the issue some thought, sifted through possibilities, and come up with what you feel are the two best options, you naturally present the solution as an either/or.

    And that’s a problem: As a Harvard study published in the Academy of Management Journal found, substituting “could” for “should” generates a greater number of potential, and better, solutions.

    Why? “Should” implies a narrow set of choices. “Could” implies unlimited possibilities. 

    As the researchers write:

    Considering what one could do shifts people from analyzing and weighing what they assume to be fixed and mutually exclusive alternatives to generating options that might reconcile underlying imperatives.
    Having a “could” mindset helps individuals engage in divergent thinking.
    [And] in group contexts, we find that adopting a could mindset encouraged individuals to spend more time discussing these dilemmas and generating more ideas.

    The next time you encounter a problem, don’t think, “What should I do?”

    And definitely don’t say, “What should we do?” Just state the problem, without in any way implying you have the answer, and ask, “What could we do?”

    You’ll get much better input.

    Together

    Teams obviously work together, or at least should. Yet stating the obvious by using the word “together” can cause people to work harder, longer, and more effectively. 

    A study published in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology placed participants in two groups. The members of one group worked on a task on their own, while the other group was told they would work on the task “together,” and could ask for tips from team members.

    When the results were tallied, the people who heard the word “together”

    • Worked almost 50 percent longer
    • Solved more problems correctly
    • Found it easier to stick with the task
    • Said the task was more “interesting,” and were more likely to perform that task again

    Even though they didn’t actually work together.

    As the researchers write:

    Social cues that signal an invitation to work with others can fuel intrinsic motivation even when people work alone.
    The results suggest that cues of working together can inspire intrinsic motivation, turning work into play.

    Not sure about the whole “play” thing where work is concerned, but feeling like you’re a part of a team — feeling like you’re a part of something bigger than yourself — makes a huge difference. 

    Say you’re forming a team. Don’t just tell people they’ll be a member of the team. Don’t just tell them what they need to accomplish. Say they’ll work on the project together. Say they’ll achieve the outcome together.

    Science says they’ll likely work harder, longer, and better.

    And will also enjoy the task, and being part of a team, a lot more.

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

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    Jeff Haden

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  • Many Leaders Say They’d Drop Their Titles to Be More Engaged at Work, Here’s Why

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    In late 2024 experts predicted that in early 2025, employee engagement would be a key driver for success in a period when many expected rapid business growth. Engagement is an important measure of how “bought in” workers are to the company they’re working for: more engaged workers just go that little bit further, which ultimately contributes to driving up revenues and profits.

    But by April a Gallup survey was showing that employee engagement scores had dropped globally, to the point that U.S. and Canadian engagement had declined to levels more typical of Latin America. The study found disaffection was starting at the top, noting that the “primary cause for the global decline in engagement,” was a “drop in managers’ engagement,” and pointing out that “no other worker category experienced as significant a decline in engagement as the world’s managers.” 

    Now a new survey adds a fascinating wrinkle, showing that nearly half of leaders (46 percent) would actually quit their top-tier roles if it meant that they would actually feel more engaged at work. In other words, they’d give up their title in order to feel more valued, productive, or perhaps more part of a team. Does this mean the allure of management-grade perks is fading? And what does it mean for your company?

    That data, from Norwegian learning platform Kahoot!, is startling. Just 47 percent of UK and U.S. company leaders surveyed said they were “fully engaged,” and this is a dramatic contrast to the views of their teams, with 79 percent of the leaders believing their teams would see them as “energized.” Worse, the report notes that 34 percent of leaders said they felt burned out on a daily basis, or at least several times a week, and 22 percent — over one in five — said they felt “emotionally disconnected” from their teams “often” or “always” during the previous six months, HCAMag reported. This will likely play into the way they interact with their teams, since workers inevitably can pick up on the subtle emotional undercurrents behind managers’ actions, and this could easily demotivate front-line workers.

    The study found, somewhat bleakly, that the leading causes of managerial burnout included “emotional exhaustion from trying to motivate disengaged employees,” along with having to cope with “nonstop change” and the persistent old saw, “economic uncertainty.” Mainly middle managers said they had concerns about “feeling invisible or undervalued by executive leadership.” The major culprits behind leadership burnout included “juggling engagement with too many other priorities,” with 48 percent of those surveyed agreeing with this, even as 48 percent highlighted pressures of responding to employee apathy, and 28 percent cited problems with continuously trying to get Gen-Z workers engaged. 

    The new survey also found possible causes of this sagging sense of connection, noting that 57 percent of the leaders surveyed hadn’t received “extensive” training on how to reengage disengaged teams, and just 17 percent said their company always backed them up by providing effective team motivation tools.

    More interestingly, and offering a potential insight into some of the ill-advised pushes to get workers to return to the office, the study also found one in four leaders said they’re not “confident” about leading hybrid or remote teams, so that many “improvise at a time when alignment mattered most.” This confidence gap is, of course, going to add to leadership stress — particularly as data show that hybrid and remote working models really are here to stay, and can even be more productive under some circumstances. 

    As to what would turn things around for leaders, the survey showed 58 percent of leaders looking for more energy, creativity or fun in daily tasks. Meanwhile 52 percent wanted to grow their own skills, resonating with a recent report that showed managers feel simply too busy in day-to-day tasks, such as arranging training for their subordinates, to do their own training or seek mentorship. 

    All told, the report paints a picture of sort of workplace spiral. where employee engagement is suffering, leading to stressed-out, overburdened management and leadership who are losing touch with the joy of work. The top-down disaffection then fuels wider employee disengagement, reducing team effectiveness.

    What can you take away from this for your company? You may, after all, be feeling in good spirits about your leadership duties, and of the opinion your workers are cheery and as engaged as they can be with their jobs.

    Engagement is a somewhat abstract measure of your workplace culture and employees’ emotional states. Thus it’s possible that everything seems to be ticking along happily on the surface, but key managers and even others on your leadership team are quietly “cracking” under stresses they’re not voicing aloud. Savvy leaders would know to seek help if they’re feeling overburdened or disengaged with their job, and also to check in regularly with their managers and workers to see how they’re feeling — under a no-blame banner.

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    Kit Eaton

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  • Your Office Is Full of “Bad Doors”

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    Why do brilliant strategies fail to get executed? It’s rarely a lack of talent or resources. The culprit is often an invisible force sabotaging your team’s best efforts: psychological friction. It’s the drag created when your company’s processes grind against the gears of human nature. You can’t see it on a balance sheet, but you feel it in missed deadlines, flagging innovation, and quiet disengagement.

    Think of a glass door with a large handle that clearly signals “pull,” but a tiny sign says “push.” When people inevitably pull, you don’t blame them for failing; you blame the designer for creating a “bad door.”

    Your organization is filled with these bad doors—performance reviews that demotivate, change initiatives that create fear, and workflows that require heroic effort to navigate. This is psychological friction, and it’s burning out your best people.

    The antidote isn’t another motivational speaker; it’s a design discipline called psychological ergonomics: the science of aligning work systems with human psychology. Just as physical ergonomics optimizes a desk for the body, psychological ergonomics optimizes work for the mind. Instead of pushing people harder, you redesign the system to pull them toward the right outcomes. Here are two examples of that.

    The innovation paradox

    You say you want innovation, but your performance management system only rewards hitting predictable targets. This creates a powerful friction point: the fear of failure. An ergonomically designed workplace removes that friction by building in psychological safety—creating “safe-to-fail” experiments and rewarding learning, not just flawless execution.

    The collaboration breakdown

    You ask for seamless cross-functional teamwork, but information is siloed and decision making is opaque. The friction here is a lack of clarity and trust, forcing teams to waste energy navigating politics instead of solving problems. The ergonomic solution is to intentionally design for transparency, creating clear communication protocols and rhythms that make collaboration the path of least resistance.

    Your job as a leader is to become a “friction detective.” For the next week, stop asking, “Who dropped the ball?” and start asking, “Where did our design make it easy for the ball to be dropped?” Because when you design a workplace that works with human nature instead of against it, you don’t just reduce burnout. You unleash the performance you’ve been searching for.

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  • Your Office Is Full of Bad Doors

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    Why do brilliant strategies fail to get executed? It’s rarely a lack of talent or resources. The culprit is often an invisible force sabotaging your team’s best efforts: psychological friction. It’s the drag created when your company’s processes grind against the gears of human nature. You can’t see it on a balance sheet, but you feel it in missed deadlines, flagging innovation, and quiet disengagement.

    Think of a glass door with a large handle that clearly signals “pull,” but a tiny sign says “push.” When people inevitably pull, you don’t blame them for failing; you blame the designer for creating a bad door.

    Your organization is filled with these bad doors—performance reviews that demotivate, change initiatives that create fear, and workflows that require heroic effort to navigate. This is psychological friction, and it’s burning out your best people.

    The antidote isn’t another motivational speaker; it’s a design discipline called psychological ergonomics: the science of aligning work systems with human psychology. Just as physical ergonomics optimizes a desk for the body, psychological ergonomics optimizes work for the mind. Instead of pushing people harder, you redesign the system to pull them toward the right outcomes. Here are two examples of that.

    The innovation paradox

    You say you want innovation, but your performance management system only rewards hitting predictable targets. This creates a powerful friction point: the fear of failure. An ergonomically designed workplace removes that friction by building in psychological safety—creating “safe-to-fail” experiments and rewarding learning, not just flawless execution.

    The collaboration breakdown

    You ask for seamless cross-functional teamwork, but information is siloed and decision making is opaque. The friction here is a lack of clarity and trust, forcing teams to waste energy navigating politics instead of solving problems. The ergonomic solution is to intentionally design for transparency, creating clear communication protocols and rhythms that make collaboration the path of least resistance.

    Your job as a leader is to become a “friction detective.” For the next week, stop asking, “Who dropped the ball?” and start asking, “Where did our design make it easy for the ball to be dropped?” Because when you design a workplace that works with human nature instead of against it, you don’t just reduce burnout. You unleash the performance you’ve been searching for.

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    Shonna Waters

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  • KPMG chief on CEOs’ uncertainty on tariffs, the emerging AI ‘hourglass’ org shape and the thing ‘that honestly keeps me up at night’ | Fortune

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    KPMG’s CEO Outlook survey offers an annual look behind the curtain at the issues keeping the top business leaders up at night. Every year, hundreds of leaders answer the call from the Big 4 accounting firm to speak frankly and anonymously about key issues that need to solved, and 400 participated in the 2025 edition. CEOs have a message for America: they just aren’t sure of, well, anything.

    Business leaders told KPMG—and its recently anointed chair and CEO, Timothy Walsh—that they’re wrestling with uncertainty across several different areas of their work. This is well documented and is to be expected, Walsh told Fortune in an interview. “There’s this general, as you would expect, general conversation around business uncertainty,” Walsh said, adding that he was encouraged at least to see the “alignment” in terms of topics coming up in C-suite conversations.

    Peeling back the survey data, Walsh revealed that an unsurprisingly sizable majority (89%) say tariffs will “significantly impact” their business’ performance and operations over the coming three years. And nearly as many, 86%, said their firm will increase prices as needed. They are working hard to get around this, with 85% saying their company will strive to shift its sourcing strategies to minimize the impact as much as possible. The landscape is so uncertain that nearly every CEO says they need to make some kind of change: 79% said they’ve adapted their growth plans.

    Walsh talked to Fortune about uncertainty on tariffs and AI, and the importance of trust in a climate of such uncertainty. CEOs are concerned with another advancing technology with terrifying capabilities, Walsh said: cyber and quantum. “That honestly keeps me up at night.”

    Cybersecurity’s quantum challenge

    Cybersecurity risks remain elevated, especially as quantum computing approaches. As for advances in quantum computing, Walsh said it could one day soon be capable of breaking all encryption, and companies tell him that they’re doing full assessments. It’s a “massive effort” to ensure that they’re not exposed when that quantum computing capability arrives, Walsh warned.

    Adding into the mix the capabilities of AI agents and, Walsh said, “in many cases, a nation-state-type investment,” he’s very concerned about malware and deepfake-type technologies escalating in danger. Over the next three years, 82% of CEOs polled said cybercrime and cyber insecurity was a top trend that could hurt their organization. Cyber risk was overall the second-highest cited pressure behind CEOs’ short-term decisions. CEOs are most concerned about fraud detection and prevention (65%) and identity theft (52%), but they also said they have plans in place to mitigate.

    All that being said, Walsh said CEOs are “feeling optimistic because they see so many growth opportunities.” The economy has been surprisingly strong despite all the uncertainty, the tech sector is driving a very strong stock market, and he even noted some “large deals and transactions” are coming through when it comes to M&A. “Capital flows are starting to move and [be] a bit more liquid.”

    Tariffs and the AI element

    Walsh told Fortune that tariffs are obviously the number-one thing on every CEO’s mind. And it’s not only the fact of tariffs but potential changes to tariffs, and “the uncertainty around whether those tariffs will continue to change.” There’s an overwhelming need for businesses to not only consider what will change but to get agile enough to work on their supply chains to be prepared for future, still uncertain, changes to come. To that end, 34% of CEOs said in the survey that supply chain resilience is the top pressure driving short-term decisions, followed by cyber security risks (29%) and global economic uncertainty (25%).

    Walsh emphasized that tariffs are introducing a multi-dimensional challenge for CEOs. “The CEOs I speak with are addressing tariff impacts in three areas: cost take-out, supply chain optimization including reshoring, onshoring considerations, and ultimately pricing.” He said KPMG is actively working with clients in all of those areas and yes, AI is part of this transformation, too. The prominence of AI is another layer of uncertainty being added to the picture, but Walsh said it’s helping a lot of CEOs: “AI is not just an efficiency play, CEOs are focused on innovating their business models and introducing new revenue streams and products.”

    The AI hourglass to come?

    Walsh said AI capabilities are changing quickly, and he acknowledged that companies are starting to restructure in response. The survey found that CEOs “mostly see an hourglass shape” to their organizations in next three years, Walsh said, noting that’s typical with every new technology deployment. He added that “no one knows exactly where [workforce shape] is headed … It’s a challenge to forecast as AI advances rapidly.” In the survey, 35% said they are planning for workforce reductions in some areas over the next two to five years due to AI, and 69% see an hourglass with higher numbers of senior leaders and early-career workers and fewer in the middle (another 16% said a vertical triangle, 13% a triangle and 2% an inverted pyramid).

    Managers are facing new responsibilities, managing teams with integrated AI agents, for instance. Walsh said some CEOs describe teams with both people and AI agents on them, “and managers of those teams have to ensure [that] agents complete steps in the workflow process, that agents have good data inputs so that their outputs can be relied upon, and continuously review those outputs.” CEOs surveyed said 86% of them see AI agents becoming embedded team members next year, and half think managers will be primarily responsible for managing AI agents’ performance as opposed to, say, HR or IT.

    Walsh agreed with Fortune‘s reporting that “human skills” still matter as AI implementation shows the necessity of reviewing AI outputs. “Human skills are critically important,” Walsh said. Even though KPMG invests in and spends time upskilling its workers on AI and providing them with tools and licenses, he said he continues to remind leaders that “human-to-human relationships are critical … both internally and externally. Trust is more important than ever. Building trust with our teams, clients and ensuring we can trust outputs of technology like AI.” Given the uncertain climate, he added, trust is at a premium. The top change that CEOs see coming is retaining and re-training high-potential talent (75%), followed by redesigning roles to reflect AI collaboration (65%) and hiring AI-capable talent (64%).

    Fortune Global Forum returns Oct. 26–27, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.

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    Nick Lichtenberg

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  • The 2025 Top 50 Leadership and Management Experts

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    While Mark Cuban doesn’t believe in mentors, still: we’re all a product of our influences. Even truly groundbreaking business thinkers use the ideas, the perspectives, and the advice of others as the basis for their own thoughts and actions.

    So if you want to become a better leader, who should you be listening to?

    In 2014 I published Top 50 Leadership and Management Experts, a list that used rankings, ratings, links, search ratios, and number of X followers to quantify popularity.

    To update that list I took a similar approach, one that weighs credibility, reach, and current relevance. I used independent global rankings such as Global Gurus and Thinkers50, often described as the Oscars of management thinking. If an expert ranked highly in recent years, that’s a great sign their influence has legs.

    I also considered recent publishing impact: leaders whose books in the last five years became bestsellers or award-winners, like Amy Edmondson’s Right Kind of Wrong, which have fresh ideas shaping today’s workplaces.

    Then I looked for voices repeatedly appearing on top leadership podcasts like Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead, Adam Grant’s Worklife, and HBR IdeaCast, since podcasts like those rival books in setting the leadership agenda.

    The new list also provides greater diversity of perspectives. The 2014 list was (ugh) heavily male-dominated; a much broader range of voices shapes today’s leadership discourse. The 2025 list rightfully includes women like Amy Edmondson, Liz Wiseman, Whitney Johnson, Frances Frei, Indra Nooyi, Dorie Clark, Sally Helgesen, Herminia Ibarra, and others who offer vital insights into inclusive leadership, organizational health, and the future of work. This gender balance more accurately reflects today’s leadership landscape, where diverse perspectives fuel innovation.

    I also evaluated real-world experience at scale. Several leaders on the list are current or former CEOs of multibillion-dollar enterprises, like Satya Nadella and Garry Ridge, whose cultural transformations and performance turnarounds are well-documented. Their inclusion grounds the list in the real world, showing how ideas yield translate into results in complex global organizations.

    Another important filter was social media presence and broader visibility. I assessed the social media footprint of many candidates, weighing not just the size of their followings but also the quality of their contributions: recent TED Talks, high-profile media interviews, op-eds, and fresh research and frameworks.

    The 2025 list intentionally highlights the expert-practitioner and scholar-coach blend that defines modern leadership development. Many honorees straddle academia and practice, running labs, publishing peer-reviewed research, and advising executive teams. Others are world-renowned executive coaches who translate research into behavior change at the top: think Caroline Webb, Carol Kauffman, and Peter Bregman, alongside practitioner-scholars like Amy Edmondson, Herminia Ibarra, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, and more.

    The 2025 list includes a handful of enduring contributors from the 2014 list (like Marshall Goldsmith, Marcus Buckingham, Simon Sinek, and Brené Brown) who continue to influence how we think about leadership. Sadly, some of the experts from that list have passed away: Peter Drucker, Dale Carnegie, Stephen Covey, Jack Welch, Clayton Christensen, and Tony Hsieh.

    A few speakers are listed as pairs, since their research and thought leadership are partnerships. A prime example is Chester Elton and Adrian Gostick, whose work on culture, engagement, and recognition are collaboratively produced collaboratively. Listing them together reflects how their impact is multiplied through co-authorship, joint research, and shared frameworks that leaders around the world rely upon.

    Bottom line? I did my best to list people whose work is both proven and useful: perspectives, strategies, and tips you can add to your leadership toolkit. The goal was to create a list that balances timeless wisdom with fresh insights.

    Most importantly, the people on this list don’t just talk about how you can become a better leader. They’ll make you want to be a better leader.

    And show you how.

    My 2025 Top 50 Leadership and Management Experts (in alphabetical order):

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

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    Jeff Haden

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  • How Steve Schwarzman Landed in Hot Water With His British Neighbors

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    TANGLEY, England—Steve Schwarzman once said his business philosophy was to seek war. The Wall Street billionaire may have met his match in the chalk hills of southern England.

    One morning in early September, refrigeration consultant Lawrence Leask woke before 3 a.m., got into his car in pajamas and slippers and waited. It wasn’t long before he spotted his quarry, a water tanker passing through this rural parish. Leask tailed it to the town of Andover to learn where it would eventually unload thousands of gallons of water.

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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    Joe Wallace

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  • An AI Wake-Up Call From Walmart’s CEO

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    This is an edition of the WSJ Careers & Leadership newsletter, a weekly digest to help you get ahead and stay informed about careers, business, management and leadership. If you’re not subscribed, sign up here.

    In the Workplace

    Walmart’s CEO issued an AI wake-up call, saying the technology will wipe out some jobs and reshape the company’s workforce. Doug McMillon’s remarks—which echo those made by leaders at Ford, JPMorgan Chase and Amazon—reflect a rapid shift in how executives discuss the potential human cost of AI.

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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  • Why Major Workplace Disruptions Aren’t Always a Bad Thing

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    The road to business success rarely stays smooth, and while you may aim for your enterprise to tick along like a well-oiled German luxury sedan, bumps and dings and accidents and upsets along the way are all but inevitable. Some common examples include an executive falling ill, the loss of a major client, or a top-to-bottom restructuring to pivot the business to new markets. Take heart, though. A new report says that if your company suffers a serious disruption of some kind, it may actually boost your employees’ trust levels and tempt them to stay with you in the long term, but only if you manage the crisis well.

    The data, from SparkEffect, a small Seattle-based organizational development firm, found that 71 percent of the companies surveyed had experienced some form of disruption in the last two years. Unsurprisingly, the most common disruptions were AI-driven changes forced on business operations, with 37 percent of companies going through this disruptive process. Leadership team turnover was a close second, with 36 percent of companies affected, and further down the list were disruptions like layoffs or company restructurings, personal crises, cultural overhauls and job redesigns, Human Resources Director noted. 

    The investigation showed that if companies deal with these disruptions well, it can boost employees’ trust levels by 12 percent over the baseline. Meanwhile, if the company’s leadership fumbles the play, it can actually crash employee trust levels 28 percent under the baseline — a pretty dramatic shift. 

    The focus on trust is important, because the research showed the biggest impact a business-disrupting event can have is on manager trust — even more than workers’ trust in the overall organization. Data show that staff trust their direct managers more than company leadership, which might explain why a badly bungled reaction to a dramatic business disruption can have a significant impact. The report highlights this and notes that while “trust in local leaders often starts higher than trust in the organization as a whole,” it is actually “more fragile.” 

    Organization-level leaders do well with retaining employee trust if they exercise good communication throughout a disruptive event. The report also says that if leaders are fair and clearly empathetic to their workers that can boost trust, also if they offer staff the chance to explain their concerns.

    But if managers exhibit poor transparency, and there’s a misalignment between the decisions the leadership makes and what employees feel they need, including bad handling of tech rollouts (critical in the “all in on AI” business shifts that are trendy right now) then that can harm workers’ trust.

    Much of this thinking resonates with an interesting report that recently underlined how important middle managers can be in an organization, despite the current trend for ditching midlevel managers in favor of a flatter org chart. The survey from San Francisco-based workplace communications outfit Firstup showed that more than half of the 1,000 U.S. non-management workers surveyed said their direct manager was their “most trusted source” for up to date workplace news. Just 10 percent said they think senior leadership is their best source for this info.

    There are some very clear lessons for running your own operation here.

    Rolling out AI systems is a surging workplace trend at the moment, as companies seek to boost worker efficiency and glean higher profits from their revenues. But AI rollouts can be dramatic and disruptive, as this new research points out, unsettling employees who may have to deal with unfamiliar, radically new technology, possibly requiring upskilling, even as they worry about the long term implications AI has on their employability. If you’re pivoting to include AI in your business, handling it carefully, with clear communication and an openness to hear employees’ concerns is a must. Otherwise worker trust may fall, and the secondary impact on their engagement and your profits may be marked.

    Similar thinking should be included in your management decisions should your company encounter other disruptive events. Fairness and empathy are your friends here.

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    Kit Eaton

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  • 5 Empathy-Driven KPIs Every CEO Should Be Tracking

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    CEOs are under pressure—I get it. Economic instability, lingering tariffs, AI reshaping the rules, a shifting talent market—the list is long. Every day, we make tough calls to navigate these headwinds. And more often than not, those calls come down to one thing: the data in front of us.

    CEOs chase what they can measure: revenue, margin, market share. Empathy, however, is too often sidelined as a “nice to have.” But I’m a firm believer that it should be one of the core metrics an organization’s success is measured on.

    After 10 years of studying the state of empathy in the U.S. workplace, our data shows unempathetic organizations risk $180 billion annually in attrition. Even so, 59 percent of CEOs still say empathy is a “nice to have”—perhaps because they find it hard to measure?

    CEOs are wired to focus on quantifiable success drivers, and anything fuzzy can carry the risk of deprioritization. But empathy does have measurable, bottom-line impact. Beyond the billions empathetic organizations save in attrition costs, our data also shows CEOs who view their organizations as empathetic are half as likely to have undergone layoffs in the past year. And, employees at empathetic organizations are 36 percent less likely to leave—and four times more likely to view their CEO as empathetic.

    This data tells me that empathetic leadership doesn’t just boost morale. It’s a predictor—and protector—of long-term business health.

    Empathy is your next competitive advantage—here’s how to track it

    Many executives will agree empathy in the workplace matters, but there’s a real challenge in making it measurable. What gets measured gets managed, and empathy is no exception.

    For more than five years now, we’ve been operationalizing empathy at Businessolver, tracking metrics where we believe they have an impact on both the business and for our employees. Based on what we’ve seen firsthand, there are five empathy-driven KPIs I believe every CEO should consider incorporating into their executive dashboard.

    • Employee and client retention rates. Empathetic cultures attract talent—and keep it. Retention data, in particular, can tell a CEO a lot about how well their culture is resonating with employees and clients. In 2020, we transitioned from an in-office work environment to a fully remote workforce which has fueled improvements across the board, but in particular to our employee and client retention rates, which both now hover above 90 percent.
    • Absenteeism, engagement, and productivity trends. Businesses perform better when employees are present and engaged, so high rates of unplanned absenteeism are worthy of examination. Are there deeper issues with stress or burnout? Are employees supported in caring for their physical, mental, and emotional well-being? Since committing to an empathy-led work environment, both our employee engagement metrics and company culture score have increased.
    • Employee and client sentiments. Real empathy begins, and ends, with listening. Though 70 percent of CEOs say they’ve become more empathetic since 2020, the majority of employees disagree, saying leadership empathy has either stagnated or declined. That perception gap is a warning sign. Regular employee and client “pulse surveys” have proven to be valuable tools for helping our organization ensure C-suite beliefs are in tune with employee reality. Regular pulsing helps ascertain whether employees feel connected to the company mission and culture, if they have opportunities to grow and develop, if they have the resources to do their job, and if they enjoy what they do. Getting honest feedback can be uncomfortable, but it’s essential for building trust and a more effective organization.
    • Benefits usage. Over 90 percent of employees say workplace flexibility is a top expression of employer empathy. But offering benefits isn’t enough—leaders must track usage. Low PTO or mental health benefits utilization, such as Employee Assistance Programs, can signal fear, stigma, or burnout. Measuring what’s used—not just what’s offered—reveals whether your culture truly operationalizes the empathy needed to supports holistic wellbeing.
    • Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB). Our empathy data shows employees who feel their organization invests in DEIB are 32 percent less likely to leave, and 79 percent of employees say DEIB efforts demonstrate employer empathy. By combining DEIB initiatives with our company’s mission, we’ve been able to dramatically improve employee engagement, retention, culture scores, and operational resilience. Over the past five years since formalizing and integrating DEIB into our business, our Employee Net Promoter scores have improved 92 percent, and 87 percent of employees report having a sense of belonging at work.

    Empathy is an executive metric

    Empathy can, and should, be measured with the same rigor as revenue or market share. Because investing in people isn’t just good for culture, it’s good for business. Employee well-being is a powerful growth lever, and in the long run, the most empathetic leaders will also be the most successful.

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    Jon Shanahan

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  • No Joke: Experts Say You Shouldn’t Be Funny at Work

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    There’s always one office joker, isn’t there? The person who can reliably stump up a pun like “I got a career through learning lock picking. It’s opened up so many doors…” when you need a pick-me-up on a humdrum work day. But according to a new report from marketing and management academics — experts who study humor in the workplace — you need to be careful if you’re in the habit of being funny at the office. Because it might backfire, and much of the time the effort isn’t worth the payoff.

    The researchers, from the Universities of Colorado, Arizona, and Melbourne, Australia, write in Phys.org advising that their research, as well as a “growing body of work by other scholars,” shows that it’s actually much harder to be genuinely funny than people think. And in a workplace setting, the downside of a joke landing badly may be larger than the upside you’d get from telling a real corker. 

    One big issue, the researchers point out, is that for a joke to be funny, it has to break certain social rules while simultaneously seeming harmless: jokes that are too lame “get yawns,” but jokes that violate too many rules may end up “triggering outrage.” Landing a joke is hard enough in a comedy club, they note, but in an office environment, the “razor-thin line” between hilarity and upset “becomes even harder to walk,” and what makes one colleague laugh may cross a line for someone else.

    All of this makes great common sense, of course. We all know that shifting social norms mean that some jokes thought funny and clean enough for the TV shows of yesteryear can make us cringe today. Meanwhile, the currents of today’s social norms are blowing in some challenging directions at the moment, meaning edgy jokes may be even more out of place. And while dirty jokes can work well among friends in a bar at night, they really don’t belong in the office because they dance right on that “razor-thin line” of distastefulness. 

    So what’s the problem with telling jokes at work? 

    The report highlights one issue, for example: the difference between women telling jokes and men — simply because women face “harsher backlash than men for behavior seen as offensive or norm-violating,” meaning the impact of trying but failing to be funny may be bigger for women. 

    And while some evidence shows funny managers were seen as having more confidence and being more competent, if their jokes flop, then their their status and credibility can take a hit. Worse, bad jokes can make staff lose trust and respect for a manager, harming their ability to give out advice. This may have bigger business impacts than you realize, as a recent report showing how much staff rely on middle-level managers proves. Plus bosses who are known to be jokers can risk pushing their staff into a position where they feel they have to act amused, even if the jokes are reliably bad. This can sap workers’ energy, sour the working atmosphere and even increase burnout.

    If this sounds like so much gone-off wine (sour grapes….get it?!) to you, and you feel humor really does have a place in your office, then read on. 

    The unfunny team does think humor has an important role to play in business. But it’s more of a backstage part, versus cracking “knock knock” jokes in the spotlight. Comedians often flip the script, the report says, with the audience thinking a shaggy dog story is going to have a certain ending, but then the punchline is a dramatic and funny pivot. Thus while telling jokes may not be worth it in the office, thinking like a comedian may be a valid business habit, the report suggests, because you may end up “reversing assumptions, cooperating to innovate, and creating chasms” which may lead to fresh perspectives, or innovative solutions.

    Of course, like many efforts to change company culture, that’s easier said than done. (And what’s easier done than said? Nothing!)

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    Kit Eaton

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  • Oklo Director Sold 50,000 Shares of Nuclear Start-Up Before Selloff

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    Oklo Director Sold 50,000 Shares of Nuclear Start-Up Before Selloff

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  • Retention Starts on Day One — And It’s on Leaders, Not HR | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Research shows that 70% of new employees decide whether a job is the right fit within their first month, including 29% within the first week. Despite this, the conversation around employee retention in many companies starts far too late.

    It often begins only after people have already disengaged and are considering leaving. At that point, HR may step in to address concerns and offer perks that were previously overlooked, but by then, it’s frequently a last-ditch effort.

    These late-stage actions have their place, but the decision to stay or leave is ultimately driven by the leadership people experience every day. Employees stay when they are led well, when they are hired into teams that work, when they trust the tone and consistency of their leaders and when what the company says matches what they live.

    It is observed that 70% of the variance in team engagement, which defines the employee experience, comes from managers. However, most often, leadership treats culture and retention as HR’s function instead of taking ownership of delegating trust.

    But if you want a team that people want to stay on, leadership has to build it every day from the very first hire.

    Related: This Is the Retention Strategy You’re Probably Overlooking

    Why companies get this wrong

    I’ve worked with countless leaders who want to build great teams. But wanting that and knowing how to do it are two different things. Most of us are never really taught how to create an environment where people choose to stay and do their best work. More often, we figure it out on the fly, after years of trial and error.

    And what ultimately shapes that experience is not a formal culture program. It is the everyday signals leaders send, who they choose to hire, how teams are built and how they respond when things go well and, more importantly, when they don’t.

    These are the cues people watch as they tell them what the company values and whether they can see themselves growing here.

    It took me years of pattern-spotting to see which leadership habits improve retention. Five, in particular, have stayed with me as practical ways to do that work. They might help you as well.

    Related: Your Retention Crisis Won’t End Until You Make This Shift

    Practice 1: How you hire determines who stays

    Hiring still relies too heavily on technical skills, which is the easiest part to measure. But it’s not a lack of skills that drives people out the door; it’s a poor fit for the role or the culture.

    When employees leave, they usually explain that the job was not what they expected or that they could not see a future for themselves. Those are hiring mistakes, not performance problems. The people who last see meaning in the company’s direction and feel the team is a place where they can grow. Skills may open the door, but alignment and motivation make people stay.

    Practice 2: How you shape the team determines how it performs

    Every new hire reshapes the team you already have. The wrong hire, even a skilled one, can weaken trust and make collaboration harder.

    A strong hire can lift the team by bringing balance and energy. The difference is not always visible on day one, but over time, it shows in how the team communicates and performs. That is why, before hiring, it’s important to examine the team’s state and ask whether this person will strengthen or disrupt its rhythm.

    Practice 3: What you allow becomes the culture

    The culture is defined by what you reward and tolerate, not what you say. You can talk about collaboration in any way you want. But if managers reward individual heroics and tolerate siloed behavior, that’s your culture.

    You can include “innovation” in your values. But if people are punished for small failures or if leaders tolerate endless risk-avoidance, the real culture is fear. If you want to build a culture worth staying in, be honest about what you are rewarding and what you are letting slide.

    Related: Don’t Underestimate the Power of Company Culture — It Matters.

    Practice 4: Leadership attention drives retention

    As companies grow, the distance between leaders and the rest of the organization grows with them. If you do not close that gap with intention, trust begins to fade, no matter how strong your culture looks on paper.

    You will not hold alignment with a memo or an all-hands. What matters are the signals where you spend time, and how you show up when pressure is high.

    People watch most closely in uncertain moments and leave when the leadership they experience no longer matches what they were promised.

    Culture is held together less by proximity and more by deliberate presence. It drifts when leaders stop showing up in ways that keep people connected to the mission and one another.

    Practice 5: Your energy sets the tone

    One thing that took me years to fully appreciate is that your energy is contagious as a leader. What you project through tone, attention, body language, and behavior directly shapes how people around you feel and perform.

    Calm steadiness builds confidence, while restless energy spreads just as quickly. The people who carry your culture most strongly are usually the first to feel it. They pick up on your tone, and their reaction influences the rest of the team. When they sense balance and clarity, they magnify it.

    Therefore, before stepping into a room, decide how you want people to feel and bring that energy with you. Your tone matters as much as your decisions in moments of change or pressure. When people feel steadiness from you, they find it in themselves and give more of their best.

    Related: Keep Your Top Talent with These 3 Employee Retention Secrets

    Retention is earned or lost in leadership

    Perks and HR policies play a role, but can’t compensate for weak leadership. Retention is built in leaders’ everyday work, including who they hire, what they reward, where they show up, and the tone they set.

    If you want teams, people want to stay on; lead them in a way that makes staying the natural choice.

    Research shows that 70% of new employees decide whether a job is the right fit within their first month, including 29% within the first week. Despite this, the conversation around employee retention in many companies starts far too late.

    It often begins only after people have already disengaged and are considering leaving. At that point, HR may step in to address concerns and offer perks that were previously overlooked, but by then, it’s frequently a last-ditch effort.

    These late-stage actions have their place, but the decision to stay or leave is ultimately driven by the leadership people experience every day. Employees stay when they are led well, when they are hired into teams that work, when they trust the tone and consistency of their leaders and when what the company says matches what they live.

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    Bidhan Baruah

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  • Why I Prioritize People Over Profit | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Every business decision reflects a value system, even if it’s not named outright. When sales drop, do you cut costs or beef up your sales team once you’ve confirmed your sales strategy still works? That choice reveals where you put your weight, i.e., what you prioritize when resources are constrained but the company still has room to maneuver.

    For me, the answer is to invest in the right people. However, some organizations make the choice of never calling out which approach is driving their decision-making.

    Instead of making a strategic choice, these companies operate from unnamed assumptions. This leaves their leaders in a precarious situation. When a crisis hits, some choose security while others choose growth, creating confusion and conflict. That is a value killer.

    It’s people who create value, however you define it — be it profit, revenue, standards or culture — and the leader’s job is to give them the clarity they need to align their roles with organizational goals. So here is how to bring those values to the surface to create space for principled decisions, even when the right path isn’t easy or perfect.

    Related: Why Profits Over People Is Destined to Fail

    The cost of unnamed priorities

    Decision-making can be a good gauge of how well an organization is aligning its priorities. The bigger the company, the higher the cost of people pulling in different directions. McKinsey found that fewer than half of the 1,200 global business leaders it surveyed described their decisions as timely, and many of their decision-making processes were ineffective.

    Decision paralysis does not afflict companies because they lack data like sales, profit and headcount, but because they haven’t named their values or aligned their value within the company as part of their culture. When priorities aren’t explicit, people judge each other’s actions through their own value lens. Then they get frustrated when the other party is doing it differently.

    There are exceptions. When survival is at stake due to looming bankruptcy or market crashes, the scope of decision-making narrows and cost-cutting becomes unavoidable. However, in most downturns, I have to align the whole team on what we should do. It’s then that I prioritize people over short-term profit concerns, not because I ignore financial results, but because empowered people build sustainable businesses over time.

    When values clash

    The tension between people and profit isn’t theoretical — it’s a lived reality on a daily basis. Corporate culture is basically an aligned value system that needs to be called out so everyone follows it to maximize effectiveness.

    We need to see value systems not as obstacles, but as guiding forces. They help reveal what matters most when trade-offs feel murky. Think about these clashes of values, which companies of different sizes may face without clear priorities:

    • Speed vs. quality: Do you ship fast or perfect the product before going to market?

    • Innovation vs. efficiency: Explore new markets or optimize current operations?

    • Customer satisfaction vs. margins: Absorb costs to build reputation or protect profitability of the current quarter?

    • Centralization vs. autonomy: Head-office control or local decision-making?

    Confronted with these kinds of tensions, I don’t aim to impose my values, but I also don’t believe avoiding the conversation serves anyone. Instead of choosing between competing values, the goal is to agree on the structure for how we balance them or prioritize one over the other under what conditions. Forget neutrality. Prioritizing and balancing values is not a 50-50 proposition. Instead, we first have to lean into conflict to create clarity.

    Related: Holding True to Your Values Is an Essential Decision-Making Metric

    Bringing values to the surface

    The best approach to get everyone on the same page is practical, although perhaps sometimes uncomfortable. If I am on the management team and there’s disagreement between whether to cut costs or invest in more people, let that argument surface at the table so everyone can discuss it from their own perspective.

    Cost-cutting is not necessarily anti-people. And investing in people is definitely not anti-profit for the long run. But it may feel the wrong way when decisions aren’t grounded in a shared value framework.

    The safety versus speed crisis over at OpenAI showed how misaligned values can play out if leaders are divided. The board operated from OpenAI’s original nonprofit mission that put safety first, while CEO Sam Altman valued speed to market. When Altman was briefly fired in 2023, the chaos that followed — employee revolt and investor panic — put the organization at existential risk.

    The resolution came only when OpenAI built a frame that let them hold both safety and innovation together. To avoid value killers like OpenAI’s one-time crisis, values need to be named explicitly. If there’s conflict over assumed values, this is your opportunity to build structures that hold them in balance.

    Related: How Putting People Before Profit Fueled My Company’s Long-Term Success

    Values as navigation tools

    The lesson from OpenAI was that every growing organization faces moments when values seem to clash. In mission-driven companies especially, scaling brings tension between staying true to purpose and chasing market opportunities. Rather than avoiding that tension, it must be confronted.

    This isn’t about moral superiority or choosing sides in some philosophical debate. The organizations that thrive are the ones that make their priorities explicit and have the agility to balance them when they appear to conflict. That’s what putting people first actually means: giving your team the clarity they need to navigate complex choices and create lasting value together.

    Every business decision reflects a value system, even if it’s not named outright. When sales drop, do you cut costs or beef up your sales team once you’ve confirmed your sales strategy still works? That choice reveals where you put your weight, i.e., what you prioritize when resources are constrained but the company still has room to maneuver.

    For me, the answer is to invest in the right people. However, some organizations make the choice of never calling out which approach is driving their decision-making.

    Instead of making a strategic choice, these companies operate from unnamed assumptions. This leaves their leaders in a precarious situation. When a crisis hits, some choose security while others choose growth, creating confusion and conflict. That is a value killer.

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    Simin Cai, Ph.D.

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  • Don’t Run From Failure — Run Toward It. Here’s Why. | Entrepreneur

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    We’re trained to avoid failure like it’s a contagious disease.

    At school, failing wasn’t just about getting a bad grade — it was about getting labeled. If you didn’t pass, you weren’t just “behind,” you were branded. Pulled into extra classes, singled out in front of your peers and whispered about in the hallways. It can feel like public shame dressed up as education.

    When you grow up in that kind of system, what you learn fast is: Don’t mess up. Don’t take risks. Don’t give anyone a reason to think less of you. And the biggest lesson? Stay in your lane.

    The problem is that that mindset doesn’t prepare you for the real world — especially if you want to lead, build or create anything meaningful. Because here’s the truth: If you’re afraid to fail, you’ll never truly succeed.

    Related: Want to Be a Successful Entrepreneur? Fail.

    The fear that holds us back

    Fear of failure isn’t just about the actual mistake — it’s about the imagined fallout.

    • What will people think?
    • Will they see me as incompetent? Reckless? Stupid?
    • Will this cost me my reputation, my relationships, my livelihood?

    And because those fears feel heavy and real, we avoid taking the shot. We stay where it’s “safe,” never realizing that “safe” is just a slow, quiet way to fail anyway.

    As leaders, that fear can be deadly. It keeps us from innovating, from hiring bold talent, from experimenting with new products or ideas. It makes us reactive instead of proactive. And when the market shifts — as it always does — the leaders who’ve been too scared to risk anything are the ones left scrambling.

    How I learned to get comfortable with losing

    The real turning point for me wasn’t some massive success — it was being okay with losing. But that didn’t happen overnight.

    When I started my business, I brought that school-based fear of failure right along with me. I worried about how my decisions would look. I avoided risks that felt “too visible.” I overworked myself trying to make sure nothing went wrong — and when something inevitably did, I beat myself up for weeks.

    But here’s what changed everything: I realized failure without feedback is just a loss. But failure with insight? That’s an investment.

    When you stop seeing failure as a verdict and start treating it as raw material, it becomes the most valuable thing you have.

    Over the last eight years, I’ve:

    • Mismanaged people and learned how to lead better.
    • Made bad hires and learned how to recruit with sharper instincts.
    • Invested in projects that flopped and learned where my market actually is.
    • Lost more money (and time) than I’d like to admit — and learned exactly how to make it back (and more).

    None of those lessons came from the times things went perfectly. Every single one was purchased with the currency of failure.

    Related: 4 Key Strategies to Help Entrepreneurs Cope With Failure

    How school got it wrong

    Part of why this mindset is so hard to adopt is that it’s almost the opposite of what we were trained to believe.

    Our education system rewards perfection and punishes missteps. You’re graded on what you got right, not on how many creative attempts you made. You’re celebrated for the A, not for the questions you dared to ask or the risks you took to get there.

    And that’s fine if your career goal is “ace tests forever.” But in real life, success is about trying, adapting and trying again — fast. It’s about iteration, not immaculate execution on the first go.

    If you’ve ever wondered why so many talented people never reach their potential, this is it. They’ve been conditioned to fear the first step because they’ve been conditioned to fear the stumble.

    The leader’s advantage: Failing faster

    Here’s the mindset shift that’s changed everything for me: Don’t run from failure — run toward it.

    When you take a calculated risk and it doesn’t work out, you gain information your competitors don’t have. You see where the potholes are. You understand the dynamics of your market or your team in a way you simply can’t from the sidelines.

    Failure speeds up your feedback loop. And in business, speed of learning is a competitive advantage.

    When I stopped worrying about how failure looked and started focusing on what it taught, I moved faster. My team moved faster. We became more willing to experiment, to test ideas, to pivot quickly.

    And here’s the irony: The more comfortable I got with failing, the less I actually failed in ways that mattered. Why? Because the lessons compound. The insight you gain from one mistake prevents five more down the line.

    Turning failure into fuel

    If you’re looking for practical ways to reframe failure, here’s what’s worked for me:

    1. Separate the event from your identity. Failing at something doesn’t make you a failure. It makes you a human who’s gathering data.
    2. Ask better post-mortem questions. Instead of “Why did I mess up?” ask “What specifically did I learn, and how will I apply it next time?”
    3. Take the hit, then take the action. Feel the sting, but don’t camp there. Apply the lesson as quickly as possible so it becomes forward motion.
    4. Make it visible for your team. When leaders are open about their own missteps, it gives everyone else permission to try without fear.

    Related: How to Turn Failures Into Wins As an Entrepreneur

    The real goal

    At the end of the day, the point isn’t to fail for failure’s sake. The point is to strip failure of its power over you so you can move without hesitation.

    If there’s one mindset that’s been critical to my success, it’s this: Be okay with failing — because the lesson you learn is worth more than the hit you take.

    The faster you embrace that truth, the faster you’ll grow — not just as a leader, but as a human being who’s willing to show up, take the shot and trust that even if you miss, you’re still moving forward.

    We’re trained to avoid failure like it’s a contagious disease.

    At school, failing wasn’t just about getting a bad grade — it was about getting labeled. If you didn’t pass, you weren’t just “behind,” you were branded. Pulled into extra classes, singled out in front of your peers and whispered about in the hallways. It can feel like public shame dressed up as education.

    When you grow up in that kind of system, what you learn fast is: Don’t mess up. Don’t take risks. Don’t give anyone a reason to think less of you. And the biggest lesson? Stay in your lane.

    The rest of this article is locked.

    Join Entrepreneur+ today for access.

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    Ginni Saraswati

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