Three Types of Culture Practices Your Organization Needs Today
Values describe the culture you want. Rituals reveal the culture you have. Strategy says “we will innovate responsibly.” Culture is what happens when someone proposes an unfamiliar, yet creative, idea in a meeting. Strategy says, “we are one enterprise!” Culture…
Reward Hacking
Whether you’re a software developer or an Artificial Intelligence (AI) vibe coder, you are probably familiar with reward hacking. Reward hacking happens when an AI model earns high scores or positive feedback by exploiting loopholes, shortcuts, or poorly designed rules…
Spider-Man, the Punisher, and New Masculinity
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the most popular movie of all time. Some people think it slaps harder than The Odyssey (for the record, I need to rewatch each film before deciding). A positive focus of the film is the…
Productivity
If you want to trigger me, answer “things are really busy” when I ask what is new and interesting at work or what problems you are solving today. Busyness is not the same as productivity. Full calendars, constant messages, and…
Why You Should Laugh at Yourself
What if I told you that laughing at yourself might be the most underrated leadership skill nobody teaches in business school or the campus career centre? Let me paint you a picture. You’re in a team meeting. Someone makes a…
Everyone Needs a Highlight Reel
A highlight reel is a curated collection of your most meaningful moments. Accomplishments, breakthroughs, praise, uncanny achievements, talents-on-display, and concrete examples or stories of the impact you make should all be on your highlight reel. Your highlight reel could be…
Foolin’ Around
Many historians think April Fools Day kicked off in the 16th century when calendars changed and folks got mixed up about the New Year. Those who stuck with the old process allegedly became targets of pranks, jokes, and all sorts…
Enough
I recently meditated on Seth Godin’s article about kinds of ‘enough’. There is enough of pretty much everything on our planet, but its not equitably distributed. And many of us don’t need anything else to have enough, but our wants…
How to have Better Year End Conversations
Performance reviews and year end conversations are ramping up around the world, which makes a lot of us uneasy because the experience can be clunky (HR systems aren’t slick like apps), emotional (money and personal identity are on the line!),…
12 Communication Rituals that Make Everything Better
We’re living through some genuinely bonkers times. Between geopolitical chaos that reads like a rejected James Cameron Avatar XII screenplay, socio-political upheaval that even Doris Kearns Goodwin struggles to put it in historical context, and workplace disruptions the likes of…