Insights

This week on CEO Daily Brief, I spoke with my friend John Frehse. John is a labor strategy expert, and one of the few people I know who can talk about cost-cutting with both depth and humanity. We’ve known each other for years, but somehow this conversation uncovered...

Let’s talk about the A-word.  Accountability gets tossed around in every leadership meeting, strategy deck, and performance conversation, but rarely with clarity. What we call accountability is often just thinly veiled evaluation: performance reviews, stack rankings,...

Everyone left the offsite feeling “jazzed”. The decks were slick, the breakout sessions were productive, and the whiteboard had a lot of arrows that made everyone nod. The best part was the keynoter who inspired everyone.  That lasted about three days.  But two weeks...

AI is transforming business. That much is clear. The real question is whether leaders are equipped to guide their people through the change. Some are. Others are trying to have it both ways, insisting they are “people first” while replacing…people. And a few are...

Let’s talk about change initiatives. You’re likely in the middle of one right now—a technology rollout, a reorg, a “new way of working.” We label it, build a timeline, hold a few town halls, maybe even bring in a consultant with a colorful 5-step model. We grit our...

I stole that line from a client I was working with in Orlando last week.   This particular client is a global pharmaceutical and manufacturing company in the animal health space. We were about to kick off a leadership session with their top 100 leaders, all focused on...

In the 1990s, a group of high-earning professionals formed Workaholics Anonymous. A founder of the group said, “No matter how much work I did, it was never enough.”  Sound familiar?  This addiction is one we collectively share. It goes beyond an addiction to work—it...

A friend of mine once described working at Amazon as “building a rocket ship while being pushed off a cliff.” Back then, the company’s obsession with innovation made that intensity feel exciting. But today, Amazon’s attempt to reignite that startup energy feels less...

We’ve been sold a lie about leadership.  We’ve been told that great leaders take control. That they set the vision, enforce accountability, drive engagement, and build culture through sheer willpower.  But here’s the thing: Culture can’t be controlled. It can’t be...

I just got off the phone with the CEO of a global corporation with a $75B market cap who was expressing a common challenge: her team needs to learn how to collaborate now more than ever. The old rules of leadership, where silos were merely inefficient, no longer...

AI has gone from public enemy number one to the golden child of innovation in record time. Just look at this week’s AI summit in Paris. JD Vance made his first major policy speech there, declaring that the U.S. is going all in on AI and urging other countries to...

Everyone gets selective about their outrage. We see it in politics, in business, in culture—everywhere. But what separates outrage that leads to meaningful change from outrage that’s just noise? Accountability. Take the federal government. The Trump administration,...

Not long ago, the middle manager was the linchpin of the corporate world. They juggled project management, performance tracking, and resource allocation while ensuring their teams stayed on track. Today, those responsibilities are increasingly being handed over to...

For the past year, I’ve been wrestling with a nagging feeling that the stakes in my life aren’t high enough. It’s not that things are bad. They’re not. In many ways, life and work are going well. But there’s a part of me that feels like I’m not risking enough or...

Raise your hand if you’ve worked for a company that insisted on referring to employees as “partners” or “team members.” I’m looking at you, Starbucks. When I’m doing keynotes, about 15% of the time, I’m instructed not to say “employees.” This is a management choice to...

Change is inevitable, but resilience is a choice. Patagonia, once celebrated for seamlessly blending work, play, and purpose, now faces an identity crisis as it navigates operational and cultural upheaval. Recent decisions to streamline operations, cut jobs, and ramp...

As 2025 approaches, the workplace is set to experience seismic shifts. From navigating political changes to embracing cutting-edge technology, organizations face both challenges and opportunities. Here are the top predictions for workplace trends in 2025 and how...

As we head into the final weeks of the year, this newsletter kicks off a special series: 2025 Workplace Trends. These are the ideas shaping how we’ll work next year and beyond—starting with something that’s equal parts fascinating and terrifying: AI-powered empathy. ...

Guess what—skills and knowledge aren’t enough anymore. In a world where everyone has access to the same information and where technical expertise is a given, what’s going to set you apart?  The answer is mindset. Specifically, an accountability mindset. Whether you’re...

Imagine this: It’s May 1, 2028, and across the country, industries grind to a halt. Not just one union, not just one company, but hundreds of thousands of workers across sectors and industries standing together in one of the largest coordinated labor movements the...