You Can’t Fake Belonging
The article argues that belonging is a core human drive that directly impacts performance, retention, and mental health. It cites veteran research showing social connectedness protects against PTSD and translates that insight to the workplace, where 40% of employees feel isolated. Data from BetterUp and other studies link high belonging to a 56% boost in performance, a 50% drop in turnover risk, and up to $52 million annual savings for a 10,000‑person firm. The piece concludes that managers, not policies, are the primary architects of belonging, especially in remote or hybrid settings.
Green Boots
The "Green Boots" essay uses the iconic Everest body as a metaphor for high‑visibility corporate failures such as WeWork, Theranos, and FTX. It identifies three traits—visibility, preventability, and permanence—that turn a misstep into a cautionary case study. The piece then...
Red-Teaming Your Strategy
In January 2014 two seasoned Southwest pilots mistakenly landed at a small municipal field instead of Branson Airport, stopping just before the runway’s end. The crew had the correct airport displayed on their instruments but abandoned the cross‑check once they...
Build the Right Thing
The post contrasts Samuel Langley’s output‑centric aviation program with the Wright brothers’ outcome‑driven approach, using the story to illustrate a common pitfall in modern product development. It argues that teams often prioritize visible features and ROI forecasts before they have...
The Alarm That Went Silent
On August 14, 2003 a high‑voltage line in Ohio sagged into trees, triggering a cascade that left roughly 55 million customers without power across the U.S. Northeast and Canada. The cascade was accelerated because FirstEnergy’s Energy Management System lost its alarm...
Ariane 5’s “Reused Code” Catastrophe
On June 4, 1996, the Ariane 5’s maiden flight exploded 37 seconds after liftoff when software inherited from Ariane 4 overflowed a 16‑bit integer. The overflow shut down both inertial reference units, causing the flight computer to misread diagnostic data as valid...