HR Reporting to Legal Signals Risk over Performance
Who HR Reports To Says More Than You Think - CX Journey™ https://t.co/cZBDG4PEpf When HR reports to Legal permanently, even in regulated industries, the organization signals: “We prioritize risk containment over workforce performance.” https://t.co/u9aQ57VArG
Mid‑career Men Often Prioritize Spouse over Leadership Growth
It's been awhile since I've had 1:1 exec coaching clients, but I'm working with a couple of client orgs where leader dev is part of the performance improvement puzzle. And what never, ever, gets old for me as a career and...
Culture Fit Masks Bias, Blocks Diverse Talent
Culture Fit Means We Like People Who Look Like Us "Culture fit" has become the legally defensible reason to reject candidates who would otherwise force difficult hiring conversations. SHRM's 2026 talent acquisition analysis points to unstructured interviews as consistent predictors of...
Family Offices Face Hiring Crisis, Career Paths Missing
It’s not easy for Family Offices to recruit and retain staff • 78% of family offices reported difficulties in hiring staff • 54% of family offices reported difficulties in retaining staff • Large family offices reported an average turnover of one employee...
Founders: Do It Yourself, Talk to Customers First
The best advice I could give any early-stage founder right now: Stop hiring and focus on talking to customers. The simple playbook: > Do everything yourself until it physically breaks > Figure out who your best customers actually are > Only sell to them -...
Engineers Fill Gaps Due to Broken Organizational Design
Your engineer just ran a stakeholder meeting. No one asked them to. No one trained them to. No one paid them to. But the work needed doing and they were standing closest. That’s not initiative. That’s ORGANIZATIONAL GRAVITY pulling skilled people into roles leadership never filled. You...
Diagnose Skill, Hill, or Will to Boost Performance
Dear managers, When framing employee performance issue, ask yourself, is this a: 1. skill problem? (lack of expertise) 2. hill problem? (difficult task) 3. will problem? (attitude, not aptitude) Smart leaders find root cause and precisely coach towards higher performance.
OpenAI's Future Shifts: Rapid Learning, New Direction
‘We will learn quickly and course-correct’ — Sam Altman says this is OpenAI’s future, but it’s not the one it started with https://www.techradar.com/ai-platforms-assistants/openai/we-will-learn-quickly-and-course-correct-sam-altman-says-this-is-openais-future-but-its-not-the-one-it-started-with
Founders Excel as War‑Time CEOs Over Rented Leaders
Do founders realDo founders really make better "war time CEOs" vs rented ones? Michael Nathanson of @MoffettNathanso joined Dan on the latest RiskReversal pod 🎙️ https://t.co/JY0pW3EfTN
Altman Concealed Ownership of OpenAI Startup Fund, Misled Congress
Scam Altman didn’t tell the OpenAI board that he OWNED the OpenAI Startup Fund. Altman lied in congressional testimony that he didn’t have financial gain from OpenAI.
Apple’s CEO Pushes Shift to AI‑driven Intent Ecosystem
Apple's new CEO "must transition Apple from the “Glass Slab” to the “Intelligence Grid”, a world where your AirPods see what you see, and your Vision Pro-style glasses whisper the “Intent” you haven’t even spoken yet." https://t.co/k77NCo9Rk8 via @sebastianbarros
Maryland Gov. Moore Empowers School Staff, Boosts Male Leadership
There’s something rather elegant about what @GovWesMoore is doing in Maryland. Recognising that the people already in our schools, our paraprofessionals, our support staff, have what it takes to lead & deliberately opening doors for more men to do it....
Giga Berlin's Sick Leave Plummets Thanks to New Workforce Spirit
André @AndrThie has really kicked the Giga Berlin team into new gear: the sick leave rate has dropped to >5%, a big difference to ~15%+ from 2024. Thierig attributed the shift to a “new spirit” within the workforce. Read exactly which...
Leaders Must Master Real AI Skills, Not Buzzwords
How should leaders embrace AI? Such confusion out there. It’s more than simply saying "AI agents" in response to every question. Leaders need to understand the skills we need for today and tomorrow. @forbes https://t.co/aaN8g7TCgb
Cao Swiftly Undoes Phelan's Naval Reorg, Signaling Shift
Initial reports indicate Hung Cao is moving fast. Earlier in the Trump Administration, Phelan attempted to consolidate several naval departments, including rapid capabilities and intelligence, under the Secretary of the Navy. Which departments will be affected remains unclear, but multiple sources tell...
Enduring Entrepreneurs Win Through Execution, Vision, Not Just Invention
The ranking highlights what defines lasting impact. Across decades, the greatest entrepreneurs are not just innovators, but leaders who built systems, scaled ideas and reshaped entire industries. The pattern is consistent. Enduring success comes from execution and vision, not just invention. https://t.co/JlboSmuQKA...
Steve Jobs Prioritized Beauty and Creation over Wealth
Larry Ellison on Steve Jobs: Apple became the most valuable company on earth and it wasn’t even one of Steve’s goals. He wasn’t trying to be rich. He wasn’t trying to be famous. He was obsessed with the creative process and...
Great Culture Builds Durable Moats and Company Value
“Another important ingredient is culture. A great culture is about people: it is infused by great managers. Such men and women create more than products and services—they perpetuate core values such as quality, integrity, empathy, and stewardship. The "moat" and...
Loss of a Plane Sparked Southwest’s 47‑year Profit Streak
This is one of my favorite examples that didn’t make it into the final version of Inside the Box. In 1972, Southwest was almost out of money and had to sell one of its four planes. Instead of cutting routes, they...
10 Questions to Tell If You’re Leading or Still IC
RT @JoeContrera When you become a leader, your job is to step back from the IC role and influence others to get work done…and this is where the fun begins. How do you know if you’re on the leader side or...
Delay in Product Focus Cost Growth; Focus Yields 8‑figure ARR
Ev Kontsevoy had two products splitting revenue 50/50. No venture funding. Close to break-even. Then COVID killed one pipeline and accelerated the other. He says he waited too long to pick. The one he kept became 8-figure ARR. https://t.co/EVsP3fex28
Design the System, Then Staff It with the Right People
You have your goals. I call the way you will operate to achieve your goals your machine. It consists of a design (the things that have to get done) and the people (who will do the things that need getting...
Great CEOs Prioritize Brand and Long-Term Growth
From $6M to $20M at Coach. The lesson wasn’t “grow at all costs.” It was: build the right channels, protect the brand, and resist short-term pressure. Great CEOs don’t just accelerate growth. They defend the long game when owners want the short one. #Kaihan #Outthinker...
Strong Culture, Rigid Structure Fail Without Reality Check
You can have strong culture + solid structure but still make the wrong decisions. Why? Because you’ve lost contact with reality. Check out the latest article in my newsletter: Issue #16: Leaves and Listening - How Organizations Lose Contact With Reality...
Fix Your Structure, Culture Will Naturally Improve
Most 'culture problems' are structure problems wearing a costume. Your team isn't dysfunctional. Your decision rights are unclear, your intake is broken, and three people think they own the same workflow. Fix the structure. Watch the culture follow.
Luxury Perks Won’t Fix Sinking Crew Morale
since it's #BelowDeck Monday, here's a throw back HR blog post -->> From Sparkling Wine to Sinking Morale: People Management on Below Deck https://t.co/VTj7ID5BGh
AI Eliminates Need for Massive Hiring in Billion-Dollar Startups
I hired 1,300 people to build my last billion-dollar company. If I had to start over tomorrow, I'd hire zero. AI changed the math.
Tim Cook's 15-Year Apple: Massive Growth, Mixed Innovations
I wrote about Tim Cook's 15-year run as Apple CEO, from $350B to $4T (and ~300m to 2.5B installed devices). The good (Watch, AirPods, Apple Silicon, Pay, TV+, Maps), the bad (iCar, Siri, app fees, Vision Pro) and the Apple...
Being Easy to Work With Unlocks Career Opportunities
99% of professionals overlook this skill: being pleasant to work with. Most people think career success comes from being the smartest person in the room. But.... people don’t just hire skills. They choose teammates they trust, respect, and enjoy collaborating with. “Easy to...
Surround Yourself with Truth‑Tellers, Says Jeff Bezos
Successful people surround themselves by supportive truth tellers — a masterclass by Jeff Bezos on the importance of seeking the truth https://t.co/fvYXNVvBbz
AI Chief of Staff Boosted My Productivity
The most valuable thing I did this year was install an AI chief of staff. Not a chatbot. An operator, one that manages my priorities, surfaces blind spots, and runs context I used to carry in my head. The full blueprint is...
Speed Trumps Efficiency: Blitzscaling Wins Big Tech
Founders are taught to be efficient. In the biggest tech wins, that instinct quietly kills companies. Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh found that speed, not efficiency, decides who wins. They call this Blitzscaling. Here is the how it works:
China’s Engineered Global Dependency Redefines Leadership Rules
Every few years, the world shifts in ways that most leaders don't see until it's too late. I wrote China's 90% Model because this is one of those moments. What's happening isn't a trade dispute. It's a systematic engineering of global...
Entrepreneurial Success Demands Brutal Self‑reflection, Not Just Vision
Most businesses don't fail because of the market. They fail because of the mirror. Founders systematically overestimate their product, their growth speed, their competitive position. The most valuable skill in entrepreneurship isn't vision. It's the courage to look clearly at what is —...
Apple Could Double Device Count to 4.5 Bn in 15 Years
❝If Mr Ternus does “nothing but keep the ship on course”, Apple could almost double its number of devices from 2.5bn globally to 4.5bn over the next 15 years, reckons Horace Dediu... —The Economist https://asymco.com/2026/04/27/the-economist-interview-hints-at-the-future-direction-of-the-company/
Own Your Value: Achieve Professional Sovereignty
I'm Dr. Hume Johnson, architect of Professional Sovereignty, leadership coach, and professor of communication at RWU. I help leaders and high achieving professionals do three things: 1. Define who they are beyond title and credentials. 2. Own their value without waiting...
Psychological Safety Beats Toxic Positivity in True Leadership
Toxic positivity gives you a leader who smiles through the layoffs. Psychological safety gives you a leader who tells the truth before they happen. One performs calm. The other creates it.
Anthropic Accelerates AI Development with Unplanned Afternoon Experiments
anthropic's head of product just revealed how they're able to ship faster than any other AI company. their secret: "side quest maxxing." here's how it works: instead of long-term roadmaps, anthropic runs on unplanned afternoon experiments. anyone on the team gets full freedom to...
Directors' Strategy Insights Shared at ISCA Masterclass
The role of the director and strategy. I had a lot fun at the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants (ISCA) as part of the Plenary Masterclass for Directors program. Thanks for the chance to meet and interact with a wide...
Engineering Burnout Stems From Flawed Organizational Design
Engineers don’t burn out from hard work. They burn out from building inside a structure where the decisions that matter most are made by people furthest from the problem. The CEO calls it a motivation problem. HR calls it a culture problem. It’s an...
AI Agents Amplify Effort, Demanding Smarter Task Prioritization
There are at least 2 big but subtle factors contributing to the sense of overwork due to agents right now. 1. The leverage on incremental effort has gone up substantially due to AI, and anyone using these tools tend to feel...
From 8 to Billions: Roblox CEO’s Scaling Journey
Great podcast with @DavidBaszucki and @davidsenra - I met David when Roblox had 8 employees and was lucky to have a front row seat as they grew - and it’s especially cool to see how David has scaled as CEO....
AI Era Digital Transformation Masterclass Earns 4.6 Rating
RT 187 reviews. 4.6 rating, my masterclass Digital Transformation for Leaders in the AI Era on LI #DigitalTransformation #AI @Star_CIO https://t.co/UbVcHko1qW
CEOs Master Business, Neglect Personal Health—Fix Self‑Care
CEOs are brilliant at orchestrating every part of their business. Then they walk into a doctor's office and become passive. That's where CEO self-care breaks down. And that's the first thing I changed. https://t.co/V6hjnDkJRX
Most CEOs Discuss Talent, Few Actually Practice It
“Almost every organization and senior executive talks about ‘talent.’ But only a minority really get their groove on with the subject—i.e., walking the talk with their actions.” 🔍 https://t.co/ikKoUjyesa #leadership #management #talentmanagement https://t.co/FM5NgcYmEO
Six Gen Z Myths Leaders Need to Unlearn
Everyone says Gen Z is lazy, entitled, and disloyal. But what if we’ve completely misunderstood them? In this article, I unpack 6 myths about Generation Z—and what leaders are missing about today’s youngest employees. If you lead Gen Z, this may challenge your...
Leaders Replace Success They Never Created
Leaders often change what works — not because it’s broken, but because they didn’t build it.
Bezos: Writing Culture Drives Better Meetings and Thinking
Jeff Bezos on how to run effective meetings by adopting a writing culture. Read to improve your writing. Write to improve your thinking. https://t.co/D4cOCgUMtY
Arrogance and Entitlement Stifle Continuous Growth
Nvidia CEO: “you cannot show me a task that is beneath me.” The enemy of continuous growth is arrogance, a zero sum mindset and sense of entitlement. https://t.co/DpugJBDmtO
Let Ideas Lead, Not Hierarchy, to Retain Talent
You have to be run by ideas, not hierarchy. The best ideas have to win. Otherwise good people don’t stay. —Steve Jobs https://t.co/s1p9iS630n