Today's Management Pulse
Systems Creep Undermines Productivity as Leaders Overload Toolkits
Leaders are rapidly adding project‑management apps, chat tools, AI assistants and dashboards faster than output improves, a trend dubbed “systems creep.” A study of 137 Fortune 500 workers shows employees toggle between applications about 1,200 times per day, costing roughly four hours of productive time each week.
HSBC Names David Rice First Chief AI Officer to Lead Global GenAI Push
HSBC announced David Rice as its first Chief AI Officer on March 23, creating a dedicated C‑suite role to embed generative AI throughout the bank’s global business. Rice, formerly COO of HSBC’s Corporate and Institutional Banking division, will report directly to the CEO and coordinate AI strategy across technology, risk and operations. The appointment underscores a growing trend among large banks to separate AI oversight from traditional CTO responsibilities.
Valmont Industries Appoints John Schwietz as CFO, Reaffirms 2026 Guidance
Valmont Industries (NYSE: VMI) named John Schwietz its new chief financial officer and reiterated its full‑year 2026 financial guidance. The move underscores the company's commitment to its capital strategy and budgeting plans amid a stable outlook.
Lionsgate Elevates Laurel Pecchia to Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications
Lionsgate announced the promotion of Laurel Pecchia to senior vice president of corporate communications. The move broadens her oversight of media relations, executive messaging and the studio’s emerging AI and live‑entertainment ventures, positioning her at the center of a busy...
Amazon Luna to End Third‑Party Game Purchases and Bring‑Your‑Own Library by June 2026
Amazon announced that Luna will no longer allow purchases from EA, Ubisoft, GOG or other third‑party stores, and the Bring Your Own Library feature will be retired on June 3, 2026. Users can stream existing third‑party titles until June 10,...
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan Predicts a Three‑day Workweek by 2031
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan told the Wall Street Journal that the rise of AI “digital agents” will render a five‑day workweek obsolete, forecasting a shift to a three‑day schedule by 2031. The comment adds a high‑profile voice to growing calls...
Data Leaders Turn to AI Automation to Tame Enterprise Integration Hurdles
Data chiefs at Thomson Reuters, Create Music Group and Booking.com say AI‑driven automation is cutting integration pain points that slow HR analytics. Their pilots promise faster, more consistent insights for talent and workforce decisions.
Apple to Close Three U.S. Stores, Including First Unionized Outlet, Prompting Stock Scrutiny
Apple Inc. will shutter three U.S. retail stores in June—Trumbull, Connecticut; Escondido, California; and Towson, Maryland—citing mall‑level challenges. The Towson site, the first Apple store where workers unionized in 2022, raises questions about labor dynamics and the stock’s near‑term trajectory.
Business Literacy Creates a Culture of Trust. Why Don't More Manufacturers Teach It to Their Employees?
Manufacturers are increasingly recognizing that teaching employees basic finance—profit‑and‑loss reading, cost drivers, and margin concepts—creates a culture of trust and boosts engagement. Open‑Book Management and regular financial huddles let frontline workers see how scrap, downtime, and quality affect profitability, prompting...
Decisions and Execution, Not Goals, Drive Results
Winners and losers have the same goals. It's not the goal setting that makes the result. The result is a sum of your decisions and consistent execution (inputs). Two examples of driving business results: 1. The quality of your decisions comes from...
This $3B Builder Moves From California to Arizona—Signaling Something About the Housing Market’s Next Decade
KB Home, a $3 billion market‑cap builder, announced it will move its corporate headquarters from Los Angeles to Tempe, Arizona, with the transition beginning in spring 2027. The relocation is designed to centralize executive leadership, cut operating costs and place the firm in...
How to Capture the Moments That Matter (in Life and in Business)
In a personal essay, the PhoneBurner CEO explains how filming his son’s high‑school football games sharpened his ability to observe, empathize, and react to real‑time dynamics. He argues that direct, hands‑on observation of frontline work reveals emotions, relationships, and friction...
C-Store Operators Shift Focus From Fuel to In-Store Conversion
Convenience‑store operators are moving beyond fuel as the primary traffic driver, focusing instead on converting pump visits into higher‑margin in‑store sales. Analysts note that foodservice, beverages and ready‑to‑eat items now generate the bulk of profit and customer loyalty. Leaders such...
What Is Team Collaboration? 10 Ways to Make It More Successful
Team collaboration is essential for modern distributed workforces, linking remote and hybrid employees toward common objectives. By establishing shared goals, clear roles, and open communication, organizations boost productivity, innovation, and employee morale. The article outlines ten practical tips—from setting measurable...
The Canary Code and What Neurodivergent Employees Are Trying to Tell You with Ludmila Praslova
In this episode, Brandon Laws talks with Dr. Lyudmila Praslova, an organizational psychologist and author of *The Canary Code*, about how neurodivergent employees act as early warning signals for toxic workplace cultures. She explains the pitfalls of the traditional business...
Velora DAO Votes to Wind Down, Hand Operations to Laita Labs
Velora DAO voted to wind down, moving its treasury and operations to Laita Labs. The PIP‑77 proposal passed with 65.8% support, transferring the $415k treasury and ending the DAO’s fee routing and staking program. VLR token will become governance‑only, with...
Simply Good Foods Posts 15% Sales Jump as OWYN Adds $33.8M in Q2 2025
Simply Good Foods (SMPL) posted $359.7 million in net sales for Q2 2025, a 15.2% increase year‑over‑year, powered by the first full‑year contribution from its OWYN acquisition ($33.8 million). The company flagged lower gross margin, tariff headwinds and a sharp decline in its...
Fluor Corp Executive Chairman David Constable to Step Down, Jim Hackett to Lead
Fluor Corp said executive chairman David Constable will resign on May 6, handing the reins to lead independent director Jim Hackett. The board expands to 12 members, adding former SNC‑Lavalin CEO Robert Card, signaling a shift toward higher‑growth markets and...
Essential Ecommerce KPIs to Track for Growth (2026)
The guide outlines how ecommerce businesses can drive growth by selecting a focused set of key performance indicators tied to clear objectives. It recommends starting with core metrics—conversion rate, average order value, and customer acquisition cost—before expanding into specialized KPIs...
The Hot New Restaurant Tech Trend: AI Agents
Two major restaurant‑tech vendors, PAR Technology and Square, launched AI‑driven agents that can autonomously surface insights, run marketing campaigns, schedule staff and manage inventory. PAR’s "PAR Intelligence" bundles an Insights Agent, Offers Agent and Developer Assist Agent, while Square’s Managerbot...
Lotus Tech Secures $23 Million Equity Investment and Posts 9% Gross Margin in Q4 2025
Lotus Technology announced a $23 million strategic equity investment from eCarX and posted a 9% full‑year gross margin, boosted by a 43% inventory reduction. The Chinese EV maker also expanded its global dealer network to 211 outlets while navigating tariff pressures...
C3.ai’s Margin Collapse Vs. Palantir’s 43% Profit Surge Highlights Divergent B2B AI Paths
C3.ai reported a negative 250% net‑income margin for the quarter ended Jan. 31 2026, while Palantir posted a 43% margin for the quarter ended Dec. 31 2025. The contrast signals diverging growth and profitability trends for two leading B2B AI vendors.
SHRM Unveils Framework to Spot Early Burnout Signals as Leaders Flag Physical Warning Signs
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) posted a simple, actionable framework to help HR leaders identify burnout before it spirals. At the same time, members of the Neville Goddard Mastermind group warned that inflammation, brain fog and chronic fatigue are...
Stefano Gabbana Resigns as D&G Chair Amid €450 Million Debt Crunch
Stefano Gabbana has quit his role as chair of Dolce & Gabbana, a move revealed after a quiet departure in December 2025. The resignation comes as the Italian label wrestles with roughly €450 million ($490 million) of debt and seeks a turnaround...
Remodel Health Posts 150% Sales Surge, Adds Senior Leaders to Scale ICHRA Platform
Remodel Health announced a 150% increase in profitable sales for its flagship ICHRA product in 2025 and introduced senior executives, including a new CFO and head of product, to support rapid scaling. The company now serves over 100,000 lives with...
EY Talent Chief Says AI Is Redefining Hiring, Development and Promotions
Ginnie Carlier, EY Americas' chief talent and culture officer, announced that AI is being embedded across the employee lifecycle—from skills‑based hiring to AI‑augmented performance reviews—marking a strategic pivot for the firm and its advisory services.
Richardson Electronics COO Drives 3% Sales Rise, Boosts Stock 14%
Richardson Electronics' chief operating officer Wendy Diddell steered a 3.1% increase in quarterly net sales to $55.5 million and an 11.4% jump in backlog to $151.2 million. The results helped flip operating income to $1.5 million and sparked a 14% pre‑market rally in...
Meta Shuts Down Internal AI Token Leaderboard After $1.4M Usage Spike
Meta eliminated the employee‑run “Claudeonomics” leaderboard two days after it revealed 60 trillion tokens consumed, a usage that could have cost the company more than $1.4 million for a single user. The move spotlights growing tensions around AI spend visibility, productivity incentives...
Italian Government Moves to Oust Leonardo CEO Roberto Cingolani, Shares Plunge
The Italian government is set to dismiss Roberto Cingolani as chief executive of Leonardo, the nation’s largest defence contractor, after a turbulent turnaround. Leonardo’s stock fell the most in nearly eight months on the news, underscoring investor anxiety over the...
Anjuna Security’s 2021 Hiring Surge Triggers 2022 Layoffs, Founders Share Recovery Playbook
Anjuna Security expanded to roughly 75 employees in 2021 before slashing its headcount in two rounds of layoffs during 2022’s market slowdown. CEO Ayal Yogev says a culture built on “care” and a shift to demand‑driven hiring allowed the company...
OpenAI Proposes a New Way to Build Startups—All in One Box
OpenAI released a 13‑page policy paper proposing a “startup‑in‑a‑box” that bundles AI‑driven back‑office services, model contracts and micro‑grant financing to accelerate new companies. The offering builds on its OpenAI for Startups program and aims to lower overhead for founders, letting...
3 Ways HR Leaders Can Redesign Roles for Gen Z and Millennials
A new Cangrade report, based on 71,747 personality assessments, outlines three ways HR leaders can redesign jobs for Gen Z and millennial employees. The study recommends structuring work around meaningful interpersonal interaction, shifting burnout‑prevention to systemic factors, and defining roles by...
WPP Hires Chief Transformation Officer to Drive Cindy Rose's Elevate28
WPP announced the appointment of a new chief transformation officer, recruiting a veteran from The Estée Lauder Companies. The executive will design, implement and embed the operational framework for Elevate28, the agency group’s three‑year growth plan. The move is part...
.avif)
How Club Pilates Is Turning Scale Into a Sustainable Super-Brand – Placer.ai Blog
Club Pilates, now part of Xponential Fitness, has surged 200% in monthly visits since 2019 by opening over 1,400 studios. Recent same‑store data shows performance leveling, prompting the chain to shift from pure expansion to optimizing its existing footprint. Xponential’s...
How HR Can Win, Manager to Manager
HR leaders must move beyond planning and give managers the structures, skills, and motivation needed to execute. I/O psychologist Kamaria Scott argues that managers are the primary conduit for employee experience and often operate without the support they themselves require....
Air India at Critical Stage of Transformation: Tata Sons Chairman
Tata Sons Chairman N. Chandrasekaran told Air India staff that the carrier has entered a critical phase of its four‑year turnaround. The airline has added roughly 17,000 employees, merged four subsidiaries into two, modernized core systems and is expanding and refurbishing...
Customer Success Enters The Agentic Era
Gainsight has launched the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a framework that lets AI agents pull and act on customer‑success data from Gainsight CS and Staircase AI in a single call. By unifying health scores, usage metrics, sentiment signals and relationship...
Funds Require Systems, Not Messy One‑Off Deals
A fund is not a deal. It’s a business. Deals can be messy and still survive. Funds can’t. If you want to raise more than once, you need systems and repeatable execution. Follow for fund builder systems. fundmanagement #raisingcapital #fundoperations #privateequity #sethbradley
Embrace Interruptions: They Spark Your Best Creative Ideas
Interruptions are not the enemy of a productive day. They're often where the best creative work happens. At the studio we call them drive-bys. And rather than treating them as disruptions, we've built them in. Meetings happen with the doors open...
Precision Healthcare: How Lean Six Sigma Saves Lives and Dollars
Lean Six Sigma is reshaping U.S. healthcare by streamlining processes, cutting waste, and boosting patient safety. Hospitals that adopted the methodology reported measurable gains: Valley Baptist trimmed surgical turnaround by 15%, handling 1,106 extra cases and adding roughly $1.3 million in...
Game Studios Show Mixed Success Adapting to AI
Our Lab just posted a new research report from Zimran Ahmed about how the game industry is adapting to AI. He spoke to people at 20 different studios and found a wide range of approaches to adapt (or failures to...
Lean CEOs Show Management System Beyond Tools
📘 My favorite leadership read this week. 💡 The Lean CEO reveals the true power of Lean through in-depth interviews with CEOs who have gone beyond tool adoption and established Lean as a corporate-wide management system. Helpful resource: 🔗 https://t.co/iMuF5Swzse https://t.co/msHQOMTxFS
OM in the News: Delta’s Vertical Integration Risk Pays Off
Delta Air Lines’ ownership of a Pennsylvania refinery, purchased for $150 million in 2012, is now delivering measurable cost advantages as jet‑fuel prices have roughly doubled since February. The higher crack spread lets Delta offset fuel cost spikes, saving $785 million in...
Craft Your Time: Free Updated Guide on Time Mastery
I wrote this piece in 2022. It went behind the paywall. The framework evolved. Now it's updated, out from behind the paywall, and better than ever. 21 minutes on why you don't manage time — you craft it => https://t.co/Bmf7m0YT9D https://t.co/V3ECpXBPgJ
Hire Right, Fire Quickly: Stop Punishing Innocents
“Fire fast.” Yes; if firing is necessary, dragging it out is worse -- for that person, the team, and yourself. But, if you’re hiring and firing fast a lot, that means you’re bad at hiring, and you 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 to fix it. You’re punishing...
How to Implement AI in Fleet Management: From Dashboards to Workflows
The article argues that AI in fleet management is moving from isolated dashboards to direct incorporation within operational workflows. Success hinges on disciplined execution, data quality, and clear governance rather than the sophistication of the tools. Fleets that embed predictive...
Verification, Not Intelligence, Limits AI; Automate Everything
Two interesting points: AI is bottlenecked as much by verification as by intelligence. Big unlock is making correctness cheap to check for messy, high stakes reasoning via auditable flows. Today automating your company is just as important as building great product.
AI Reshapes Agencies, but Core Fundamentals Stay Unchanged
AI is changing everything about running an agency. Except the parts that actually matter. I dug into the research from @sparktoro, the Design Business Council, @lennysan’s Newsletter, and a few others. I talked to a bunch of agency owners about it too. Here’s...
PepsiCo’s $7 Doritos Price Hike Costs Billions in Revenue
PepsiCo lifted the price of its flagship Doritos bag to $7, a near‑50% jump since 2021, which analysts say erased billions in revenue. The backlash forced the company to roll back prices by up to 15% in early 2026 and...
Automation Made Simple: Stop Doing Everything Manually
In 2026, building systems is EASY: → Zapier to automate your tasks → Notion to organize your docs → AI handles the repetitive stuff → Templates do the heavy lifting So what's your excuse? Oh right... you're still doing everything manually.
MasTec Targets $17B Revenue in 2026 After Record $14.3B Year, Emphasizes Margin Expansion
MasTec announced record $14.3 billion revenue for 2025 and set a $17 billion target for 2026, a 19% increase. The Florida‑based contractor is pivoting from pure volume growth to margin expansion, leveraging scale, project‑mix optimization, and disciplined capital allocation.