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Delivering feedback as a leader can feel challenging, but with the right training and awareness, you can set yourself up for success. In this article, industry leaders share the common mistakes they’ve observed and practical tips that can help you communicate feedback more effectively and constructively to foster a more productive work environment. Focus on Behavior, Not Character When feedback judges the individual—and not the action—a poor outcome is almost guaranteed. “You’re not a team player” is an example of feedback that makes an assertion about a person’s character. The receiver of this feedback is likely to experience a “fight, flight, or freeze” response …

‘Fast Company’ senior editor Jeff Beer breaks down the price of what a Super Bowl campaign actually costs. Is it still worth it? View the full article

All live poultry markets in New York City and some of its suburbs were ordered Friday to close for a week after the detection of seven cases of avian flu, which has also hit farms nationwide, led to the slaughter of millions of birds and driven up egg prices. Gov. Kathy Hochul said there is no immediate threat to public health and that the temporary closure of bird markets in the city and its Westchester County and Long Island suburbs comes out of an abundance of caution. No cases of avian flu have been detected among humans in New York, officials said. The order came after birds infected with the virus were found during routine inspections of live bird markets in…

You’re applying for a job and made it to the next step in the hiring process: the dreaded personality assessment. Few people like to take these tests—especially when a job offer hinges on it. And are these tests even legit? You want to showcase that you’re right for the job, and some of the questions seem like no-brainers. For example, if you’re asked to assess statements such as “I like to learn new skills” by choosing from “strongly agree,” “agree,” “neither agree nor disagree,” “disagree,” “strongly disagree,” you’ll likely choose “strongly agree.” Others are more nuanced, such as being asked to complete this sentence: “When I set goals at work, I choose …

Telehealth company Hims & Hers Health is fighting back after the drug industry’s main lobbying group called out its first Super Bowl ad as “misleading” and in potential violation of marketing rules. The ad is a one-minute spot set to Childish Gambino’s “This is America,” which admonishes the U.S.’s “broken” weight-loss business and instead offers up its “affordable, doctor-trusted” copycat weight-loss drugs. The lobbying group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said Thursday the ad was “a clear violation” of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and “misrepresents the safety and efficacy of their knockoff GLP-1 medicines.” Hims &…

In 2023, creator and social agency Whalar Group announced an ambitious plan to create physical campuses for content creators to learn, make, and collaborate with their peers. Now the company is opening the doors to its first campus in Venice, Calif. this month with an additional location in Brooklyn launching this spring and a London location slated for 2026. Part production studio, part co-working space, part university, The Lighthouse is membership-based community designed to help creators and their teams level-up both their content and the businesses they’re building around it. “If you look at [20th century German art school] Bauhaus, Andy Warhol’s Factory, Sil…

The last big breakthrough in aviation when it comes to boarding your flight came in the early 2000s, with the arrival of eTicketing. But a new proposed overhaul of how you get on planes could shake things up in a much larger way. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a United Nations agency that oversees international airline policy, has revealed plans for a digital travel credential (DTC), which will do away with boarding passes and current check-in procedures and instead rely on technology like facial recognition. (Some 193 countries, including the U.S., are members of the ICAO.) A pilot program testing the DTC has been underway in Finland for al…

The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual membership dues for access to peer learning and thought leadership opportunities, events and more. Carter G. Woodson is the reason we celebrate Black history this month, and every February. Not many people know him, but he was a scholar, a journalist, and an activist who decided in the early 1900s to document how formerly enslaved Africans and the broader African diaspora contributed to the prosperity and growth of this country and beyond. At the time, our nation’s na…

Ford has used some version of its famous script logo for more than a century, but despite its widespread usage, people are scratching their heads over a detail they just noticed. In a viral TikTok, user Monica Turner asked viewers to pick the correct version of the automaker’s logo, one with a funny-looking flourish on the logo’s “F” and one without. Viewers were split on which version they thought was correct, and to some commenters’ surprise, it’s the one with the curlicue. Side by side and to the untrained eye, the real Ford logo looks fake next to its dupe. In the age of corporate blanding, the curlicue flourish reads as fake, but it’s been there as f…

It’s peak season for fevers and runny noses, and when it comes to the flu, the illness has been rampant this year. In some areas, the flu has been so widespread, schools have even closed to help communities get well. This week, local news outlets have reported school closures in at least 10 states due to higher than normal flu numbers. Alabama, Kentucky, Indiana, Oklahoma, Iowa, Missouri, Texas, Ohio, Virginia, Georgia, and Tennessee, have all kept kids home in order to disinfect, and allow teachers and students time to get well. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent data, 27 states and Washington, D.C., are experiencing “v…

Generative AI transforms the way we work, but its impacts aren’t limited to what it can do. It can also teach us about language and communication. We typically think of hallucinations as sensory perceptions—like a sound or image—that seem real in the mind but didn’t occur in external reality. In the era of Generative AI, the word “hallucination” refers to a large language model that produces incorrect or fabricated information. But hallucinations aren’t just an AI problem, because inaccuracies are an equally common occurrence in human interactions. Most conversations contain hallucinations, and the corporate meeting is a space that is especially prone to that. …

Windstorms can seem like they come out of nowhere, hitting with a sudden blast. They might be hundreds of miles long, stretching over several states, or just in your neighborhood. But they all have one thing in common: a change in air pressure. Just like air rushing out of your car tire when the valve is open, air in the atmosphere is forced from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure. The stronger the difference in pressure, the stronger the winds that will ultimately result. On this forecast for March 18, 2025, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, L represents low-pressure systems. The shaded area over New Mexico and west Te…

Bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell and award-winning creator Kenya Barris sat down with Fast Company’s KC Ifeanyi at the FC Grill at SXSW. The trio discussed The Unusual Suspects, Gladwell and Barris’s latest podcast series, as well as their business partnership and creative process. Stay tuned for key takeaways from their conversation and why The Unusual Suspects is a must-listen. https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Unusual-Suspects-with-Kenya-Barris-and-Malcolm-Gladwell-Audiobook/B0DNLMFCX7 View the full article

Chili’s is celebrating National Margarita Day this month with a new romcom Lifetime holiday movie. The casual-dining restaurant chain and cable network will debut a 15-minute TV short film, called I’ll Be Home For National Margarita Day, first airing on Lifetime on February 19 and available on Lifetime.com, YouTube, and social platforms. Starring actors Maria Menounos and Taye Diggs, the new flick hits on all the classic Lifetime tropes, including a big-city-dwelling woman returning to her hometown to reconnect with an old flame, who happens to be a bartender at Chili’s. The reunited lovers must work together to save a small town’s National Margarita Day celebrati…

A painting by street artist Banksy with an environmental message and an estimate of up to 5 million pounds ($6.3 million) is going up for auction, with some of the proceeds helping victims of the Los Angeles wildfires. Sotheby’s auction house said Tuesday that “Crude Oil (Vettriano)” is being sold in London next month from the collection of Mark Hoppus, bassist with California skate-punk band Blink-182, who sees Banksy as a kindred spirit. Hoppus said he was drawn to the subversion, humor and intelligence of Banksy’s work and the similarities between “skateboarding, punk rock and art.” “I feel like street art and punk rock have the same core,” Hoppus said. “Th…

The challenge is formidable: Create an ad campaign that somehow shows a brand’s integral role in a pivotal moment of human history. But also, like, make it fun? When OpenAI’s ChatGPT hit 100 million users two months after its launch in November 2022, a UBS study declared it the fastest-growing consumer application in history. Now at upwards of 400 million users, ChatGPT might be the best-known consumer product to invest the least in advertising. Historic product awareness, zero brand awareness. For OpenAI chief marketing officer Kate Rouch, the Super Bowl was the perfect stage to start telling the world what the brand actually means. “Obviously, 130 mi…

David Droga is a legendary advertising creative and executive. He’s also CEO of Accenture Song, one of the largest advertising and marketing services firms on the planet. For those two reasons, we kick off Brand New World with Droga at the 2024 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. Why there and then? It’s the world’s biggest convergence of media, marketing, entertainment, technology, and brands, and a mirror of what’s happening and a bellwether of what’s to come, on a global scale. There’s no better time and place to start a conversation about how brands, and the marketing and advertising industries, are approaching AI at this crucial and nascent moment. In this …

Unless you’re at the very top of the food chain in your organization, you report to someone. And that manager is important for your career success. They will evaluate your performance, give you feedback and mentoring, greenlight ideas, and provide support elsewhere in the organization for things you’re doing. Because of all the roles that a supervisor plays for you, it can be stressful when a new person steps in, or you get promoted and start reporting to someone new. There are several ways you can make this transition easier and lay the groundwork for a fruitful relationship with your new boss: Be mindful of the firehose When your supervisor is replaced w…

“China has already won the materials war.” Andrew Barron, one of the top materials experts on the planet, didn’t mince words when I interviewed him for a documentary on the dangers of our civilization’s dependency on China’s quasi-monopoly of rare earth minerals. If the world does not stop depending on China’s supply of rare earths, he warned two years ago, we could face an economic collapse in just a few decades. It sounds like a dystopian sci-fi movie, but this potentially catastrophic scenario began this week for the United States, when Xi Jinping’s government issued an immediate suspension of rare earth mineral and magnet exports, retaliating against Presiden…

Once upon a time, back in 1995, BYD was a little-known battery maker. Today, it is the world’s largest electric vehicle producer after surpassing Tesla in global sales in 2024. This rise reflects a relentless focus on automation and vertical integration. It controls every part of its supply chain. It makes its own batteries, with features unmatched in the industry, even mining raw materials like lithium. Its factories are robotic wonders that run about 97% on their own, building a never-ending stream of cars better than Western equivalents at lower price points. And it also transports its own cars across the world with its own fleet of ships specially designed to carry au…

Yellow Tail, the budget-friendly Australian wine brand known to college students everywhere, has barely touched its branding since its debut in 2001. Now, though, the company is tweaking its look—including its iconic kangaroo logo—in an attempt stand out on shelves as younger generations turn away from the wine aisle and toward trendy canned cocktails. The new branding, which includes a more vibrant “Roo” mascot and crisper product labels, will hit shelves in the U.S. this coming June. The understated update seems like a bid to remind consumers of what once made Yellow Tail’s accessible, easy-to-parse branding so innovative—but it’s less likely to make a splash in a n…

Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here. OpenAI’s “deep research” gives a preview of the AI agents of the future OpenAI announced this week its AI research assistant, which it calls “deep research.” Powered by OpenAI’s o3-mini model (which was trained to use trial and error to find answers to complex questions), deep research is one of OpenAI’s first attempts at a real “agent” that’s capable of following instructions and working on its own. OpenAI says deep research is built for people in fields like finance, science, policy, …

The Globeville, Elyria-Swansea and Commerce City communities in metro Denver are choked by air pollution from nearby highways, an oil refinery and a Superfund site. While these neighborhoods have long suffered from air pollution, they’re not the only ones in Colorado. Now, Colorado is taking a major step to protect people from air pollutants that cause cancer or other major health problems, called “air toxics.” For the first time, the state is developing its own state-level air toxic health standards. In January 2025 as “priority” chemicals: benzene, ethylene oxide, formaldehyde, hexavalent chromium compounds and hydrogen sulfide. The state is in the proc…

Let’s face it: The workplace is pretty much an extrovert’s world, with all those meetings and open work spaces. It’s not always easy for introverts and people who prefer a quieter setting to be at the top of their game, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be productive in an office and have a really successful career. The trick is finding the right job fit. Resume Genius, a website for job seekers, recently released its curated list of introvert-friendly well-paying jobs for 2025. Jobs were ranked based on four factors: autonomy, amount of social interaction, minimum median salary of $48,000 a year, and high job-growth potential. The researchers compiled their results …