What's on Your Mind?

When Greg Giczi retired in February, his company threw him a party. Giczi had spent 12 years as president and general manager of WNIT-TV, a public television station based in South Bend, Indiana. Public broadcasting isn’t known for lavish budgets, so the party took place at the studio—a “big, open space with dramatic lighting,” Giczi describes. There were appetizers, wine, and beer, as well as heartfelt speeches. A huge snowstorm hit that night. But that didn’t stop a roomful family, coworkers, and others from coming out to celebrate Giczi; one person traveled over two-and-a-half hours. The board knew Giczi had been eyeing some electronics, so they gave him a “ni…

I was asked to be the keynote speaker recently for an important conference at Rutgers Business School on the future of business education. I thought it would be helpful for business school leadership and students and for recruiters of business school graduates to recap my message in this Playing to Win/Practitioner Insights (PTW/PI) piece. It is called The Future[s] of Business Education: Two Strategy Paths. And as always, you can find all the previous PTW/PI here. Audience participation The conference attendees were mainly U.S. business school deans and other senior faculty members. The array of deans was quite impressive with deans from leading schools including …

If you’ve skimmed your feeds today, there’s a good chance you’ve seen many headlines exclaiming that around two million donuts have been recalled due to possible listeria contamination. However, these headlines are a bit misleading as the recall happened over a month ago. Confused? Here’s what to know about the listeria donut recall, whether your morning donut is safe to eat, and why you’re just hearing about the recall now. What’s happened? Over the past day, the internet has been flooded with articles about a massive donut recall, with two million of the tasty treats affected. However, though this recall is widely being reported on now—the second week in Febr…

Figma prototypes have been the go-to for years. For digital product designers crafting clickable mockups of apps, this powerhouse design platform hasn’t just gained popularity—it’s become the indispensable tool of choice. Nearly every app, website, or digital experience that didn’t make you rage-quit was likely prototyped and rigorously tested in Figma before a single pixel was coded. The platform’s dominance is no accident. Figma prototypes help product teams communicate direction, test early ideas, and align stakeholders around what’s being built. At design consultancies like ours, they’ve played a critical role in due diligence where we stress-test client con…

Ah, brainstorming. The corporate rite of passage where creativity goes to die. It usually involves a room full of well-intentioned people offering ideas that feel familiar but not fresh. Why does this happen? Because most people stick to the “safe zone,” avoiding anything that might make waves, or worse, ruffle feathers. But here’s the problem: safe ideas don’t change the game. If you want ideas that truly shake things up, you’ve got to do something radical. You have to give your team permission not just to think differently but to think outrageously. And to do that, you need to encourage them to come up with ideas so bold, they might just get them fired. How to …

Leica is perhaps the most storied brand in photography. A portmanteau formed from the name of founder Ernst Leitz and the word “camera”, the first Leica popularized 35mm photography, while the legendary M system standardized the modern rangefinder in 1954 and has a hallowed reputation to this day. Leica’s stewardship of its brand, however, has not always quite lived up to its history. The company historically outsourced most of its point-and-shoot camera design to Panasonic, slapping its iconic red dot on existing compacts and charging an unwarranted markup. Early smartphone collaborations with Huawei and Sharp were similarly surface-level. But for the past few y…

If budgeting spreadsheets and lofty financial goals leave you stressed rather than inspired, consider another New Year’s ritual: an end-of-year money audit. The word “audit” might not sound all that fun. But just like an accountant, it’s helpful to approach your money behavior as neutral and impersonal as possible. “At the end of every year, people tend to jump straight into resolutions: cutting spending, tightening budgets, and promising themselves they’ll ‘finally get disciplined’ in the new year,” Jack Howard, Head of Money Wellness at Ally Bank, told Fast Company. “But I think the most meaningful financial reset starts somewhere much quieter: with your em…

Remember the Flip video recorder? In 2009, it was a sensation—a dead-simple, pocket-size recorder that let ordinary people capture and share moments without lugging around a camcorder or figuring out complicated settings. Cisco acquired Flip’s maker, Pure Digital Technologies, for $590 million in stock. Two years later, Cisco shut Flip down entirely. The Flip wasn’t a failure. It solved a real problem elegantly. But it was what I call a “gateway product”—an innovation that reveals what customers want but that gets supplanted by something that delivers the same outcome more simply, cheaply, or conveniently. In this case, the rise of smartphones made a dedicated device …

The eyes might be the window to the soul, but how their overall health impacts our own souls is rarely discussed. VSP Vision Care, an eye insurance company, partnered with Workplace Intelligence to survey 800 HR leaders and 800 full-time employees in the United States about the state of their eye health. Here are the key findings: We live on our screens: In a typical week, employees report spending 97 hours on screens, which translates to 210 days a year. Thirty-four of these hours are on a computer for work, 17 on a computer for personal use, 23 hours watching TV, and 23 hours on a cellphone. The majority of people have at least one eye problem: 63% of respo…

At the moment, confidence in leadership is at an all time low, according to the 2024 Leadership Confidence Index. It’s natural to assume the cause is born of an individual failure—the leader lacks competence, their boss didn’t prepare or train them well, they don’t care about how others experience them. And many of these reasons certainly hold true. But in my experience working with senior executives as an executive coach and organization design consultant, bad leadership is often manufactured by an organization designed, albeit unintentionally, to produce bad leaders. In the intricate dance of organizations, design and leadership are the two central partners. The de…

Creating a standout résumé or cover letter is your first (and sometimes only) chance to make a strong impression with prospective employers—to really sell yourself. But there’s a caveat, HR experts say: don’t sound desperate. While we’re taught to tailor résumés for the job and really showcase accomplishments, experts argue there’s such a thing as going overboard. Employers could find it off-putting. Or worse, they could think you’re overrepresenting your credentials. According to job search platform FlexJobs’ 2025 Job Search Trends Report, one in three professionals admitted to lying on a résumé or cover letter—often to appear as the “perfect fit” or to meet pe…

Ignaz Semmelweis was a physician working in a maternity ward in the 1840s. He noticed something disturbing: women giving birth in the ward staffed by doctors and medical students died from “childbed fever” at rates of 10-35%, while a nearby ward staffed by midwives had death rates under 4%. The key difference was that doctors were coming straight from performing autopsies to delivering babies, without washing their hands. They would dissect cadavers in the morning, then examine pregnant women in the afternoon with just a quick rinse. In 1847, Semmelweis instituted a policy requiring doctors to wash their hands with a chlorine solution between the autopsy room and the …

Navigating bedtime with a teenager is, in many homes, a nightly battle with a constant refrain: Get off your phone! Go to bed! Research shows that today’s teenagers are more sleep-deprived than ever before. Adolescents need between eight and 10 hours of sleep, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But nearly 80% of American teenagers aren’t getting that, and experts say it’s affecting important areas like mental health and school attendance. Bedtime routines aren’t just for toddlers. Teenagers need them, too, says Denise Pope, an expert on child development and a senior lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. Experts in ad…

Kelly Slater is the undisputed GOAT of surfing. The 53-year-old has won 11 world titles—including being both the youngest and oldest champ ever at 20 and 39, respectively—and has competed regularly on the pro tour until just last year. He’s not even officially retired yet. Slater has also built multiple businesses, beyond his endorsement deals. One of those is apparel brand Outerknown, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. It’s been a labor of love for Slater, who along with cofounder John Moore, had a commitment from the beginning to make it as sustainable and responsible as possible. Last month, the company dropped the Apex Trunk by Kelly Slater, the firs…

A viral clip of a woman scrolling on a completely clear phone with no user interface briefly confused—and amused—the internet. But the truth turned out to be far more literal than most expected. Originally posted to TikTok by user CatGPT, the video quickly racked up over 52.9 million views. In the comments, some speculated it was a Nokia model; others guessed it came from the Nickelodeon show Henry Danger. “This looks like a social commentary or a walking art exhibit. I’m too uncultured to understand,” one user commented. “It’s from a Black Mirror episode,” another wrote. Turns out, it was none of the above. Just a piece of plastic. The woman seen in l…

Auckland rang in 2026 with a downtown fireworks display launched from New Zealand’s tallest structure, Sky Tower, making it the first major city to greet the new year at a celebration dampened by rain. South Pacific countries are the first to bid farewell to 2025. Clocks strike midnight in Auckland, a population of 1.7 million, 18 hours before the famous ball drops in New York’s Times Square. The five-minute display involved 3,500 fireworks launched from various floors of the 240-meter (787-foot) Sky Tower. Smaller community events were canceled across New Zealand’s North Island on Wednesday due to forecasts of rain and possible thunderstorms. Australia plans defian…