What's on Your Mind?

In a crowded market, building strong, lasting relationships is one of the biggest differentiators a business can create. And while product-market fit is table stakes, true customer loyalty comes from putting people at the center of the product experience. Overlooking that opportunity can leave growth on the table. The companies that stand out are the ones that design not just for functionality, but for connection, trust, and stickiness. These three overlooked pillars help transform software from a useful tool into an essential partner. 1. Engagement that drives daily value The most successful products give customers reasons to return again and again, not just w…

As I’ve coached CEOs over the years, I’ve often been struck by how little they think about the way they deploy one of the company’s most valuable assets—their time. CEOs face unique time pressures. They have enormous responsibilities and a multitude of issues that need their attention. The way they allocate their time has major ramifications for the success of the business. However big and important your previous job may have been, as a CEO, you will confront a seemingly limitless array of new and varied stakeholders, each demanding (and often warranting) a place on your calendar. And each constituent group—the board, employees, customers, investors, governments, the …

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so,” is a quote, often attributed to Mark Twain, that people like to repeat because it so captures our everyday experience. You can learn things that you don’t know, but it’s incredibly difficult to unlearn something you believe to be true. There’s real science behind this. Things we experience are packed away in our brain as the connections called synapses, which form and evolve over time. These connections strengthen as we use them and degrade when we do not. Or, as neuroscientists who study these things like to put it, the neurons that fire together, wire together.…

What a time to be alive. Looking at the sci-fi movie canon and the years in which these films take place, we’re 10 years past Robocop (set in 2015) and 7 years away from Demolition Man (set in 2032). As often as sci-fi serves as inspiration for the tech world, from the AI girlfriend of Her (2013) to an Iron Man-inspired tactical battle suit, so rarely does the tech world regard the thematic warnings underpinning their favorite depictions of the future. I believe in the power and opportunity of tech, and I’ve made a career of building applications with integrity. Many emerging advancements—AI-assisted breast cancer screenings, for example—will change our world for …

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. When I was 12 years old, my parents enrolled me in a kids’ coding class at the YMCA. This was 1983—before the internet—typing code from magazines like Compute! into a computer with a green-on-black screen and seeing what it did. And the experience would go on to shape the course of my life. I’ve been in software for more than 30 years, most of them at Intuit. I started there as a software en…

Over the past five years, the remote work revolution has changed life as we know it for corporate folks like myself. And while I’m on the record singing the praises of working from home, I’d like to set the record straight: It’s not without its faults. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed my weekday afternoon naps and time away from co-workers. But I’ve also come to realize that before the pandemic, we were putting a little bit too much gas on working from home. Is WFH convenient? You bet your ass it is. Waking up and not having to get out of bed — or get in the shower or get dressed because I’m taking all my meetings with the camera off — is a lifestyle I’ve come to appr…

When you reach the role of manager in an organization (particularly for the first time), you have often been there a while. Chances are, you’re managing people who had roles like the one you had before you started to supervise others. The rhythms and routines of work are familiar. Despite your feelings of closeness to team members on the front lines, you’re likely to forget three key issues that can hamper your ability to succeed. These factors can be a particular problem when working with people who are new to the organization. Now you’re one of ‘them’ When you become a manager, you don’t feel much different than you did before your promotion. In fact, when yo…

It’s telling that the plot premise of the first episode for the new Apple show The Studio—episode three drops today—revolves entirely around the notion of a Kool-Aid movie. Created by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the entire show revolves around the elevation of Rogen’s character Matt Remick to studio head, a job he got only because he committed to getting into bed with the brand IP of a 98-year-old beverage. How the premiere episode subsequently ties in Martin Scorcese and a film about Jonestown to the Kool-Aid brand is both hilariously absurd and somehow absolutely believable. Speaking of believable, watch the scene in which filmmaker Nick Stoller (Forgetting …

After years of working with clients across various industries at Dreamix, certain patterns repeat. Not the technical work—that varies enormously—but in the conversations that happen before the work begins. The assumptions clients bring into a vendor selection process often shape the outcome more than the technology choices that follow. Three of those assumptions are worth questioning before signing anything. 1. Don’t design the team before scoping the problem. A client arrives with a fixed requirement for five senior engineers, a specific tech stack, and product availability by a certain date. The project scope comes later. I understand their reasoning. Sen…

If you have gifting to loved ones on your mind, here are some considerations related to taxes and logistics. Gifting logistics Unless you’re writing a check from your bank account, the logistics of gifting funds can get a bit complicated. If you want to gift from your IRA, your only option is to sell a chunk of it, then pay any taxes due, then write a check. That’s not terrible, so long as you understand the tax implications. IRA withdrawals are typically subject to ordinary income tax, along with penalties if you’re not yet 59½. You could also trigger some knock-on tax effects like the income-related monthly adjustment amount. In other words, gifting from your IR…

You have probably noticed that you have times during your day when you’re locked in and feel like you’re working at your peak and other times when your mind isn’t keeping up with everything that needs to be done. Some of that may reflect your circadian cycles. If you’re a morning person, you may arrive at work in the morning raring to go, but if you’re a night person, it may take you a while to get warmed up. A big influence on your cognitive effectiveness is fatigue that can build up over the course of the day. A lot of work on ego depletion suggests that the more difficult mental work you do in a day, the harder it can be to continue to do that work later. In some s…

You shouldn’t have to cross your fingers and hope for a strong stock market to coincide with your short-term goals. And right now, you probably wouldn’t want to. Because you’re working within a short time frame—think two to six years—investing for shorter-term goals like buying a house or paying for a wedding should look different from the portfolio you build for retirement. But don’t stop putting away money for your long-term goals while you’re working toward your short-term ones. So, how do you balance saving for both? How to think about funding short-term and long-term goals Don’t forgo saving for the long term to meet your short-term goals. Thanks to the powe…

“Competency checking” is a practice that imposes extra scrutiny on Black professionals and people of color, challenging their qualifications, intellect, and ability to advance. There are three primary ways competency checking is deployed in the modern workplace. The first is the assumption of Black intellectual inferiority and/or a lack of qualifications. This can manifest in low expectations, marginalization, and extreme micromanagement. (More simply: If someone assumes, consciously or unconsciously, that all Black people are intellectually inferior, they may question the person and their qualifications more closely during an interview and, once hired, pay much more …

As organizations grapple with rapid developments in technology and policy while also balancing shifting market conditions and financial realities, having a deep bench of leadership talent is crucial. However, a recent survey from TalentLMS, found that 45% of managers say their companies aren’t doing enough to develop future leaders. One of the key issues is that companies are using a narrow scope in offering leadership development opportunities, says Nikhil Arora, CEO of learning technology company Epignosis, the parent company of TalentLMS. “A lot of companies kind of limit the leadership development to the top 1%, leaving behind the remaining 99%,” he says. Aror…

A “work jerk” isn’t just someone who expects perfection. It’s the high achiever whose nervous system runs at lava-like temperatures, who’s chronically stressed, and demonstrates urgency as a personality trait. It looks like hair-trigger impatience, micromanaging, sharp feedback, and an automatic reflex to see others as obstacles rather than partners. Work jerk behaviors teach people at work to focus their energy on managing you and your reactions instead of doing good work. People act out for countless reasons: a toxic work culture, impossible standards, or private stress that bleeds into work (an article for another day). None of those reasons makes treating others p…

Leading a team has never been simple, but today’s challenges demand something extra. With deep divisions in America spilling over into our workplaces, simply carrying on “business as usual” won’t cut it. Employees are craving authenticity, transparency, and leaders who genuinely care. So, how can you step up, even when the path forward seems uncertain? Through conversations with leaders at Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups, we discovered three actions that can help you navigate this moment with courage and empathy. Cultivate trust through transparency & curiosity In an era marked by mass layoffs, arbitrary return-to-office mandates, and eroding faith i…

The behavioral health sector is at a crossroads. The landscape is shifting rapidly, and for many, it feels harder than ever to plan. The One Big Beautiful Bill is a sweeping piece of legislation that redefines Medicaid eligibility and coincides with a broader restructuring of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the The President administration. Combined, these changes have introduced new questions about sustainability, staffing, and service delivery. While some details are still in flux, the direction is crystal clear: Providers will need to adapt. To help make sense of what’s changing, I recently joined a discussion with Chuck Ingoglia, C…

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. Leaders at the McKnight Foundation, the Freedom Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation released an open letter in early April calling on the philanthropy community to stand in solidarity with each other and resist the onslaught of executive orders, funding freezes, and investigations that threaten to hobble the independence of the nonprofit sector and reduce trust in c…

The death of Pope Francis has been announced by the Vatican. I first met the late Pope Francis at the Vatican after a conference called Saving Our Common Home and the Future of Life on Earth in July 2018. My colleagues and I sensed something momentous was happening at the heart of the church. At that time, I was helping to set up the new Laudato Si’ Research Institute at the Jesuit Hall at the University of Oxford. This institute is named after the pope’s 2015 encyclical (a letter to bishops outlining church policy) on climate change. Its mission is rooted in the pope’s religiously inspired vision of integral ecology—a multidisciplinary approach that addresses soc…

By Gordon Boggis and Michael DiTullo Imagine sitting in a café where the clatter of a fork hitting a plate across the room drowns out your conversation with the person sitting next to you. Have you ever worked in an open office filled with overlapping video calls, making it almost impossible to focus on the document on your screen? Perhaps you recall discussing sensitive matters in a bank while overhearing equally private conversations from the next office. These everyday examples highlight how disruptive noise pollution can be and how important it is to prioritize acoustics. The reality is that poor acoustics are a pervasive yet solvable problem. Like a pebble in…