What's on Your Mind?

For years, leaders have treated transformation as a question of strategy and technology. Do we have the right plan? The right tools? The right talent? Most leadership teams think they have a speed problem. They don’t. They have a friction problem. Not the obvious kinds, like failed systems or bad strategy. Friction is quieter, far more pervasive, and seems innocuous. But friction, the invisible drag embedded in how organizations structure work, make decisions, and align teams, is becoming a material leadership risk. And as organizations push harder for agility, that friction comes with serious costs. WHERE WORK SLOWS DOWN Friction rarely shows up as a drama…

If you’ve been avoiding giving feedback to someone on your team, you’re not alone. You’re in good company. Well . . . common company, at least. Most managers aren’t avoiding feedback because they don’t care. It’s because it feels awkward and uncomfortable, and they’re hoping things will somehow get better on their own. Spoiler alert: they almost never do. I’ve seen this from multiple angles—as an employee, a manager, an employment lawyer, and someone who spent years in HR—and the cost of avoiding feedback is almost always higher than the cost of the conversation you didn’t want to have. What Happens When You Keep Waiting On the legal side, this patter…

In the fast-paced world of consumer packaged goods (CPG), innovation has become one of the most overused—and misunderstood—terms in our vocabulary. Walking the halls of Expo West this year, the sheer scale of innovation on display is staggering. Every aisle promises a new solution to our food system’s woes—higher protein, added fiber, or the latest superfood infusion. Yet a troubling question persists: How much of this is actual food innovation, and how much is marketing dressed up as engineering? The modern CPG landscape excels at generating hype but often fails to create lasting value. Brands appear overnight, fueled by venture capital and massive marketing spends, …

Below, Amy Leneker shares five key insights from her new book, Cheers to Monday: The Surprisingly Simple Method to Lead and Live with Less Stress and More Joy. Amy is founder and CEO of the Center for Joyful Work. She has helped more than 100,000 leaders and teams, including those at Fortune 100 companies, lead with less stress and more joy. With more than 25 years of leadership experience, including a decade in the C-suite, she has studied leadership at Yale, neuroscience at the NeuroLeadership Institute, and stress resilience at Harvard Medical School. She leads the annual national workforce study, The State of Stress and Joy at Work, and hosts the Less Stress, More…

Scan the headlines and you couldn’t blame anyone for thinking AI portends the consulting profession’s imminent demise. Yes, artificial intelligence is automating large portions of knowledge work, but AI is only one of many forces creating the perfect storm currently bearing down on Big Consulting’s long-standing business model. Higher interest rates and macroeconomic volatility tightened professional services budgets, forcing executives to scrutinize consulting spend. And clients themselves are demanding something very different from the firms they hire. They now expect a return from every dollar. They don’t just want strategy, nor do they want PowerPoint decks, banks…

Technology tycoons Elon Musk and Sam Altman are poised to face off in a high-stakes trial revolving around the alleged betrayal, deceit and unbridled ambition that blurred the bickering billionaires’ once-shared vision for the development of artificial intelligence. The trial, which is scheduled to begin Monday with jury selection, centers on the 2015 birth of ChatGPT maker OpenAI as a nonprofit startup primarily funded by Musk before evolving into a capitalistic venture now valued at $852 billion. The trial’s outcome could sway the balance of power in AI — breakthrough technology that is increasingly being feared as a potential job killer and an existential threat to h…

Yum Brands is delivering on its promise to shutter hundreds of Pizza Hut locations. Three months after the fast-food giant announced its intention to close 250 underperforming Pizza Hut restaurants during the first half of 2026, the chain’s U.S. footprint appears to be notably smaller, according to a Fast Company analysis. A review of local media reports, online review platforms such as Yelp and Google Reviews, and Pizza Hut’s own store locator tool has found more than 50 locations that have closed in recent months, spanning cities across the United States. The true tally is likely much higher. Ranjith Roy, CFO of Yum Brands, indicated on an earnings call in…

Two years ago, Josephine Timperman arrived at college with a plan. She declared a major in business analytics, figuring she’d learn niche skills that would stand out on a resume and help land a good job after college. But the rise of artificial intelligence has scrambled those calculations. The basic skills she was learning in things like statistical analysis and coding can now easily be automated. “Everyone has a fear that entry-level jobs will be taken by AI,” said the 20-year-old at Miami University in Ohio. A few weeks ago, Timperman switched her major to marketing. Her new strategy is to use her undergraduate studies to build critical thinking and interpersonal ski…

A new cafe in Stockholm just opened its doors and, though there’s a human behind the counter making drinks and light bites, an AI manager is calling the shots. Andon Cafe is the latest autonomous organization experiment run by AI research company Andon Labs, tasking its AI to sell coffee and manage European bureaucracy. The result? Curious customers, $1,000 in sales in four days, and a lot of surplus supplies. A viral experiment Like the company’s AI-run retail experiment in San Francisco, Andon Labs secured a lease in Stockholm on a quaint corner coffee shop, then handed it over to an AI—in this case, Mona, powered by Gemini. At the beginning of the exper…

Iran offered to end its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz without addressing its nuclear program, officials with knowledge of the proposal said Monday. Iran also wants the United States to end its blockade of the country as part of its proposal, according to the two regional officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations. Oil prices were up Monday as a standoff between the U.S. and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz remained despite a ceasefire, while Pakistan leaders were seeking to revive stalled talks between the two countries. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was in Russia Monday for a meeting with President Vladimir…

Shares in Qualcomm Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM) are surging in premarket trading this morning after reports emerged that the company may be on the cusp of a deal with artificial intelligence giant OpenAI. The deal would see Qualcomm CPUs powering a potential OpenAI smartphone—and would be a further sign that AI may shift from being primarily GPU-powered to CPU-powered. Here’s what you need to know. Will the CPU replace the GPU in the AI space? Currently, the most important computing component underpinning the AI era is the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). Traditionally, this was a dedicated processor designed to render 3D graphics and video, and it was especiall…

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. 2026 is already overflowing with new and improved sites and services. In today’s post I’m sharing five I’ve tested and found particularly useful. Kraa: Make Gorgeous Documents I love minimalist tools like the free Kraa, a wonderful new digital writing surface. I’ve started experimenting with creating quick, simple pages, which Kraa calls “leaves.” The example pages shared by Kraa’s founding team will give you a feel for it: A news story with an image gallery, pull quotes, and comments A blog post with images, quotes, an…

Pity the middle manager. Even before the emergence of AI, these jobs had increasingly become a one-way ticket to burnout and misery. Since 2013, the average number of direct reports has increased by almost 50% to twelve employees, according to Gallup. The same poll revealed that less than one-third of managers are engaged at work, while over a quarter are planning to leave their jobs. Enter AI: The ever-changing chimera, swathed in hype, is now making life more complicated for managers. Executives are bewitched by AI’s promise of productivity. Rank-and-file employees oscillate between fear that AI will take their jobs and overusing it. Those sandwiched in between, the…

Thank you for reading Modern CEO. Before we dive into this week’s topic, please check out our first livestreamed event exclusively for Modern CEO subscribers: On Monday, May 18, at 1 p.m. ET, I’m hosting The CEO’s Guide to AI. Matt Fitzpatrick, CEO of Invisible Technologies, will help leaders understand where AI can have an impact—and what’s hype. You can RSVP here, and if you’re not already a subscriber, you can sign up here. And if you have questions for Matt, you can submit them to stephaniemehta@mansueto.com. One of my first Modern CEO newsletters highlighted the opportunity for CEOs to have constructive conversations with organized labor. It was a contrary take a…

Allie K. Miller, one of the most followed voices in the AI industry, says that “by the time you wake up, your AI should have already been working for you for hours.” Formerly the global head of machine learning for startups and venture capital at Amazon Web Services, Miller is among the busiest AI consultants and influencers in the industry, with more than 1.6 million followers on LinkedIn alone. Through her company Open Machine, she advises enterprises and business leaders—including those at OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Warner Bros. Discovery—on how to adopt AI. In 2025, Miller was named one of the 100 most influential people in AI by Time. In an interview wit…

If you’ve spent meaningful time in a corporate design role, you’ve probably received some version of this feedback at least once: you’re difficult. Too opinionated. Not a team player. You push back too much. You care too much about things that aren’t your call. I’ve heard this feedback described, almost word for word, by hundreds of designers across industries and career levels. And what strikes me every time is how consistently it describes not a liability, but a set of entrepreneurial instincts that organizations simply don’t know how to hold. The traits that get pathologized in corporate environments (the tendency to question assumptions, to challenge briefs be…

KitKat’s newest invention isn’t a chunky bar, or an F1 car-shaped chocolate, or even a branded ice cream. It’s a KitKat wrapper that blocks your cell phone signal. The product is called “Break Mode,” and it was produced via a collaboration between KitKat Panama and the creative agency Ogilvy Colombia. It looks like an oversized KitKat wrapper, but it’s actually a Faraday cage, or a conductive enclosure designed to block electromagnetic fields. While Faraday cages are most commonly used in medical labs, data security applications, and to protect electrical equipment, KitKat’s spin on the tech turns it into a pouch that renders your cellphone unusable. KitKat and …

The southern side of the Colosseum in Rome has just undergone a subtle but much-needed facelift. This side of the world-famous monument is where the empire’s elite once entered the grand amphitheater to watch gladiators fight to the death, and where a series of earthquakes over its nearly 2,000-year lifespan have chewed away at the structure. Through deep archaeological research and a clever architectural intervention, the ancient monument’s original layout has been restored after centuries of decay. It’s giving modern day visitors a more accurate sense of how the space was originally used. The project focuses on the southern perimeter of the Colosseum, restoring of …

The wearable breast pump space has never been more crowded. In the last three years alone, dozens of new devices have hit the market, each one positioned as more feature-packed than the last. Night lights. Stronger and stronger suction. Electric charging cases. Massagers and heat, placed with all the anatomical confidence of someone who has never needed to use one during late-night feeding hours, no less examined a woman’s anatomy or the clinical research on breast milk production. Feature innovation is important for a pitch deck you’re putting in front of investors. But from the inside of a nursing room – whether that’s at home, at the park, or in your employer’s pum…

On February 10, 1985, an imprisoned 66-year-old male serving a life sentence was offered a conditional release that would have reunited him with his wife and children, from whom he had been separated for 23 years. The prisoner turned down the offer. His name was Nelson Mandela. In a rejection publicly delivered to the South African government by his daughter at a rally in Soweto, Mandela refused the condition that he permanently walk away from the country’s anti-apartheid movement. “I cherish my own freedom dearly, but I care even more for your freedom,” he stated, unwilling to “sell the birthright of the people to be free.” Mandela would spend another five ye…

When Meryl Rosenthal and her cofounder started a human capital and workplace transformation consultancy in 2005, she was 41 years old. Nine years later, her cofounder left for personal reasons, rendering Rosenthal—by then age 50—a so-called solopreneur. Being a woman of that age and running a business on her own certainly came with challenges. One, she says, was that younger HR and business leaders tended to assume she didn’t have the necessary expertise because her background had not squarely been in HR. Another was a preconception that she—as an older woman—didn’t understand technology as well as her younger peers. None of these things daunted Rosenthal, though…

I have a confession to make. I keep a secret document in my Google Drive titled “Fund Theses That Piss Me Off.” And every time I read about a venture capital fund with a generic, meaningless, or buzzwordy thesis that manages to raise a bunch of money regardless, I copy and paste it into my burn pile. This is how I started to notice a couple of years back how sometimes VCs will make dramatic changes to their thesis and investing focus. And it happens not just at a fund level, but across whole chunks of the industry, too. Take, for instance, climate VC. This was a white-hot category not too long ago. Today, all of a sudden, all the climate funds are gone, or they’v…

As a leadership consultant who helps organizations understand how to apply artistic thinking, one of the lessons I have learned is one of the basic differences between the artistic practice and the business practice—in the former, questioning is the way of life, in the latter answers are the way to go. Artists ask “why” constantly. Why does this exist? Why are things the way they are? Why are we doing it this way? That relentless questioning is how they push past convention—and it’s the engine of genuine creative thinking. Bring that same type of question into most organizations, and something breaks. “Why are we doing it this way?” stops sounding like curiosity. It s…

Managing people is about helping people tap into underutilized reserves and overlooked skills that are indigenous to them, not fixing their habits. The people you manage naturally look to you for answers. They might even ask you to tell them what to do, which creates two major problems: If you tell them what to do, and even if you’re right, they won’t learn anything. If you give clear instructions regarding what to do and things still go wrong, they more than likely will blame you for the resulting mess. This kind of dynamic quietly creates an unhealthy dependency where the employee begins to look to you not just for guidance, but for approval. Anyone who…