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With more than two decades in SEO, I’ve lived through every major disruption the industry has faced — from stuffing meta keywords to rank on AltaVista to Google reshaping search, to mobile-first indexing, and now AI. What feels different today is the speed of change and the emotional weight it carries. I see growing pressure across teams, even among seasoned professionals who have weathered every major shift before this one. Many have a legitimate concern: If AI can do this faster, where do I fit in? That’s not a technical question. It’s a human one. That uncertainty affects morale and adoption. Productivity slows. Experimentation stalls. Teams either overuse AI without judgment or avoid it altogether. The real leadership challenge is about building confidence, capability, and trust in AI-assisted teams. 4 tips for building AI confidence in SEO teams Building real confidence in AI within an SEO team isn’t about deploying new tools. It’s about shifting the culture. The most effective SEO teams aren’t the ones adopting the most tools. They use AI intentionally and with discipline. They automate data pulls, summarize research, and cluster keywords. This allows teams to focus on strategy, storytelling, and stakeholder alignment. Technology adoption is largely cultural, as Harvard Business School has noted. Tools alone don’t drive change. Trust does. That insight applies directly to SEO teams navigating AI today. Below are four strategies for building AI confidence in your teams through clarity, participation, and shared ownership, not pressure or hype. 1. Earn trust by involving the team in AI tool selection and workflow design A practical way to strengthen trust is to move from top-down implementation to shared ownership. People trust what they help create. When AI is imposed on a team, resistance increases. Inviting people into evaluation and workflow design makes AI feel less intimidating and more empowering. Bringing teams in early also surfaces real-world insight into where AI reduces friction or introduces new risks. Effective leaders: Invite teams to test tools and share feedback. Run small experiments before scaling adoption. Communicate clearly about what you’re adopting, what you’re rejecting, and why. When teams feel included, they’re more willing to experiment. They learn and stretch into new capabilities. That openness fuels growth and innovation. Dig deeper: Why SEO teams need to ask ‘should we use AI?’ not just ‘can we?’ 2. Meet people where they are – not where you want them to be AI capability varies widely across SEO teams. Some practitioners experiment daily. Others feel overwhelmed or skeptical, often because they’ve seen past automation trends come and go. Leaders who strengthen confidence understand that capability develops at different speeds. They create environments that encourage curiosity, where uncertainty is normal, and learning happens continuously, not just when it’s mandated. That means: Normalizing different comfort levels. Creating psychological safety around “I don’t know yet.” Avoiding shame or over-celebration of early adopters. Offering multiple learning paths. Recognizing different starting points makes progress feel achievable rather than threatening. Your customers search everywhere. Make sure your brand shows up. The SEO toolkit you know, plus the AI visibility data you need. Start Free Trial Get started with 3. Celebrate wins and highlight champions Confidence grows through visible success. When someone uses AI to cut a task from hours to minutes, it’s more than a productivity gain. It proves AI can support real work without replacing human judgment. Effective teams: Share clear examples of AI improving quality and efficiency. Highlight internal champions who can mentor others. Create space for demos and knowledge sharing. Reinforce a culture of experimentation, not judgment. My agency formed AI focus groups with members from across the organization. One group focused on integrating AI into project management, with representatives from SEO, operations, and leadership. That shared ownership made adoption more successful. Teams weren’t just implementing AI; they were shaping how it fit into real workflows. The result was stronger buy-in, better collaboration, and greater confidence across the team. Each group shared its successes and lessons. This built awareness of what worked and why. Momentum builds when teams see their peers using AI responsibly and effectively. Dig deeper: The future of SEO teams is human-led and agent-powered 4. Frame AI as a collaborative partner, not a replacement Fear of replacement is real. Ignoring it doesn’t make it disappear. Teams need explicit clarity about where human expertise still matters. Reframing AI as a partner means emphasizing: AI handles volume. Humans handle nuance. AI accelerates analysis. Humans interpret meaning. AI drafts. Humans validate, refine and contextualize. AI scales output. Humans build trust and influence. AI can help with execution, but it can’t replace strategic instincts, contextual judgment, or cross-functional leadership. Those are the skills that ultimately move performance forward. Why experience still matters in AI-driven SEO AI has lowered the barrier to entry for many SEO tasks. With effective prompts, almost anyone can generate keyword lists, outlines, or summaries. With that accessibility, we see many short-lived tactics and recycled “quick wins.” Anyone who’s been in SEO long enough has seen this cycle before. The tactics change. The fundamentals don’t. This is where experience becomes the differentiator. AI can generate outputs, not accountability AI can produce content and analyze data, but it doesn’t own outcomes. It doesn’t carry responsibility for brand reputation, compliance, or long-term performance. SEO professionals remain accountable for: Deciding what to exclude from publication. Assessing technical, reputational, and compliance risks. Weighing long-term consequences against short-term gains. AI executes. Humans decide. That distinction matters more than ever. Pattern recognition is learned, not automated AI excels at surfacing patterns. It struggles to explain why they matter or whether they apply in a specific context. Experienced SEOs bring a depth of understanding that AI can’t replicate. Their historical background helps them distinguish true shifts from industry noise. Few industries have seen as many tactics rise and fall as SEO. Experience enables strategic thinking beyond what worked before and helps avoid repeating tactics that once succeeded but later failed. AI suggests possibilities. Experience evaluates relevance. Professional integrity remains a differentiator In high-visibility search environments, mistakes scale quickly. AI can produce inaccuracies and hallucinations. These errors can put brands at risk of losing trust and facing compliance issues. Teams with strong professional SEO foundations: Validate AI output instead of assuming correctness. Prioritize accuracy over speed. Maintain ethical SEO standards. Protect brand voice and credibility. Integrity isn’t automated. It’s practiced. In a high-speed AI environment, that discipline matters even more. Dig deeper: How to build and lead a successful remote SEO team Growing the SEO profession in an AI era AI is accelerating SEO execution. As routine tasks become automated, the SEO professional’s role shifts to strategic oversight. Time once spent on manual analysis can be redirected to interpreting user intent, shaping search strategy, guiding stakeholders, and assessing risk. This makes fundamentals more important. Teams still need sound judgment, technical expertise, and accountability. AI can support execution, but professionals remain responsible for decisions, quality, and long-term performance. Developing the next generation of SEOs requires more than proficiency with tools. It requires teaching: When to rely on AI. When to challenge it. How to apply experience and context to its output. View the full article

Move SEO upstream into leadership decisions to safeguard visibility, enforce standards, and scale sustainable search performance. The post Enterprise SEO Operating Models That Scale In 2026 And Beyond appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

The future looks green for Mike’s Red Tacos. The San Diego-based taco restaurant currently has only two locations, but it has caught the attention of the restaurant investors who made Dave’s Hot Chicken a scorching success. This week, the restaurant announced that it has secured franchise development agreements for more than 200 new locations around the country. Mike’s Red Tacos was founded as a food truck in 2021 by Mike Touma, followed by a brick-and-mortar location in 2022. The brand is gaining a fast-growing following on social media following—and now it’s primed for nationwide expansion. Fast casual with a taco twist Mike’s Red Tacos specializes in Birria—a traditional, slow-cooked Mexican stew dish that’s typically made from beef, lamb, or goat—which has exploded in popularity in recent years, largely due to social media trends. It can now be found, in various forms, on menus at numerous Mexican chains, including Taco Bell, Del Taco, and others. Mike’s Red Tacos is receiving support from early-stage investors and advisors Bill Phelps and Andrew Feghali. Phelps is executive chairman of Dave’s Hot Chicken, cofounder of Wetzel’s Pretzels, and a founding investor in Blaze Pizza. He tells Fast Company that very few restaurants catch his eye, but Mike’s ticked all the boxes. “I love entrepreneur-started businesses, and guys that have figured things out,” Phelps says. “The product is just amazing. It’s so good, it’s like a breakthrough within a category.” He adds that in the strata of Mexican chains, Mike’s sits in the fast-casual lane, closer to a chain like Chipotle, rather than a fast-food chain like Taco Bell. “We’ve learned over the years how to do the model for a fast-casual rollout in the franchise world, so we were able to put a team together very quickly of people we worked with before.” “There’s a lot of competition” Phelps says that he first walked into a Mike’s Red Tacos around a year ago, and immediately saw the potential. That’s a relatively rare occurrence. “It’s been once every five years we see something that looks really great and then we go for it,” Phelps says. “We like founder-created businesses that have incredible quality, but don’t know how to scale them—that’s what we bring to the party. We make a deal that is a great for the founder and for us (investors).” He knows success isn’t guaranteed, of course. “You need to leave your ego at the door,” he says. “There’s a lot of competition. A lot of work to do. You need to work your ass off.” A lot of that work will fall on Vincent Montanelli, a seasoned industry executive, who was named the company’s president. Previously, he held various leadership roles at Wetzel’s Pretzel’s. All told, the 200 or so Mike’s Red Tacos locations will be spread across 25 markets around the country, including Seattle, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Austin, Dallas, Chicago, Miami, Boston, and other locations around Southern California. The first new location is expected to open in San Diego in March, with a new, corporate-run location opening in Pasadena later this spring. View the full article

Party’s new ‘shadow chancellor’ is seeking to present a more conservative economic policy platform View the full article

Corey duBrowa spent much of his career advising some of the world’s most scrutinized leaders—from Marc Benioff at Salesforce to Sundar Pichai at Google. Now, as CEO of global communications firm Burson, he’s helping executives navigate a charged marketplace shaped by AI disruption, ICE activity, and nonstop reputational risk. He explains why reputation remains one of the most powerful (and most misunderstood) assets in business, and how leaders should decide whether, when, and how to speak up. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scalepodcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. You and I have talked privately in recent months about how hard it is in this environment for brands and leaders to figure out what to say, where the risks are, and where the opportunities are when so much seems like it’s up in the air. Is that what you’re hearing from your clients? They’re asking, looking, or trying to find that clarity? 100%, Bob. We’re in year two of The President’s second presidency. And so, there’s renewed protectionism. Certainly, tariffs are one aspect of this. Deregulation, the America First Trade Policy. And so, helping companies to navigate these shifting priorities, and be thinking about global trade, and, frankly, regulatory uncertainty, that’s one thing. There’s been a global shift to the right. There’s a conservative resurgence across Japan, France, Germany, U.K., to name but a few. Helping clients to be able to navigate that volatility, that societal polarization that everybody is dealing with. . . . We, in this country, because we pay attention to our own news, we’ll be focused on things like Minnesota, but you could also point to Iran, Gen Z-led protests across Asia, budget protests in Bulgaria, which were huge, and probably not on most people’s radar here. So, guiding clients through social listening and activist engagement, and brand neutrality. How do you stand for things without necessarily putting yourself in the line of fire? Like, that’s a thing. There’s the global AI governance race. There’s competing rules about how to shape AI’s futures. It was so fascinating, to me, to watch Google, of all companies, a company that has never really lacked for resources, go into the bond market, and raise more than $30 billion worth of 100-year debt. That’s a whole new thing. Yes. Because AI is expensive. And so, how that’s governed and the way that investments work in that world is a whole separate thing. There’s erosion of trust in traditional media. The Washington Post, you and I both have friends at The Post. Yes. A third of their staff is gone . . . at the same time that only 28% of U.S. adults trust mainstream media. . . . This was the Gallup poll that came out last year. That number was in the 70s in the ’70s—72% in 1972. Even the entities that are financially solvent, people have very strong feelings about. Absolutely. And what we’re observing more and more, Bob, I, certainly, saw it at Davos, and I saw it again with the Super Bowl, 4 in 10 U.S. adults, according to that same Gallup poll, get their news from digital influencers. And I’m not saying influencers are fake news at all. Many of them, frankly, come from the world of traditional media. But the fact that the trust is so upside down now where you have fewer than one in three Americans saying they trust traditional media forms, you realize that company-owned media channels and storytelling are becoming more important than they ever have been. Clients have to navigate all of this at the same time that they’re thinking about things like the erosion of institutional credibility, their own institutions, not necessarily conferring confidence in the AI. For all the advantages that it has, it actually amplifies mis and disinformation at scale. I think there’s a lot for clients to wrap their heads around, and that’s the job that we have is helping them to navigate a very confusing, and, frankly, pretty fragmented landscape. As you go through all of these disruptions and changes, in some ways, it’s a great time to be in the business you’re in, because you’re needed more, and the stakes have never been higher. But at the same time, the pressure’s also never been higher. Right? There is more that is at risk based on the way you communicate than it ever has been before. That’s totally true. For 15 years as a client, I had boards and C-suites asking me like, “Hey, if this thing goes really sideways, what does it cost us?” Or, “If this thing goes really well, this initiative, what’s the upside for us?” And so, we, at Davos, launched a study that proves that corporate reputation actually has quantifiable value, that companies with strong reputations realized almost 5%, 4.78% unexpected additional shareholder returns creating a reputation economy that’s worth almost $7 trillion. The stakes are a lot higher. We knew they were a lot higher, but now we can actually affix a value to those stakes. What defines a strong reputation in this environment? For years, I think we have been told, or it was received wisdom that there was this binary relationship of trust. Like, to be trusted or not trusted. And what I always knew is that reputation was actually comprised of different things. There’s a lab within the University of Oxford that helped us to develop this model. It takes into account eight different levers that comprise modern reputation. Citizenship, the degree of good that a company may or may not do in the world, but also creativity. How creative are your solutions? Governance, the structures and policies and integrity that help the company to be managed. Innovation, how forward-thinking are you? What new technologies or ideas are you putting forth? Leadership, how you manage at scale, the way that you navigate things. Performance, the financial results. Products, the quality, reliability, and perception of your products. And maybe more importantly, although I’m not sure it gets the play that it should, workplace. The culture, the well-being of your employees, the way that you manage talent. So, if you think about how companies manage these eight levers, it’s pretty bespoke. Right? Like, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all model. . . . Like, the way Starbucks would have thought about these eight levers would be pretty profoundly different than the way that Google would think about those eight levers. The lens of this research was around financial impact. But do business leaders have responsibility to think beyond just financial impact? Is there a connection between reputation and courage? Every company has the opportunity, and, frankly, responsibility to think about among these eight levers how they show up. Right? It’s your citizenship, how creative or innovative you are, the products or services you put out in the marketplace. You, as a company, have to determine what is your unique value that you can offer in that space, and the extent to which you really choose to pull that lever hard or don’t pull that lever hard. Because citizenship is one of these eight levers, I think all companies have both an opportunity to think about that, and also some risks attached to that. They have to think about, Are we picking a side? A political side. Or, Are we doing something that may really please our employees, but for our customer base it may be a different thing? This gets into the whole realm of stakeholder management, the way you start to think about how the actions that you take . . . Because you only really get to communicate, Bob, after you’ve taken action. Your actions give you the hall pass to communicate, and those actions . . . sure, they can very well be related to things like corporate citizenship out in the world, but you have to be mindful of the way that people are receiving things. The way that we did things at Starbucks back in the mid 2010s, in a different political environment with a different administration, would be received I suspect in a very different way in this administration, in this year of our Lord 2026, compared to what we did then. Choosing to do exactly the same things. And you might not necessarily choose to do them the same way, because of that environment. Exactly. Or you might choose to communicate about them in a different way. Context matters. Right? I think you have to start thinking about things like context and the actions in that context before you’re thinking about message. The message is almost the last thing that you’re thinking about. View the full article

Ukrainian president says US will monitor future truce, but he sees no breakthrough on political issues View the full article

If you’re tuning in to the Milan Cortina Olympics, you may be one of many spectators who’s suddenly invested in the sport of curling. You’re in good company: Swedish designer Gustaf Westman, best known for his chunky homeware, has become so fascinated by the event that he used it as inspiration for his latest design. Curling centers on an object called a “curling stone.” Using its gooseneck handle, competitors slide the round, 44-pound stone down an ice shuffleboard toward a target zone. Westman’s “curling bowl,” which he debuted on Instagram on February 10, reimagines the object as a snack bowl. The stone’s handle has been cleverly converted into the perfect slot for a glass of wine, or whatever beverage suits the moment, while its round base has been repurposed into a vessel for chips, crackers, and popcorn. The bowl is not listed for sale on Westman’s website at the time of this writing. Iconic Olympics-related objects like the ceremonial torch, cauldron, and medals may receive the most attention at the Games, but Westman’s new bowl gives the curling stone the flowers it’s owed. Designing the “curling bowl” Before Westman reimagined the curling stone as a receptacle for popcorn and charcuterie, it was already one of the most interesting pieces of sports gear at the Winter Olympics. Since 2006, every single stone that’s been thrown at the Games has been manufactured at one factory on the Scottish island of Ailsa Craig. That’s because the island’s microgranite is formed by fast-cooling magma, which makes it ultra dense and hard—perfectly suited for slamming into other curling stones at speed. Every stone is shaped, weighted, and polished to enable it to slide across the ice like butter, essentially making each a very precisely engineered work of art. Like his other designs (see Westman’s whimsical collection for Ikea and puzzle-inspired shelf, for example), the bowl is pleasantly chunky, rounded, and colorful. In place of the stone’s usual handle is a two-pronged appendage that allows a beverage to hover directly over a spot for snacks. Overall, the bowl leans more toward artistic than performance-driven, but it does take after the real thing in one key way: It can slide. In a video posted to his Instagram, Westman tested out his design at what appears to be a local rink, sending it shooting down the ice with potato chips, wine, and several bunches of grapes on board. At home, spectators might use this function to pass hors d’oeuvres down the table while enjoying the Games. “I love being present and commenting on the time we are living in with my design,” Westman told Dezeen. “I also think humor has a big place in design—this is a great example of that for me.” View the full article

A 301 redirect sends users and search engines from an old URL to a new one, passing on the SEO value. View the full article

Conflict resolution is crucial in any organization, as it helps maintain a productive work environment. Various methods exist, such as mediation, arbitration, and negotiation, each suited to different situations. Comprehending these techniques, along with the importance of active listening and clear communication, can greatly improve your approach to conflicts. By exploring these strategies, you’ll discover how to effectively address disputes and cultivate a culture of respect and trust among team members. What are the best practices you can implement? Key Takeaways Utilize active listening techniques to cultivate empathy and ensure all parties feel heard during conflict discussions. Promote clear communication by using “I statements” to express concerns without placing blame, fostering a constructive dialogue. Implement collaborative approaches that focus on win-win outcomes, encouraging open communication and innovative solutions among team members. Acknowledge and address emotional grievances to strengthen relationships and enhance understanding during conflict resolution. Foster a culture of respect and trust by maintaining transparency and encouraging professional development in conflict resolution skills. Understanding the Importance of Conflict Resolution Conflict resolution is a vital component of any workplace, as conflicts naturally emerge from the diverse backgrounds and personalities of employees. Addressing these disputes quickly is important to prevent missed deadlines and resentment, which can lead to significant financial losses. American businesses lose about $359 billion annually because of unresolved conflicts, highlighting the significance of effective dispute resolution methods. Utilizing alternative dispute resolution examples, such as mediation and arbitration, can help teams navigate conflicts more efficiently. Implementing a structured conflict resolution model encourages a healthier work environment, promoting employee well-being and enhancing overall company performance. Studies reveal that 53% of employees avoid “toxic” situations, resulting in an average loss of over seven workdays and costing organizations approximately $7,500 per employee. By prioritizing conflict resolution strategies, you’ll not just support ethical treatment and fairness but further contribute to a more productive workplace atmosphere. The Role of Leaders in Conflict Management Addressing disputes effectively isn’t merely about having the right strategies in place; it similarly heavily relies on the leaders within an organization. Leaders play an essential role in conflict management by utilizing various dispute resolution techniques and guiding employees through their disputes. By promoting ethical treatment and fairness, they guarantee a balanced approach between support and accountability. Comprehending alternative conflict resolution methods, such as those from the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model, allows you as a leader to select the most appropriate strategy based on the situation’s assertiveness and cooperativeness. This not only improves employee well-being but additionally cultivates a culture of trust and collaboration. A commitment to ethical practices can greatly reduce the costly consequences of unresolved conflicts, which amount to $359 billion annually for American businesses. In the end, knowing what’s ADR in business helps leaders facilitate productive dialogues and maintain a safe work environment. Strategies for Effective Conflict Resolution To effectively resolve conflicts, you need to understand different conflict styles, which can greatly impact outcomes. Leadership plays a crucial role in guiding teams through disputes, nurturing an environment that encourages collaboration and mutual respect. Understanding Conflict Styles Comprehending conflict styles is vital for managing disagreements effectively, and the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model provides a framework to help you identify your approach. It identifies five distinct styles: Avoiding, Competing, Accommodating, Compromising, and Collaborating. Each style varies in assertiveness and cooperativeness, depending on the situation’s demands. For instance, competing is high in assertiveness but low in cooperativeness, making it useful in emergencies, whereas collaborating seeks win-win solutions, enhancing relationships. When considering alternative means of dispute resolution, it’s fundamental to understand what’re four options for alternative dispute resolution. Applying the right conflict style can greatly improve resolution outcomes, benefiting both employee well-being and overall organizational health through effective alternative conflict resolution strategies. Role of Leadership As conflicts are an inevitable part of any workplace, effective leadership plays a crucial role in guiding and resolving these disputes. Leaders must address personal conflicts and assist employees in resolving theirs to maintain a safe and productive environment. Utilizing the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model, you can identify how many methods there are to conflict resolution, applying strategies like collaborating or compromising based on the situation. Open communication cultivates trust and reduces misunderstandings. Support balanced with accountability promotes fairness among team members. Effective resolution improves employee well-being, benefiting the organization financially. Building Collaborative Environments Creating collaborative environments is essential for effective conflict resolution in any workplace. By identifying shared goals among team members, you can reduce divisive attitudes and cultivate a cooperative atmosphere. This approach improves conflict resolution outcomes considerably. Encourage open communication and mutual comprehension to clarify misunderstandings, making it easier to navigate conflicts and reach consensus. Implementing the collaborating strategy from the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model prioritizes personal goals and relationships, encouraging stronger team dynamics. Moreover, promoting a culture of respect and inclusivity diminishes feelings of suspicion and bias, which often underlie conflicts. Finally, engaging in joint problem-solving sessions allows all parties to contribute to solutions, building trust and improving relationships, making future conflicts easier to manage and resolve. Active Listening as a Key Skill Active listening is crucial for cultivating empathy in conflict resolution, as it helps you comprehend others’ perspectives and emotions. To listen effectively, you can use techniques like maintaining eye contact, nodding, and summarizing what the speaker has said to guarantee comprehension. Importance of Empathy Empathy plays a crucial role in effective conflict resolution, and active listening stands out as a key skill in this process. When you actively listen, you not only hear the words but also pick up on non-verbal cues that reveal deeper emotions and intentions. This comprehension can greatly improve resolution outcomes. Research shows that when individuals feel heard, they’re 4.6 times more likely to be empowered in their work, leading to better team dynamics and productivity. By implementing techniques like summarizing and reflecting, you validate feelings and nurture collaboration. Active listening builds trust and open communication. Feeling acknowledged reduces workplace conflict. Empathetic engagement leads to improved performance. Techniques for Effective Listening Effective listening is essential for resolving conflicts, as it allows you to fully engage with the speaker and comprehend their perspective. By practicing active listening, you can greatly improve communication and reduce misunderstandings. Key techniques include maintaining eye contact, using verbal affirmations like “I see” or “I get it,” and summarizing the speaker’s points to confirm grasp. Listening without interruption enables the speaker to express their feelings, addressing deeper emotional issues. Technique Description Benefits Eye Contact Maintain direct eye contact throughout the conversation Builds trust Verbal Affirmations Use phrases to acknowledge comprehension Encourages openness Summarization Restate what’s been said to confirm grasp Reduces miscommunication The Power of Clear Communication When conflicts arise, clear communication becomes a potent tool for resolution. It’s fundamental to articulate issues without resorting to personal attacks, which cultivates a more constructive dialogue. Using “I statements” can considerably reduce defensiveness; for example, saying “I feel concerned” rather than “You never meet deadlines” promotes comprehension. Active listening is another critical aspect, allowing each party to express their perspective fully, important for finding common ground. To improve your conflict resolution efforts, consider these points: Establish a private setting for discussions to maintain respect and focus. Use direct but considerate language to reduce misunderstandings. Engage in active listening to guarantee both parties feel heard. Collaborating for Win-Win Outcomes Collaboration in conflict resolution not just improves relationships but furthermore prioritizes the goals of all parties involved, leading to mutually beneficial outcomes. This win-win approach is especially effective in complex situations that require input from multiple stakeholders. By encouraging open communication, you promote a deeper exploration of issues, which can result in innovative solutions that satisfy everyone involved. When you engage in collaboration, you not only improve employee well-being and morale but also contribute to a more cohesive and productive work environment. This improvement can eventually benefit your organization’s financial health by reducing costs tied to unresolved conflicts. Leaders play a significant role in this process, guiding teams to navigate disputes with a focus on common interests and collective problem-solving. By promoting collaboration, you create an atmosphere of mutual respect and shared success, making it easier to address conflicts effectively and constructively. Negotiation Techniques to Resolve Disputes When you’re maneuvering a dispute, employing effective negotiation techniques can make all the difference. Key strategies, such as using “I statements” to voice your concerns, help create a collaborative environment where both parties feel heard. Furthermore, perfecting communication techniques improves your ability to reach a mutually beneficial agreement, streamlining the resolution process. Key Negotiation Strategies Effective negotiation strategies are crucial for resolving disputes and promoting positive relationships between parties. Engaging in open communication allows everyone to express their needs without falling into adversarial tactics. Here’s how you can improve your negotiation outcomes: Use “I statements” to express concerns and prevent misinterpretations. Incorporate active listening techniques to encourage collaboration and comprehension. Follow a structured process, including acknowledging the conflict and brainstorming solutions. Effective Communication Techniques Communication plays a pivotal role in successful negotiation, as it establishes a foundation for comprehension between parties. To improve dialogue, use direct yet considerate language, which helps avoid confusion. Employ “I statements,” like “I feel concerned when deadlines slip,” to keep discussions focused on issues rather than personal attacks. This approach promotes constructive dialogue. Moreover, actively listen and practice emotional intelligence to acknowledge each other’s perspectives. This encourages a collaborative environment. It’s crucial to hold resolution-focused conversations in private settings, allowing uninterrupted expression of viewpoints. This space encourages mutual expression of needs, aiming for outcomes that feel fair to all involved, rather than prioritizing one party’s victory over another. Effective communication is key to successful conflict resolution. Addressing Emotional Grievances in Conflict Addressing emotional grievances in conflict often requires delving deeper than the immediate issues at hand, as unresolved feelings can greatly impact relationships and hinder effective resolutions. Conflicts over financial matters, for instance, often conceal deeper emotional concerns such as feelings of disrespect or being overlooked. By focusing on these underlying issues, you’re more likely to find effective resolutions that prevent recurring disputes. To facilitate this process, consider the following: Acknowledge feelings of being undervalued or dismissed. Engage in open communication to express emotional concerns. Identify shared goals to encourage collaboration. Listening and acknowledging these emotional grievances can strengthen relationships and promote comprehension. Taking the time to explore deeper emotional issues, rather than rushing to resolve conflicts, can lead to creative and mutually beneficial solutions. This approach not only addresses the symptoms but additionally the root causes of conflict, paving the way for healthier interactions in the future. Fostering a Culture of Respect and Trust Creating a culture of respect and trust within an organization is crucial for nurturing a productive work environment. When you cultivate this culture, you can greatly reduce the $359 billion annual losses faced by American businesses because of unresolved conflicts. Encouraging open communication and active listening helps prevent misunderstandings, which often lead to conflicts, promoting collaboration. By implementing the collaborating strategy from the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model, you empower employees to work together toward win-win solutions, enhancing trust and strengthening relationships. A commitment to fairness in conflict resolution is fundamental. Maintaining transparency and recognizing employees’ rights builds trust, encouraging a positive workplace culture. Moreover, providing professional development opportunities that focus on leadership and conflict resolution skills equips employees to navigate disputes effectively. This empowerment cultivates an environment of mutual respect, crucial for a thriving organization and beneficial for everyone involved. Developing a Structured Approach to Conflict Resolution A structured approach to conflict resolution is essential for effectively managing disputes within an organization. Start by recognizing the conflict, then set a resolution-focused conversation where everyone can express their viewpoints without interruption. Utilize the five strategies from the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model—Avoiding, Competing, Accommodating, Compromising, and Collaborating—to tailor your approach based on personal goals and relationships. Acknowledge the issue to build trust. Encourage brainstorming for diverse solutions. Agree on responsibilities to promote accountability. Effective conflict resolution hinges on active listening and emotional intelligence, allowing you to understand differing perspectives. Implementing a step-by-step process can lead to more satisfactory outcomes. Remember, as a leader, your role is significant; promote open dialogue, maintain neutrality, and encourage a culture of respect to guide your team through conflicts. Frequently Asked Questions What Are the 5 Main Conflict Resolution Strategies? The five main conflict resolution strategies are Avoiding, Competing, Accommodating, Compromising, and Collaborating. Avoiding neglects both personal goals and relationships, often leading to unresolved issues. Competing prioritizes personal goals, suitable for urgent decisions but can harm trust. Accommodating focuses on relationships by yielding to others’ needs, potentially stifling innovation. Compromising seeks a middle ground, whereas Collaborating aims for win-win solutions, satisfying both parties’ goals and enhancing relationships, making it the most effective approach. What Are the Methods of Conflict Resolution? You can resolve conflicts through various methods, each suited for different situations. Negotiation allows parties to communicate directly for a mutual agreement. Mediation involves a neutral third party facilitating dialogue. Arbitration submits disputes to an arbitrator for a binding decision. Avoidance works for low-stakes issues, whereas collaboration is best for complex problems, promoting win-win outcomes. Compromise requires both parties to make concessions, balancing goals and relationships for an acceptable resolution. What Is the Most Effective Method for Solving Conflicts? The most effective method for solving conflicts is collaboration. This approach guarantees both parties’ goals are acknowledged, encouraging a win-win outcome. By prioritizing open communication and actively listening, you can address underlying issues and strengthen relationships. Utilizing “I statements” during discussions can clarify your perspective without assigning blame. As different strategies exist, collaboration typically yields the best long-term results, enhancing trust and reducing the likelihood of future conflicts. What Are the 5 C’s of Conflict Resolution? The 5 C’s of conflict resolution are Communication, Cooperation, Compromise, Creativity, and Commitment. You must communicate openly to express your views and listen actively. Cooperation involves working together to achieve shared goals. When you compromise, both parties make concessions to find common ground. Creativity encourages exploring innovative solutions that may not be obvious. Finally, commitment guarantees you’re dedicated to resolving the conflict and maintaining relationships, making the process more effective and constructive. Conclusion In summary, effective conflict resolution is essential for maintaining a productive work environment. By comprehending various strategies, such as active listening, clear communication, and negotiation techniques, you can navigate disputes more effectively. Addressing emotional grievances and cultivating a culture of respect improves collaboration within teams. Leaders play a significant role in implementing structured approaches to conflict management, ensuring that conflicts are resolved constructively. In the end, these strategies contribute to improved relationships and overall organizational performance. Image via Google Gemini and ArtSmart This article, "Many Effective Methods for Conflict Resolution" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Conflict resolution is crucial in any organization, as it helps maintain a productive work environment. Various methods exist, such as mediation, arbitration, and negotiation, each suited to different situations. Comprehending these techniques, along with the importance of active listening and clear communication, can greatly improve your approach to conflicts. By exploring these strategies, you’ll discover how to effectively address disputes and cultivate a culture of respect and trust among team members. What are the best practices you can implement? Key Takeaways Utilize active listening techniques to cultivate empathy and ensure all parties feel heard during conflict discussions. Promote clear communication by using “I statements” to express concerns without placing blame, fostering a constructive dialogue. Implement collaborative approaches that focus on win-win outcomes, encouraging open communication and innovative solutions among team members. Acknowledge and address emotional grievances to strengthen relationships and enhance understanding during conflict resolution. Foster a culture of respect and trust by maintaining transparency and encouraging professional development in conflict resolution skills. Understanding the Importance of Conflict Resolution Conflict resolution is a vital component of any workplace, as conflicts naturally emerge from the diverse backgrounds and personalities of employees. Addressing these disputes quickly is important to prevent missed deadlines and resentment, which can lead to significant financial losses. American businesses lose about $359 billion annually because of unresolved conflicts, highlighting the significance of effective dispute resolution methods. Utilizing alternative dispute resolution examples, such as mediation and arbitration, can help teams navigate conflicts more efficiently. Implementing a structured conflict resolution model encourages a healthier work environment, promoting employee well-being and enhancing overall company performance. Studies reveal that 53% of employees avoid “toxic” situations, resulting in an average loss of over seven workdays and costing organizations approximately $7,500 per employee. By prioritizing conflict resolution strategies, you’ll not just support ethical treatment and fairness but further contribute to a more productive workplace atmosphere. The Role of Leaders in Conflict Management Addressing disputes effectively isn’t merely about having the right strategies in place; it similarly heavily relies on the leaders within an organization. Leaders play an essential role in conflict management by utilizing various dispute resolution techniques and guiding employees through their disputes. By promoting ethical treatment and fairness, they guarantee a balanced approach between support and accountability. Comprehending alternative conflict resolution methods, such as those from the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model, allows you as a leader to select the most appropriate strategy based on the situation’s assertiveness and cooperativeness. This not only improves employee well-being but additionally cultivates a culture of trust and collaboration. A commitment to ethical practices can greatly reduce the costly consequences of unresolved conflicts, which amount to $359 billion annually for American businesses. In the end, knowing what’s ADR in business helps leaders facilitate productive dialogues and maintain a safe work environment. Strategies for Effective Conflict Resolution To effectively resolve conflicts, you need to understand different conflict styles, which can greatly impact outcomes. Leadership plays a crucial role in guiding teams through disputes, nurturing an environment that encourages collaboration and mutual respect. Understanding Conflict Styles Comprehending conflict styles is vital for managing disagreements effectively, and the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model provides a framework to help you identify your approach. It identifies five distinct styles: Avoiding, Competing, Accommodating, Compromising, and Collaborating. Each style varies in assertiveness and cooperativeness, depending on the situation’s demands. For instance, competing is high in assertiveness but low in cooperativeness, making it useful in emergencies, whereas collaborating seeks win-win solutions, enhancing relationships. When considering alternative means of dispute resolution, it’s fundamental to understand what’re four options for alternative dispute resolution. Applying the right conflict style can greatly improve resolution outcomes, benefiting both employee well-being and overall organizational health through effective alternative conflict resolution strategies. Role of Leadership As conflicts are an inevitable part of any workplace, effective leadership plays a crucial role in guiding and resolving these disputes. Leaders must address personal conflicts and assist employees in resolving theirs to maintain a safe and productive environment. Utilizing the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model, you can identify how many methods there are to conflict resolution, applying strategies like collaborating or compromising based on the situation. Open communication cultivates trust and reduces misunderstandings. Support balanced with accountability promotes fairness among team members. Effective resolution improves employee well-being, benefiting the organization financially. Building Collaborative Environments Creating collaborative environments is essential for effective conflict resolution in any workplace. By identifying shared goals among team members, you can reduce divisive attitudes and cultivate a cooperative atmosphere. This approach improves conflict resolution outcomes considerably. Encourage open communication and mutual comprehension to clarify misunderstandings, making it easier to navigate conflicts and reach consensus. Implementing the collaborating strategy from the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model prioritizes personal goals and relationships, encouraging stronger team dynamics. Moreover, promoting a culture of respect and inclusivity diminishes feelings of suspicion and bias, which often underlie conflicts. Finally, engaging in joint problem-solving sessions allows all parties to contribute to solutions, building trust and improving relationships, making future conflicts easier to manage and resolve. Active Listening as a Key Skill Active listening is crucial for cultivating empathy in conflict resolution, as it helps you comprehend others’ perspectives and emotions. To listen effectively, you can use techniques like maintaining eye contact, nodding, and summarizing what the speaker has said to guarantee comprehension. Importance of Empathy Empathy plays a crucial role in effective conflict resolution, and active listening stands out as a key skill in this process. When you actively listen, you not only hear the words but also pick up on non-verbal cues that reveal deeper emotions and intentions. This comprehension can greatly improve resolution outcomes. Research shows that when individuals feel heard, they’re 4.6 times more likely to be empowered in their work, leading to better team dynamics and productivity. By implementing techniques like summarizing and reflecting, you validate feelings and nurture collaboration. Active listening builds trust and open communication. Feeling acknowledged reduces workplace conflict. Empathetic engagement leads to improved performance. Techniques for Effective Listening Effective listening is essential for resolving conflicts, as it allows you to fully engage with the speaker and comprehend their perspective. By practicing active listening, you can greatly improve communication and reduce misunderstandings. Key techniques include maintaining eye contact, using verbal affirmations like “I see” or “I get it,” and summarizing the speaker’s points to confirm grasp. Listening without interruption enables the speaker to express their feelings, addressing deeper emotional issues. Technique Description Benefits Eye Contact Maintain direct eye contact throughout the conversation Builds trust Verbal Affirmations Use phrases to acknowledge comprehension Encourages openness Summarization Restate what’s been said to confirm grasp Reduces miscommunication The Power of Clear Communication When conflicts arise, clear communication becomes a potent tool for resolution. It’s fundamental to articulate issues without resorting to personal attacks, which cultivates a more constructive dialogue. Using “I statements” can considerably reduce defensiveness; for example, saying “I feel concerned” rather than “You never meet deadlines” promotes comprehension. Active listening is another critical aspect, allowing each party to express their perspective fully, important for finding common ground. To improve your conflict resolution efforts, consider these points: Establish a private setting for discussions to maintain respect and focus. Use direct but considerate language to reduce misunderstandings. Engage in active listening to guarantee both parties feel heard. Collaborating for Win-Win Outcomes Collaboration in conflict resolution not just improves relationships but furthermore prioritizes the goals of all parties involved, leading to mutually beneficial outcomes. This win-win approach is especially effective in complex situations that require input from multiple stakeholders. By encouraging open communication, you promote a deeper exploration of issues, which can result in innovative solutions that satisfy everyone involved. When you engage in collaboration, you not only improve employee well-being and morale but also contribute to a more cohesive and productive work environment. This improvement can eventually benefit your organization’s financial health by reducing costs tied to unresolved conflicts. Leaders play a significant role in this process, guiding teams to navigate disputes with a focus on common interests and collective problem-solving. By promoting collaboration, you create an atmosphere of mutual respect and shared success, making it easier to address conflicts effectively and constructively. Negotiation Techniques to Resolve Disputes When you’re maneuvering a dispute, employing effective negotiation techniques can make all the difference. Key strategies, such as using “I statements” to voice your concerns, help create a collaborative environment where both parties feel heard. Furthermore, perfecting communication techniques improves your ability to reach a mutually beneficial agreement, streamlining the resolution process. Key Negotiation Strategies Effective negotiation strategies are crucial for resolving disputes and promoting positive relationships between parties. Engaging in open communication allows everyone to express their needs without falling into adversarial tactics. Here’s how you can improve your negotiation outcomes: Use “I statements” to express concerns and prevent misinterpretations. Incorporate active listening techniques to encourage collaboration and comprehension. Follow a structured process, including acknowledging the conflict and brainstorming solutions. Effective Communication Techniques Communication plays a pivotal role in successful negotiation, as it establishes a foundation for comprehension between parties. To improve dialogue, use direct yet considerate language, which helps avoid confusion. Employ “I statements,” like “I feel concerned when deadlines slip,” to keep discussions focused on issues rather than personal attacks. This approach promotes constructive dialogue. Moreover, actively listen and practice emotional intelligence to acknowledge each other’s perspectives. This encourages a collaborative environment. It’s crucial to hold resolution-focused conversations in private settings, allowing uninterrupted expression of viewpoints. This space encourages mutual expression of needs, aiming for outcomes that feel fair to all involved, rather than prioritizing one party’s victory over another. Effective communication is key to successful conflict resolution. Addressing Emotional Grievances in Conflict Addressing emotional grievances in conflict often requires delving deeper than the immediate issues at hand, as unresolved feelings can greatly impact relationships and hinder effective resolutions. Conflicts over financial matters, for instance, often conceal deeper emotional concerns such as feelings of disrespect or being overlooked. By focusing on these underlying issues, you’re more likely to find effective resolutions that prevent recurring disputes. To facilitate this process, consider the following: Acknowledge feelings of being undervalued or dismissed. Engage in open communication to express emotional concerns. Identify shared goals to encourage collaboration. Listening and acknowledging these emotional grievances can strengthen relationships and promote comprehension. Taking the time to explore deeper emotional issues, rather than rushing to resolve conflicts, can lead to creative and mutually beneficial solutions. This approach not only addresses the symptoms but additionally the root causes of conflict, paving the way for healthier interactions in the future. Fostering a Culture of Respect and Trust Creating a culture of respect and trust within an organization is crucial for nurturing a productive work environment. When you cultivate this culture, you can greatly reduce the $359 billion annual losses faced by American businesses because of unresolved conflicts. Encouraging open communication and active listening helps prevent misunderstandings, which often lead to conflicts, promoting collaboration. By implementing the collaborating strategy from the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model, you empower employees to work together toward win-win solutions, enhancing trust and strengthening relationships. A commitment to fairness in conflict resolution is fundamental. Maintaining transparency and recognizing employees’ rights builds trust, encouraging a positive workplace culture. Moreover, providing professional development opportunities that focus on leadership and conflict resolution skills equips employees to navigate disputes effectively. This empowerment cultivates an environment of mutual respect, crucial for a thriving organization and beneficial for everyone involved. Developing a Structured Approach to Conflict Resolution A structured approach to conflict resolution is essential for effectively managing disputes within an organization. Start by recognizing the conflict, then set a resolution-focused conversation where everyone can express their viewpoints without interruption. Utilize the five strategies from the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model—Avoiding, Competing, Accommodating, Compromising, and Collaborating—to tailor your approach based on personal goals and relationships. Acknowledge the issue to build trust. Encourage brainstorming for diverse solutions. Agree on responsibilities to promote accountability. Effective conflict resolution hinges on active listening and emotional intelligence, allowing you to understand differing perspectives. Implementing a step-by-step process can lead to more satisfactory outcomes. Remember, as a leader, your role is significant; promote open dialogue, maintain neutrality, and encourage a culture of respect to guide your team through conflicts. Frequently Asked Questions What Are the 5 Main Conflict Resolution Strategies? The five main conflict resolution strategies are Avoiding, Competing, Accommodating, Compromising, and Collaborating. Avoiding neglects both personal goals and relationships, often leading to unresolved issues. Competing prioritizes personal goals, suitable for urgent decisions but can harm trust. Accommodating focuses on relationships by yielding to others’ needs, potentially stifling innovation. Compromising seeks a middle ground, whereas Collaborating aims for win-win solutions, satisfying both parties’ goals and enhancing relationships, making it the most effective approach. What Are the Methods of Conflict Resolution? You can resolve conflicts through various methods, each suited for different situations. Negotiation allows parties to communicate directly for a mutual agreement. Mediation involves a neutral third party facilitating dialogue. Arbitration submits disputes to an arbitrator for a binding decision. Avoidance works for low-stakes issues, whereas collaboration is best for complex problems, promoting win-win outcomes. Compromise requires both parties to make concessions, balancing goals and relationships for an acceptable resolution. What Is the Most Effective Method for Solving Conflicts? The most effective method for solving conflicts is collaboration. This approach guarantees both parties’ goals are acknowledged, encouraging a win-win outcome. By prioritizing open communication and actively listening, you can address underlying issues and strengthen relationships. Utilizing “I statements” during discussions can clarify your perspective without assigning blame. As different strategies exist, collaboration typically yields the best long-term results, enhancing trust and reducing the likelihood of future conflicts. What Are the 5 C’s of Conflict Resolution? The 5 C’s of conflict resolution are Communication, Cooperation, Compromise, Creativity, and Commitment. You must communicate openly to express your views and listen actively. Cooperation involves working together to achieve shared goals. When you compromise, both parties make concessions to find common ground. Creativity encourages exploring innovative solutions that may not be obvious. Finally, commitment guarantees you’re dedicated to resolving the conflict and maintaining relationships, making the process more effective and constructive. Conclusion In summary, effective conflict resolution is essential for maintaining a productive work environment. By comprehending various strategies, such as active listening, clear communication, and negotiation techniques, you can navigate disputes more effectively. Addressing emotional grievances and cultivating a culture of respect improves collaboration within teams. Leaders play a significant role in implementing structured approaches to conflict management, ensuring that conflicts are resolved constructively. In the end, these strategies contribute to improved relationships and overall organizational performance. Image via Google Gemini and ArtSmart This article, "Many Effective Methods for Conflict Resolution" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Zoho is marking its 30th anniversary with a milestone meant to signal stability in a fast-changing software market: the company says it has surpassed one million paying customers and 150 million users globally, following what it describes as 32% year-over-year customer growth and 20% revenue growth in 2025. For small business owners juggling rising costs, staffing constraints, and more complex operations, the announcement reinforces a familiar question: does it make more sense to run on a connected suite of tools—or to stitch together specialized apps and hope the integrations hold? Zoho Corporation—whose portfolio includes Zoho, ManageEngine, Qntrl, and TrainerCentral—positioned its growth as evidence that businesses of all sizes continue to look for “powerful, scalable, and affordable solutions,” especially from vendors that can consolidate workflows across departments. The company shared a short milestone page with additional context here: Zoho Corporation one million customers milestone. Zoho’s leadership used the anniversary to underscore its business model and product philosophy. “Being bootstrapped, private, and built entirely in-house makes Zoho an outlier among competitors,” says Sridhar Vembu, Co-founder and Chief Scientist, Zoho Corporation. “But vendors don’t need our help, businesses do, which is why delivering customer value has, for 30 years, been Zoho Corporation’s North Star. Before any innovation, strategy, or guiding principle becomes a product, pivot, or policy, it must first affirm the question, ‘Will this help businesses?’ We are incredibly grateful that companies around the world have responded so positively to our customer-first approach over the past three decades, and will continue to meet the evolving needs of businesses with powerful, scalable, and affordable solutions.” For small businesses, vendor claims about “customer-first” tend to land only if owners see tangible results: smoother sales pipelines, fewer manual steps in invoicing and collections, more reliable IT operations, better visibility into performance, or faster onboarding for new employees. Zoho’s strategy aims at that practicality by offering a broad portfolio under one roof—starting with its main suite at Zoho.com and extending to IT management via ManageEngine, process orchestration via Qntrl, and training delivery via TrainerCentral. What the Milestone Means in Day-to-Day Terms A customer count doesn’t automatically translate to “best fit” for your company, but it can hint at product maturity and ongoing investment. For a busy owner, the more immediate value is whether a platform can: Keep customer and financial data consistent across teams Reduce duplicate data entry Automate routine handoffs (lead → deal → onboarding → billing → support) Make it easier to report on what’s working without pulling spreadsheets from five systems Zoho’s announcement didn’t introduce a specific new feature set. Instead, it used customer stories to argue that businesses use the portfolio to scale and adapt over time—without getting boxed into rigid processes. Zoho spotlighted customers across industries, including manufacturing, security, IT operations, and healthcare, and it framed their experience around partnership, flexibility, and consolidation. “’Partnership’ is a word that gets frequently used in business, but it rarely matches its definition … With Zoho, I can say that they have always genuinely felt like a true partner. Rather than simply delivering software, Zoho engages with us in a collaborative way — helping us think through challenges, adapt to change, and improve how we operate. That level of customer focus and long-term perspective is what has made our relationship endure over eight years.” David Fauser, VP of Sales, Marketing and Strategy – CIMCO Another customer emphasized the ability to adjust systems during organizational change—an issue that can hit SMBs just as hard as enterprises, especially after acquisitions, rapid hiring, or shifts in service models. “As our business has evolved over the past 10 years through further acquisitions, organizational restructures and new operating models, Zoho has continued to scale with us rather than forcing us into rigid frameworks … The broad range of apps available and the extreme flexibility they offer have repeatedly helped us quickly pivot our business needs, make informed decisions, and maintain momentum during times of significant challenge.” Brandon Lennix, Director of Commercial Operations – GardaWorld For small businesses, “flexibility” often comes down to whether the software can handle real-world quirks: unique pricing rules, approvals, territory structures, multiple service lines, or customer onboarding steps that differ by client type. Many SMBs also want the freedom to start simple and add complexity only when needed—without replatforming every two years. Where SMBs Typically See Practical Value Even though Zoho’s milestone announcement stayed high-level, the underlying suite narrative maps to a few common SMB scenarios: 1) Reducing tool sprawl If you currently run a CRM, separate email marketing tool, separate help desk, separate invoicing platform, and separate analytics/reporting app, you likely deal with fragmented customer records. A suite approach can centralize customer data, reduce duplicate work, and make reporting less painful—especially when a small team wears multiple hats. 2) Improving visibility without hiring a full analytics team Owners often don’t need “big data.” They need fast answers: Which offers convert? Which sales rep pipeline looks real? Which service line has margin compression? Which customers create the most support load? Platforms that unify activity across sales, finance, and support can make these answers easier to access—assuming the underlying data remains clean. 3) Supporting growth without ripping and replacing systems Businesses that grow from a handful of users to dozens (or hundreds) often discover that their first tools can’t handle permissions, reporting, automation, or process complexity. Several Zoho customer quotes focused on expanding usage rather than switching vendors midstream. “After seven plus years of using Zoho, we are convinced it is the right CRM for us. A project that started with just a few users has grown to over 1,000, largely because we have built a partnership with Zoho that addresses our demanding growth and business needs.” Rene Selemi, Vice President of Operations – IDT “Like many, our decade-plus journey with Zoho began with just one application, Zoho CRM, and like many, Zoho has grown with us. Once we realized we could run our entire business on Zoho, we moved over to Zoho One. Over time, our entire business has improved, and it has everything to do with Zoho providing a suite of products at a reasonable price, with far better support than competitors.” Roque Rodon, Director of Operations – Erase.com And for companies operating in multi-dealer or multi-region models—where CRM, analytics, integrations, and workflow automation all need to connect—Zoho highlighted the “integrated ecosystem” angle. “We’ve been with Zoho since 2014, and what keeps us here is the breadth of the platform. As a Canadian hot tub manufacturer with over 200 dealers across North American and Europe, we need our CRM, analytics, and operations tools to work together seamlessly. Zoho gives us that integrated ecosystem without forcing us into enterprise-level pricing. As our business has grown and our needs have become more sophisticated—from dealer management to API integrations and workflow automation—Zoho has scaled with us. Thank you to everyone at Zoho for building a platform that allows mid-market companies like ours punch well above their weight – you’ve given us an essential tool in the growth of Arctic Spas.” Phil Edey, General Manager – Arctic Spas Zoho also called out the ManageEngine brand in the context of IT operations growth—relevant for SMBs that increasingly face enterprise-grade security expectations from customers and insurers, even if they don’t have enterprise budgets. “When we started our journey with ManageEngine 15 years ago, our operations were much smaller in scale. As our company expanded, so did ManageEngine … We’ve grown with the product suites, and whatever goals or challenges we have, ManageEngine seems to always have the solution.” Gerry Forde, IT Operations Manager – Lakeland Dairies What to Consider Before Consolidating on One Platform Zoho’s customer stories emphasize breadth, flexibility, and support. Small business owners evaluating a similar “suite-first” move often benefit from stress-testing a few practical areas before committing deeper: Implementation ownership: Even easy-to-use platforms require process decisions. Someone must map workflows, define fields, set permissions, and maintain data hygiene. If nobody owns it, automation can turn into chaos. Integration reality: Many SMBs rely on specialized industry tools (POS systems, vertical scheduling, niche e-commerce workflows). Confirm what integrates out-of-the-box and what requires custom API work. Switching costs: Consolidation can lower monthly costs and reduce friction, but it can also make future migrations harder. Ask about exports, APIs, and how easily you can retrieve data and rebuild workflows if plans change. Support experience at your scale: Quotes praise strong support, but support can vary by product line and region. A pilot project and reference calls with similarly sized businesses can clarify what you’ll experience. Zoho also included a customer quote highlighting a theme many owners are debating right now: using AI to automate work without losing service quality or creating a “black box” business process. “We were interested in Zoho due to the quality of the software, but began using it once we saw that it’s a company that shares our values—growing a business with purpose, not simply just to make money. We liked Zoho’s mission to create jobs, train internally, and maintain a healthy work culture. We have always felt a genuine interest from Zoho in getting to know our company, our needs, and building software that actually works for us, even in a specific industry like healthcare. Over time, we’ve eliminated now-extraneous software systems, and Zoho has become our operational powerhouse. The tech space is changing rapidly, but so far we’ve been impressed by how Zoho has balanced embracing AI and maintaining a human touch, something that is a priority of ours, as well.” Jessica Miller, LMHC, Chief People Officer – Island Psychiatry and Island Practice Management The Real-World Implication for SMBs Zoho’s 30-year milestone announcement is, at its core, an argument for operational simplification: fewer vendors, fewer disconnected systems, and a longer runway for growth without a disruptive technology reset. That approach can appeal to owners who want to spend less time managing software and more time managing customers, employees, and cash flow. At the same time, the best choice depends on how your business runs today. For some companies, a suite reduces friction immediately. For others—especially those with specialized requirements—best-of-breed tools still win, provided the integrations remain reliable and the team can manage the operational overhead. Zoho’s milestones and customer stories suggest it expects more small and midsize businesses to choose consolidation as complexity rises. For owners weighing that move, the most practical next step is simple: identify the workflows that cost you the most time (lead handling, invoicing, collections, support triage, reporting), then evaluate whether a unified ecosystem—Zoho’s or another vendor’s—can reduce steps without creating new bottlenecks. This article, "Zoho Marks 30 Years With 1 Million Customers and Growing SMB Demand" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Zoho is marking its 30th anniversary with a milestone meant to signal stability in a fast-changing software market: the company says it has surpassed one million paying customers and 150 million users globally, following what it describes as 32% year-over-year customer growth and 20% revenue growth in 2025. For small business owners juggling rising costs, staffing constraints, and more complex operations, the announcement reinforces a familiar question: does it make more sense to run on a connected suite of tools—or to stitch together specialized apps and hope the integrations hold? Zoho Corporation—whose portfolio includes Zoho, ManageEngine, Qntrl, and TrainerCentral—positioned its growth as evidence that businesses of all sizes continue to look for “powerful, scalable, and affordable solutions,” especially from vendors that can consolidate workflows across departments. The company shared a short milestone page with additional context here: Zoho Corporation one million customers milestone. Zoho’s leadership used the anniversary to underscore its business model and product philosophy. “Being bootstrapped, private, and built entirely in-house makes Zoho an outlier among competitors,” says Sridhar Vembu, Co-founder and Chief Scientist, Zoho Corporation. “But vendors don’t need our help, businesses do, which is why delivering customer value has, for 30 years, been Zoho Corporation’s North Star. Before any innovation, strategy, or guiding principle becomes a product, pivot, or policy, it must first affirm the question, ‘Will this help businesses?’ We are incredibly grateful that companies around the world have responded so positively to our customer-first approach over the past three decades, and will continue to meet the evolving needs of businesses with powerful, scalable, and affordable solutions.” For small businesses, vendor claims about “customer-first” tend to land only if owners see tangible results: smoother sales pipelines, fewer manual steps in invoicing and collections, more reliable IT operations, better visibility into performance, or faster onboarding for new employees. Zoho’s strategy aims at that practicality by offering a broad portfolio under one roof—starting with its main suite at Zoho.com and extending to IT management via ManageEngine, process orchestration via Qntrl, and training delivery via TrainerCentral. What the Milestone Means in Day-to-Day Terms A customer count doesn’t automatically translate to “best fit” for your company, but it can hint at product maturity and ongoing investment. For a busy owner, the more immediate value is whether a platform can: Keep customer and financial data consistent across teams Reduce duplicate data entry Automate routine handoffs (lead → deal → onboarding → billing → support) Make it easier to report on what’s working without pulling spreadsheets from five systems Zoho’s announcement didn’t introduce a specific new feature set. Instead, it used customer stories to argue that businesses use the portfolio to scale and adapt over time—without getting boxed into rigid processes. Zoho spotlighted customers across industries, including manufacturing, security, IT operations, and healthcare, and it framed their experience around partnership, flexibility, and consolidation. “’Partnership’ is a word that gets frequently used in business, but it rarely matches its definition … With Zoho, I can say that they have always genuinely felt like a true partner. Rather than simply delivering software, Zoho engages with us in a collaborative way — helping us think through challenges, adapt to change, and improve how we operate. That level of customer focus and long-term perspective is what has made our relationship endure over eight years.” David Fauser, VP of Sales, Marketing and Strategy – CIMCO Another customer emphasized the ability to adjust systems during organizational change—an issue that can hit SMBs just as hard as enterprises, especially after acquisitions, rapid hiring, or shifts in service models. “As our business has evolved over the past 10 years through further acquisitions, organizational restructures and new operating models, Zoho has continued to scale with us rather than forcing us into rigid frameworks … The broad range of apps available and the extreme flexibility they offer have repeatedly helped us quickly pivot our business needs, make informed decisions, and maintain momentum during times of significant challenge.” Brandon Lennix, Director of Commercial Operations – GardaWorld For small businesses, “flexibility” often comes down to whether the software can handle real-world quirks: unique pricing rules, approvals, territory structures, multiple service lines, or customer onboarding steps that differ by client type. Many SMBs also want the freedom to start simple and add complexity only when needed—without replatforming every two years. Where SMBs Typically See Practical Value Even though Zoho’s milestone announcement stayed high-level, the underlying suite narrative maps to a few common SMB scenarios: 1) Reducing tool sprawl If you currently run a CRM, separate email marketing tool, separate help desk, separate invoicing platform, and separate analytics/reporting app, you likely deal with fragmented customer records. A suite approach can centralize customer data, reduce duplicate work, and make reporting less painful—especially when a small team wears multiple hats. 2) Improving visibility without hiring a full analytics team Owners often don’t need “big data.” They need fast answers: Which offers convert? Which sales rep pipeline looks real? Which service line has margin compression? Which customers create the most support load? Platforms that unify activity across sales, finance, and support can make these answers easier to access—assuming the underlying data remains clean. 3) Supporting growth without ripping and replacing systems Businesses that grow from a handful of users to dozens (or hundreds) often discover that their first tools can’t handle permissions, reporting, automation, or process complexity. Several Zoho customer quotes focused on expanding usage rather than switching vendors midstream. “After seven plus years of using Zoho, we are convinced it is the right CRM for us. A project that started with just a few users has grown to over 1,000, largely because we have built a partnership with Zoho that addresses our demanding growth and business needs.” Rene Selemi, Vice President of Operations – IDT “Like many, our decade-plus journey with Zoho began with just one application, Zoho CRM, and like many, Zoho has grown with us. Once we realized we could run our entire business on Zoho, we moved over to Zoho One. Over time, our entire business has improved, and it has everything to do with Zoho providing a suite of products at a reasonable price, with far better support than competitors.” Roque Rodon, Director of Operations – Erase.com And for companies operating in multi-dealer or multi-region models—where CRM, analytics, integrations, and workflow automation all need to connect—Zoho highlighted the “integrated ecosystem” angle. “We’ve been with Zoho since 2014, and what keeps us here is the breadth of the platform. As a Canadian hot tub manufacturer with over 200 dealers across North American and Europe, we need our CRM, analytics, and operations tools to work together seamlessly. Zoho gives us that integrated ecosystem without forcing us into enterprise-level pricing. As our business has grown and our needs have become more sophisticated—from dealer management to API integrations and workflow automation—Zoho has scaled with us. Thank you to everyone at Zoho for building a platform that allows mid-market companies like ours punch well above their weight – you’ve given us an essential tool in the growth of Arctic Spas.” Phil Edey, General Manager – Arctic Spas Zoho also called out the ManageEngine brand in the context of IT operations growth—relevant for SMBs that increasingly face enterprise-grade security expectations from customers and insurers, even if they don’t have enterprise budgets. “When we started our journey with ManageEngine 15 years ago, our operations were much smaller in scale. As our company expanded, so did ManageEngine … We’ve grown with the product suites, and whatever goals or challenges we have, ManageEngine seems to always have the solution.” Gerry Forde, IT Operations Manager – Lakeland Dairies What to Consider Before Consolidating on One Platform Zoho’s customer stories emphasize breadth, flexibility, and support. Small business owners evaluating a similar “suite-first” move often benefit from stress-testing a few practical areas before committing deeper: Implementation ownership: Even easy-to-use platforms require process decisions. Someone must map workflows, define fields, set permissions, and maintain data hygiene. If nobody owns it, automation can turn into chaos. Integration reality: Many SMBs rely on specialized industry tools (POS systems, vertical scheduling, niche e-commerce workflows). Confirm what integrates out-of-the-box and what requires custom API work. Switching costs: Consolidation can lower monthly costs and reduce friction, but it can also make future migrations harder. Ask about exports, APIs, and how easily you can retrieve data and rebuild workflows if plans change. Support experience at your scale: Quotes praise strong support, but support can vary by product line and region. A pilot project and reference calls with similarly sized businesses can clarify what you’ll experience. Zoho also included a customer quote highlighting a theme many owners are debating right now: using AI to automate work without losing service quality or creating a “black box” business process. “We were interested in Zoho due to the quality of the software, but began using it once we saw that it’s a company that shares our values—growing a business with purpose, not simply just to make money. We liked Zoho’s mission to create jobs, train internally, and maintain a healthy work culture. We have always felt a genuine interest from Zoho in getting to know our company, our needs, and building software that actually works for us, even in a specific industry like healthcare. Over time, we’ve eliminated now-extraneous software systems, and Zoho has become our operational powerhouse. The tech space is changing rapidly, but so far we’ve been impressed by how Zoho has balanced embracing AI and maintaining a human touch, something that is a priority of ours, as well.” Jessica Miller, LMHC, Chief People Officer – Island Psychiatry and Island Practice Management The Real-World Implication for SMBs Zoho’s 30-year milestone announcement is, at its core, an argument for operational simplification: fewer vendors, fewer disconnected systems, and a longer runway for growth without a disruptive technology reset. That approach can appeal to owners who want to spend less time managing software and more time managing customers, employees, and cash flow. At the same time, the best choice depends on how your business runs today. For some companies, a suite reduces friction immediately. For others—especially those with specialized requirements—best-of-breed tools still win, provided the integrations remain reliable and the team can manage the operational overhead. Zoho’s milestones and customer stories suggest it expects more small and midsize businesses to choose consolidation as complexity rises. For owners weighing that move, the most practical next step is simple: identify the workflows that cost you the most time (lead handling, invoicing, collections, support triage, reporting), then evaluate whether a unified ecosystem—Zoho’s or another vendor’s—can reduce steps without creating new bottlenecks. This article, "Zoho Marks 30 Years With 1 Million Customers and Growing SMB Demand" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Banks and credit unions are pairing AI-driven efficiency with stable staffing and cross-training to scale mortgage production as originations rebound and technology expands capacity. View the full article

In early February, the 22-year-old design brand Areaware announced it will close on May 1 citing tariffs and “mounting pressures on the home goods industry” in a letter posted to its Instagram account. “Every product we’ve made has been an act of optimism—a belief that good design can make our world a little better,” the letter said. “Lately though, our world has been making that difficult for us to do.” It’s been a challenging few months for good design brands. In December, Food52, the parent company of Schoolhouse and Dansk, declared bankruptcy; earlier in February, it was stripped for parts and sold at auction. While Areaware and Food52 don’t share the exact same business model, both brands were curators and manufacturers that assembled an eclectic mix of goods targeted toward an aspirational shopper who valued design, affordability, and storytelling in everyday objects. It’s a type of company that looks like it’s on its way out. “To be both a curatorial voice and a manufacturing voice are two disparate and incompatible forces,” says Noel Wiggins, Areaware’s cofounder and CEO. “It is not a great business model. It’s a wonderful creative model.” A ‘record label’ for industrial design Areaware has been a fixture in the home goods landscape since launching its first collection in 2005. It established itself as a publisher of stylish, playful, and accessibly priced products that cut across categories. If you wanted to buy something distinctive but tasteful—a minimalist silver baby rattle, brightly patterned napkins, pastel candles shaped like blobs—you could find it on Areaware’s website. From the start, Areaware primarily licensed pieces from independent designers, who received a 6% royalty fee, and manufactured them. Less than 10% of products were designed in-house. Through this model, it forged an entire ecosystem of design, from product development to manufacturing to wholesale and eventually direct-to-consumer retail, which it began strategically investing in four years ago. By 2024, direct sales accounted for 26% of overall revenue, domestic wholesale was responsible for 64%, and international accounts and global partners made up 10%. Artists and designers who wanted to mass produce their work knew they had a partner in the brand, which took care of manufacturer sourcing, marketing, and sales. This included legends like Susan Kare and Tobias Wong along with emerging studios that eventually became heavyweights like RBW, Jason Miller, and Chen Chen and Kai Williams. “In many ways we function like a small record label,” Wiggins says. “There’s this kind of sound to that label and it’s the feeling of ideas coming before function in industrial design.” Over the past 22 years, Areaware collaborated with over 50 artists, distributed its products internationally, and produced true icons of design (David Weeks’s Cubebot, and its many iterations, generated $18.7 million in sales). A fragile ecosystem While most manufacturers specialize in a specific material or one technique, Areaware was more focused on authorship and doing something interesting with an artist who wanted to experiment. This helped Areaware built a loyal following throughout the design community, but it also created issues on the business side. “The ecosystem was fragile,” Wiggins says. This is because the company made so many different types of materially different goods—from glass butter dishes to wood bottle openers and stainless-steel flasks. The variety that gave Areaware its creative identity was also a weak business point. “This multidisciplinary approach created structural challenges,” says Roberto Fantauzzi, Areaware’s chief design officer. “Unlike companies focused on a single category, Areaware did not benefit from the same economies of scale or pricing efficiencies. Developing across multiple categories required higher upfront investment, increased tooling and mold costs, and a careful allocation of in-house resources across a range of product types.” Depending on the type of new product, like a color update of an existing SKU or entirely new object, product development could cost anywhere from “a few hundred dollars to several thousand,” Fantauzzi says. While the brand was able to pay its bills and not carry debt, margins were always tight. According to Wiggins, Areaware generated $4 million in sales annually on average, but profits vacillated—$40,000 one year, zero the next, then minus $20,000. Still, the company was able to manage. That is, until The President’s tariffs entered the picture. “Maintaining that balance between design integrity and affordability at times meant operating with slimmer margins,” Fantauzzi says. “When tariffs took effect in 2025, those margins were significantly compressed, making it increasingly difficult to sustain certain collections and SKUs at the standards and prices the company strives to uphold.” It takes around 18 months for Areaware to bring a product into production and the constantly changing landscape made it extremely challenging to plan ahead and manage the risks involved. “It wasn’t only the tariffs, which were horrible as they were, but it was the unknown,” Wiggins says. “You don’t know whether to wait out if the tariffs are going to change. It creates this enormous stall in the system.” Around 80% of Areaware’s products are made in China. The rest are mostly produced in Indonesia (mostly furniture), India (cast-iron pieces), Vietnam (candles), and Mexico (silver baby rattles). Wiggins explored manufacturing the Cubebot with a wood toy maker in Vermont, but the extra cost wasn’t justifiable. Production would have cost four times more for the toy itself, turning a $10 product into a $30 product for shoppers. These pressures are also particularly challenging since Areaware’s business model revolves around small product runs. Aside from the Cubebot blockbuster and few products that have sold tens of thousands of units, most pieces sell in the thousands and hundreds. “It wasn’t even only price; it was just the ability to make small batch,” Wiggins says. “We can’t set up a local factory to do small numbers.” Another casualty of the attention economy Wiggins—who was inspired by the SoHo design emporium Moss, the conceptual Dutch collective Droog, and the Milanese brand Danese—compares the trajectory of design businesses to art movements. “They kind of have their generational moment and then it ends,” he says. Lisa Cheng Smith, who once served as the chief design officer of Areaware and has developed products for Hay and Design Within Reach, says the brand’s closure signals a shift in what type of design is most valued today. When the brand started, the job of a “product designer” meant you made physical objects, but now it means digital experiences. “That speaks to me about the status a product or object has in our material consciousness,” Smith says. “The voices of creatives are more often seen on digital platforms now. It’s like cooking videos, YouTube—that’s how people are accessing culture. It’s less about buying a meticulously thought-through object.” Wiggins echoes the impact of digitization on his business, particularly how information travels today. It’s a lot easier for everyone to directly find what they need. Shoppers can go on any number of social media platforms to find new brands, and designers can go directly to manufacturers without an intermediary like Areaware. “You don’t need the gatekeepers as much,” he says. “Pre-internet, the role of a curator was, in some ways, more important because if you were a store and you had to find neat things, you couldn’t really search for [them] easily.” At the same time, the landscape has become noisier than ever and the constant firehose of content drowns out anything that isn’t viral, which poses another challenge to Areaware’s model. Wiggins describes Areaware as a media company that sells “three-dimensional stories,” and getting customers to listen is tough. “Every time there’s a piece of The President news, the attention economy is going towards someone else’s story,” Wiggins says. “You’re constantly in competition for attention. There’s such a domination of fear in the attention system that it gets hard to get people’s attention in a way that’s sustainable.” The business of designers So where do object makers fit into this new landscape? The wholesale model of affordable designer objects can’t sustain itself. Meanwhile, few big brands today seem willing to take risks on emerging studios; instead they’re reissuing heritage pieces, which have baked-in fan bases and greater chances of becoming a break-out hit. That leaves out collectible design, which relies heavily on concept and authorship. “It’s a place where the voice of the designer can really be preserved,” Smith says. Beyond sales, licensing is still important to emerging studios. Sophie Collé, a furniture designer based in Brooklyn, licensed one of her earliest designs, a plant stand with an amoeba-like silhouette that she had been making by hand herself, to Areaware in 2022. The Splat table then went on to be sold at MoMA Design Store, the Guggenheim, and Coming Soon—places that are retailer-curators first and don’t typically manufacture their own goods. The deal became an important income stream for her small business, and through it her work reached a wider audience that led to custom commissions, and larger brand deals and collaborations. “Not only has Areaware done so much for my career, but it really was a support system for emerging designers,” Collé says. “I honestly don’t really know another company that does what they did with such grace and respect for the designers themselves. Finding manufacturers and fabricators is such a beast, and not every creative has the time or even wants to be doing that side of the business. That is what really makes Areaware irreplaceable in that sense, at least in my eyes.” Ellen Van Dusen, founder of the textiles and home goods brand Dusen Dusen, has collaborated with Areaware for eight years on objects that her company isn’t able to make in-house. This includes a plywood tissue box cover painted with faces and a night light. “They took risks with products that were a little weird and unconventional that became huge successes,” Van Dusen says. Van Dusen adds that the distribution channels brought her work to all corners of the world. “People will text me pictures of the pepper grinders in New Zealand, umbrellas on the street in Japan, and the tissue box in Mexico,” she says. “We don’t have those same distribution channels in house, so Areaware brought an awareness to Dusen Dusen that I don’t think we would have gotten on our own. They were an integral part of our growth. And I must mention, the tissue box was on Succession.” Beyond being a shopping destination Areaware was also an important industry connector, which is important since the design industry runs on relationships. Laura Young, managing director of collectible design gallery the Future Perfect, met many of the artists she represents now through her work at Areaware directing product development. “Areaware laid the foundation for my career,” she says. And Smith, who now runs Yun Hai, a retail shop and online store specializing in Taiwanese cooking, met many of the manufacturing partners she works with today through Areaware. “The way that I do business is based on everything I learned there,” she says. Like the reshuffle of Food52, there’s a chance some parts of Areaware might not completely disappear. For example, Wiggins is in talks with Weeks to take over production of the Cubebot. “Honestly, we’re trying to find someone to take over the arduous and difficult business model,” Wiggins says. “And because it’s arduous and difficult and very unprofitable, it’s hard to find someone to do that.” View the full article

I’ll admit it: I still secretly prefer cooking on a gas stove despite knowing that I’m breathing in benzene and adding to methane emissions. What can I say, I like the tactile control of an open flame. But recently I tested an induction range that made my gas stove seem antiquated. Charlie, from the Bay Area-based startup Copper, offers a high-end range that can do everything I expect from my current stove—and more. The appliance, which started to roll out nationally last year, has been called “the Tesla of induction stoves” by The New York Times and lauded by chefs including Christopher Kimball. I wanted to try it out as a home cook with only basic skills. An oven that’s 30x more accurate Like most electric ovens, Charlie’s performs better than its gas counterparts. But it also surpasses the typical electric version. It preheats to 350 degrees in about four minutes, thanks in part to a large battery hidden at the base of the stove. (More on the battery later.) I tried baking some cookies, which browned up perfectly, and then turned the heat down to 80 degrees to test another unique feature: The oven can hold a steady low temperature, making it possible to proof bread or pastry quickly when needed. Gas ovens tend to cycle heat more aggressively, and even the pilot light alone can push temperatures too high. Standard electric ovens are better, but also can’t reliably keep the temperature low enough. I’d brought along some chocolate croissants and tried proofing them; the oven worked like a professional proofing drawer, which meant not having to wonder how the temperature and humidity in the kitchen would affect the rise of the dough. The oven is incredibly precise. Most ovens fluctuate as much as 30 degrees above or below the set temperature. But incorporating a battery enables Copper’s Charlie to use more sophisticated controls, including modern temperature sensors and actuators. Thanks to a recent firmware update, Charlie’s temperature varies no more than a single degree. Put another way, it’s 30 times more accurate than a typical oven. The seesawing temperatures in other ovens lead to baked goods with burnt edges, soggy bottoms, or mushy middles. The software update—dubbed “Soufflé” after the notoriously finicky dish it was designed to master—makes Charlie’s baking capability even more consistent. Sure, it might take away some entertainment: Would you watch the Great British Baking Show without the suspense of unpredictable results? But in real life, it’s the kind of tool that actually makes me want to bake more often. The cooktop is intuitive and more precise than gas Unlike some other induction stoves, the cooktop is easy enough to use without turning to the instruction manual. It has knobs, like a traditional range, rather than a touchscreen. When you turn one of the knobs, a display shows how hot the “burner” is. On the cooktop, to stand in for the visual cue of a gas flame, a bar of lights shows whether you’ve cranked up the heat a little or a lot. Like other induction stoves, it can boil water incredibly quickly. (The battery gives an extra boost: A pot of 8 ounces of water boils in 4 minutes and 10 seconds.) It can also precisely control temperature. I tried melting chocolate in a pan, something that would normally be a more complicated process with a double boiler on a regular stove, and the steady low temperature helped it melt evenly. Though I didn’t try making dinner, the stove seems more than capable of handling anything I might normally prepare. It’s possible, for example, to crank up the heat and stir-fry something in a flat-bottomed wok, as Copper has demonstrated in previous tests; despite the lack of flames, the pan can get hot enough to char noodles for a dish like pad see ew. Why there’s a battery inside Some induction stoves have an annoying buzz, caused by pulsing AC power from the outlet that creates vibrations that are especially noticeable in tri-ply pans with multiple different kinds of metal. The Charlie stove, by contrast, is remarkably quiet, thanks to its battery. That battery, with 5 gigawatt-hours of energy storage, also means the stove can keep running for days even if the power goes out in a storm (notably, most modern gas stoves won’t work if the electricity goes out, since they use electric ignition and electric safety valves). The battery also has other advantages that I didn’t get to test. First, it means the stove doesn’t require expensive electrical upgrades, something that’s necessary with most other powerful induction stoves. The stove needs a large boost of power when it starts, but it can pull that from the battery. Because the battery can charge when power is cheapest—for example, in the middle of the day in California, when the grid has extra solar power—it can help keep customers’ bills lower. As the network of appliances grows, they form a virtual power plant that can also help the grid itself. A distributed network of batteries in appliances is easier to deploy than larger utility-scale batteries. Copper is now beginning to work with some large manufacturers to design other types of appliances, like heat pumps, that can also add more energy storage to the grid. The range is expensive, at around $6,000. But because of the energy and climate benefits, a number of states provide generous incentives. In California, for example, if a homeowner with a gas stove replaces it with Copper’s stove, and if the stove was the last gas appliance in the home, they can get a rebate that will cover the entire cost. Some of the first customers include large apartment buildings that want to make the switch away from gas. The New York City Housing Authority is an early adopter, recognizing that the stoves are a way to avoid expensive upgrades to its aging gas infrastructure, to comply with local emission laws, and to improve air quality for residents. It’s a rare case of premium tech scaling up from multiple directions, adopted as much for infrastructure pragmatism as for performance. Whether it’s for public housing or a high-end kitchen, the pitch is the same: cleaner air, better performance, and a new way to support the strained electric grid. View the full article

For consumer packaged goods, the path from product idea to store shelves runs directly through the center of Unilever‘s new North American headquarters, and not just because the company makes market-saturating products like Hellmann’s mayonnaise and TRESemmé shampoo. This new headquarters space was designed specifically to put the entire process of product creation on display in its office, from ideation to development to marketing to retailing. Spread across 111,000 square feet in downtown Hoboken, New Jersey, Unilever’s newly opened headquarters is centered around an accessible spine of rooms and facilities that are optimized for bringing new products to market. There are “innovation labs” where ideas for new products come to life, workstations where ideas can take shape, a test kitchen and salon where products get sampled and refined, and a retail lab where the company and its retail partners can see the products as they’ll look on store shelves. “We want people to walk in and just immediately know what it is we stand for and what it is we do,” says Nathaniel Barney, Unilever’s global head of workplace services, travel, and fleet. “Not just to see it on the walls, because images come and go, but actually to feel it in the design.” Unilever’s new headquarters is about a third of the size of the company’s previous suburban campus, 12 miles north in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. The smaller size prioritizes the collaboration required to develop its wide range of consumer products across personal care, beauty and wellbeing, foods, and home care. In the post-pandemic context, it’s also a recognition that the company didn’t actually need its big suburban footprint, according to Herrish Patel, president of Unilever USA. “When you’re like we are, now three days a week [in the office], actually those three days are all about connection, creativity, collaboration,” he says. “That’s why this design was built for the future.” Bringing Unilver’s products to life Unilever worked with the architecture firm Perkins & Will to design the space, centering its most collaborative product development functions in a spine that connects the entire office. Accessible by anyone passing by or taking a meeting in a nearby private room or sitting aside one of the picture windows with wide angle views across the Hudson River to Lower Manhattan, the product development spine is meant to draw in people—and ideas—from across the company. One easy draw, especially for a company in the food business, is the flavor-wafting test kitchen. “It’s the first thing you see when you walk into the space,” says Mariana Giraldo, design principal at Perkins and Will’s New York studio. “Right behind reception, there are two windows into the kitchen, so there’s no way you can miss it.” Employees get a chance to see new foods and flavors being developed live, and also get a chance to taste products that may be coming to market years down the line. The test kitchen is also part of the product pipeline, where new ideas get piloted and refined. Down the spine, “innovation labs” are intended to be blank spaces where those ideas can be born. Intentionally open and flexible in their furnishings and equipment, the labs leave themselves open to interpretation and reconfiguration. For products farther along in the product development timeline, there are spaces with a higher gloss and purpose, including the test kitchen and a fully equipped salon. Both can be used for research and development as products take shape, but also for marketing purposes when products are heading to shelves. Each doubles as a stage set. Beyond serving the product development process, these spaces are meant to attract employees and encourage more engagement with the creative side of the business. Giraldo says the design team approached these spaces as amenities within the workplace. “Here, the amenities didn’t have the purpose of just being amenities for the for the sake of it, but really being amenities that connected back to the product, and that connected back to exactly the work being developed here,” she says. Shrinking desk space Product development also relies on heads-down and desk-centric tasks, so there are regular workstations and meeting areas in Unilever’s headquarters. But even these are shaped by the company’s focus on collaboration. Barney says that the new office carved out much more space for one-on-one meetings and smaller group interactions, and ditched formal conference rooms for large spaces that could expand or contract to host larger groups and events. (The test kitchen, for one, opens out to a common area, making it easy to integrate into an all-hands meeting or a large-scale taste test.) “Today we need probably two times the number of small rooms to what we had five or six years ago,” Barney says. “What we see a huge need for is places where we can have groups of 35 to 50 people come together and then have another 20 to 30 people on screen, if not more . . . We had to create spaces that were designed around a very different set of criteria.” While Unilever’s headquarters was designed to create products and, by extension, profits, there’s an emphasis on informality across the space. That’s tied to an ethos Patel says is integral to the company’s culture. “We wanted to create a space and a location where our organization would love wasting time with each other,” he says. “We believe wasting time together is when culture blossoms. That’s when you get to know the person, you get to know what’s going on in their lives. There’s so much more than just work.” If that time wasting among employees leads to an idea for a new body wash concept or mayo recipe, all the better. They won’t have to go far to start turning those ideas into the products of the future. View the full article

Recently, I made myself a promise: I would not buy any more Lego for at least a year. That plan has quickly been foiled. Lego’s first-ever Peanuts set is just too good, too iconic, too beautiful (plus, my son loves Snoopy and Woodstock.) This perfect brick rendition—with the classic red doghouse and even the campfire and marshmallows to toast—is too cool pass up. Lego’s addiction to licensed intellectual property—the company now sells 25 IP-based themes out of 45 total, often burying the open-ended, creativity-first sets that built the brand—is still a problem, but this Snoopy’s Doghouse set proves exactly why these licenses work so extraordinarily well to burn your credit card. The magnetism of that simple beagle silhouette, combined with Lego’s three-dimensional engineering and the bricks’ intrinsic attractive power, is a perfect formula to trash all my financial constraints. Plus, Charles M. Schulz created something so visually strong, clear, and emotionally direct that translating it into 964 plastic bricks feels less like exploitation and more like homage. Snoopy debuted on October 4, 1950, just two days after Peanuts launched, and he spent decades evolving from a puppy shuffling on four legs into the anthropomorphic dreamer who sleeps on top of his doghouse and imagines himself as the “Red Baron,” a World War I flying ace. Schulz based him on Spike, his childhood black-and-white mixed breed who was unusually intelligent and could understand about 50 words. The name Snoopy came from Schulz’s mother, who once suggested it as a good name for a future family dog. (Fun note: Schulz had considered Sniffy before remembering her advice). Over 75 years, Snoopy became more than Charlie Brown’s pet—he became a vehicle for fantasy, playing shortstop on Charlie Brown’s baseball team, typing novels as the “World Famous Author,” and strutting around as “Joe Cool.” He ascended the cultural ladder enough that even NASA adopted him as a mascot, naming the Apollo 10 lunar and command modules after him and creating the Silver Snoopy Award for astronaut achievement in 1968. Woodstock, the small yellow bird who first appeared in 1966 but wasn’t named until June 22, 1970, cemented Snoopy’s status as a character who operated in his own emotional universe. Schulz named Snoopy’s avian pal after the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival, whose logo featured a bird perched on a guitar. The origin story is pure Schulz sentiment: A mother bird built a nest on Snoopy’s belly, then abandoned it, leaving Snoopy to raise the hatchlings—one of whom became Woodstock. Schulz never specified Woodstock’s species (fans guess canary or goldfinch), and he once drew a strip where Snoopy gave up trying to identify him. Like many of us, Atlanta-based designer Robert Becker is a die-hard fan of the characters, so he spent about a year developing the concept before submitting it to Lego Ideas, the Danish company’s program that accepts designs made by anyone who signs up for an account and submits a build. Submissions get considered for mass production after they receive 10,000 votes by other Ideas members. That’s when they may get approval by a company committee to be refined by Lego’s own designers in a long collaborative process. “This set has so much character,” Monica Pedersen, marketing director at the Lego Group, says in the set’s press release. “We were delighted that the Snoopy Campfire product idea received over 10,000 votes on the Lego Ideas platform.” I’m glad, too, Monica. At 964 pieces and a $90 price tag, the set also hits the Lego complexity-affordability-granularity sweet spot, unlike many of the huge sets the company has produced in the past few years. Snoopy legs and neck are adjustable, letting you pose him and Woodstock in multiple display positions. The red doghouse opens to reveal a typewriter inside, which you can move anywhere. And the campfire scene—which can also be hidden inside Snoopy’s home—is set against a starry sky backdrop. The set is already available for preorder; it will be sold in stores starting June 1. And yes, my kid and I will be counting the days till it ships to us. View the full article

What really holds people back from stepping up as allies in support of their marginalized colleagues? For example, why don’t more men say something when they see a colleague or a customer make a sexist remark about a female co-worker? Our research, published in the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, suggests that people often hesitate to intervene when co-workers are mistreated because they themselves feel disempowered in their organizations and experience distrust and polarization. Our findings run counter to the common assumption that people don’t step up to support marginalized colleagues because they don’t care or are unmotivated. Not seeing much action against inequity and injustice can drive this cynical idea. It’s built into many diversity, equity and inclusion training programs that rely on motivational tactics of persuasion, guilting and shaming to get people to act. We are psychology researchers interested in how people can use their strengths to effectively support others who are marginalized. We surveyed 778 employees in Michigan and 973 employees across all provinces of Canada, representative of urban and rural areas, working-class and professional jobs, and across all demographics, including gender, race, and sexual orientation. We asked them, “What makes it hard for you to be an ally for underrepresented and marginalized people (e.g., people of color, women, persons with a disability) in your organization?” Low motivation represented just 8% of the barriers people cited. And lack of awareness that marginalized groups face inequities accounted for only 10% of the barriers people mentioned. Most diversity training money tends to be devoted to teaching employees about these topics—suggesting why many diversity training programs fail. The most common barrier to allyship that our participants named was distrust and tension between people in their organization, which had them second-guessing themselves and self-censoring. People also reported feeling disempowered, like they didn’t have the power, opportunity or resources to make a real difference for their colleagues. Why it matters Researchers, specialists and consultants alike approach issues of workplace inequity with the assumption that to drive action, they need to first unblock potential allies’ deep-seated resistance to change. For example, specialists assume that people need to become more motivated, more courageous, less biased or better informed about existing inequities in order to act as allies. In this study, we temporarily set aside all preexisting assumptions and directly asked people what made it hard for them to be an ally, in their own words. Our goal was to identify practical roadblocks at the top of people’s minds that stop them from taking the first step, or the next logical step. When popular messaging, like on social media, and organizational interventions misunderstand the causes of people’s inaction, they risk exacerbating frustration and tensions. Interventions need to account for their audience’s true perspectives on what makes allyship difficult. Otherwise, they’ll lack credibility, and people will likely be less receptive to program content. What still isn’t known We’d like to further investigate the impacts of the specific barriers mentioned in our study. More insight could help workplaces focus interventions on addressing barriers that are the worst pressure points and avoid overspending on interventions that can move the needle only so much. More than a quarter of respondents said they experienced no barriers to standing up for colleagues. We’d like to investigate whether these respondents simply didn’t want to engage with our question, are uncertain about the barriers, or are already engaging in some form of allyship. Our team’s previous research has shown that even loud allies who publicly call out bias often also engage in quiet allyship actions, such as privately checking in on how a victim of bias is doing and assisting in strategizing next steps. What’s next Our research team is investigating whether programs designed with this study’s findings in mind—starting with building trusting relationships and helping people feel empowered—can increase allyship action. When diversity programs built on inaccurate assumptions don’t show the desired results, they risk having funding withdrawn or being halted altogether. Instead, as organizations take stock and pivot, evidence from our study and others can help them more effectively plan their next move. The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work. Meg A. Warren is a professor of management at Western Washington University. Michael T. Warren is an assistant professor of psychology at Western Washington University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. View the full article

Rob Shaver is a 49-year-old retail worker who recently had a streak of running at least 1 mile every day for three years. He’s also been living with Stage 4 bone and lung cancer for more than 20 years. Shaver’s commitment to living in spite of illness is chronicled in the short film The Life We Have, which uses his life as a lens through which to examine questions at the heart of the human experience: What gives life meaning when time feels fragile? How do we keep moving forward when suffering feels endless? Though profoundly sad, the film, directed by Sam Price-Waldman, is also thoughtfully inspiring. We see Shaver on his good days, running and spending time with his brother and mom. We see him on his bad days, at the hospital for chemo, or pulling out his hair at home as a result of his treatments. Smiling on the road. Crying at the kitchen table. It’s a quiet film, built on moments of happiness and hardship. Perhaps one of the most surprising aspects of the project is that it’s produced by REI, and Shaver works at the outdoor retailer’s San Antonio store (as do his mother and brother). Up until now, The Life We Have has been screened only at film festivals, but on February 18 the brand is launching the film on its website and YouTube channel. Paolo Mottola, VP of brand marketing at REI, says Shaver and his store manager just cold-called him a few years ago. They liked what REI Studios, the brand’s content division, had been doing and thought they had a story to tell. While REI Studios has done more traditional outdoors action-based work, it’s also produced more narrative-based work like Frybread Face and Me. Executive produced by Taika Waititi, the comedy-drama is about a boy who spends a summer with his grandmother on a Navajo reservation. REI Studios also put out Canary, a documentary feature that follows adventurer and climate scientist Lonnie Thompson. “We want to tell human stories that people can empathize with and resonate with,” says Mottola. “This story [The Life We Have] isn’t about achievement or accomplishment in the traditional outdoor sense. This is an achievement and an inspiration by someone doing something really, really hard in a hospital bed, or getting out of their own bed to just jog a mile. It’s about that connection to each other and that connection to the outdoors and how we’re better people for that.” Life worth living Director Price-Waldman and producers at Wondercamp have been documenting Shaver’s story since mid-2023. Joe Crosby, REI’s director of brand and content marketing, says that based on initial conversations REI Studios wanted to make the film, even if it would be viewed only by the brand’s roughly 15,000 employees. “That was inspiration enough for us to tell the story,” Crosby says. “As Wonder Camp plugged in, they were embedded, and his health circumstance was changing while they were producing the film. It took on a different life through the production and execution of the film into what you’re seeing now, and it will now see a wider audience than our employee community.” Over the course of the 25-minute film, Shaver’s illness recedes from and steps into the spotlight, conveying the unpredictability of his everyday life. The role of running, even if it’s just a mile, in affirming his purpose and providing him with joy is clear. “Everyday, be thankful for your body, be thankful for your mind,” he says. Over the past year the film has received numerous awards, including Best Short at the AmDocs Film Festival, the Audience Choice Award at the Telluride Mountainfilm Festival, and Best of the Fest at the 5Point Film Festival. REI challenges The film lands at a time when REI could use an inspirational story of its own. It’s faced financial declines in the past few years, with sales down 2.4% in 2023 and 6.2% in 2024. In October 2025, the company announced it would be shutting down its Soho store in Manhattan, as well as locations in Boston and Paramus, New Jersey. CEO Mary Beth Laughton joined REI a year ago to help right the ship that has been rocked by employee unrest over the company’s reported efforts to slow unionization, as well as a damning internal report on racial equity within the company. Mottola says the brand’s broader film work is not just a marketing effort, but also a way to advocate for the best parts of the company’s internal culture. He sees work like The Life We Have building on REI Studios’ consistency of telling employee stories like 2020’s The Mighty Finn, about Cleveland store manager Ethan Sheets and his 7-year-old son Finn. “Our role is to build the brand and keep people excited about it, and keep audiences and our members engaged in the brand,” Mottola says. Evolving studio As hyped as brand entertainment is these days in marketing circles, REI was in relatively early on establishing an internal division devoted to content and entertainment. Originally launched in 2021, REI Co-Op Studios has projects on Netflix and Hulu, and produces everything from short films to weekly podcasts and an online newsletter. Mottola says the strategy has shifted based on those early experiences. The brand is being more selective in the long-form projects it chooses to invest in, and is focused on retaining distribution control. “It’s been a huge learning curve for us the last few years,” he says. “But I think we found the partners we like to work with, understand the ecosystem we need to work in, and the time we need to take to get a story from concept to audience.” This week, the brand is launching a nationwide “Run for Rob” screening tour with regional run clubs and raising funds for local nonprofits including Cancer Support Community. Screening events have already been hosted in New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle, and the tour continues in Denver on March 1 and additional cities in the coming weeks. It’s not often (or ever) that brand content can be described as profound, but Shaver’s story and how he’s able to articulate his journey certainly qualifies. It’s a message any viewer—and the brand itself—can take to heart. “It’s about so much more than running,” Shaver says in the film. “It’s about making a choice every day to live deeply and thoroughly. And with beautiful effort. Not for results. Not for money or fame or lifestyle. But for the richness of being alive.” View the full article

Do women board members make a company more innovative or risk-averse? The answer is both, according to our recent study. It all depends on how the company performs relative to its goals. Professors Małgorzata Smulowitz, Didier Cossin and I examined 524 S&P 1500 companies from 1999 to 2016, measuring innovation through patent activity. Patents reflect both creative output and risk-taking. They require significant investment in novel ideas that might fail, disclosure of proprietary information and substantial legal costs. In short, patents represent genuine bets on the future. Our findings revealed a striking pattern. When companies performed poorly in relation to their goals, they produced fewer patents after more women joined their boards. However, companies exceeding their performance targets saw increased patent output as their number of women directors grew. Similarly, when companies were financially flush, there were more patents generated when their boards had more women. The situation changed when we examined radical innovations, those patents in the top 10% of citations. For these high-risk, high-reward innovations, the risk-averse effect of women board members dominated. When a company’s performance fell below aspirations, there were fewer radical innovations as its board gained female members. We found no corresponding increase in radical innovations when performance exceeded goals. One finding surprised us. We predicted that boards with more women would reduce innovation when companies approached bankruptcy. Instead, it was the opposite: Boards with more women actually increased patent output as bankruptcy loomed. This suggests that women directors may fight harder for a company’s survival through innovation when facing existential threats. Why it matters Between 2000 and 2024, the number of women on S&P 500 boards increased from 27% to 34%. But previous research has painted conflicting pictures on the effect that women board members may have. Some studies showed that women reduce corporate risk-taking, while others demonstrated they increase innovation and creativity. Our work suggests both perspectives are correct under different circumstances. For companies and regulators pushing for greater board gender diversity, this research provides practical guidance. Companies performing well can expect increased innovation by adding women to their boards. These directors can bring diverse perspectives, improved decision-making and better resource allocation that translate into more patents. Conversely, poorly performing companies can expect boards with more women to focus on stability over risky innovation. This isn’t necessarily negative. Research shows that banks led by women were less likely to fail during the financial crisis, and companies with more women directors experience less financial distress. Reduced innovation during tough times may reflect prudent risk management rather than risk aversion. Traditional theories predict that poor performance triggers risky searches for solutions. But boards with more women appear to prioritize organizational survival over uncertain innovation when performance suffers. They may assess that failed innovation attempts could worsen an already precarious situation. This research also speaks to the “glass cliff” phenomenon, where women often join boards during crisis periods. Our findings suggest these directors may bring exactly what struggling companies need: careful risk assessment and focus on survival rather than potentially wasteful innovation spending. What still isn’t known We measured innovation through patents, but many innovations never become patents. How women directors affect other forms of innovation—such as copyrights, trade secrets and first-mover advantage—remains unclear. What are the mechanisms driving the differences? Do women directors actively advocate for different innovation strategies? Do they change board discussion dynamics? Do they influence CEO and management team decisions indirectly? Future research needs to open the “black box” of boardroom decision-making. Finally, the long-term consequences need examination. We measured patent output, but not whether the patents translated into commercial success or competitive advantage. Understanding whether the innovation patterns we documented ultimately benefit company performance would provide crucial insights for decision-makers. The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work. Stephen J. Smulowitz is an assistant professor of strategic management at Wake Forest University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. View the full article

If you’re a manager today, your job may well be changing. That is, if it hasn’t already. As companies continue to compress their org charts and axe layers of middle management, a new role is emerging: the “supermanager.” Leaders are finding themselves responsible for significantly more direct reports and broader responsibilities. And in many industries, the trend shows no sign of slowing. A Gallup survey published in January, citing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, found that the average number of reports managers have increased from 10.9 in 2024 to 12.1 in 2025. The share of managers overseeing 25 or more employees has also grown in the past year, with 13% now supervising teams that large. This long-term increase in managerial span of control has been described as part of the “Great Flattening.” It is being driven by several forces, including leadership churn, layoffs targeting middle management layers, and the AI boom, and organizations increasingly see fewer reasons to maintain multiple management layers. Some workplace experts argue the shift is overdue, pointing to years of bloated management structures. Others warn the trend is backfiring, leaving employees lost in the noise and saddled with unrealistic demands. Either way, the supermanager is becoming commonplace across countless industries. When bigger teams lead to burnout and turnover “The role is changing,” Jennifer Dulski, the CEO and founder of the AI-assisted team performance platform Rising Team, tells Fast Company. “Every manager can now become a supermanager.” Michele Herlein, a former senior HR leader turned leadership expert who holds a doctorate in business administration, tells Fast Company that slimming down an organization can have immediate benefits, like reducing costs, and speeding up decision-making. But when organizations increase spans of control without redesigning the role itself, the consequences ripple quickly. “When people are reactive instead of proactive—putting out fires instead of preventing them—chaos follows,” Herlein says. “When one megamanager is burnt out, the entire department feels it.” Leena Rinne, vice president of leadership, business, and coaching at Skillsoft, tells Fast Company that companies are effectively creating a new leadership role without acknowledging it. “If you’re going to have a flat organization and a lot of direct reports, you better be thinking about what the skills are that that leader needs and equipping them with those skills,” Rinne says. She believes the supermanager era can work—but “most organizations are skipping that step,” she says. Rinne experienced the shift firsthand, managing 80 direct reports in one previous role. It was very different from managing eight: She needed absolute clarity on her vision and strategy rather than filling her time with individual one-on-one meetings. The problem, she argues, is that many organizations are flattening their structures, but not evolving how they support managers. “Organizations think, ‘oh, if we just put more pressure on them, they’ll figure out how to do it more effectively’,” she says. “Then they don’t give them the training, the tools, the skills, the clarity, the vision—all of these things that should come from higher levels of leadership.” The model isn’t necessarily broken—but the support often is Dulski, who previously held leadership roles at Yahoo, Google, and Facebook, agrees that the supermanager era can work if companies rethink what management is for. Before the flattening, she argues, many managers oversaw too few people. “My personal view is that five to seven has been the right zone,” she says. “And with the right tools, we can probably get to 10 or 12 fairly easily.” But the benefits aren’t automatic. To make it work, supermanagers should spend less time on administrative tasks and more time on what Dulski calls “the two C’s”: clarity and compassion. That means prioritizing fewer, clearer goals and using systems to replace constant supervision and micromanagement, which some have relied on to climb the traditional career ladder. “Great managers are like great sports coaches—they show clearly what winning looks like, have everybody clear on what their role is, and then they step back,” she says. “Managers are not doing a good job when you put very little support into helping them understand their role and training them to be good at it.” AI can help with this, but technology alone won’t solve everything, Dulski warns. “It’s counterintuitive to a lot of people,” Dulski says, “but the success of future managers and leaders lives at the intersection of deep human connection and AI—one without the other will no longer be enough.” When a supermanager hasn’t been given the time and resources to develop those skills, burnout follows. Gallup data has already shown that the workforce is disengaged, so piling additional responsibilities on top of people and expecting them to simply deal with it is only going to compound the problem. As Rinne says: “You can’t flatten your way to growth.” How to survive and succeed as a supermanager The “Great Flattening” is likely to continue, fueled by hybrid working, cost pressures, faster decision cycles, and the reduced need for oversight enabled by AI tools. It looks like supermanagers are becoming the norm as a result, so those suddenly thrust into this role should try to make it work, but only if their organization is implementing the model thoughtfully and intentionally, rather than out of panic. The supermanager era will be defined about leading differently, with clear goals, transparent communication, and leadership development to make it a sustainable one, experts say. “I think most organizations don’t invest in their leaders enough, period,” Rinne says. Herlein agrees, adding that a lot of supermanagers are stuck on a hamster wheel, not advancing, because they’re running on fumes. “It’s not that the model is broken,” Herlein says. “They just can’t do it without the broader organizational support and resources—they can’t do it alone.” Thriving as a supermanager means distinguishing between the two paths ahead: embrace this new way of leading, or recognize when the environment isn’t sustainable, and jump ship. View the full article

I’ve worked remotely since 2006 (way before it was common). However, my days were filled with calls to colleagues and DMs to chat about everything from work to what we had planned for the weekend. Now I’m a solopreneur. I have occasional calls with clients, but they’re rare. Most of my days are spent working alone. In many ways, this is great since I have the freedom to work however and whenever I want. But staying motivated when it’s just me requires being really thoughtful about how I work. According to a 2025 report by Leapers, nearly half of self-employed professionals feel lonely occasionally or some of the time. One in five feels lonely or isolated often or always. It can be really hard to stay motivated when you’re working in isolation. You have to create your own structure and find ways to keep going without other people around. Design your own workday Traditional 9-to-5 hours don’t always make sense when you work alone. You don’t have to start at 8 a.m. just because that’s when your clients start working. You can work when you’re most productive—but you have to make sure you actually get stuff done during that time. For example, I still mostly follow a traditional workday schedule because I have kids, and that’s when they’re in school. However, I also find that I’m incredibly productive early in the morning, before anyone else is awake. I have the least energy in the evenings, so my day often ends at 3:30 or 4 p.m. Time-blocking helps create structure, even when no one is holding you accountable. I block off chunks for deep work, admin tasks, and meetings. Seeing my calendar filled in is like making an appointment with myself—like I have somewhere to be (even if that somewhere is my home office). If you’re not sure when you do your best work, track it for a week. Note when you feel focused versus when you’re dragging. Then build your schedule around when you have the most energy, not traditional working hours. Create a “work mode” environment When your home is also your office, it’s really easy to blur boundaries. The dishes and laundry are right there. Creating separation—even artificial separation—can help signal to your brain that it’s time to focus. Small rituals work surprisingly well. For me, it’s making a cup of coffee, closing the door to my home office, and putting on a specific playlist to start my morning. These are my mental switches to get into “work mode.” I do work only at my desk (unless I’m traveling). If you don’t have a dedicated workspace, find other ways to create that boundary. Some solopreneurs work in a specific corner of a shared room or use only certain apps during work hours. You can use headphones to block distractions. The ritual is the important part, not the specifics. Work alongside other people When you work for an employer, you have some outside accountability to get your tasks done. Whether it’s your manager or a teammate, you know that other people are “watching” you (either in an office or metaphorically). When you work alone, you have to actively find ways to be around other people. Working with others can improve your focus, increase your motivation, and reduce procrastination (a concept known as “body doubling”). If you find it hard to stay on task while running your solo business, body doubling can make a huge difference. Virtual coworking has become popular for this reason. Platforms like Flow Club or FLOWN let you work alongside other people on video for a specific period of time (one hour, two hours, etc.). I’ve also done casual video calls with fellow solopreneurs where we just work together silently. If you join a virtual coworking session, come with a specific project or task that you’d like to complete during the allotted time. If virtual coworking isn’t your thing, try working from a coffee shop, library, or coworking space occasionally. Even once a week can break up the isolation and give you a change of scenery. You still get the benefit of body doubling when you’re in a room with other people, even if they’re not connected to you in any way. Make working alone work for you Working solo means you don’t have a lot of external cues. You don’t realize how much you rely on other people and your work environment to keep you motivated until you’re on your own. Suddenly, it’s a random Tuesday at 10 a.m. and you have no desire to work—even with a looming client deadline. When you intentionally design your workday and find small ways to simulate accountability, motivation will follow. You’ll realize that you don’t need a boss, coworkers, or an office to stay on track. You just need systems that work for you. View the full article

Explore the essentials of AI prompt tracking. Discover strategies to improve your visibility in AI search engines and analytics. The post How To Set Up AI Prompt Tracking You Can Trust [Webinar] appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Figures come as BoE considers when next to cut interest ratesView the full article

AI models default to familiar brands. What makes them mention your company instead of a bigger or more established competitor? The post 5 Ways Emerging Businesses Can Show up in ChatGPT, Gemini & Perplexity appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article