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It looks a little like a sleek window AC, but a new device from Chinese appliance giant Midea is actually a reversible heat pump that can both cool and heat a home—and it’s designed to heat efficiently even when the temperature outside drops as low as 22 degrees below zero. The heat pump, called the Midea PWHP, just launched commercially after years of development. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been testing it in freezing temperatures in upstate New York. It works better than my gas furnace, and uses less energy. And the form factor and cost could help heat pumps—which already outsell gas furnaces—spread even faster. A new type of heat pump Like other heat pumps, the PWHP transfers warmth from the outdoor air to heat your space, using relatively little energy. But the new heat pump is designed to be much easier to install than other versions, which reduces the overall cost and complexity of switching. The inspiration for the idea originally came from New York City, where the state and local government launched the Clean Heat for All Challenge in 2022—which offered the potential of a contract with the city’s public housing authority, which controls more than 177,000 apartments within 335 housing developments—as the city looked for ways to decarbonize apartment buildings. Right now, most heat pumps come in one of two formats: “mini splits” that are installed in the wall, or central units that can connect to ducts and replace a gas or oil furnace. Both work well, but they’re time-consuming and can be expensive to install. Putting in a mini-split often involves adding new wiring, since older homes don’t have the right voltage, and cutting holes in the wall. One unit might take a day of work and require multiple licensed tradespeople. Replacing a gas furnace in a house typically takes a couple of days—and can also . In a large old apartment building in New York, the challenges are multiplied. Midea started working on the challenge in its Louisville office, which focuses on R&D. “We’re essentially a startup with the world’s largest appliance manufacturer as the backer,” says Brian Langness, a senior project manager at the Midea America Research Center. (Gradient, a startup, also separately worked on a different design for a window heat pump for New York.) Midea began designing a new unit to meet the city’s strict requirements: sized to fit in a window, quiet to run, with reliable heating in very low temperatures that wouldn’t need backup from electric resistance heat. It also couldn’t require electrical upgrades, needed to have a saddle shape that wouldn’t block views, and had to be easy enough to install that it could theoretically be a DIY job. Engineering the PWHP The design team sprinted to adapt heat pump technology to the new format, working closely with the company’s manufacturing team in China. “It was a 24-hour design cycle,” says Langness. “They would work on the design while we were sleeping. We’d wake up in the morning, and we’d ask the things that needed to be worked on. That was really the way that we were able to get this done in such a short amount of time.” While there are some other window heat pumps on the market, they don’t work in very low temperatures. To make it possible for a compact, self-contained unit to work well in cold weather, Midea designed a brand new compressor, changing components and modifying algorithms. (The company owns its own compressor manufacturer, making this step easier.) The compressor monitors the outside temperature and only runs as much as it needs to. “Older style compressors were either on or off,” says Langness. “This one modulates that power to ensure that you’re hitting that sweet spot to make sure that you’re maintaining the room’s comfort, but not consuming an unnecessary amount of energy.” By the summer of 2023, they had installed 36 prototypes at a city-owned public housing complex in Queens. Tenants started testing the units as air conditioners, and then as heaters the following winter. “Because of the timeframe, the residents were basically our field test engineers,” Langness says. Based on feedback from tenants, the team tweaked the design. The unit has a flat top that acts like a windowsill, and one tenant had a cat that kept jumping on it and turning the device on and off; the engineers added a child safety lock. After some extreme cold weather, they also modified how the system runs so it ramps up more slowly to a specific temperature, making it more efficient. Earlier this month, after a successful pilot, New York’s housing authority took out the pilot units and started installing 150 units of the final design. Midea also started selling the units to consumers through its distributors, at prices ranging between $2,800 and $3,000. Eventually, the company may sell the product directly at big box stores like Home Depot or Lowe’s. Real-world performance Although the unit was designed so that it could theoretically be installed by anyone, in the initial launch, Midea’s distributors will work with professional installers to ensure the installation is correct. (I worked with AI Global Enterprise, a New York City-based distributor, and an HVAC company called Halco to install the review unit for this article.) But because it doesn’t require electrical upgrades or other major steps, it’s a simple and quick job. The unit is heavy, but uses shock absorbers to lower itself gently into place after it’s set in the window. After some experience, NYCHA’s staff could install three units in as little as 45 minutes, Langness says. When I started testing the heat pump, the first thing I noticed was how comfortable the room felt. I recently moved into a 180-year-old former schoolhouse in upstate New York, and it’s not exactly energy efficient. The house has no added insulation, though its double brick walls with an air gap provide some natural temperature moderation. When I crank up the gas heat to 72 degrees, some corners of the house still feel chilly. The heat pump, which gradually heats up surfaces like walls and floor, felt like it heated the room more evenly than my gas furnace can I tested the heat pump in a back room with a fireplace, which isn’t connected to the central heat in the rest of the house. That was also the only place I could put it: the room was a later addition, and the rest of the house’s walls are so unusually thick that the heat pump’s u-shaped design wouldn’t fit over the other windowsills. Of course, the heat pump would work even better in a well-insulated space. But when I turned up the heat with temperatures in the 20s outside, it soon felt toasty in the room—and more comfortable than the rest of the house. The fan was far quieter than the vents for my gas furnace, which are sometimes so incredibly loud that I have to turn off the heat temporarily when I’m in a meeting. The heat pump also has a “silent” mode that keeps the temperature up but makes the fan barely perceptible. While my furnace blows air through dusty vents, the heat pump keeps the air clean. The air also felt less dry than in my rooms with gas heat. It uses relatively little energy—less than a space heater, while heating a bigger area. In the pilot in the New York City apartments, the city noted that it saw an 87% drop in energy use and 50% drop in energy cost compared to the old steam radiators. My only complaint is the size: the heat pump takes up quite a bit of room under a window, similar to an old-fashioned radiator. For homeowners who can afford the extra cost and time, a mini split on the wall might fit better in some rooms (some mini splits look better than others, like the stylish design from the startup Quilt). The Midea PWHP is designed to heat a living space between 300 and 500 square feet, depending on the layout of the rooms. In my case, the back room is separated, but I could feel the heat moving into my adjacent kitchen. In NYCHA’s two-bedroom apartments, Midea installed three units, one in each bedroom and one in the living room. A less expensive heat pump Midea is focused primarily on supplying the heat pump for apartment buildings. When NYCHA first launched the challenge, it estimated that it would need more than 150,000 window heat pumps to meet its 2050 climate goals. The company is in active discussions with other housing authorities, including in Boston, about pilots modeled after the program in New York. Another pilot is about to begin in Canada. The company isn’t actively pushing direct sales to consumers at this point—as of right now, to buy one, you have to email the company to be connected with a local distributor. But the product could be a good fit for some homeowners, landlords, or even tenants who want a temporary climate solution that they can bring with them when they move. At $2,800 or $3,000, it isn’t cheap, though Midea says that the price will eventually come down as production scales up. And until the end of the year—when most clean energy tax credits will expire thanks to The President’s policies—it’s eligible for a federal tax credit of up to $2,000 on qualified installations. State, local, and utility incentive programs, such as New York State’s Clean Heat program, can also help offset the cost. And the total cost is still less than typical mini split heat pump, which can cost as much as $8,000 with installation in some regions. For some people who might not otherwise have decided to get a heat pump, it could be a first step to getting off fossil fuels. “We recognize that whole home heat pumps and mini splits are an investment,” says Matt Slimsky, VP of production at Halco, the company that installed my review unit. “This window unit is still an investment, but it’s a heck of a gateway.” View the full article

Ed Zitron peels off his green button-up shirt to reveal the gray tee beneath. Now properly uniformed, two cans of Diet Coke queued up before him, he’s ready to record this week’s episode of his podcast, Better Offline, at audio behemoth iHeartMedia’s midtown Manhattan studio. The topic on this July afternoon, as usual, is artificial intelligence. One of Zitron’s guests, screenwriter, director, and producer Brian Koppelman, talks about paying $200 a month for ChatGPT Pro. When Koppelman earnestly asks, “Do you not think AI is mind-bogglingly great at times?” Zitron’s answer—“No!”—comes so quickly it seems to spring directly from his cerebral cortex. It would have been startling if he’d responded any other way. As AI has become the tech industry’s principal obsession, Zitron—who runs a public relations firm that represents technology companies—has developed an unexpected side hustle as one of its highest- profile naysayers. “I’ve tried all of these different things, and I still can’t tell you with clarity what it is that’s so amazing with these products,” he tells me. Countless people in and around the tech industry share Zitron’s dim view of generative AI’s usefulness, the billions of dollars that companies are pouring into the technology, and its voracious appetite for computing resources. But his take-no-prisoners punditry sets him apart from other noted gadflies such as cognitive scientist Gary Marcus. On Better Offline and in his email newsletter, Where’s Your Ed At, he’s particularly unsparing in his appraisal of CEOs such as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg (“a monster”), OpenAI’s Sam Altman (“a con man”), and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella (“either a liar or a specific kind of idiot”). Zitron says that his work is motivated by “[seeing] these bastards and what they’re doing, how much money they’re making doing it, and how shameless they are.” He has his own name for the pursuit of growth above all other goals, regardless of its impact on customers and society at large: the “rot economy.” He believes the current AI boom will end in disaster. “When it’s very obvious the money isn’t there, there’s going to be a big, horrible correction with tech stocks—a harmful one,” he declares, referring to the fallout should AI companies not ever be profitable. “I say this with a degree of trepidation, because it’s not going to be fun.” Zitron’s influence in the AI conversation is palpable and still expanding. On Bluesky, where he has 169,700 followers, attorney and activist Will Stancil recently wrote, “People love to say ‘I’m begging you to read something by an actual expert’ and they mean, specifically, Ed Zitron.” Produced by Cool Zone Media, an iHeartMedia subsidiary specializing in podcasts of a progressive bent, Better Offline is regularly among the 15 most popular tech shows on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. A bustling Reddit forum spun off from the podcast attracts 74,000 people a week with links to news stories about AI and caustic, sometimes darkly funny conversations about them. Where’s Your Ed At—its name riffs on “Where’s Your Head At,” a 2001 song by U.K. electronic music duo Basement Jaxx—has more than 80,000 readers, about 3,000 of whom receive bonus newsletters available exclusively to subscribers who pay $70 per year and up, an option Zitron added last June. His book on tech dysfunction, Why Everything Stopped Working, is due out in late 2026 or early 2027. Yet as prolific as Zitron is, he doesn’t feel remotely tapped out. “As things get more brittle and chaotic,” he says, “there’s only going to be more things for me to rifle through and explain to people.” Zitron didn’t set out to build a mini media empire around AI doomerism. The West London–born tech enthusiast, a onetime video game journalist, founded his company EZPR in New York in 2012 and went on to write two books about public relations. When he sent out his first Where’s Your Ed At newsletters, in 2019, he focused on personal interests such as gaming, his Peloton, and the NFL draft. And then he didn’t get around to publishing again for a year and a half. Late in 2020, he caught COVID. Suddenly in need of activities to fill his time, he found his newsletter a welcome distraction. “If I’m not writing, I haven’t really thought through anything,” he explains. “So I just started writing every day.” Increasingly, he turned his attention to the tech industry’s ills, leading to the February 2023 piece in which he coined the term the “rot economy.” It quickly went viral. Over time, Zitron has found a voice that comes off as entirely uncensored. He runs his newsletters by an editor—fellow Brit and tech-skeptic newsletter author Matt Hughes—but you wouldn’t know it from their style and substance. One particularly operatic recent example, last July’s “The Hater’s Guide to the AI Bubble,” marshals 14,500 words of facts, figures, and spicy commentary (Salesforce’s claims for its Agentforce AI are “a blatant fucking lie”) to argue that tech giants and startups alike are wasting billions pushing products built “on vibes and blind faith.” He also turned “The Hater’s Guide” into a four-part Better Offline series, where his accent and dramatic flair only heighten its impact. On Reddit, one fan called him “the David Attenborough of AI critique.” Zitron says that his supremely pissed-off persona isn’t just a schtick. “It’s just never come easily to me to pretend to be anything other than what I am,” he stresses. His friend and fellow tech critic Molly White, author of the crypto-busting newsletter Citation Needed, agrees. “He’s very passionate about the stuff that he is writing about,” she says. “I think it sort of consumes him and his attention.” Yet the full story of his relationship with AI is more complex. Along with savaging the technology in newsletters and on podcasts, he pitches its benefits to media outlets (including Fast Company) on behalf of EZPR’s clients. Startups that he’s repped range from technical assessment platform CodeSignal to Nomi, which touts its chatbot’s ability to serve as a virtual companion, girlfriend, or boyfriend. Zitron rejects the idea that his two jobs—AI basher and AI promoter—present any fundamental tension or conflict of interest. At EZPR, he says, “What I advocate for are companies with real purpose that do things their customers like, that build sustainable businesses based on actual use cases.” Does his growing fame as a writer and podcaster benefit his PR firm? He allows that it helps—journalists recognize his name and are more likely to open his emails—but considers that a side effect. The point, he says, is to speak his mind on a topic he cares deeply about. Evidence is mounting that some of the initial exuberance over generative AI was, in fact, irrational. A recent MIT study reported that 95% of enterprise pilot programs involving the technology hadn’t shown a return on investment; another from Bain says that even by 2030, the tech industry might be $800 billion short of finding enough new revenue to fund the computing resources necessary to keep up with demand for AI. Speaking with reporters in August, OpenAI’s Altman admitted the existence of a bubble. “Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI?” he asked. “My opinion is yes.” Nonetheless, he added that Open­AI intends to invest trillions in additional data center infrastructure. That same month, OpenAI released a new version of ChatGPT built atop GPT-5, the latest update to its large language model. Once widely anticipated as a giant leap forward, it landed with a thud once users tried it and deemed it less than transformative. To Zitron, it was a classic example of the company’s puffery exceeding its product road map. “Two years ago, people were talking about GPT-5 like it was going to be AI Jesus,” he says. “I feel that OpenAI likely had to get something out the door.” Arguing that Altman’s stated plans for OpenAI—such as building 250 gigawatts of data center capacity in eight years—are impossible, Zitron continues to press the case that the company will run out of venture funding before reaching self-sufficiency. “OpenAI is not building ‘the AI industry,’ as this is capacity for one company that burns billions of dollars and has absolutely no path to profitability,” he wrote in an October newsletter. “This is a giant, selfish waste of money and time, one that will collapse the second that somebody’s confidence wavers.“ OpenAI’s failure, he contends, could take out other companies such as cloud-computing provider CoreWeave. It would also inflict serious damage on giants such as SoftBank, which led OpenAI’s $40 billion investment round last March, and Nvidia, whose chips power most of the world’s generative AI. Citing one VC’s estimate that AI funding could dry up within six quarters, Zitron has said the industry could face “total collapse” in early 2027. Even as the industry braces for a correction, Zitron’s prediction that it will effectively cease to exist makes him an outlier. “I just don’t think that Ed makes a strong case that this is going to happen,” says Timothy B. Lee, author of the newsletter Understanding AI. You don’t need to buy Altman’s utopian vision of “intelligence too cheap to meter” to accept the possibility that AI has a future. OpenAI going under would mean it never found a way to operate at a profit, regardless of any technological efficiencies, price adjustments, or new markets yet to come. In his newsletter and on his podcast, Zitron projects an air of ferocious certitude. In person, he is willing to toy with the notion that his prognostications might not pan out. Characterizing himself as “a brokenhearted romantic” when it comes to tech, he says he’d welcome being proven wrong—and would write about it. “It’ll be really annoying, and I really don’t think it’ll happen,” he emphasizes. “But the only way to do this [work] honestly is to be prepared for that, to be willing for that to happen.” As a commentator, Zitron’s stock-in-trade is the gusto with which he dismantles assessments of AI he considers invalid. Now the only question is whether he’ll get to say he told us so—or end up being his own ripest target. View the full article

At this fall’s prestigious New York World Spirits Competition, a wheated bourbon that’s widely available for about $30 claimed the title of Best Overall Bourbon. The blind-tasting competition drew a crowded field of bourbons that included bottles that are typically impossible to find—or exorbitantly marked up on shelves. Among more than 100 contenders, including bourbon heavyweights like Blanton’s Gold Edition and W.L. Weller Full Proof, the reasonably priced Green River Wheated Bourbon landed the top title. Green River Wheated is an approachable 90 proof (45 percent ABV) and a blend of four- to six-year-old barrels. The judging panel described it as “a richly textured bourbon, opening with aromas of peppery spice followed by a palate of grains, oats, and creamy butterscotch layered with hints of oak. This all leads to a smooth, long finish where grain fades into soft honey, spice, and warm barrel notes.” As a fan of the bourbon—and every Green River bottle I’ve sampled—I agree with the panel’s assessment, but add that there’s also a tropical fruit note that brings a brighter layer of flavor to contrast with the darker oak tones. Green River Wheated also claimed the Wheated category over fellow finalist Weller Full Proof. The Weller line of wheated bourbons has grown famous over the past decade as the next best thing to Pappy Van Winkle. Both brands are produced by Buffalo Trace and blended from the same base whiskey. Though there’s a lot of hype surrounding Weller from the Pappy association, it’s a fantastic family of whiskeys in its own right. For the younger, cheaper Green River to best not just its Weller equivalent, Special Reserve, but the 114-proof bruiser of the family is quite an achievement. What is wheated bourbon? All bourbon is at least 50 percent corn. Most have a portion of rye and a smaller helping of malted barley. Wheated bourbon swaps out the spicier rye grain for wheat, which brings a sweeter character. Green River Wheated, for example, is 70 percent corn, 21 percent wheat, and 9 percent malted barley. If you’ve tried more than a few bourbons in your life, you’ve tried a wheated brand. Maker’s Mark is about 16 percent wheat and an excellent example of the sweet fruit notes the gentle grain brings. There’s also a more rounded balance to these bourbons, as wheat replaces the sharper character of rye. This balance is a major factor in what helps the Van Winkle (and Weller) line stand out. What does Green River Wheated bourbon taste like? When I sip a dram of Green River Wheated, the predominant flavors I get are honey and caramel over a smooth vanilla oak backbone with that bright fruit note. It’s subtle, but makes this bourbon stand apart from its peers as not merely tasty and smooth, but as complex and interesting as a much older bourbon. At 90 proof, I’d sip it neat but wouldn’t judge you for adding a few ice cubes—this can stand up to a bit of water. However, if you prefer a higher-proof bourbon, there’s a strong, older version, albeit not under the Green River family. The Seelbach’s Private Reserve Wheated Bourbon is a house label for the online spirits retailer. That doesn’t sound impressive unless you know that its founder, Blake Riber, has one of the best palates in the industry for selecting and blending whiskeys. His Seelbach’s Wheated is a 107-proof combination of not-quite five-year-old and seven-year-old barrels of Green River Wheated. The younger whiskey brings that bright fruit, while the older adds depth. Either are excellent buys, but with the holidays approaching, the Green River Wheated jumped out at me as an easy gift for the bourbon fans in your life, or in your office. If they haven’t heard of Green River, all the better. You get to share how this underdog of a bourbon recently beat the best at a major international spirits competition. —Matthew Allyn This article originally appeared on Fast Company’s sister publication, Inc. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy. View the full article

The world's leading enterprise Wi-Fi vendor presented what's next in connectivity and beyond at WWC Dubai. The post Enterprise megatrends by Cisco: Simplified network assurance, AI-based UI, smart spaces, & ultra-low latency backhaul appeared first on Wi-Fi NOW Global. View the full article

Chancellor was instead far too optimistic about public finances and government’s ability to secure cutsView the full article

To a certain point, cars are fantastic inventions making it easy to get to far-flung places, opening doors for new places to live or work or play. But there’s a tipping point when the built environment and our lives are arranged around motor vehicles where the benefits start to come undone. Building to prioritize space-hogging cars brings a long list of negative externalities. In Greek mythology, the god Dionysus granted King Midas his wish for the power to turn everything he touched to gold. Midas revels in the effortless wealth—objects, furniture, and even the ground beneath him turn to gold. The Midas touch was great right up until he wanted to eat or drink or just hug his daughter. There’s a King Midas aspect to motor vehicles, this technological gift that promised and delivered abundance until it became a curse. Personal cars expanded opportunities like never before. Post-World War II America saw vehicle ownership explode from 25 million in 1945 to over 100 million by 1970. Having access to a family car made far-flung places viable for living, working, and playing, fueling a middle-class expansion across previously rural areas. An entire car-oriented ecosystem emerged. The promise of freedom and wealth held until cities and suburbs began optimizing for vehicle throughput instead of local access and mobility. When Everything Turns to Asphalt Like Midas discovering he couldn’t eat golden food, we’re discovering that car-dependent places can’t sustain the human activities they were meant to enable. The same infrastructure that promised connection now isolates. What began as freedom morphed into obligation. American cities now dedicate somewhere between one-third and one-half of their land area to streets, parking lots, and garages. In downtown Los Angeles, parking occupies more space than all the buildings combined. We’ve paved over so many of the destinations cars were supposed to help us reach. The economic costs of car dependency are brutal at the household level. Transportation often ranks as the second-largest expense after housing, consuming up to 30% of household income. The “drive until you qualify” phenomenon pushed families toward affordable suburban housing, only to burden them with commutes that devoured time and money. Car loan defaults have jumped 50% in the last 15 years, and in 2024, car repossessions hit the highest number since 2009. Meanwhile, the infrastructure itself demands constant funding. Roads, bridges, and parking structures deteriorate faster than municipalities can maintain them. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates a multi-trillion-dollar backlog in deferred transportation maintenance. Every lane-mile of road requires ongoing investment that property taxes in sprawling development patterns often can’t support. The Isolation Paradox Car dependence promised mobility but delivered immobility for anyone without a vehicle or unable to drive. Children lost independence because nothing is within walking or biking distance, and the elderly face isolation when they can no longer drive safely. People with disabilities, those who can’t afford vehicles, and those who simply prefer not to drive find themselves trapped in places without practical mobility alternatives. The distances themselves became barriers. When corner stores give way to big-box retailers miles away, when schools require driving rather than walking, when social spaces exist only as isolated destinations rather than chance encounters, community itself attenuates. Neighbors pass each other at 45 miles per hour on six-lane arterials rather than at 3 miles per hour on sidewalks. The “third places” that anchored community life (cafés, parks, plazas, etc.) disappeared into the car-oriented strip malls and shopping centers. The Health Toll The King Midas curse extends to our bodies. Vehicle-oriented development correlates strongly with obesity, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory illness. When walking becomes impractical and driving becomes mandatory, physical activity disappears from daily routines. Air pollution from vehicles contributes to asthma, especially in children living near major roadways. Traffic crashes kill 40,000 Americans annually, and injure hundreds of thousands more. Larger vehicles, faster vehicles, and inattentive driving create an increasingly deadly environment. Breaking the Curse King Midas eventually begged Dionysus to reverse his wish, washing away the golden touch. Like Midas, our situation is fixable. People are rediscovering that neighborhoods can be planned and designed at a human scale that welcomes motor vehicles without squashing the good life. Zoning reforms that allow mixed-use development are the single most important starting point. When someone can walk to a store, bike to work, or take transit to social activities, the car returns to being a useful tool rather than an iron requirement. But that only happens if a local government legalizes a variety of land uses in neighborhoods. Cars are fantastic inventions. The Midas predicament emerges when we optimize everything around them, when we mandate their use, and when we eliminate alternatives. A city where people can choose to drive, walk, bike, or take transit according to their needs is fundamentally different from one where driving is the only option. The Midas story ends with the king learning wisdom through suffering. We’ve suffered quite a bit from the built environment. But even in real life, things can get better in the end. View the full article

Below, Jon Levy shares five key insights from his new book, Team Intelligence: How Brilliant Leaders Unlock Collective Genius. Levy is a behavioral scientist. For the last 15 years, he has studied what makes leaders and teams succeed, working with everyone from Nobel laureates to Olympic captains and Fortune 500 executives. He is also the founder of The Influencers, a one-of-a-kind private dining club with thousands of members, many of whom are some of the world’s most respected leaders. What’s the big idea? Success isn’t about raw talent or a single heroic leader. It’s about how we align, focus, and unlock the resources within our teams. Intelligent teams create cultures that let people thrive together. Listen to the audio version of this Book Bite—read by Jon himself—below, or in the Next Big Idea App. 1. Why star talent fails We’ve been taught that the surest way to win is to gather the most talented people. But stacking a team with stars doesn’t guarantee success. In fact, it often undermines it. Take the 1980 U.S. Olympic basketball team. They were just college kids, facing NBA All-Stars in a series of exhibitions. On paper, the pros should have crushed them. Instead, the college players won four out of five games, including one by 31 points. The less talented team consistently defeated the stars. Business tells the same story. Quibi was a short-form streaming platform, led by Disney’s Jeffrey Katzenberg and eBay’s Meg Whitman. It raised nearly $2 billion, but leadership was so insulated and overconfident that they ignored feedback. The company shut down within months. Or DaimlerChrysler. In 1998, Mercedes’s parent company merged with Chrysler in what was billed as the perfect match of German engineering and American scale. Instead, cultural clashes and competing egos derailed the merger, wiping out billions in value. Psychologists call this the “too-much-talent problem.” When too many stars are in the room, cooperation breaks down and performance collapses. Skill is just the ticket to play. What really matters is how people work together. Teams win not because they have the best individuals, but because they combine their efforts into something greater than the sum of their parts. 2. The myth of the perfect leader When we think of great leaders, we often imagine someone charismatic, visionary, maybe even larger than life. But the surprising truth is that there are no universal traits of leadership. For more than a decade, I’ve hosted a series of dinners. The format is simple but unusual: 12 strangers come together to cook a meal, and until we sit down to eat, nobody is allowed to talk about their careers or even share their last names. When we sit to eat, people reveal they are Nobel laureates, astronauts, Olympic captains, CEOs, and Grammy-winning musicians. Over the years, I’ve connected with some of the most accomplished leaders on the planet, and what strikes me is that there is no single personality profile that is common to all these leaders. Some are introverts who prefer quiet reflection. Others are outspoken and brash. Some are methodical planners, while others thrive in chaos. If it’s not about personality, what makes someone a leader? The answer, by definition, is that they have followers. “Leaders give us the feeling of a new and better future.” So, why do we follow? The answer isn’t something as easy to pin down as vision or charisma. Instead, it’s an emotional response. Leaders give us the feeling of a new and better future. When we interact with them, they cause us to feel that tomorrow will be better than today. But there aren’t any specific skills that cause this. Maybe you’re brilliant at solving problems under pressure, or maybe you’re the person who can think at scale and move fast. It’s not about being well-rounded, it’s about your unique super skill being enough for people to believe that with you, the future is worth pursuing. Find the strengths that make you effective and use them to create a vision that others want to join. That’s what real leadership looks like. 3. The three pillars of team intelligence In the early 2000s, Lego was in serious trouble. The company had expanded into video games, clothing, and even theme parks, but in the process, it lost sight of what made it special. Lego was drowning in debt and close to bankruptcy. That’s when they brought in Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, a former McKinsey consultant with a background in organizational behavior. Knudstorp didn’t try to rescue Lego by chasing bold new ideas or hiring more star executives. Instead, he focused on building the conditions that allowed the teams they already had to succeed. What he put in place mirrors what I call the three pillars of team intelligence: Reasoning: Alignment around clear goals Knudstorp got everyone back to Lego’s core mission of inspiring creativity through play, not distracting side ventures. Attention: Knowing when to collaborate and when to focus Lego teams had to learn when to come together intensely on critical decisions, and when to step back so designers and engineers could innovate without constant interference. Resources: Unlocking and empowering the talent already inside the company Lego had world-class designers and engineers, but their best ideas were being buried under corporate bloat and scattered priorities. By elevating and focusing those creative resources, the company rediscovered the very expertise that had always been its greatest strength. Knudstorp sold off the theme parks, cut the side businesses that drained attention, and redirected investment back into the bricks. Most importantly, he gave designers and engineers the freedom to create again. That shift produced runaway successes like Lego Star Wars, Lego Harry Potter, and Bionicle. By aligning goals, sharpening focus, and empowering internal talent, Knudstorp rebuilt Lego from the brink of collapse into the world’s most valuable toy company. Individual talent matters, but what really makes teams thrive are the systems that guide how people align, communicate, and unlock the resources they already have. 4. The super chicken problem If you’ve ever worked on a team full of high achievers, you’ve probably seen this play out. People compete for airtime, ideas clash, and collaboration takes a back seat to ego. The assumption is that more talent should always mean better results, but research shows the opposite is often true. Decades ago, biologist William Muir at Purdue University ran an experiment with chickens to test productivity. At the time, the most productive egg-laying chicken was the Dekalb XL. This was like the Ferrari of chickens. It could outlay anything, but the focus on pure productivity during breeding led it to become violent. After all, the only way to become more productive at a certain point would be to peck other chickens to get their resources. Muir believed that you could have chickens that were very productive and humane. So, he took an average crossbred chicken, created 200 coops, and would have them work together in small groups to lay eggs. Those that laid the most eggs were rebred generation after generation. “The assumption is that more talent should always mean better results, but research shows the opposite is often true.” After six generations, Muir set up an experiment to see who was more productive: a coop of the super chickens—the Dekalb XLs—or his kinder, gentler birds. Muir’s kinder, gentler birds, bred both for prosocial behavior and productivity, beat the DeKalb XLs by a long shot. Mostly because, due to pecking each other to death, only three Dekalb XLs remained at the end of the experiment. When you stack a team entirely with stars, competition overwhelms cooperation. Studies in sports also show that teams overloaded with superstar players often underperform. The same holds true in business: Companies built around celebrity CEOs or elite hires often stumble because the team dynamic collapses under the weight of competing egos. Success is about creating conditions where people can thrive together and collaboration, trust, and shared purpose matter more than individual stardom. 5. The Miami Heat and the power of culture In 2010, the Miami Heat pulled off what looked like the greatest talent coup in NBA history. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh—all superstars—joined forces. At the announcement, LeBron famously promised multiple championships. But then, they lost. Raw talent wasn’t enough. The Heat had assembled the crew, but they hadn’t figured out how to make them work together as a team. That changed when Shane Battier joined the roster. To this day, it would be easy not to notice that he was on the team. Battier wasn’t flashy, he didn’t dominate the highlight reels, and his stats looked modest. But his teammates called him a “no-stats all-star” because he had a unique ability to elevate everyone else’s game. “Even in teams stacked with stars, it’s often the glue players, the ones who make everyone else better, who determine success.” Battier studied opponents obsessively, knew when to set the perfect screen, and often took on the toughest defensive assignments. He was even nicknamed “Lego,” because when he was on the court, everyone else clicked into position. His presence allowed LeBron, Wade, and Bosh to maximize their talent, and the championships followed. Even in teams stacked with stars, it’s often the glue players, the ones who make everyone else better, who determine success. Don’t just chase superstars. Value the people who connect the pieces, create trust, and turn potential into performance. They’re the difference between a team that stumbles and one that builds a dynasty. Enjoy our full library of Book Bites—read by the authors!—in the Next Big Idea App. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission. View the full article

Few Zoom calls have made me quite as self-conscious as my chat with Robert Biswas-Diener. An executive coach and psychologist, he recently coauthored a book on “radical listening.” Like many people, I’d assumed that I was a pretty good listener, but what if I’ve been doing it all wrong? By the end of the conversation, my fears have been confirmed—of the half-dozen skills he describes, I demonstrate only half. The good news is that we can all improve, and the advantages appear to be endless. By lending a more attentive ear to the people we meet, we become better negotiators, collaborators, and managers, while enhancing our own mental health. “It can be an antidote to many problems,” says Biswas-Diener. Better listeners = better on the job Being a good listener is a lot more than staying quiet and periodically nodding politely. There’s a practice called “active listening,” and research confirms it’s one of life’s most valuable skills. Consider a study from 2024 by Guy Itzchakov at the University of Haifa in Israel and colleagues. The team first asked 1,039 workers across various industries to judge their colleagues’ listening skills by rating statements such as, “When my colleagues listen to me, they genuinely want to hear my point of view” and “They show me that they understand what I say.” Over the following five days, they found that these scores predicted each participant’s commitment to their organization, their emotional resilience after stressful events, and their willingness to cooperate with other employees. Feeling heard may be especially important in times of uncertainty. A survey by Tiffany Kriz, an associate professor of management and organizations at MacEwan University in Canada, for instance, has shown that bosses with better listening skills are far more effective at soothing feelings of job insecurity following layoffs. It is not just the people around us who will benefit. Itzchakov has found that people with enhanced listening skills enjoy better mental health through their closer connections with their colleagues. They are less likely to suffer work-related burnout, for example. The question is, how do we go about improving the habits that we have always taken for granted? That’s why I called Biswas-Diener, whose book on the subject, Radical Listening: The Art of True Connection, came out earlier this year. Your step-by-step guide to becoming a better listener The first step is practical: Eliminate as many distractions as possible. Close the door to your office, put your cell on silent, shut your laptop—whatever you need to focus solely on the person in front of you. No one likes being “phubbed” (phone snubbed) as you check your notifications. (Hands up: I’m guilty of this.) Now’s the time for the mental work, which begins by establishing your intention for the conversation: Do you want to be entertained or to learn something new? “That’s going to guide what you’re paying attention to,” he says. At the same time, you should identify your conversation partner’s intentions: Are they looking for advice, practical support, or compassion? Each will require a different kind of response. This principle, called “optimal support matching,” should prevent those awkward moments that could lead to misunderstandings. Remember: Part of being a good listener is knowing the appropriate thing to say based on what you heard while you were listening. In many conversations, you will need to navigate disagreement. This means raising your intellectual humility so that you don’t carelessly dismiss the other person’s point of view. “It’s not posing as if you have less worth than another person, but recognizing that your opinion may be limited and biased,” Biswas-Diener says. “And if you don’t like what the person’s saying, you can always be curious about them,” he says. Listen, instead of looking for a fight. The psychological research shows that small signs of genuine interest in other’s views can be incredibly disarming. It both defuses the potential for conflict and encourages the other person to acknowledge their own doubts, so they are more receptive to your point of view. That may be because people tend to overestimate how much others are intent on changing their mind, and any display of open-mindedness will allay those fears. Being a humble, active listener, and simply asking someone why they have come to a particular judgement, can lower their defences, thus potentially making the communication more successful. Whenever possible, you should also validate the qualities that you admire. “Maybe you don’t like their personality, but you can always acknowledge how honest, forthright, or reflective they are,” Biswas-Diener says. Listen carefully to find something you can compliment. Finally, and perhaps most counter-intuitively, Biswas-Diener suggests listening and then actively interjecting at apposite moments. While this may seem to run against all good-etiquette guides, a few ecstatic interruptions—“yes!”, “I was thinking the same!”, “I didn’t know that”— can raise the energy of the conversation and emphasize your interest in what they are saying. For similar reasons, you can feel free to finish someone’s sentence for them. Even negative feedback—such as cutting in to explain that you have already heard the story before—offers proof that you are listening, whereas patient silence can seem cold, distant, or distracted. The speaker’s reaction will all depend on your timing and how much airtime you expect to take: Remember to balance any interjection with the all-important listening. “If I jump in and jump out, it’s a completely acceptable interjection,” says Biswas-Diener. “The only time they’re not comfortable is when you grab the podium.” An entire mindset shift I’ve been practicing these skills for the three weeks since I first spoke to Biswas-Diener, and I have already noticed some of the benefits. Despite some reservations, I’ve been braver at interrupting people mid-flow, and was pleasantly surprised to see the energy of the conversation rise as a result. Changing the way I listen changed the way both my conversation partner and I act during the discussion, in really productive ways. By mentally clarifying my intentions, I have found that work calls are much more efficient and rewarding, and by demonstrating more curiosity in alternative points of view, I have found that successful compromises are now far easier to find. Biswas-Diener suggests that, like our physical muscles, these empathic abilities should build over time. “You can even practice it when listening to radio interviews, and ask what the interviewer is doing well.” Those subtle signs of humility, curiosity, and acceptance will soon become far more obvious to you. “You’ll start hearing listening,” says Biswas-Diener. And by emulating them, you will soon build stronger social connections. View the full article

Labour MP found guilty in corruption case involving her aunt Sheikh Hasina, the country’s deposed prime ministerView the full article

For generations, we’ve been taught that early equals disciplined and late equals lazy. But that’s not biology—it’s a moral story disguised as science. As an expert in applied chronobiology, I’ve spent more than 20 years studying how biological rhythms shape work and wellbeing. It turns out that about 30% of people are early chronotypes (morning types), 30% are intermediates, and 40% are late chronotypes (evening types). Yet most workplaces still run on early-riser time—rewarding visibility over value, and hours over outcomes. When we align our schedules with our internal clocks, performance and motivation rise—but it takes courage to be honest about what that looks like. The people most disadvantaged in our contemporary workplaces are night owls (like myself), whose performance peaks much later in the day. If you also aren’t at your best in the morning, here’s how to talk with your manager about your circadian rhythm in a way that earns trust, not judgment. 1. Focus on results When you talk to your boss about your chronotype, make it about performance, not preference. Leadership coach, author, and former McKinsey partner Caroline Webb—best known for her book How to Have a Good Day—is a self-described “extreme night owl.” Early mornings were always difficult: “At university, I skipped the 9 a.m. lectures and relied on self-study instead,” she told me. “It wasn’t about laziness—it was about working when my brain was actually awake.” That same awareness later became part of how she designed her professional rhythm. At the Bank of England, Webb found that if she started later, she could produce sharper analysis and more accurate forecasts. Rather than seeing that as a personal quirk, she framed it as a productivity advantage. Before you bring up your biological rhythm with your manager, choose your moment strategically. The best time is after you’ve delivered strong results or during a regular check-in about performance—not in passing or out of frustration. That way, the conversation becomes about how you can sustain excellence, not why you dislike mornings. You might say something like: “My most focused work happens later in the day. If we can schedule key meetings or strategy sessions after 10 a.m., I’ll be sharper and deliver stronger results.” Webb’s advice to other night owls captures it perfectly: “If you frame it as a path to greater productivity, you get a better conversation,” she says. “It’s not about being indulgent—it’s about ensuring you’re at your sharpest when it matters most.” That kind of statement shifts the focus from comfort to contribution. It helps others see your rhythm not as a problem, but as a path to better performance. 2. Frame your rhythm as biological variation, not personal preference Another effective way to tell your boss that you’re a night owl is to describe your rhythm the same way we already talk about other forms of human diversity. Neurodiversity has helped normalize cognitive differences at work; chronodiversity does the same for biological timing. You might say something like: “Just as people think differently, people also function best at different times of day. I’m a late chronotype—my peak focus comes later. If we can schedule my key work during my strongest cognitive hours, you’ll get better decisions and higher-quality output from me.” This framing shifts the conversation away from comfort (“I don’t like mornings”) and toward biology (“My brain performs optimally at a different time”). Leaders tend to respond more positively when a request is grounded in science, performance, and inclusion rather than habit or lifestyle. It also normalizes the conversation. Instead of asking for special treatment, you’re highlighting a natural dimension of human variation—one that future workplaces will increasingly recognize as essential to wellbeing, creativity, and sustained performance. 3. Ask targeted questions in your next job conversation If your current workplace leaves no space for flexibility, take your chronological rhythm seriously in your next opportunity. Ask questions that reveal how the organization really thinks about time: “When do most team members start their day?” “Are meeting times flexible?” “How do you measure performance—by hours or by outcomes?” These questions show that you understand your energy patterns—and that you’re intentional about delivering value when you’re at your best. And if you’re a leader yourself, consider this: Flexibility isn’t indulgence, it’s intelligence. Teams that honor biological diversity make better decisions, experience less burnout, and sustain higher creativity across the day. Pretending to be a morning person might win short-term approval, but this kind of covering comes at a cost. Research shows that hiding aspects of who you are increases stress, reduces engagement, and harms creativity. When you fake an early rise, you’re not just losing sleep—you’re losing authenticity. Openness, on the other hand, builds credibility. It tells your boss you know how to manage your energy, your focus, and your performance. When more people dare to talk honestly about their biological rhythms, we move from moral judgment to biological understanding. And that’s how real flexibility—and real performance—begin. View the full article

Just like any new form of entertainment initially popular among kids and teenagers, video games got their share of suspicion, disdain, and even fearmongering. Today, they are a fully legitimate part of pop culture, but the narrative of video games being a waste of time is still alive. It’s highly unlikely to see a productivity guru advising you to play a video game. That said, as both a venture investor and a gamer, I insist that video games aren’t counterproductive. On the contrary, they help to develop skills that VCs, entrepreneurs, managers, and leaders need, while allowing you to take your mind off of stressors and recharge. My twin brother, Roman, and I have been avid gamers since childhood, when we played The Lost Vikings (1993), Disney’s Aladdin (1993), Doom (1993), and Quake (1996) together, sharing our family’s first computer. We gathered with friends to play Heroes of Might and Magic III (1999) and Warcraft III (2002) all day long. Now, at 35, we jointly manage GEM Capital, one of the largest gaming VC companies in the world. We’ve carried our love for video games throughout our lives, and it has given us not only a deep domain expertise but also a set of core professional skills. To illustrate this, I’ve picked five of those skills and paired each with a game that, I believe, had the strongest impact: 1. Task Prioritization The game: Heroes of Might and Magic III What does a VC’s workday look like? Team calls, board meetings with portfolio companies, new deals negotiations, investor check-ins, calls with auditors, syncs with legal and finance teams, communication with journalists, and the list goes on and on. Every single day the amount of tasks far exceeds the available hours. This workload isn’t for everyone, it demands smart time management and task prioritization. My Heroes of Might and Magic III gaming experience always helps me with this. The game constantly forces players to prioritize tasks. What should I do this turn: build a new unit-generating building or upgrade the castle? Seize a gold mine or capture an enemy fortress? Which hero should I send on which mission? Given the hundreds of hours I spent in this game, one could say I’d been preparing for my VC career since childhood. 2. Effective Communication The game: World of Warcraft As investors, we aren’t simply funding business ideas, we are always searching for the right people—the best founders and the best teams. Venture capital, at its core, is first and foremost about people and how we communicate with them. Our most critical work revolves around negotiations with partners, portfolio companies, and new targets. Do you know where else communication is vital? In multiplayer online games. For me personally, World of Warcraft (WoW) made the greatest contribution to my communication skills. I can’t help but compare the work of a VC to that of a guild leader or raid leader in WoW. Both roles require a ton of communication: motivating your team, resolving conflicts, and setting priorities. With the number of raids I led in WoW back in school and university, you could say that dealing with people is in my blood. 3. Teamwork The game: League of Legends It’s hard to imagine a successful VC without a strong, ambitious team. That’s why teamwork is important. You need to be able to maximize the potential of everyone on your team and the synergy between them. In my opinion, there’s no better analogy for teamwork in VC than the teamwork required in League of Legends (LoL). In both cases, a small group of like-minded individuals unites to achieve an ambitious goal. My experience of playing LoL with my school friends as a team 15 years ago has helped me tremendously in shaping my teamwork skills. 4. Quick decision making The game series: Doom, especially Doom Eternal A VC should be able to make the right decisions quickly. Hesitate on a hot deal, and it’s gone. A delay in decision-making at critical milestones can be fatal for portfolio companies. You need to think and act fast. The Doom series trained me to react quickly to unfolding events, dodging enemy attacks, moving strategically, and striking with speed. In hindsight, all the evenings spent playing the very first Doom with my dad and brother were the foundation for my rapid-reaction skills. 5. Persistence and resilience The game: Elden Ring Being a VC isn’t all rainbows and unicorn companies. Some investments aren’t going to perform as expected, some risks aren’t going to pay off, some negotiations aren’t going to be easy. It’s important to keep on track and remain enthusiastic when things don’t go your way. Fans of the Dark Souls series, and especially Elden Ring, will understand me here. The amount of time I spent on attempts to defeat the bosses in that game is countless. But, in the end, success always comes, and the efforts invested in it make it feel even sweeter. This game taught me to push myself, fight relentlessly, and never give up. I think this helps me immensely in my work now. Despite the common belief that video games are a waste of time, games have shaped a set of skills I heavily rely on as a VC. This includes smart task prioritization, effective communication, teamwork, quick reactions to unexpected challenges, and perseverance to reach the awards waiting ahead. On top of that, turning what I deeply love and enjoy into my job simply keeps me happy. View the full article

Let’s be honest: email kinda sucks. It’s not just the writing: it’s also the reading, the sorting, the figuring out what the third reply in a 15-message chain is supposed to mean. The good news is that artificial intelligence is now genuinely helpful when it comes to the soul-crushing drudgery of email. Free up the hours you spend every week typing, reading, and agonizing with these practical, AI-infused ways to tame your email. Instant thread summaries We’ve all been copied on the 27-reply thread with the subject line, “RE: FW: Re: Quick question.” Reading it is an act of sheer madness. Don’t. Use an AI assistant built into your email client—such as Gemini in Gmail, Copilot in Outlook, or features in services like Superhuman and Shortwave—to generate a one-paragraph summary of the entire conversation. You’ll get the action items, the key decisions, and the final context in seconds. Context-aware drafting You know what you need to say, but forming the polite, professional, and correct sentences takes energy you don’t have. Use your email service’s built-in AI reply generator. With one click, your AI can draft a response, often 90% perfect, and all you’ll have to do is polish and send. Here’s how to do it with Gmail and with Outlook. Batch prioritization Your inbox treats all emails equally, which means the notification for a company-wide memo announcing leftover Panera in the break room hits just as hard as the one from your biggest client. Employ smart filtering tools, such as SaneBox or Shortwave, that use machine learning to sort mail into custom folders like “Urgent/Action,” “Later/Digest,” and “Newsletters/Reading.” This frees your primary inbox for only the messages that require immediate action from a real human. Tone and style refinement Ever written a draft when you’re annoyed, only to read it back and realize you sound like an unemployable crank? Thankfully, AI can be your sanity check and personal PR manager. Most generative AI tools include a tone adjuster. Draft your email quickly, then use a prompt to change the tone to “professional,” “friendly,” or “assertive but brief.” The AI restructures the language to hit the right emotional note, preventing misunderstandings and eliminating the “draft-read-delete-rewrite-overthink” cycle. Automated follow-ups The sales process, the project check-in, the reminder to your colleague: follow-up is a mundane yet recurring element of work. Use an AI tool such as Mixmax or follow-up features in your company’s CRM to automatically schedule a “nudge” email to send if the recipient hasn’t responded after a set number of days. Better yet, some tools use AI to suggest the optimal time to send based on past recipient behavior, resulting in far less manual tracking of open loops. View the full article

I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives. 1. My boss keeps rotting food in our shared office I just started a new job, which I was thrilled to get and have really been enjoying so far. I share an office with one person, who is my immediate supervisor and is training me. He’s been training me well and he’s a really nice guy, but there’s one big problem: when he brings lunch to work, he doesn’t take his leftovers home. As a result, there are at least five or six large Tupperware containers under his desk, containing food in various stages of decay. The smell is, as you might imagine, pretty intense. He’s had this office to himself for the last year, so I think he’s probably been doing this for a while and doesn’t notice the smell anymore, but I can’t not notice it. I’m obviously not okay with rotting food being kept in our office, but since I’m brand new and this guy is my supervisor, I have to admit I feel a little weird about calling him out on this. Do you have any guidance or a suggested script I could use to try and get this taken care of? Eeuuww. You can actually be pretty straightforward about this! As in, “Those Tupperware containers are starting to smell pretty bad! Any chance of moving them out of here?” If you feel weird because he’s your boss, you can always open with “I might have an unusually sensitive sense of smell, but…” That’s not necessary and it’ll likely go over totally fine without that, though. – 2018 2. My performance review mentioned that I pee a lot So I’ve been at my job for a year, I really like my job, and I just got through a glowing performance review where I got the maximum possible raise. The one piece of feedback I got was I seem to be in the restroom a lot and people have talked about it/noticed. This is a ticket-driven position and I crush all the metrics, so it’s clear I’m making up the time I’m away from my desk. Anyway, the reason I’m in the bathroom is a minor congenital defect that makes it so it’s hard for me to fully relieve myself, so I’ll often have to use the restroom again an hour after I last went. My boss is a good guy and framed the restroom feedback as more something to be cognizant of than any kind of actual criticism. I guess at this point I don’t know if it’s worse to be the guy that goes to the bathroom a lot, or the guy that’s bad at going to the bathroom. There’s not really anything my boss could do to squelch gossip other than say, “Well he’s got a medical issue” and then obviously a private thing would be less private. I feel like it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie on this one, but am I potentially jeopardizing myself by not laying out that this is a real thing diagnosed by a doctor and that I legitimately need “needs to use the toilet a lot” as a reasonable and protected accommodation? If you’re comfortable with it, I think there’s potentially benefit to letting your boss know that there’s a health issue in play. You don’t need to give him details, and you can specifically say that this isn’t something you want shared with others, but if this is getting mentioned in your review, I think it’s worth saying, “Just so you know, this is a medical thing. It doesn’t sound like there’s any need for me to formally request an accommodation, but I can do that if it’s the kind of thing that otherwise might come up in feedback or an evaluation in the future.” The subtext there is “because this is not something I should hear about again.” But frankly, it’s ridiculous that this was mentioned in your review at all. If it’s not affecting your work (and clearly it’s not), it’s no one’s business how often you’re in the bathroom. Ideally your boss would be shutting that talk down when he hears it, by saying something like, “We don’t monitor people’s bathroom usage here, and Bob’s work is excellent.” – 2018 3. Asking people to stop leaping on me as soon as I walk into the office I have a pet peeve: I hate it when I’m walking into work in the morning (i.e., have my coffee in hand, gym bag, purse, jacket) and someone stops me in the hallway or follows me to my desk to ask a question (which is not an emergency). How do I tell them to please give me 10 minutes to decompress and put my things down without sounding rude? “I’m just walking in. Give me 10 minutes to get settled, and then I’ll be able to help you.” If you encounter resistance (“it’ll just take a minute!”), hold firm: “I have some things to take care of before I can help you. Come see me in 10 minutes and I’ll be able to.” Of course, if it’s your boss or someone else quite senior, you may not have this option — you need to apply some judgment to it, of course. – 2017 4. Working for a boss with a bad reputation Do you have any advice for working for a boss who does not not have a good reputation? Although I have found my own way to work with my supervisor, I have heard from many around the office that he is quite difficult to work with. I have seen it play out, have even experienced it myself, and sympathize with those affected. I’m not sure how to reconcile this on my end however. I suppose I should mention here that my supervisor does like working with me, but I’m growing uneasy over the warpath he tends to leave for others. I’m concerned that I run the risk of becoming guilty by association by working with him and I’m not sure what my place is when interacting with colleagues who are on the receiving end. Is there any way that this could harm any potential networking or future opportunities once I decide to leave? People’s default is usually to have sympathy for someone working for a difficult person, but that can change if you’re seen as close to him or if you appear to be “carrying his water” — if you’re stuck being the face of some of his actions, or if you have to deliver messages or take actions that reflect poorly on you even though they’re coming from him. There’s also an opportunity cost: If people don’t like or respect your boss, he’s not likely to have the type of relationships where he can promote your work to others or help you make connections with people or where his recommendation of you in the future will carry the same weight as if people liked him. That doesn’t mean it’s doomed to be a disaster. Plenty of people work for difficult bosses with difficult reputations and come out of it just fine. And sometimes the trade-offs of the job make it worth it. But it’s usually not without some sort of price. (Also, the type of job you’re in really matters. If you’re his deputy and need to manage people and projects on his behalf, it’s going to be much harder to do your job with integrity than if you’re a bit more removed.) – 2019 The post my boss keeps rotting food in our shared office, people leap on me as soon as I walk in, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

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Here is a selection of Posts from November 2025 that you will want to check out: Warren Buffett Was Always a Brand Guy by Craig Shapiro @cshapiro Emotional moats are deeper than financial ones. Your Ceiling Becomes Their Starting Point: A Guide to Building Healthy Family Habits via Chasing Excellence. Why modeling health beats managing behavior — and how to actually do it. Motivation Is a Feeling. Discipline Is a Decision by @AlanSteinJr Top 10 Reasons Leaders Stop Leading: And How to Get Going Again by @DanReiland A Gratitude Question That Changed Everything via @TheDaily_Coach “What does it look like to be grateful in this?” It's the Most American Day of the Year by @jamesstrock Thanksgiving Is Essential to Our National Identity, Character. 5 Silent Killers of Church (and Any Organization's) Staff Culture by @toddrhoades of Chemistry Staffing @churchchemistry via @BrianKDodd Jim Rohn Was Right: The Science Behind Becoming the Average of Your Five Closest Friends by @BrianKDodd 14 Thoughts about Building a Great Culture by @JonGordon11 Should Lawrence Summers Resign from Harvard? by @jamesstrock 20 Differences between Winning Cultures and Losing Cultures by @BrianKDodd The Art of Ending Well by @KevinPaulScott I Stopped Caring About Results (And Started Getting Them) by @RyanHoliday 4 Essentials of Successful Innovation by Craig Groeschel 3 Reasons Why Happiness Is The Wrong Goal In Life by @LaRaeQuy Final Thoughts — Lessons on Leading from Growing Up Around Dad by @artpetty How to Create a Great Story by @DrNickMorgan Perfect Imbalance via @LeadershipMain See more on Twitter. * * * Follow us on Instagram and X for additional leadership and personal development ideas. View the full article

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In today’s digital environment, responding to online reviews is crucial for your business’s reputation. A prompt response, ideally within 24 hours, shows you value customer feedback. Personalizing your replies by using the reviewer’s name can promote a stronger connection. Addressing both positive and negative feedback with professionalism not just resolves issues but likewise highlights your commitment to improvement. Comprehending these key strategies can greatly influence customer loyalty and satisfaction. So, what are the best practices for handling different types of reviews? Key Takeaways Respond to reviews within 24 hours to show attentiveness and enhance customer satisfaction. Personalize responses by using the reviewer’s name and addressing specific feedback to foster connection. Handle negative reviews with empathy, apologizing for issues and offering solutions while keeping conversations private. Thank reviewers for their feedback, especially for neutral reviews, and highlight improvements made based on their input. Encourage ongoing dialogue with customers to strengthen relationships and build trust in your brand. Understand the Importance of Responding to Reviews Even though you may think that online reviews merely reflect customers’ opinions, they actually play a crucial role in shaping your business’s reputation and attracting new clients. Comprehending the importance of responding to reviews is critical; 96% of consumers read them before making a purchase. Engaging with all reviews, particularly negative ones, can greatly improve customer loyalty. When you know how to respond to negative reviews, you can mitigate damage and turn bad experiences into improvement opportunities. It’s important to demonstrate that you value feedback; 46% of local consumers consider your responses when evaluating your business. Respond Promptly to Show You Value Feedback Responding to online reviews swiftly is essential for showing customers that you value their feedback, which can lead to increased satisfaction and loyalty. When you reply within 24 hours, it signals attentiveness and care, positively impacting your reputation and potentially attracting new customers. Establishing a routine for monitoring reviews guarantees you address feedback in a timely manner, helping to maintain a strong brand image. Importance of Timeliness Timeliness in responding to online reviews is crucial for demonstrating your commitment to customer feedback and overall satisfaction. Responding within 24 hours shows professionalism and respect, greatly enhancing customer loyalty. Quick replies not only help retain existing customers but also attract new ones; 46% of local consumers consider business responses when evaluating a company. Response Type Timeliness Impact Bad Review Shows you care and how to deal with bad reviews Good Review Reinforces positive feelings, how to respond to a good review Negative Comments Engages customers, how to reply to negative comments Impact on Reputation The way you respond to online reviews greatly impacts your business’s reputation. Customers expect a response within 24 hours, so responding swiftly shows you value their feedback. For instance, when addressing negative reviews, consider using responding to negative reviews examples that acknowledge the customer’s concerns and offer solutions. This approach not only demonstrates your commitment to quality service but furthermore helps mitigate the impact of negative reviews. By learning how to respond to online reviews effectively, you can transform dissatisfied customers into loyal advocates. In addition, businesses that engage with all reviews are twice as likely to attract new customers, reinforcing the importance of comprehending how to reply to bad reviews and how to respond to negative comments efficiently. Personalize Your Responses to Positive Reviews When responding to positive reviews, using the reviewer’s name can create a personal connection that shows you value their feedback. Acknowledge specific praise they’ve mentioned, as this illustrates your attentiveness to their experience and reinforces their positive feelings about your business. Finally, let them know you’re available for future needs, which can help build a lasting relationship and encourage them to return. Use Reviewer’s Name Addressing reviewers by their name in your responses not just creates a personal connection but moreover makes customers feel valued and appreciated. Personalizing your responses can greatly improve customer loyalty and engagement. Here are some benefits of using the reviewer’s name: It differentiates your response from generic replies. It shows attention to detail and care for customer feedback. It nurtures a sense of community among customers. It boosts your business’s reputation, attracting new clients. It demonstrates your commitment to customer service excellence. When responding to reviews, whether positive or negative, consider how to respond to a negative Google review or use negative review response examples effectively. Tailoring your response with the reviewer’s name can lead to positive feedback response examples and better overall engagement. Highlight Specific Praise Highlighting specific praise in your responses to positive reviews can greatly improve the connection you build with your customers. When you acknowledge particular aspects of their feedback, you show attentiveness and reinforce what they appreciated. For instance, if a customer mentions your staff’s friendliness, respond by saying, “Thank you for your review, [Customer Name]. We’re thrilled you found our team friendly!” This personal touch nurtures loyalty. Furthermore, expressing gratitude encourages repeat business. You might say, “We appreciate your kind words about our service!” Detailed responses likewise serve as social proof, demonstrating your commitment to excellent service. By using positive review response examples, you can effectively engage with happy customers during the process of learning how to respond to a bad Google review or a response to negative review. Offer Future Engagement Personalizing your responses to positive reviews can improve customer engagement and cultivate lasting relationships. Here are some crucial strategies for how to reply to a good review: Address customers by their names to make them feel valued. Thank them for their positive feedback, reinforcing their great experience. Acknowledge specific comments they made, showing you truly care. Invite them back or offer discounts for their next visit to encourage return business. Use positive review responses as marketing tools, showcasing your commitment to satisfaction. Address Neutral Reviews With Constructive Language When you receive a neutral review, it’s important to respond thoughtfully, as doing so can turn a mere acknowledgment into an opportunity for improvement. Start by thanking the reviewer for their feedback, as this shows you value their opinion. Highlight specific areas where they felt your service could improve, which demonstrates your commitment to improving customer experiences. If you’ve made changes based on their insights, share those updates to reinforce that their input matters. You can additionally provide links to related products or services that may better meet their needs in the future. Handle Negative Reviews Professionally and Calmly Handling negative reviews effectively is essential for maintaining your business’s reputation and nurturing customer loyalty. When you address these reviews, remember to: Respond quickly to show you value customer feedback. Approach feedback with empathy to build trust. Apologize for legitimate issues and offer solutions. Take the conversation offline to resolve matters privately. Maintain professionalism and composure to influence potential customers positively. Identify and Report Fake Reviews Effectively Identifying and reporting fake reviews is critical for protecting your business’s integrity and ensuring potential customers receive accurate information. To identify and report fake reviews effectively, start by monitoring your reviews regularly. On Google, click the three dots next to the review and select “Report review.” If it’s not removed, use the Reviews Management Tool to appeal, explaining why it should be reconsidered. For Facebook, go to your business page, click “More,” then “Reviews,” and select “Report post” next to the review. When addressing fake reviews publicly, calmly highlight inconsistencies without escalating conflict, as Facebook lacks an appeal process. Responding to fake reviews helps maintain credibility and provides a sample response to negative comments that reassures genuine customers. Utilize Tools for Monitoring and Managing Reviews Utilizing tools for monitoring and managing reviews can greatly improve your business’s online reputation and customer engagement. Tools like BrightLocal and Text Request enable you to oversee reviews from one dashboard, making your life easier. Here are some key benefits: Receive real-time alerts for new reviews, allowing prompt responses. Automate review requests to gather more feedback effortlessly. Analyze customer sentiment and review trends for insights. Manage your Google My Business profile effectively. Access examples of responses to negative comments on social media. These features help you learn how to reply to a positive review and provide response to feedback samples. With Google review response examples, you’ll know exactly how to respond to a good review on Google, enhancing your reputation and customer loyalty. Frequently Asked Questions How Do I Respond to an Online Review? To respond to an online review, start by thanking the reviewer for their feedback. Address them by name and mention specific points they raised to show you’re attentive. If the review is negative, acknowledge their concerns, apologize for any issues, and invite them to discuss the matter privately. Always maintain a professional tone, and use relevant keywords to improve visibility. Timely and personalized responses can greatly impact potential customers’ perceptions of your business. How to Reply to a 5 Star Review? To reply to a 5-star review, start by addressing the reviewer by name, which personalizes your response. Thank them for their positive feedback, reinforcing their decision to choose your business. Highlight specific aspects they enjoyed, showing you value their input. Invite them back for future needs, nurturing loyalty. Finally, aim to respond within 24 hours, demonstrating your commitment to customer satisfaction and excellent service. This approach improves your relationship with the reviewer. How Do I Reply to a Reviewer? To reply to a reviewer, start by thanking them for their feedback. Acknowledge specific points they made to show you value their input. If their review is negative, apologize for any inconvenience, and offer to resolve the issue privately, demonstrating your commitment to customer satisfaction. Aim to respond within 24 hours to show you prioritize their concerns. Regularly check reviews across platforms to guarantee timely and effective responses, enhancing your business’s reputation. How to Respond to Google Reviews Positively? To respond positively to Google reviews, start by addressing the reviewer by name to create a personal connection. Thank them for their feedback, highlighting specific positive points they mentioned. This shows you value their experience. Let them know you’re available for any future needs, encouraging them to return. Aim to respond within 24 hours to improve satisfaction and demonstrate your commitment to customer engagement. This approach promotes loyalty and builds positive relationships. Conclusion In summary, responding to online reviews is crucial for maintaining your business’s reputation and nurturing customer loyalty. By addressing feedback swiftly and personally, you demonstrate that you value customer input. Acknowledging both positive and negative comments allows you to build trust and improve your services. Utilizing the outlined strategies will not just improve your engagement with customers but will also create opportunities for growth, eventually contributing to a positive brand image and increased customer satisfaction. Image via Google Gemini This article, "7 Essential Tips for Responding to Online Reviews" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article