Every failed senior hire eventually becomes public, whether it’s a resignation "to pursue other opportunities," or a restructuring. Sometimes the news makes headlines. But the failure almost never starts when it surfaces. It likely started months earlier, in a selection process that measured the wrong things, usually involving an interview process that went beautifully.

The numbers deserve more attention than they get. Corporate Executive Board research puts executive failure at 50–70% within eighteen months of entering a new role. And when hires fail, it's rarely about competence: across 20,000 hires tracked by Leadership IQ, 89% of failures were attitudinal and interpersonal; only 11% were technical. We aren't losing leaders to skill gaps. We're losing them to everything interviews are the worst at seeing.

What interviews miss. By the time someone is a serious candidate for a senior role, they're probably excellent at interviews. Interviews reward narrative fluency, preparation, and polish, all qualities that correlate with seniority but aren't necessarily "readiness" or "capacity" for the job.

Meanwhile, unstructured conversation is where bias works unsupervised: affinity bias ("reminds me of me"), halo effect (one impressive strength colors everything), and confirmation bias (we hear whatever supports the gut call we made in the first five minutes).

Six shifts for a fairer senior read. What rarely appears consistently in a rehearsed hour is capacity. What this person actually does with feedback, with pressure, with decisions where the data doesn't decide. Here are six practical shifts that can surface it.

1. Read real work, not rehearsed accounts. With the candidate's knowledge and consent, look at how they actually operate: board updates, town halls, the Q&A after a plan went sideways. Real work is far harder to polish than an interview answer, and fairer than a gut impression.

2. Apply the same lens to every candidate. Bias thrives on inconsistency. Define the capacities the role demands before you meet anyone, then evaluate every candidate against the same questions, the same way. Structure is the most evidence-backed bias reducer in selection.

3. For coachability, watch what they do with feedback about them. Not their work, but them. Ask about a time they received uncomfortable personal feedback. Curiosity is a signal. A fluent explanation of why the feedback was wrong is also a signal.

4. For resilience, listen to how they narrate setbacks. Who else is in the story? Leaders who describe failure with other people accurately, including people they disagreed with, recover and learn differently from leaders whose stories have one hero and a lot of background scenery.

5. For decision-making, count what they can hold. Have them walk through a decision where the data didn't decide. How many competing considerations stayed alive before collapsing into one simple story? Senior roles are made of exactly those decisions.

6. Keep the human decision human. Whatever you learn, whether from interviews, references, assessments, or real work, treat it as one input among several, reviewed by people. No process should hand you a verdict on a person, and no vendor should claim theirs does.

The tools are catching up. The measurement gap is closing. The leading indicator is leadership capacity. Readiness Engine, has partnered with analytics firm Stealth Dog Labs to connect the two: what a leader's real work reveals, and how organizations perform over time.

With the leader's knowledge and consent, their real work is used to build an evidence-backed picture of capacities like coachability, resilience, and complexity-holding, grounded in fifty years of developmental and leadership science. This provides an understanding that doubles as a development map — for the leader you select, and for the strong candidate not ready yet, which is how you keep them and improve retention and employee morale.

Selection done this way does more than avoid the expensive headline. It builds the bench that prevents the next one.

To learn more

Logan Yonavjak is co-founder and CEO of Readiness Engine, which reads leadership capacity from how leaders actually show up in real work. Learn more at readinessengine.io, follow Readiness Engine on LinkedIn, or connect with Logan on LinkedIn.

A study by Deloitte on inclusive leadership emphasizes that employees experience inclusion largely through their interactions with managers and leaders—from how meetings are conducted, how feedback is delivered, to who receives stretch assignments and opportunities to contribute—leaders influence whether employees feel heard, are treated fairly and are able to participate fully.

 If all of this sounds familiar to our readers, it should. We’ve been saying this long before Deloitte’s study. The employee experience is the “I” in DEI.

As the world and the economy becomes more diverse—customers with different expectations, global markets, broader talent pools and wider range of perspectives to drive innovation—leaders need to demonstrate more inclusive behaviors and develop inclusive traits.

Behaviors that define inclusive leaders. Six interconnected traits that distinguish inclusive leaders are:

• Commitment: Holding themselves accountable for being inclusive and creating a positive employee experience. This includes supporting peers and team members in their efforts.

• Collaboration: Creating an environment where participation is encouraged and diverse viewpoints help shape decisions. This includes leading meetings and not dominating them or allowing others to dominate, and making sure all voices are heard. Collaboration skills require disciplined communication.

• Curiosity: Seeking out different experiences and remaining open to learning from perspectives that differ from their own. New and different perspectives drive innovation for the organization. They also help individuals to learn and grow. Curiosity and leadership should be tightly woven together.

• Courage: Challenging assumptions, acknowledging mistakes—being vulnerable and accepting criticism, and speaking up when difficult conversations are necessary. This trait complements good conflict management skills and builds trust.

• Cultural intelligence: Adapting effectively when working across different backgrounds, cultures and situations, and bringing diverse teams together. Cultural intelligence is recognizing all the dimensions of diversity that each individual possesses. It’s understanding what diversity really is.

• Cognizance of bias: Recognizing personal biases and understanding how those biases can influence decisions. Let’s face it, everyone has biases. It’s part of being human. A leader who self-reflects and knows theirs, can avoid being blindsided by them. And recognizing them is part of being vulnerable.

In The Big Book of HR, we stress that inclusion is not about counting people. Rather it’s always about making people count—how organizations put action into their policies, practices and culture. Part of any DEI strategy should be developing inclusive leaders.

Yet another marketing offer that can’t be refused, or can it? I was tempted to respond: Which book? Are you aware it’s ranking #92 in business books on Amazon? And what is an Algorithm Architect?  Best approach though is don’t engage. Block them and delete. It’s yet another scam.

The writing community is being plagued by them, and they get more bizarre by the week. Fellow authors take note—you are not alone.

Scams have become prevalent in the HR community, targeting job seekers. Nearly half of them receive a constant barrage of scam offers which are skeptical. Ninety-five percent have encountered a suspicious job offer, and more than half have been directly targeted.

For job seekers, common signs it’s a scam: communication through text or chat, job offers with no interviews, promises of high pay for little work, poor grammar (a dead giveaway), suspicious contact information (e.g. individualname.companyname@gmail.com) and companies that were not readily identifiable. Authors see these last two signs as well, often weekly. Even if you find a website associated with the communication, be warned that AI can generate websites.

Fake job candidates are also impacting the recruiting community. Gartner has warned that by 2028, as many as 1 in 4 job candidates may be fake. 

For authors, these ploys have been happening for years. Promises of media exposure or marketing opportunities—many real, but at exorbitant prices.

My past advice included researching the firms. With the proliferation of scams today, don’t waste your time. Monster reports that one-third of job seekers said they had lost time looking into or even applying for these fake opportunities. One-quarter of job seekers reported ongoing stress and anxiety, which occurs in the writing community as well. Consider if they are worth it.

The state of the economy is a contributing factor. Job seekers needing a job are vulnerable. Authors, especially indie authors, wanting to get their books out into the world and sold are vulnerable. And many authors want to just write, not market, so they are delighted if someone “offers” to do the marketing for them.

Over-reliance on artificial intelligence is another factor. AI is producing everything from fake resumes, fake websites, fake book clubs (a big scam for authors), fake invitations from celebrities (such as big-name authors), fake job titles—Algorithm Architect, seriously?—and of course, fake books.

Closing thought: Be aware. The scams are out there. Don’t part with your money, your personal information, or your time. Move on.

Disciplined communication, according to Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase CEO, is a leadership skill all employees should master. Failure to do so can lead to poor management decisions. Influential leaders structure their thinking and communication intentionally and organize their ideas beforehand.

Dimon is on to something. Exercising discipline in communicating forces an individual to take their time, organize their thoughts, think and talk more clearly, and sharpen their arguments—or concerns—before expressing them. The outcome—faster and smarter decision making.

The article caught my attention on a day I was preparing for a podcast interview. I never like to go into these interviews cold if I can avoid it.

The most successful interviews often involve questions provided in advance, so you are not caught off-guard. Many have a theme to them providing a similar advantage—an opportunity to organize your thinking beforehand and have some talking points in mind.

The rule of three. A framework that Dimon suggests for organizing your thinking is the rule of three. You present three options and weigh each before making a choice. This is a timeless rule of persuasive communication because people process, remember, and act on information that is organized into three structured buckets.

Not all communication is for the purpose of making a decision. Often communication—whether it’s oral or written—takes place for informational purposes only. Regardless the reason, breaking information into specific, structured categories or buckets makes sense. It keeps the information on point and well organized and the recipients stay interested and engaged.

It is hard to refute organized and carefully crafted information, especially if persuasion is the goal. Structured information strengthens the individual’s position.

Takeaway: Sloppy communication reflects sloppy thinking and leadership whereas disciplined communication leads to better decisions, earns trust, and inspires confidence.

The selection board for a branch of the armed services had convened. Their task was to review a slate of candidates within the civil engineering corps for promotion. There were 125 candidates to review for 25 available positions.

The challenge lay in the fact that the current selection board consisted solely of white men. “And to assure fairness, we should try to have diverse representation on the board, you know, a woman and a person of color.” That was a good observation, since the slate of candidates did include a diverse group of junior officers.

“Yeah, and Marcia is a woman, Hispanic, and an officer.”

Enter Marcia. Serving on the selection board was an appointment, not something she could turn down. So, she rolled up her sleeves, dug into the files—all 125 of them—and began her assessment of each individual candidate. She carefully considered the requirements of the positions and ranks into which they’d be moving and evaluated each individual’s qualifications—knowledge, skills and abilities—against those requirements.

The selection board convened to discuss the candidates. They sang the praises of so many of the young male officers, including one who was African American. They made it sound as if he had gone to heaven and back. They called for a vote.

Then, Marcia protested. She pointed out that none of the women candidates were even talked about. It was as if they did not exist. She asked if anyone had looked at their files and evaluated their careers to this point. Silence. Sheepish looks appeared on their faces as their heads dropped down, avoiding eye contact with her.

Then she began her assessment of the African American male, pointing out that he had no leadership experience and his skills were weak. While he had future potential, he clearly needed more development. The others were shocked at her observation. They thought they’d done well, choosing one, and only one, diverse candidate.

A discussion of all the female candidates and their qualifications followed, with Marcia presenting her assessment of each. In the end, one of them was chosen for promotion. The African American male was not.

Reviewing the process, did the male members of the selection board deliberately overlooked the female candidates, or was that omission an inadvertent bias based on past practice or culture? We can’t assume or be certain of their motives. However, discrimination might have been present.

Adverse treatment discrimination occurs when an intentional employment decision that treats someone differently than another similarly situated employee on the basis of a protected status, in this instance, sex, is made. Adverse impact discrimination occurs when a neutral policy inadvertently has a discriminatory effect on a protected class of people.

Marcia may have identified other female candidates she felt were deserving of promotion. Nevertheless, she led by example in ensuring the review of all the females and their qualifications and modeling a fairer selection process free from bias and potential discrimination.

Thought Leadership Podcast: Maryanne, we’ve talked in the past about challenges such as artificial intelligence, mentoring and rebuilding trust.

Maryanne: And don’t forget, mischievous workplace behavior.

TDP:  Oh yes, you did entertain us with that topic. You and your team must get easily frustrated confronting these challenges not to mention the changes you must deal with. How do leaders today cope?

Maryanne: Frustrating indeed. Often a typical day is spent reacting to demands and obligations.  Of course, there are things you must tend to as they arise, but choices can be made and priorities can be set. An activity I learned at a leadership symposium was to begin imagining your perfect, your ideal. What’s your ideal day like? Or the ideal workplace, or meeting, or team. Then do something about it.

TDP: That sounds easier said than done, Maryanne. Can you elaborate?

Maryanne: Not to oversimplify it, but it’s not as hard as it might seem if you put your mind to it—shift your thinking from reacting, the mode we get caught in, to an action mode. Most people know what frustrates and exhausts them. When you look at your work life, even your personal life, and all your relationships, ask yourself four things:

• What would you add?

• What would you take away?

• What would you fix?

• What would you stop?

 TDP: That does sound easy, but isn’t there more to it?

Maryanne: Of course. Once you have these answers, then you have to make some intentional choices to change. You have to do something.

TDP: Such as?

Maryanne: Well, if you need more uninterrupted thinking time, then add it to your calendar and commit to doing it. If constant multi-tasking is leaving you exhausted, stop trying to do everything at once. Then there is everyone’s complaint—meetings wasting energy and time. Take away unnecessary agenda items or eliminate meetings that no longer serve a purpose.

TDP: I’m seeing a pattern here. You mentioned moving from reaction to action. Any practical tips on doing that?

 Maryanne: Yes, it’s part of the activity. Too often we let life happen to us rather than exercising influence over it. It’s time to replace busyness—a habitual way of working and living—with intention. Understanding what you would change is the path to making a choice about what you will change. Go back to the original questions and now list what you will add, take away, fix and stop. Choose one action and act on it today, another tomorrow, another the next day until you’re acting in a way that’s meaningful to you.

 These changes don’t require someone else to rescue you. You’re making deliberate choices and positioning yourself to better meet the constantly occurring challenges you are up against every day.

 TDP: Thanks so much for your insights, Maryanne. It’s always a pleasure.

 For joining us today, audience members can download this free ebook Ask Maryanne: Unlocking Management Challenges.

 Maryanne: And don’t forget to get a copy of They Did What? – a compilation of those unbelievable tales based on real life experiences. 

In these trying times, building a community and connecting with people with like interests, is critical. What’s the secrets to good collaborations?

Many collaborative connections have come to us virtually. This month, we’re introducing a guest columnist who found us through our newsletter on Substack. All parties have something to gain: we can expand our content; she gets additional exposure for her work; we’ve connected with someone new.

One of our most cherished collaborations (and colleagues) is with Francesca Di Meglio who discovered us virtually while she was working for HR Exchange Network. She invited us to contribute articles to that platform. Now, Francesca is doing her own thing with her podcast, Still Team Human, and collaborating with her network. Be sure to check it out and stay tuned. We will be her guests in the coming months.

Of course there are colleagues we meet through in-person activities. Cornelia connected with a fellow writer who’s also an actor. If you follow our blogs, you’ve seen recent posts inspired by Mike Kimmel’s book 50 Secrets Nobody Tells You in Hollywood which contains leadership and life lessons for all. She received the book when he asked for a review—his win, along with shout outs from us. In return, we got great blog ideas. Collaboration wins work both ways.

Here are some tips for getting the most out of your collaboration experience: 

• Have an agenda. Meetings and phone calls should have an agenda with clear goals and discussion items to keep the project on track and everyone accountable. 

• Be clear. Don’t assume others can read your mind.

• Carry your weight. Focus on what you can control—your work. You can’t control other people.

• Don’t be shy. Don’t hesitate to offer your own ideas but be polite and respectful of others.

• Stay visible. Nothing is more frustrating than someone who doesn’t respond to emails or texts for days at a time. Be responsive.

• Prepare your arguments. Take time to organize your thoughts in advance.

• Embrace discomfort. Make an effort to work in ways you’re uncomfortable with, unless this involves illegal or unethical activities, but….

• Speak up early if you’re not happy with something. Don’t simmer for months and then blow everything up.

• Be prepared to go on alone. If partners fail and drop away, have a plan for how you’ll get something out of it anyway—and know how you’re going to handle it if you are the one who must drop out. 

Collaborating with someone might be an amazing experience that changes how you work, or miserable one. Either way you are going to learn from these experiences and strengthen your community. We have been collaborating since we wrote our first book together and always joke that we’re still talking to each other, sometimes several times a day.

At center stage is diversity. Each orchestra section brings different types of instruments. The instruments within each of those sections are distinct, yet similar. String sections, for example, include violins, violas, cellos and double basses. Among the woodwinds you’ll find flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons. This is all to produce a diversity of sound that when brought together creates the harmony. Diversity is each member bringing their own unique instrument to make the music work. The same is true in organizations—every team member fills a different role that requires different skills and often different tools to make the organization work.

Starting at the section level of the orchestra, there is acceptance—the understanding and respect that members play various types of similar instruments. The same should be true in organizations—accepting every team member for the unique skills and experiences they bring.

Equity versus equality. Every musical piece varies. Most use a wide variety of instruments throughout. That does not mean, however, that every section gets an equal amount of time to play. In some musical pieces, a string section may dominate, complimented by certain woodwinds to capture the mellow mood intended by the composer. A different musical piece with a livelier mood may make more use of brass and percussion instruments. That’s equity—giving each musical piece what they need to accomplish the composer’s intent. The same should be true in organizations—giving each team and team member what they need to accomplish the organization’s goals.

Is any single section or any specific set of instruments more important than the other? Percussions could argue they are since they are the loudest while strings could claim they are since they are the softest. Saxophones could argue they are the coolest making them more important. The reality is that all instruments make a necessary contribution, bringing us to belonging—the understanding that everyone plays what they want and are good at without judgment. The same should be true in organizations—allowing people to perform in the area in which they excel without criticism.

The climax is inclusion. Some symphony aficionados sit through a performance with their eyes closed so they can focus on hearing. As the orchestra leads up to the crescendo, the startling crash of the cymbals or ring of a gong can come making a musical statement. What if this instrument was excluded? Would the performance have had the same dramatic effect? Inclusion is inviting others in to bring different sounds, ideas, and richer performances. The same should be true in organizations—inviting in people with new and fresh ideas that will flourish into robust solutions for the organization.

When organizations don’t honor uniqueness, nor give their employees what they need to succeed, they cannot create a workforce that is engaged, nor a culture that is positive. Worse, when they exclude people, from the organization, from a team, or from contributing, discrimination may result. Then they have to face the music, which may not be harmonious.

Imagine you are a leader, and the virtual team meeting starts. Status update ensues, discussions take place, and the call ends at a quarter after the hour. But before that happens, someone in the top right corner of the screen drops a mildly pointed political remark. The room shifts and goes quiet. Eyes drop, and the energy sinks. It’s frozen with nobody knowing what to do. The manager’s instinct is to hope it passes, and everyone moves on quickly.

Political talk often feels personal because it touches on our values, and political disagreements can feel like an attack on our values. Managers fear that intervening means taking sides. So, they say nothing. Yet, this form of relationship management has its own cost. The team reads the silence as either allowed behavior or as no one steering.

The Steps to Take. The manager's job is not to police people's beliefs. Beliefs are personal. The problem is conduct when it is disruptive, not the opinion itself. This separation is what makes intervening possible.

You are not taking a side as a manager, but you are addressing the behavior head-on. Consider the following approach:

Step one - interrupt

Name the disruption calmly, in the moment that it happens. Use short, neutral language. It’s not the time to lecture. Keep your tone steady and non-punitive. Lower the temperature. Leverage a line redirecting everyone back to work. The pause itself is the tool.

Step two - separate values from conduct, out loud

Acknowledge that people hold strong, differing views. That is fine. State it plainly that meetings are not the place for these discussions. Make the line about setting, not the person’s politics. Empathize it with them and the room. Draw the boundary, kindly. This protects the person who spoke and the people who froze.

Step three - document

Document what happened after the meeting briefly and factually, with what was said and what you did. It is not about surveillance; it is about a record. It matters if it turns into a disruptive pattern later on. Your social awareness might not pick up on it several months down the line if the situation repeats and you have not logged the prior event. Once and an incident is a moment, whereas several incidents can be a larger problem.

Step four - move the team forward.

Signal clearly that the meeting is continuing and return to work. Don’t overprocess or dwell. Be the leader in re-centering the room's energy and moving forward in the present. You can do a brief follow-up with the person if needed, but it is not always necessary. The goal here is to demonstrate to the team that the issues were handled and not avoided. Handled and overcame rebuilding psychological safety.

The Takeaway. Managing political talk at work is never about silencing people's beliefs. It is about protecting the conditions everyone needs to do their work — the focus, the trust, the sense that someone is steering. Beliefs stay with the person. Conduct is what you address.

The first time you run this sequence, it will feel risky. It stops feeling that way quickly. What once looked like taking a side turns out to be the opposite: a steady, neutral way to keep a room intact when it would rather freeze.

You are not refereeing politics. You are protecting the work, and a manager who can do that calmly is rarer and more valuable than one who simply hopes the moment passes.

Thanks to our guest, Colette Molteni, who writes Empathy Elevated, where she helps professionals make the human side of work as practical and precise as the technical side.

Where does hope come from? Hope starts in the prefrontal cortex of our brain. That’s the same area that we use for decision making and problem solving. How does having hope make a difference in our lives?

• Hope reduces anxieties and depression.

• Hope strengthens relationships.

• Hope inspires collective action and social change.

• Hope encourages people to set goals and believe they can achieve them.

• Hope motivates people to meet everyday challenges because they feel they can.

• Hope fosters resilience, helping us bounce back from overwhelming situations.

• Hope nurtures the ability to face the challenging situations life puts in our way.

Hope is learnable. Recall a time when you found yourself in a difficult situation and you overcame it. What did you experience in that situation? Learning from a difficult experience can be painful but it is also a great way to learn and grow your ability to be hopeful. Every time you are hopeful you build a reserve of optimism and expand your resilience.

People who are hopeful are more likely to develop coping strategies in the face of adversity. Unlike optimism, which is the expectation of a better future, hope is action oriented. Hope is sometimes used in place of wishing. Wishing is more passive while hope is about taking action.

An example of hope being action focused is to think about how you approach a challenging project or deliverable. Breaking the project into smaller, manageable pieces provides you with a better chance of finishing and encourages you to go on to the next piece. This builds your ability to hope.

Hope can also have a positive impact on some of the most serious mental challenges in our world today including PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Don’t overlook any opportunity to ask for help when you need it.

People with hope are more likely to be able to recover from illness or injury and they usually have lower levels of depression and anxiety.

Don’t think that people with hope are happier than the rest of us. Even people who are happy and hopeful can get discouraged. The difference is that people with hope know that there is light at the end of the darkness.

On June 18, 2026, President Barack Obama’s Presidential Center opened in Chicago. The center was created as a beacon of hope. His presidential campaigns centered on Hope. During his speech at the Center’s opening, he spoke of finding community when he first arrived in Chicago and witnessing the resilience of citizens in the face of hardship. First Lady, Michelle Obama reminded us during her speech, “Hope is the essential spark that lights the flame of change.”

As a closing thought, Jonas Salk said, “Hope lies in dreams, imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality.”

It all starts with the matching process which can take some time and attention. Usually, it just doesn’t happen organically. In previous blogs we have discussed how to match skills, interests, goals, and availability. For example, consider qualities that you want in a mentor:

• Someone who has knowledge or skill in an area that a mentee doesn’t have

• Someone who is a good listener

• Someone who has a genuine interest in developing the skills of others

• Someone who is trustworthy

 As you work together with your mentor over time, hopefully you will get to know each other and spend time setting goals. Your goals may be short or long term, but it helps to be clear on what you want to achieve and how your mentor can add value.  Having clear goals and an agreement as to how and when you will meet is a critical step to having a positive relationship with your mentor.

Your role as the mentee is to use the time you spend with your mentor effectively. Prior to each session, craft some questions you want to ask your mentor. Ask for advice on specific challenges you are facing. Share the positives you are experiencing with your mentor which will encourage you both to continue working together. Be curious. Having a mentor is a wonderful learning experience for you so take full advantage of it.

Be sure to keep your appointments. Of course, there will be times when you need to reschedule a mentoring session but give your mentor plenty of notice. Take good notes. Follow through with any assignments your mentor gives you. Like any positive relationship, both parties have to keep promises and value the other person’s time.

As you work together, your goal is to build an enduring relationship with your mentor. This takes time and effort. Each of you must commit to the goals you set. Each of you must make an investment and contributions to build a relationship where positive outcomes are possible.

Be grateful for the time and work your mentor gives you. Mentors are usually quite busy themselves, so honor their time and attention and listen to them.

Let’s face it, there is no reason to invest in the mentoring process unless your goal is to build an enduring relationship. Consider making this your first goal and see what happens.

This futuristic vision may not be realistic, but consider a workplace where humans work alongside virtual and physical AI agents to create value. Just as organizations thought they’d figured out hybrid workforces, enter an operating model known as an agentic organization.

What challenges would such a model present for workplace leaders?

As companies are rushing to adopt AI tools in the name of cost reductions and efficiency—reasons they tout to their shareholders—many leaders are missing important points.

First is that it’s expensive technology and in the short-term, the return on investment isn’t meeting expectations. When deploying AI, knowledge management and extensive training data are critical, costly and time consuming.

Second, while AI agents can support or carry out many tasks performed by customer service, compliance, HR operations, marketing and finance, it’s also adding a new layer of work that needs to be understood and supervised.

McKinsey has described the rise of the agentic organization as a new operating model where humans work alongside virtual and physical AI agents to create value. Core pillars of this shift are workforce, people and culture. AI agents will not only change tools, they will also change responsibility, judgment, accountability and the shape of human work.

The Challenges. As with any new technology agentic AI brings new challenges. This is an opportunity for HR leaders to take control.

• Understanding the work. Predictions by Goldman Sachs focus on automating job tasks rather than job displacement. This requires a human capability map showing the people who understand the work deeply enough to direct and challenge it, and to be accountable for the result.

• Maintaining integrity of the work. Moving too quickly to implement AI tools has risks.While AI can create new workflows, leaders must understand the judgment behind tasks before automating them, the context that made a process work, and if employees are taking responsibility for the work. Faster workflows aren’t necessarily better ones.

• Orchestrating the Work. Managers will have to differentiate between the talent with deep understanding in one functional area versus those with deep expertise in several areas and the ability to connect them. They will have to be skilled in orchestrating work across people, skills, data and technology in real time

The Leader’s Role. AI agents need ownership and oversight. Savvy organizations will realize that without defining the business value of AI or implementing controls for risk, AI projects will not survive. Before deciding where and when to implement AI, consider:

• Where must human judgment remain close to the work?

• Who understands the process beyond the task list?

• Who has the institutional knowledge that should be protected before a workflow is redesigned?

• Who can review AI output with enough context to challenge it?

• Who has the cross-functional thinking needed to coordinate people, systems and agents?

Using AI in an organization is more than just introducing tools and training employees how to use them. It must be strategic and approached the same as any new system implementation. From the people side, at a minimum, it requires building development paths and redesigning performance systems around responsibility rather than speed. Most importantly, it means valuing people for their judgment, institutional knowledge, relationships, and understanding the work and how it gets done.

Equity, the E in DEI, is about providing access to opportunity and access to advancement. It's looking at what individual needs are. While equity and equality are often confused, equity goes beyond equality and establishing a level playing field. How do organization get to be equal opportunity employers?  By providing equity to people. There's a fine line between these terms, but the distinction is important.  

Explaining equality as providing a level playing field, translates to everyone getting the same exact resources regardless of their individual circumstances and their individual needs. It's one-size-fits-all. Equality would be giving everyone in the band a guitar, even if some played woodwinds.

Equity, however, looks at individual considerations. It's recognizing and assessing what different circumstances and needs are before you provide resources to individuals. Equity, in contrast, is giving everyone an instrument—the type of instrument they played, strings, percussion, brass, woodwinds or keyboards.

Consider the company establishing a management principle to treat everyone with fairness and respect. They didn't say to treat everyone equally because not everyone nor every set of circumstances is equal—one size does not fit all. To them, people included not only their employees but clients, service providers and members of the community. They consider different employee circumstances, for example tenure, when making employee decisions. 

Individual needs are considered when making a reasonable accommodation. For example, a hospital provides language translation to people whose first language is not English to assure an equitable environment. If a company provides closed captioning to make webinars accessible to hearing-impaired individuals, must they give participants who don’t need it something else to level the playing field?

Allocation of training and resources exemplifies equity. Employees placed in new roles being impacted by new technology receive specialized training in the skill. That doesn’t require offering it to everyone in the organization because everyone may not need it. Organizations encounter this all the time with upskilling and reskilling.

These distinctions may seem slight, but they are important when discussing equality versus equity, because equity is such an important piece of DEI.

Equity is eliminating barriers. It’s guaranteeing fair and respectful treatment to everyone, and for employees it’s providing access to opportunity and advancement.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion work together to power retention, performance, innovation, as well as customer and stakeholder impact.

–Barbara Mitchell

If you've been following us long enough you've heard us both talk about the importance of listening and the lack of courses on it. I recently came across an interesting lesson on listening in an unsuspecting place. Mike Kimmel in his book 50 Secrets Nobody Tells You in Hollywood, offers interesting and refreshing advice to actors about active listening. All his tips are applicable to any meeting or conversation.

Mike shares with his readers how many actors don't pay enough attention to their scene partners lines of dialogue. They're just sitting back waiting for their turn to talk.  Sound familiar? They look like hungry lions waiting to pounce. We have referred to this as listening with your mouth open.

Just like in acting, any conversation is always a give and take. And an important component of good acting or good conversation is reacting. You have to be fully engaged. You have to listen, absorb, and be fully affected by the words of the other character or individual.

When you're in a conversation or a meeting, think like an actor. Allow yourself the luxury of becoming fully affected by, and immersed in, the words and the efforts of other people in the scene, i.e. in the meaning. Allow every word they speak to fully sink in and affect you.

If you're having difficulty doing this, Mike suggests a technique. Make the other person, the one who is speaking, the most important person in the world to you at that moment—either positively or negatively. Make them the love of your life or a lifelong enemy. Hang on that persons’ every word. Listen for clues. Honor every beautiful gold nugget of speech and body language they offer. Notice everything. Soak up every drop of their dialogue and every subtle gesture—facial expressions, body language, tone of voice—and retain it.

It’s not enough to merely read Mike’s advice or this blog post. You’ve got to practice, like you practice any other skill. Active listening is intentional. It requires total focus, being fully present in the moment, being grounded, and being connected.

To succeed at active listening you have to be fully committed by giving the people you are listening to your one hundred percent undivided attention. If you have difficulty doing this, consider what gets in your way. Is it distractions by external noise or other people or cell phones buzzing? You can control those distractions. No excuses. If there are cultural or language barriers, take time and ask for clarification. Put the same amount of energy and enthusiasm into listening as you do to talking.

“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” – Ernest Hemingway.

Special thanks to Mike Kimmel for letting us share his secret about “Mastering the Fine Art of Listening.” Pick up a copy of 50 Secrets Nobody Tells You in Hollywood. It’s entertaining and filled with more lessons we can all use.

Beyond the photos, I was inspired and intrigued by the courage it takes to be part of such an amazing project. I got caught up in what was happening every day when the four brave astronauts circled the moon. Four diverse individuals spending time in a cramped space—incredible. But most inspiring was what they shared when they returned to earth—a lesson for all.

These highly trained people from vastly different backgrounds and talents told amazing stories about how it felt to be part of the team that accomplished these results. Yes, they were in a small space for 10 days of their mission, but their time together took years of learning, practice, discipline, and cooperation.

During the years they spent in preparation for their space experience and when they returned to planet earth, it was obvious that they weren’t just four individuals doing something special—they were a team.

When they were interviewed upon their return to earth, they described themselves as a group of people who “were in it no matter what; people who are stronger together every minute of the day.” A team is comprised of individuals who have the same purpose. As one astronaut put it, an individual “who is willing to sacrifice silently for each other, who gives grace and who holds others accountable.”

When they were sharing about their time in space, it was interesting that while much of the work they were doing while on their journey in space was scientific experimentation, what they also shared with the rest of us was about how their work had “bonded them forever.”

They entertained the world with stories of what it was like to live together in such a small space. One of them talked about being closer than siblings, which contributed to their bonding experience.

Here is something to think about from one of the Artemis II team members: “Teamwork is everything. We are nothing without each other.”

So where does joy fit into this discussion? The astronauts talked about being “on the joy train.” One was quick to share that they weren’t always experiencing joy, but when they were able, they tried to celebrate everyday moments and appreciate where they were and what was happening around them.

For those of us who aren’t circling the moon in a space capsule, but who are living ordinary lives and working at ordinary jobs on earth, how can we get on the “joy train?”

• Recognize and reward successes publicly whenever possible. Sharing successes brings joy and the giver frequently gets more pleasure than the recipient.

• Celebrate personal and professional achievements such as when someone welcomes a new baby or completes an advanced degree.

• Build fun into your organization’s culture. Start staff meetings with fun ice breakers to encourage people to get to know each other.

• Lighten up from time to time. Make it possible for your staff to laugh together whenever possible. Encourage leadership to participate in fun activities to bring people together in more informal settings.

• Listen and learn from each other. Find joy in everyday moments and share it with others. Positive experiences are contagious.

Learn from the amazing crew of Artemis II to value what each person contributes to the team, work to find joy whenever and wherever you can and get on the “Joy Train.”

Not all discrimination is the same. Adverse or disparate treatment is an intentional or direct employment decision where someone is treated differently than another similarly situated employee on the basis of a protected status. For example, we’ll only hire men for that position.

Adverse or disparate impact occurs when a neutral policy inadvertently has a discriminatory effect on a protected class of people. This theory was established in the Supreme Court case Griggs v. Duke Power wherein Mr. Griggs was denied a promotion based on requirements not related to the position, and those requirements disproportionately harmed a protected class, namely African Americans. Adverse impact was further reinforced in the 1991 Amendments to the Civil Rights Act.

Enter the EEOC. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was established to protect employees from unlawful employment discrimination by enforcing Title VII, it’s amendments, and other federal nondiscrimination laws. In most instances, the enforcement process begins with an individual employee filing a charge of discrimination which the EEOC is required to investigate or otherwise address. During an investigation of an individual’s claim, the EEOC may require either side to provide additional information and documentation. The EEOC may also attempt to mediate or settle charges. In addition, they often issue enforcement guidance.

Recent enforcement activity. The current chair of the EEOC, Andrea Lucas, Esq. has come under scrutiny because of recent enforcement directives resulting in a complaint being filed against her with the Virginia State Bar on April 22, 2026, by the Legal Accountability Center. The complaint says she:

1)  refused to investigate disparate impact complaints, instructed EEOC investigators not to investigate these claims, and dismissed lawsuits that were already investigated and filed because they allege disparate impact.

Consider that, as mentioned above, disparate impact is a well-established and codified legal theory.

2)  refused to investigate complaints that allege LGBTQ harassment and discrimination despite Supreme Court precedent in Bostock v. Clayton County Georgia.

Consider that in June 2020 Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch wrote the opinion in this case affirming discrimination on the basis of sex applies to an individual’s sexual orientation and gender identity under Title VII.

3)  failed to follow EEOC procedures that require notice and (public) comment before rescinding harassment guidelines.

Consider that in addition to failing to follow established procedures in her haste to rescind, the guidelines, which provided concrete and practical information to employers and employees about preventing harassment, a form of discrimination, including sexual orientation and gender identity harassment, are no longer available.

4)  used the power of her position at the EEOC to demand documents related to DEI practices from twenty different law firms without statutory authority and in violation of the confidentiality provisions of Title VII.

Consider that the demand for extensive data on hiring, promotions, compensation and broad demographic data on employees and applicants is essentially an audit of these firms’ employment practices which EEOC lacks the authority to do unless there is a specific charge of discrimination. The only data they are entitled to collect from private-sector employers is employee demographic data broken down by race/ethnicity, sex and job categories through the annual EEO-1 report.

The complaint alleges that Lucas is using her position to advance initiatives aligned with political objectives which objectives directly violate Title VII and her obligation as a government lawyer to uphold the law and ensure fairness.

Not only is she allowing protected rights to erode, but she’s also creating an environment where rogue employers could be tempted to become lax in following the law.

“Don’t be distracted by the noise. Watch what they are doing to your rights….” President Barack Obama.

Consider this situation: An email is sent at 5:00 p.m. on a Friday advising the organization, without details or facts, of a proposed policy change and soliciting feedback by the following Monday. It does not explain the reason for the change. The only information is the attached copies of the new and old policies.

What followed was an outpouring of negative reaction from the organization’s members who were not only infuriated over the proposed changes, but the way it was communicated and the timeline for feedback. The tussle that occurred in the aftermath was made worse by the leader’s failure to accept criticism and their harsh reaction to it.

April is Workplace Conflict Awareness Month, and our focus is usually on how to resolve disputes and increase productivity. However, this situation provides an opportunity to discuss how to avoid organizational conflict.

In chapter one of The Essential Workplace Conflict Handbook, we talk about change. Many organizations lead change with policy and frequently meet much resistance. To avoid this, leaders must have a clear understanding of and explain the root cause of the problem the policy is trying to address. They must anticipate resistance. Only then can they work on developing readiness and support, so the policy can be effectively implemented.

What went wrong? Leadership did not adequately communicate the reason for the change—the problem it was meant to address—then failed to acknowledge or recognize their lack of communication. They failed to anticipate resistance and accept criticism. They failed to inspire a dialogue to craft a better solution. In addition, they didn’t own their mistake, nor did they accept accountability for their actions. As a result, it changed the relationship, eroded trust, and had a negative impact on the organization’s culture.

Resistance. Resisting change is futile because change is everywhere and it brings increasing chances for conflict. As Patrick Lencioni wrote about team members in The Advantage, “…and when they’re willing to acknowledge when someone else’s idea is better than theirs, the fear of conflict and the discomfort it entails is greatly diminished. When there is trust, conflict becomes nothing but the pursuit of truth, an attempt to find the best possible answer.  Conflict without trust, however, is… an attempt to manipulate others…in order to win an argument regardless of the truth.”

Criticism. “Criticism is here to stay,” wrote Mike Kimmel in his book 50 Secrets Nobody Tells You in Hollywood. “Get used to it. Make peace with it. Do whatever…to thicken up your skin.” Accept criticism graciously and use the helpful criticism to improve yourself and the situation.

Essential tips for leaders for when change occurs:

• Explain the what and the why of the change with specific information

• Provide adequate time for people to process the change

• Listen actively to what’s being said about the change

• Respect people’s fears and concerns about the change

• Overcommunicate

• Don’t overlook the rumor mill and use it to spread accurate information

You can learn more about conflict and change from The Essential Workplace Conflict Handbook. Remember, conflict can be a positive force in any organization provided it’s embraced and not avoided, managed and not ignored. But don’t be foolish in the process.

When it comes to conflicts—which is really problem solving—this is an important aspect. We often don’t recognize or realize, especially if the situation is becoming contentious, that not everyone sees the world through the same lens.

“Why Can’t Everyone Be Like Me?” is not just a lament, but the title of a chapter in The Essential Workplace Conflict Handbook. It’s all about our diversity and differences. One of the differences we discuss is how individuals from different disciplines or professions might approach a problem.

Consider the challenges and opportunities AI is presenting to organizations today and how leaders from different functions are viewing them. The CFO might see the opportunity to streamline tasks and better yet, the opportunity to cut jobs. On the other hand, the CHRO is looking at the challenge of reskilling employees to use new tools or worse, the impact on the overall workforce if layoffs take place.

In facing these challenges and opportunities, Seth Godin suggests in another blog, “The A.R.E. Skills Matter More Than Ever,” that teams need:

 Agreeableness is the skill of having a contrary position and being pleasant about it. It’s presenting solutions to people who expected something else and still have them be pleased about the changes.

Receptivity is openness to change and better ideas and solutions. Receptivity combines curiosity, awareness and a desire for improvement.

Enthusiasm connects the two, and it’s contagious. When people are excited about change, new possibilities and opportunities, they will bring a higher degree of enthusiasm to the interaction.

Each of us sees the world differently. When presented with information, each team member notices and pays attention to different things, drawing on individual past experiences. We each come to conclusions based on our experiences, values, and individual diversity.

Godin reminds us that if the lens you’re using isn’t working, perhaps there’s a mismatch between the solution you’re used to and one that might work. Two approaches to address the mismatch:

Name your lens. If you have an instinct that you rely on when solving a problem, naming it is a helpful way to bring it on when needed, and to set aside when it’s not.

Name the other lenses. If there’s someone else who solves problems differently than you, bring their point of view to the table, especially if it doesn’t come naturally.

In The Essential Workplace Conflict Handbook, we encourage our readers to

• Address differences and misunderstandings with the commitment to learning.

• Challenge their assumptions.

• Engage in respectful curiosity.

Finally, successful problem solving requires everyone to look past their biases and stand in the other person's shoes to see the issue from their perspective.

Because political beliefs are often connected to your employee’s own values, they can be intentionally personal and uncomfortable. Some employees find expressing their political beliefs at work empowering while others find it to be almost threatening.

April is Workplace Conflict Awareness Month. Nothing says conflict like politics. So what better month to answer the question: What’s an organization to do when political talk at work becomes disruptive and distracting?Link here

Political discussions can work both ways. Sometimes they help employees connect with each other and collaborate while other times they can create conflicts and divide relationships. What is the norm in your organization?

How can organizations build workplaces where staff members are encouraged to share their beliefs while building relationships and connections? Can such a workplace also be productive? Here are some ideas:

Set common goals and boundaries

• Set common goals for your organization. When people are focused on the mission and they know what is expected of them, they tend to shift their attention from negative issues to collaborative solutions.

• Create boundaries and encourage staff members to follow established guidelines for acceptable workplace behaviors including on your website and other electronic platforms. Ensure that every interaction between employees is professional including when discussing politics or other potentially difficult topics.

Have a Code of Conduct

• If you don’t have one, develop a Code of Conduct policy that includes subjects such as when and where political discussion is appropriate; dress code prohibitions including political slogans; bullying; and harassment of any kind which will help you navigate our political environment. Ensure your onboarding process outlines your organization’s policies and guidelines on political discussions at work.

Teach conflict management skills

• Train your employees to deal with conflict. Providing your staff members with conflict resolution skills can help them navigate our complicated and highly politicized world.

• When situations arise and tensions are high, don’t let them go thinking they will resolve themselves. Investigate where the issues are and take action as quickly as possible. Don’t be afraid to ask for help from HR or even a trained mediator.

• Train leaders to listen to staff members create an environment where everyone is encouraged to share ideas and where ideas are not automatically dismissed.

Build a culture where everyone is valued and respected

• Encourage people to get to know each other for their strengths and how they contribute to your organization.

• Build a psychologically safe environment where mistakes are openly admitted and learned from. Encourage employees to be comfortable asking others for help to solve problems when appropriate. Make it acceptable to speak up even when the person might be taking a risk. This is how you build trust.

• Manage with empathy and understanding. These qualities build teams and strengthen relationships to avoid conflicts.

Workplaces that emphasize common goals tend to experience higher levels of trust and collaboration that lead to higher levels of productivity. Take steps to enhance your corporate culture to ensure everyone is valued and everyone is encouraged to respect each other. While eliminating political discussions in the workplace may not totally happen, they can be minimized with some attention and some understanding.

Don’t forget, you can learn more from The Essential Workplace Conflict Handbook.

A character in a book is described as a thirty-five-year-old African-American man standing six foot six and every bit of three hundred pounds. He tells a colleague that when school officials at his kids’ school first meet him, all they see is a potential football coach.

Why was the character in the book thought to be an ideal football coach—because of his physical build, his race, or both? Likely someone made an assumption about him—stereotyped him.

Stereotypes are fixed and inflexible notions, unconscious biases which are part of our everyday thinking. They are generalizations based on misconceptions or errors in judgment. And when we assign them to a group, we've stereotyped the entire group.

Even positive stereotypes are disrespectful because they block our ability to look at people individually and recognize their uniqueness.

Think about a time when someone made an assumption about you. Ask yourself how it made you feel. Did it make you feel respected? Probably not because stereotypical generalizations tend to not be respectful.

Stereotypes can damage relationships and create communication barriers. Imagine the following conversation between our six-foot tall character when he’s asked by his son’s gym teacher if he’s interested in volunteering as an assistant football coach. He answers, “I’ve never even watched a football game.” Awkward.

So where do they come from, these assumptions and stereotypes?  They come from of our socialization, the way we learn to perceive our world, to interact with others, to act in certain circumstances, the rules and expectations, and what is defined as good and bad.  The socialization process allows a group or society to create members whose behaviors, desires and goals correspond to those deemed appropriate and desirable by that group. 

And keep in mind that we are all members of many different social groups, all of which have their own rules, expectations and cultures.

Stereotypes, however, can give way to prejudice—those rigidly held, unfavorable attitudes, beliefs and feelings about members of a group—groups other than our own. These unreasonable biases or opinions are often formed before the facts are known and can lead to suspicion, intolerance, conflict and worse further damaging interpersonal relationship and communication.  This isn’t good for the workplace nor for society.

So, how do we get back to respect?

It starts with you. Make the commitment to engage in respectful behavior.

• Be curious

• Discern between facts and fiction

• Listen to opposing viewpoints

• Be open to changing ideas

• Commit to sharing your ideas with others

Our differences are what make us unique and interesting. Start a conversation that provokes understanding and celebrates our differences. If you need some prompts to do so, The Conflict Resolution Phrase Book has plenty of ideas.