The global pandemic affects our culture in myriad ways. There’s one effect of the pandemic that surprises a lot of people when I tell them about it: It’s accelerating the expansion of a new life stage that social scientists call “emerging adulthood.” This culture shift started well before the pandemic. In 2014, 32% of 18- to 34-year-olds lived with a …
Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is such a uniquely American cultural holiday. While this Thanksgiving may look differently from those we’ve experienced before, the sentiment will be the same. It is an expression of gratitude. When I was growing up, my mother and a friend of hers alternated annually hosting Thanksgiving meals at each of their homes. Of the 20-40 people who attended the …
There’s a lot we can’t control right now, like the continuing pandemic and deep divisions in our country. But there are also many things we can control. And it’s a lot more productive to focus on them. One of those areas within our control is helping our teams stay engaged in this new world of remote work. Keeping teams engaged …
A friend and colleague called me last week. She sounded in distress. I pushed my work aside to listen. She was gravely concerned about COVID-19, her family and her work (as so many today are). And then she asked another question — one I had heard before: “Is it normal to hear voices in your head?” Please keep in mind, …
As a culture and a society, we revere youth. From Shirley Temple to Britney Spears to Justin Bieber, the success of youth commands our attention. More recently, in the face of this pandemic, I have been receiving questions – usually from entrepreneurs and people looking to do something different – about whether it’s possible to be successful later in your …
Over the last couple of weeks, I have had a series of discussions with organizational executives that feel very similar and that are based on some fundamental questions: When will I be able to have my employees in one place again? How do I manage culture with a hybrid workforce? How can I keep my culture going when most or …
Imagine for a moment that you are standing at the seashore. Ankle deep in water, toes digging into the wet sand, as waves crash in front of you and then gently roll past you toward the shore. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, we’ve seen a few larger waves come to shore recently – in the form of nonviolent …
Over the past several months, in the context of business strategic and tactical planning, the most common question I’ve been fielding has been, “So, Gustavo, what comes next?” My simplest answer is, prepare for cycles of “suppress and lift.” “Suppress and lift” is not a term I created. It comes from a prescient opinion piece by Dr. Gabriel Leung, an …
Culture is defined as the beliefs, behavioral rules, traditions and rituals that bind us together. But where do beliefs come from? And how do they become an accepted part of our culture? Beliefs are a set of thoughts, about someone or something, that hang together. For example, each of us has beliefs about how the world operates (or how it …
It’s our culture. We must decide. Which lives matter? Do Black Lives Matter or do All Lives Matter? The answer may not be as obvious as you think. Since the inception of the Black Lives Matter movement, some have countered with the statement “All Lives Matter.” In their minds, “All Lives Matter” is more inclusive. And many would argue that …
