One of the most striking patterns in the aftermath of many urban fires is how much unburned green vegetation remains amid the wreckage of burned neighborhoods.
In some cases, a row of shrubs may be all that separates a surviving house from one that burned just a few feet away.
As scientists who study how vegetation ignites and burns, we recognize that well-maintained plants and trees can actually help protect homes from wind-blown embers and slow the spread of fire in some cases. So, we are concerned about new wildfire protection regulations being developed by the state of California that would prohibit almost all plants and other combustible material within 5 feet of homes, an area known as Zone 0.
Photos before and after the 2025 Palisades Fire show thick green vegetation between two closely spaced homes. The arrow shows the direction of the fires spread. [Image: Max Moritz; CAL FIRE Damage Inspection photos, CC BY]
Wildfire safety guidelines have long encouraged homeowners to avoid having flammable materials next to their homes. But the states plan for an ember-resistant zone, being expedited under an executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom, goes further by also prohibiting grass, shrubs, and many trees in that area.
If that prohibition remains in the final regulation, its likely to be met with public resistance. Getting these rules right also matters beyond California, because regulations that originate in California often ripple outward to other fire-prone regions.
Lessons from the devastation
Research into how vegetation can reduce fire risk is a relatively new area of study. However, the findings from plant flammability studies and examination of patterns of where vegetation and homes survive large urban fires highlight its importance.
When surviving plants do appear scorched after these fires, it is often on the side of the plant facing a nearby structure that burned. That suggests that wind-blown embers ignited houses first: The houses were then the fuel as the fire spread through the neighborhood.
We saw this repeatedly in the Los Angeles area after wildfires destroyed thousands of homes in January 2025. The pattern suggests a need to focus on the many factors that can influence home losses.
Shrubs in Zone 0 of a home did not ignite during the Eaton Fire, despite the home burning. [Photo: Max Moritz]
Several guides are available that explain steps homeowners can take to help protect houses, particularly from wind-blown embers, known as home hardening.
For example, installing rain gutter covers to keep dead leaves from accumulating, avoiding flammable siding, and ensuring that vents have screens to prevent embers from getting into the attic or crawl space can lower the risk of the home catching fire.
However, guidance related to landscaping plants varies greatly and can even be incorrect.
For example, some fire-safe plant lists contain species that are drought tolerant but not necessarily fire resistant. What matters more for keeping plants from becoming fuel for fires is how well theyre maintained and whether theyre properly watered.
How a plant bursts into flames
When living plant material is heated by a nearby energy source, such as a fire, the moisture inside it must be driven off before it can ignite. That evaporation cools the surrounding area and lowers the plants flammability.
In many cases, high moisture can actually keep a plant from igniting. Weve seen this in some of our experimental work and in other studies that test the flammability of ornamental landscaping.
With enough heat, dried leaves and stems can break down and volatilize into gases. And, at that point, a nearby spark or flame can ignite these gases and set the plant on fire.
Plant flammability testing shows how quickly twigs, grasses, plants, and leaves will burn at different moisture levels. The images on the right are from an experiment at the University of Californias South Coast Research and Extension Center to test flammability of a living but overly dry plant. [Image: Max Moritz (left); Luca Carmignani (right)]
Even when the plant does burn, however, its moisture content can limit other aspects of flammability, such as how hot it burns.
Up to the point that they actually burn, green, well-maintained plants can slow the spread of a fire by serving as heat sinks, absorbing energy and even blocking embers. This apparent protective role has been observed in both Australia and California studies of home losses.
How often vegetation buffers homes from igniting during urban conflagrations is still unclear, but this capability has implications for regulations.
Californias “Zone 0” regulations
The Zone 0 regulations Californias State Board of Forestry is developing are part of broader efforts to reduce fire risk around homes and communities. They would apply in regions considered at high risk of wildfires or defended by Cal Fire, the states firefighting agency.
Many of the latest Zone 0 recommendations, such as prohibiting mulch and attached fences made of materials that can burn, stem from large-scale tests conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety. These features can be systematically analyzed.
But vegetation is far harder to model. The states proposed Zone 0 regulations oversimplify complex conditions in real neighborhoods and go beyond what is currently known from scientific research regarding plant flammability.
A mature, well-pruned shrub or tree with a high crown may pose little risk of burning and can even reduce exposure to fires by blocking wind and heat and intercepting embers. Aspen trees, for example, have been recommended to reduce fire risk near structures or other high-value assets.
In contrast, dry, unmanaged plants under windows or near fences may ignite rapidly and make it more likely that the house itself will catch fire.
As California and other states develop new wildfire regulations, they need to recognize the protective role that well-managed plants can play, along with many other benefits of urban vegetation.
We believe the California proposals current emphasis on highly prescriptive vegetation removal, instead of on maintenance, is overly simplistic. Without complementary requirements for hardening the homes themselves, widespread clearing of landscaping immediately around homes could do little to reduce risk and have unintended consequences.
Max Moritz is a wildfire specialist at the University of California Cooperative Extension and an adjunct professor at the Bren School at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Luca Carmignani is an assistant professor of engineering at San Diego State University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
We often think of serendipity as lucka fortunate coincidence or a happy accident. But what if its something more intentional? What if serendipity is less about chance and more about conditions?
Whether its a hallway conversation that sparks a billion-dollar idea or a side project that becomes your next calling, many of the most transformational moments in life and work are unplanned, but not uninvited. These moments happen when we build environments, both mental and physical, that are open to the unexpected. The question isnt whether serendipity exists. Its whether youre making space for it.
The Case for Intentional Serendipity
Take Steve Jobs. He famously credited a college calligraphy classan elective he took purely out of curiositywith inspiring the design of Apples iconic typography. At the time, the class had nothing to do with his career. But it ended up shaping the aesthetic identity of one of the most influential companies in history.
Or consider the origin story of CRISPR. The revolutionary gene-editing tool began with a casual conference conversation between two scientists from different disciplines. Their impromptu exchange sparked a collaboration that led to one of the most important scientific breakthroughs of the 21st century.
These werent just lucky accidents. They were the result of environments primed for discoveryspaces where curiosity, diversity, and ambiguity could coexist. Serendipity isnt magic; it is emergence, and you can design for it.
In my work with senior leadership teams, Ive seen this firsthand. I once hosted an off-site where a brief side conversation during a break, completely off-agenda, led two leaders to uncover a shared experience that reshaped how they collaborated. What followed was a strategic pivot that the team had been struggling to make for months. It reminded me that the real breakthroughs often dont happen during scheduled agenda items; they happen between them. The key is creating the conditions where these moments can arise.
A Framework for Creating Serendipity
Orchestrating serendipity means increasing your exposure to diverse inputs, unexpected ideas, and interdisciplinary collisions. Heres how to make it happen:
1. Create Surface Area
You cant bump into new ideas if youre stuck in the same lanes. Professionally, that might mean attending events outside your industry, joining cross-functional projects, or working from a new space, whether a coworking hub, a public library, or your favorite off-route coffee shop. Personally, try picking up a new hobby, joining a different kind of community, or reaching out to someone who sees the world differently than you do.
Try this: Connect with someone whose work is completely unrelated to yours. Ask what theyre obsessed with and why.
2. Lead with Curiosity
Serendipity doesnt reward certainty; it rewards openness. In organizations, that means creating cultures where good questions matter more than fast answers. Replace Why are we doing this? with What else might be possible? Encourage exploration, tangents, and thoughtful wandering.
Individually, follow your fascinations. Read outside your domain. Ask better questions at dinner parties. Let your interests lead you, even if you dont yet know where theyre going. Start a curiosity stack, a running list of topics, people, and ideas that fascinate you. Just follow the breadcrumbs and see where they lead you.
3. Engineer Cross-Pollination
Innovation loves unlikely collisions. Inside companies, dont wait for an annual retreat to mix disciplines. Create micro-moments of exchange like shared meals, rotating pair sessions, or jam sessions across departments. Outside of work, host a gathering where not everyone knows each other. Invite people across industries, cultures, and generations. Try organizing a 5-5-5 Dinner: five people, five perspectives, and five curated prompts. See what emerges when diverse minds meet around a shared table.
In an era of accelerating complexity, innovation doesnt come from working harder; it comes from thinking differently, which requires exposure to new perspectives. A Harvard Business School study found that teams with greater cognitive diversity solve problems faster than more homogeneous ones. Similarly, the World Economic Forum identifies curiosity, creativity, and cross-domain collaboration as top future-of-work skills.
Put simply, the ability to generate new value depends on your ability to connect unexpected dots, and serendipity is the connector.
Build Your Serendipity Habit
The most extraordinary breakthroughs often begin in ordinary momentsbut only if youve built a system that invites those moments in. This week, try one of these:
Reconnect with someone in a different field youve been meaning to reach out to.
Sign up for a class or event that has nothing to do with your job.
Start a conversation with a colleague about something unrelated to work and follow where it leads.
Serendipity isnt a fluke; its something you can design. When you embrace curiosity, invite collisions, and stay open to the unknown, you increase the odds that something meaningful and unexpected will find its way to you. The next big thing in your work or life may already be comingyou just need to be ready to meet it.
If you are frequently getting the ick from potential romantic partners, it might not be them. The problem might be you.
A new study has found that if you possess certain personality traits, you might be more susceptible to the dreaded ick than others. Researchers Brian Collisson, Eliana Saunders, and Chloe Yin from Azusa Pacific University in Southern California found that those who are prone to disgust, hold others to high standards, or score higher in narcissism are most at risk.
Even if youre unsure what were talking about, youve likely experienced it. A now ubiquitous term in dating, the ick is used to describe the feeling of disgust that arises toward a love interest. They stumble on the side of the curb? Ick. There are remnants of red sauce around their mouth? Instant ick.
Although the concept itself is not new (the ick was first coined in the 1990s TV show Ally McBeal), the term has more recently found a new lease on life online, with more than 120 million related posts on TikTok. Personally, I became interested in learning more about the ick when I heard that a friend of mine kept a running list on her phone notes app of every ick shed ever experienced from a guy (it was several pages long), Saunders, a graduate student at Azusa Pacific and the studys lead author, told Psypost.
For the study, researchers asked 74 men and 51 women, ranging in age from 24 to 72, if they knew what getting the ick meant and whether they had ever experienced it. The study then measured the likelihood of participants experiencing the ick in response to specific behaviors. Participants also completed personality tests and answered questions about their dating lives.
The findings are clear: Certain personality traits make participants more vulnerable to the ick. These include higher disgust sensitivity, which increases the intensity of reactions to triggers rather than the frequency of the ick occurring. Narcissism is also linked to the likelihood, though not the frequency, of experiencing the ick. Those who tend to place high expectations on others are triggered by a wider range of behaviors.
Women are more likely than men to recognize the ick, though both men and women experience a similar average number of ick moments. For women, misogynistic behavior or annoying speech are immediate turnoffs. For men, its vanity or overly trendy behavior.
While the ick often acts as a bucket of ice-cold water on a blossoming romance (about a quarter of participants reported ending a relationship immediately upon experiencing the ick), Saunders said people should look inward before making any hasty decisions.
Before dumping a partner because their feet dangle when they sit in a chair, we should think critically about why were feeling icked out, Saunders told Psypost. Ask yourself: Is this something I truly cant deal with, or am I being overly critical? Is this ick their fault, or is it mine?
Earlier this year, a robot completed a half-marathon in Beijing in just under 2 hours and 40 minutes. Thats slower than the human winner, who clocked in at just over an hourbut its still a remarkable feat. Many recreational runners would be proud of that time. The robot kept its pace for more than 13 miles (21 kilometers).
But it didnt do so on a single charge. Along the way, the robot had to stop and have its batteries swapped three times. That detail, while easy to overlook, speaks volumes about a deeper challenge in robotics: energy.
Modern robots can move with incredible agility, mimicking animal locomotion and executing complex tasks with mechanical precision. In many ways, they rival biology in coordination and efficiency. But when it comes to endurance, robots still fall short. They dont tire from exertionthey simply run out of power.
As a robotics researcher focused on energy systems, I study this challenge closely. How can researchers give robots the staying power of living creaturesand why are we still so far from that goal? Though most robotics research into the energy problem has focused on better batteries, there is another possibility: Build robots that eat.
Robots move well but run out of steam
Modern robots are remarkably good at moving. Thanks to decades of research in biomechanics, motor control, and actuation, machines such as Boston Dynamics Spot and Atlas can walk, run, and climb with an agility that once seemed out of reach. In some cases, their motors are even more efficient than animal muscles.
But endurance is another matter. Spot, for example, can operate for just 90 minutes on a full charge. After that, it needs nearly an hour to recharge. These runtimes are a far cry from the eight- to 12-hour shifts expected of human workersor the multiday endurance of sled dogs.
The issue isnt how robots moveits how they store energy. Most mobile robots today use lithium-ion batteries, the same type found in smartphones and electric cars. These batteries are reliable and widely available, but their performance improves at a slow pace: Each year new lithium-ion batteries are about 7% better than the previous generation. At that rate, it would take a full decade to merely double a robots runtime.
Animals store energy in fat, which is extraordinarily energy dense: nearly 9 kilowatt-hours per kilogram. Thats about 68 kWh total in a sled dog, similar to the energy in a fully charged Tesla Model 3. Lithium-ion batteries, by contrast, store just a fraction of that, about 0.25 kilowatt-hours per kilogram. Even with highly efficient motors, a robot like Spot would need a battery dozens of times more powerful than todays to match the endurance of a sled dog.
And recharging isnt always an option. In disaster zones or remote fields, or on long-duration missions, a wall outlet or a spare battery might be nowhere in sight.
In some cases, robot designers can add more batteries. But more batteries mean more weight, which increases the energy required to move. In highly mobile robots, theres a careful balance between payload, performance, and endurance. For Spot, for example, the battery already makes up 16% of its weight.
Some robots have used solar panels, and in theory these could extend runtime, especially for low-power tasks or in bright, sunny environments. But in practice, solar power delivers very little power relative to what mobile robots need to walk, run, or fly at practical speeds. Thats why energy harvesting like solar panels remains a niche solution today, better suited for stationary or ultra-low-power robots.
Why it matters
These arent just technical limitations. They define what robots can do.
A rescue robot with a 45-minute battery might not last long enough to complete a search. A farm robot that pauses to recharge every hour cant harvest crops in time. Even in warehouses or hospitals, short runtimes add complexity and cost.
If robots are to play meaningful roles in society assisting the elderly, exploring hazardous environments, and working alongside humans, they need the endurance to stay active for hours, not minutes.
New battery chemistries such as lithium-sulfur and metal-air offer a more promising path forward. These systems have much higher theoretical energy densities than todays lithium-ion cells. Some approach levels seen in animal fat. When paired with actuators that efficiently convert electrical energy from the battery to mechanical work, they could enable robots to match or even exceed the endurance of animals with low body fat. But even these next-generation batteries have limitations. Many are difficult to recharge, degrade over time, or face engineering hurdles in real-world systems.
Fast charging can help reduce downtime. Some emerging batteries can recharge in minutes rather than hours. But there are trade-offs. Fast charging strains battery life, increases heat, and often requires heavy, high-power charging infrastructure. Even with improvements, a fast-charging robot still needs to stop frequently. In environments without access to grid power, this doesnt solve the core problem of limited onboard energy. Thats why researchers are exploring alternatives such as refueling robots with metal or chemical fuelsmuch like animals eatto bypass the limits of electrical charging altogether.
An alternative: Robotic metabolism
In nature, animals dont recharge; they eat. Food is converted into energy through digestion, circulation, and respiration. Fat stores that energy, blood moves it, and muscles use it. Future robots could follow a similar blueprint with synthetic metabolisms.
Some researchers are building systems that let robots digest metal or chemical fuels and breathe oxygen. For example, synthetic stomach-like chemical reactors could convert high-energy materials such as aluminum into electricity.
This builds on the many advances in robot autonomy, where robots can sense objects in a room and navigate to pick them up, but here they would be picking up energy sources.
Other researchers are developing fluid-based energy systems that circulate like blood. One early example, a robotic fish, tripled its energy density by using a multifunctional fluid instead of a standard lithium-ion battery. That single design shift delivered the equivalent of 16 years of battery improvements, not through newchemistry but through a more bioinspired approach. These systems could allow robots to operate for much longer stretches of time, drawing energy from materials that store far more energy than todays batteries.
In animals, the energy system does more than just provide energy. Blood helps regulate temperature, deliver hormones, fight infections, and repair wounds. Synthetic metabolisms could do the same. Future robots might manage heat using circulating fluids or might heal themselves using stored or digested materials. Instead of a central battery pack, energy could be stored throughout the body in limbs, joints and soft, tissue-like components.
This approach could lead to machines that arent just longer-lasting but are more adaptable, resilient, and lifelike.
The bottom line
Todays robots can leap and sprint like animals, but they cant go the distance.
Their bodies are fast and their minds are improving, but their energy systems havent caught up. If robots are going to work alongside humans in meaningful ways, well need to give them more than intelligence and agility. Well need to give them endurance.
James Pikul is an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Artificial intelligence began as a quest to simulate the human brain.
Is it now in the process of transforming the human brains role in daily life?
The Industrial Revolution diminished the need for manual labor. As someone who researches the application of AI in international business, I cant help but wonder whether it is spurring a cognitive revolution, obviating the need for certain cognitive processes as it reshapes how students, workers, and artists write, design, and decide.
Graphic designers use AI to quickly create a slate of potential logos for their clients. Marketers test how AI-generated customer profiles will respond to ad campaigns. Software engineers deploy AI coding assistants. Students wield AI to draft essays in record timeand teachers use similar tools to provide feedback.
The economic and cultural implications are profound.
What happens to the writer who no longer struggles with the perfect phrase, or the designer who no longer sketches dozens of variations before finding the right one? Will they become increasingly dependent on these cognitive prosthetics, similar to how using GPS diminishes navigation skills? And how can human creativity and critical thinking be preserved in an age of algorithmic abundance?
Echoes of the Industrial Revolution
Weve been here before.
The Industrial Revolution replaced artisanal craftsmanship with mechanized production, enabling goods to be replicated and manufactured on a mass scale.
Shoes, cars, and crops could be produced efficiently and uniformly. But products also became more bland, predictable, and stripped of individuality. Craftsmanship retreated to the margins, as a luxury or a form of resistance.
Today, theres a similar risk with the automation of thought. Generative AI tempts users to conflate speed with quality, productivity with originality.
The danger is not that AI will fail us, but that people will accept the mediocrity of its outputs as the norm. When everything is fast, frictionless, and good enough, theres the risk of losing the depth, nuance, and intellectual richness that define exceptional human work.
The rise of algorithmic mediocrity
Despite the name, AI doesnt actually think.
Tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini process massive volumes of human-created content, often scraped from the internet without context or permission. Their outputs are statistical predictions of what word or pixel is likely to follow based on patterns in data theyve processed.
They are, in essence, mirrors that reflect collective human creative output back to usersrearranged and recombined, but fundamentally derivative.
And this, in many ways, is precisely why they work so well.
Consider the countless emails people write, the slide decks that strategy consultants prepare, and the advertisements that suffuse social media feeds. Much of this content follows predictable patterns and established formulas. It has been there before, in one form or the other.
Generative AI excels at producing competent-sounding contentlists, summaries, press releases, advertisementsthat bears the signs of human creation without that spark of ingenuity. It thrives in contexts where the demand for originality is low and when good enough is, well, good enough.
When AI sparksand stiflescreativity
Yet, even in a world of formulaic content, AI can be surprisingly helpful.
In one set of experiments, researchers tasked people with completing various creative challenges. They found that those who used generative AI produced ideas that were, on average, more creative, outperforming participants who used web searches or no aids at all. In other words, AI can, in fact, elevate baseline creative performance.
However, further analysis revealed a critical trade-off: Reliance on AI systems for brainstorming significantly reduced the diversity of ideas produced, which is a crucial element for creative breakthroughs. The systems tend to converge toward a predictable middle rather than exploring unconventional possibilities at the edges.
I wasnt surprised by these findings. My students and I have found that the outputs of generative AI systems are most closely aligned with the values and worldviews of wealthy, English-speaking nations. This inherent bias quite naturally constrains the diversity of ideas these systems can generate.
More troubling still, brief interactions with AI systems can subtly reshape how people approach problems and imagine solutions.
One set of experiments tasked participants with making medical diagnoses with the help of AI. However, the researchers designed the experiment so that AI would give some participants flawed suggestions. Even after those participants stopped using the AI tool, they tended to unconsciously adopt those biases and make errors in their own decisions.
What begins as a convenient shortcut risks becoming a self-reinforcing loop of diminishing originalitynot because these tools produce objectively poor content, but because they quietly narrow the bandwidth of human creativity itself.
Navigating the cognitive revolution
True creativity, innovation, and research are not just probabilistic recombinations of past data. They require conceptual leaps, cross-disciplinary thinking, and real-world experience. These are qualities AI cannot replicate. It cannot invent the future. It can only remix the past.
What AI generates may satisfy a short-term need: a quick summary, a plausible design, a passable script. But it rarely transforms, and genuine originality risks being drowned in a sea of algorithmic sameness.
The challenge, then, isnt just technological. Its cultural.
How can the rreplaceable value of human creativity be preserved amid this flood of synthetic content?
The historical parallel with industrialization offers both caution and hope. Mechanization displaced many workers but also gave rise to new forms of labor, education, and prosperity. Similarly, while AI systems may automate some cognitive tasks, they may also open up new intellectual frontiers by simulating intellectual abilities. In doing so, they may take on creative responsibilities, such as inventing novel processes or developing criteria to evaluate their own outputs.
This transformation is only at its early stages. Each new generation of AI models will produce outputs that once seemed like the purview of science fiction. The responsibility lies with professionals, educators, and policymakers to shape this cognitive revolution with intention.
Will it lead to intellectual flourishing or dependency? To a renaissance of human creativity or its gradual obsolescence?
The answer, for now, is up in the air.
Wolfgang Messner is a clinical professor of international business at the University of South Carolina.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
When organizations face disruption, whether its a corporate restructuring, the sunsetting of a product line, or a shift in return-to-office policies, executive teams often turn to internal communications professionals to guide the messaging and navigate change. However, theres a missing link in this equation: the middle manager.
As an employee communications cloud platform, we at Staffbase are always looking at what (and who) is impacting the effectiveness of those communications most. Our recently released communication impact study found that direct managers are the most trusted source of information for U.S. employees.
Fifty-five percent of respondents reported that their immediate supervisor is their preferred communication channel, and 56% said they place a great deal of trust in them. Despite that trust, theres a glaring disconnect: Non-desk workers, those on the frontlines in healthcare, manufacturing, transportation, logistics, and retail, say they are consistently less well-informed than their desk-based colleagues.
Simply put, companies can’t afford for frontline workers to miss out on their communications efforts. Internal comms teams can set the strategy together with executive leadership, but they must put the effort into fostering the pipeline that supports middle managers who bring these communications to life. The current state of the world is leading many organizations to lay off middle managers, but thats a grave error, severing one of the most vital communications lifelines between upper management and their workforce.
Why internal comms cant go it alone
The pandemic, ongoing economic volatility, and evolving employee expectations have fundamentally reshaped how companies communicate. In many cases, internal comms teams have shrunk, been centralized to one part of the organization, and generally had their reach stretched thin. The best communications in the world mean little if they arent reinforced and humanized by the people employees interact with daily.
Our research revealed that only 10% of non-desk workers are very satisfied with the internal communication at their companies. Furthermore, nearly 60% of employees who are considering quitting cite poor communication as a significant contributing factor.
The implications are clear: If companies want to improve retention, reinforce change, and build trust, they must focus on improving both the quality and consistency of communications with all levels of employees. Since middle managers are one of the most trusted sources of information, organizations need to work toward empowering them to become stronger communicators who can provide that consistency and quality across the business.
Closing the information gap between desk and non-desk workers
One of the most striking findings in our study was the communication divide between desk-based and non-desk employees. While 67% of desk-based workers say their managers keep them well-informed, that number drops to 48% for frontline workers.
This gap is about both access and equity. Frontline employees are often the most critical to day-to-day operations, yet theyre also the least likely to receive timely or high-quality updates. Many dont use company email or sit at a desk, meaning they rely heavily on their direct managers to pass down critical information. When that chain breaks, confusion, misinformation, and disengagement follow.
Creating dedicated communication processes can better equip managers with the knowledge and ability to deliver key information to those who struggle to receive it most. Tech can be a huge boon in this process. While there’s no all-encompassing app that can replace employees’ trust in their managers, utilizing an employee app as a main communication channel can help improve frontline access to information.
These tools must be paired with training that ensures managers are both enabled and motivated to properly pair these communications channels with necessary in-person communications. Through posts, comments, and real-life conversations, managers will be better equipped to provide the communications support their various employees need.
Coaching managers to lead communication, not just tasks
We often assume that people management is synonymous with people leadership. However, just because someone oversees a team, doesnt mean theyve been trained to navigate tough conversations, deliver clear change updates, or answer sensitive employee questions. Managers can subsequently become bottlenecks, delivering incomplete or inconsistent messagesor worse, avoiding communication altogether.
Thats where communications coaching comes in.
High-performing organizations are starting to view manager communication as a core competency, rather than a desirable trait. Theyre investing in tools and training that help managers distill key messages, understand the why behind changes, and create space for team dialogue. Theyre offering templates, talking points, and even in-the-moment coaching for big moments of transformation.
The payoff is significant. When it comes to leadership communication, 91% of employees who say that the vision and strategy are very clear also report being very or somewhat happy in their jobs. When managers communicate well, employees are more likely to feel connected to the companys mission, confident about their future, and have clear expectations.
What does this look like in practice?
Leading organizations are rethinking internal communication as a shared responsibility. Theyre not asking comms teams to carry the burden alone, theyre making it a joint effort between leaders, HR, and middle managers.
First, turn to training. Create or bring on formal communications training for all middle managers and leaders of the organization. This will help create a standard for the entire company and unify the skills for every voice across the business. Second, conduct an audit of your current systems and protocols to identify what tools are working well, which audiences are being underserved and what messages have resonated well to date. Third, create a set process for announcements, change and crisis communications. A team with representatives from the aforementioned core groups can work together to create toolkits and talking points that will help translating key messages much simpler and more direct for managers.
Leadership may question the investment of time and money into the above efforts, so employee communications teams should work to measure success along the way. Develop a framework that measures the ROI of your communication efforts by tracking metrics like employee satisfaction, behavioral shifts, and impact on critical business goals. Doing so can help shine a light on the bottom line value of these efforts and create further buy-in across the entire team.
In moments of uncertainty, employees dont need perfect messaging. They need consistency and transparency, and more than anything, they need to hear it from someone they trust.
Professional sports is big businessand the stakes have never been higher. Sarah Spain, host of the podcast Good Game With Sarah Spain, longtime ESPN personality, and sports journalist, unpacks what those stakes mean for the leagues, teams, companies, and players involved. From the WNBAs breakthrough to the future of ESPNs streaming to the looming legal settlement that could transform college athletics, sports business is at a crossroads.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
As women’s pro sports become more successful, do you worry that it’s going to take on some of the toxic qualities of men’s pro sports, more aggressive media conversations, bad behavior off the court or off the field? How much is that a looming question that these women’s leagues have to sort of grapple with or maybe redefine?
Very much. And actually, we saw it last year with Caitlin Clark’s entry into the [WNBA]. It was awesome that more people were watching and more people were interested. It also meant talking heads who didn’t know the game, weren’t watching the games, and certainly didn’t understand the intersectionality of women’s sports, and how it intersects with race, sexuality, homophobia, misogyny, all those things. And they created damaging and toxic conversations that were actually dangerous to players.
There were multiple incidents of players addresses being sent, and [notes saying] “I’m going to find you.” Or people showing up in the places the players were and players feeling like they were endangered. Breanna Stewart’s wife actually got threats. So I think the attention is great, the investment is great, but what comes with that is an expectation that well suddenly turn women’s sports into the same as men’s. And there’s a real gift in it not being the same.
There’s a real joy in the space feeling different than men’s. And I named my show Good Game With Sarah Spain, because originally I wanted to name it The Good Place With Sarah Spain. But that’s a TV show, and it would be hard for people to distinguish and find when they looked for it online. But that’s how I feel about going to a women’s professional sporting event. It’s the good place. It is incredibly diverse. It is incredibly kind. Everyone’s rooting for their team, and they’re very competitive, but there’s no fistfights. People aren’t getting hammered and falling down the stands on each other.
I think that with the NWSL [National Women’s Soccer League], for instance, when they had the recent forced purchases of a couple teams due to the toxicity I mentioned, they had a new rule where the majority owner needed to be financially liable as one person. There could be a group of owners, but they required that one owner bear the financial burden, if necessary, and that person had to be a billionaire.
That meant that these large groups of women, who have a lot of money but aren’t billionaires, were shut out. And it inevitably meant that once again, we were returning to ownership groups where it was going to be most likely a middle-aged white guy that owned it.
And that’s fine if that person is really dedicated to women’s sports, and wants to learn the space and understand everything about it. It’s a little tougher if it’s another plaything that they have with four other teams, and they don’t feel as connected to the space. And, again, #notallmen. But what the problem with the previous iteration of the NWSL was how many owners and coaches it turned out were engaging in toxic or abusive behavior, or at the very least, covering up for each other, sending a coach on his way: “Thank you for your service.” Nice long letter: “Thanks for your time here.” While knowing that they were letting them go because of abusive behavior, and letting them get hired somewhere else.
And that’s not to say that women won’t do that and never do that, but there is a belief that youve got to have more women at the highest levels to help prevent those kind of situations, and that kind of atmosphere and culture, from taking over again.
You worked at ESPN in various roles for a bunch of years. And I want to ask you about ESPN’s new dedicated streaming service: $30 a month for all the live coverage, ESPN+, in-game betting, so on. What impact do you think that this will have on sports media?
Bob, are you as confused by the name being ESPN as I am?
I am. I was, like, so ESPN+ is on ESPN, but I can also get ESPN? I don’t know, it’s . . .
Right. I just feel like we’re about to enter another HBO Max, Max, HBO, Max, ouroboros kind of situation here. But it feels inevitable. Obviously, during the massive shift away from traditional cable, and the unbundling, where ESPN no longer got $13, or whatever it was, from every human in America who had cable. What a great deal for ESPN, because not all of them were watching ESPN, right? But also, for cable, ESPN was a huge reason that people wanted to buy it. So it was a great partnership for a long time.
That goes away, and it becomes quite clear that ESPN needs to try to keep up with the digital side of things, and needs to have a streaming direct-to-consumer service, because people aren’t just going with cable anymore. I think for a while, folks who appreciate the television side will still get an approximation of what it used to be. But you’re already seeing ESPN2 used to be an incubator for new shows, and creativity, and new talent, and now it’s mostly reruns.
You’re seeing shows like Around the Horn, and others, that are shoulder programming for the live shows, that will start to go away. Because on streaming you don’t need to fill a specific amount of time. You just create whatever amount of content you want to have.
So they’ll start focusing on rights, pre- and post-show Sports Center, and I would say a couple big-property studio shows. But I think those are going to go away more and more. And I think if you also look at ESPN’s decision-making around more influencer-type and former-athlete-type content, as opposed to journalistic content, that is unfortunate reacting to the world’s, I guess, demands, and the speed and desires of the current younger consumer.
But I do worry about how that impacts ESPN’s position in the industry. Because what separates them from everyone else is that they’re the worldwide leader. If it’s on ESPN, it’s right, it’s accurate, it’s vetted, it’s journalistically sound.
When you’ve got a Pat McAfee, whose show is produced elsewhere and dropped onto ESPN airwaves, and they wash their hands of the production and creation side of it, and they tell you it’s a little bit differentbut the viewer doesn’t know that. So when he goes on and says things that are factually incorrect, does stries that arefor instance, one he’s now being sued for libelessentially, that aren’t vetted, and aren’t sourced before he takes them in front of millions. That, I think, impacts how people view everything else on the network, even if it’s just subconsciously.
When they turn it on, do they still think everything Adam Schefter says is journalistically sound? Or does the fact that Pat McAfee is on the same network. Or Stephen A. Smith, who will say, “Oh, I can’t talk about Dana White hitting his wife on camera; he’s a close personal friend of mine.”
That’s not how journalism works, right? And so when that starts to blur the lines, does the rest of what’s coming out on that network get harmed by it? And does it then prevent them from being separated from the pack in a way that they used to be?
I don’t know. I’m not in charge. It’s above my pay grade. From my point of view, yes, and that concerns me. But also, I get that everyone’s trying to get the younger consumer, and they seem to like a screaming head influencer or former athlete more than they like someone who knows how to do journalism.
Should you invest in a new consumer market? Cut that underperforming division? Buy off-the-shelf or build custom technology you urgently need to compete?
Over the course of my career, I’ve seen leaders make good, bad, and risky decisions to guide their businesses. These decisions are often based on consensus, gut instinct or complex financial modelsand occasionally, a half-formed idea from the back of a meeting agenda.
But years in business have taught me something crucial: Success is driven neither by pure data worship nor blind intuition. Companies need bothespecially knowing that today’s opportunity could be tomorrow’s risk. The path forward requires balancing rigorous analysis with human wisdom and context and ultimately knowing when to say what.
The three data traps
Companies typically fall into one of three traps when it comes to data.
First, low confidence in the data itself. For data to work, it must be trusted and accurate. When leaders are able to pull different reports based on different numbers, confidence evaporates. Major business decisions get derailed because teams cant agree on basic metrics. Without consistent, and accessible, information, even the most sophisticated analytics become useless.
Second, companies can get stuck analyzing endless information. If every dashboard drives more questions than answers, that’s a losing battle. Businesses chasing endless data or sifting through a deluge risk delaying critical decisions while their competitors move ahead. Analysis paralysis is realand costly. Finding the sweet spot between information gathering and action is the difference between missing or meeting the market.
Third, companies cant over-rely on analytics without human context. Data can reflect what happened and may predict what happens next, but it frequently misses the “why.” A dashboard may show low engagement from an internal tool and recommend sunsetting it. What this doesnt take into account is the user perspective where maybe they find it hard to use or have competing priorities.
Balance data and intuition
I spent part of my early career in public relations but exited the industry out of frustration due to the lack of meaningful data at the time, although now it is quite different. We would get a feature in a top-tier outlet, then struggle to measure the business impact. Through this, I learned a valuable lesson about balancing a good story with verifiable stats.
This balance matters across every function. Marketing teams solely relying on metrics may miss the emotional connections that drive loyalty, while finance departments only tracking historical performance may miss emerging market signals that leaders can spot. The magic happens when companies combine data-backed insights with human expertise.
At West Monroe, we’ve seen the power of this firsthand. When we worked with a tire distributor to optimize their supply chain, we didn’t just build predictive models. We paired real-time analytics and insights to optimize their planning and inventory models WITH the expertise of people who understood supplier relationships and market nuances. The result? A $200 million reduction in working capitalall during pandemic disruptions, when either data or intuition alone would have failed.
How to fix it: Build a data-driven culture
Build trust in your data first. Start with the basics: Identify the numbers that actually move the needle for your business and ensure everyone defines and measures them consistently. When leaders trust the numbers, they’ll use them to make impactful decisions.
Bring data where decisions happen. Stop making people hunt through separate dashboards. Instead, embed relevant insights directly into the tools your team already uses. When the right information is available at the right moment, it naturally becomes part of the decision-making process.
Show, dont tell. Leaders should visibly incorporate data in their decisions while acknowledging its limitations. Create space in meetings where teams can discuss both hard metrics and real-world observations. Both perspectives deserve equal airtime and consideration.
Its never too late to lead with data
You can always become a data-driven leader. Even walk the halls executives who have historically avoided analytics can develop this muscle. Start smallidentify one key business question where better data would improve decisions. As confidence grows, expand to more complex ones.
The most successful leaders won’t be those with the most data or the best intuition. They’ll be the ones who master the art of balancing bothand take decisive action with confidence.
Casey Foss is chief operating officer of West Monroe.
As Ive been watching deep cuts unfold across the federal government and nonprofit sectors, I cant help but feel deeply sad for the work that is at risk or has been cancelled, the knowledge that will be lost, and for the people who did the work.
I know firsthand what it means to be on both sides of the equation. Ive been the leader tasked with executing layoffs, and Ive also been the one laid off. Both experiences gutted me. They made me reflect on what leadership really means and what we should be measuring when we define success.
The problem is that we often gauge success by revenue, efficiency, and productivity while completely overlooking a key factor:the well-being of the people doing the work. A 2024 Gallup report revealed that only 21% of employees strongly agree that their organization cares about their overall well-being.
While I agree that there are inefficiencies in every bureaucracy and organization, leaders have a responsibility to balance financial performance with other measures of success.
At Catapult Design, a social impact design firm, weve made well-being a non-negotiable metricon equal footing with financial performance and creative excellence. Because if an organizations work is meant to improve liveswhether in social innovation, government services, or private enterprisehow can we ignore whats happening inside our own walls?
Well-being is the missing metric
I worked at one consultancy that had indicators for measuring the quality of work and the financial health of the company. I thought that was amazing. It really kept the company on track because both were reported quarterly. The work was consistently good by many measures, and the company was very healthy from a financial perspective.
When I left there to take a CEO position, I suggested to my new board that we measure the quality of our work and financial health but also add another indicator around team well-being.
At first, this was around ensuring that we had the best benefits that a small business could offer. We were thoughtful around vacation time, sick leave, training days, and professional and personal stipends. But over time, we realized that well-being isnt just about benefits or hours workedits about how people experience their work.
We started paying closer attention to overworknot as the cause of burnout, but as an early signal. Research shows that burnout is less about working too many hours and more about things like lack of clarity, autonomy, or alignment with values. Still, sustained overwork often points to deeper systemic issues. We use it as a check engine light of the well-being of the team.
Thats why weve built a practice that if anyone is consistently working more than 45 hours a week, they message me directly. Then we talk about why. Is it a broken process? Poorly scoped projects? Is someone quietly drowning? We bring those issues to the board and leadership meetings, treating them as seriously as financial projections.
As weve deepened our approach to well-being, weve also learned its shaped just as much by leadership behavior as by organizational policy.
A few months ago, my team asked to formally review me. Their feedback was honest, thoughtful, and generous. One thing they shared was that when something seems obvious to me, I tend to move forward without discussion. But whats clear to me isnt always clear to othersand they wanted more transparency and space for shared decision making.
That feedback was a gift. One small but meaningful change I made was to begin sharing my weekly board emails with the entire team. Its helped remove ambiguity and reduce stress about whats happening behind the scenes.
We all know at Catapult Design that we are not immune to what is happening in the U.S. government right now. While Im happy to see efforts for efficiency in financial performance, I worry about whats being lost in the process. As budgets shrink and priorities shift, how will the quality of government services be measured? And what happens to the well-being of those providingand relying onthose services if we fail to track what really matters?
4 ways to prioritize employee well-being
Prioritizing well-being isnt just a leadership philosophy; its a strategic decision. Were always refining what this looks like, but heres how organizations can make it real:
Make well-being a key performance indicator. Measure engagement, workload balance, and psychological safety as rigorously as revenue.
Normalize feedback loops. If leaders arent being reviewed by their teams, theyre missing critical data about whats working (and whats not).
Recalibrate workloads. If overwork is the norm, the problem isnt employeesits leadership. Project scoping must align with reality, not just ambition.
Champion transparency. When teams understand the organizations financial health and strategic direction, they feel more investedand less anxious.
Well-being matters more than ever
Were in a moment of reckoning. Layoffs are making headlines across industriesfrom tech to media to governmentand many organizations are under pressure to do more with less. It’s not surprising that burnout and questions about leadership are surfacing more often in the process.
In a world where talent is mobile and exhaustion is widespread, the best organizations wont just be those that survive financiallytheyll be the ones that create workplaces where people want to stay, grow, and thrive.
Ive learned the hard way that leadership isnt about having all the answers. But I do wonder, if we dont prioritize the people who make the work possible, will anything else matter.
Angela Hariche is CEO of Catapult Design.
The old adage the only thing constant is change seems to ring true in workplaces today. Workplaces are rife with challenges, from navigating economic uncertainty to rapidly adapting to technological change. Workplace mental health support plays a pivotal role in helping employees build resilience to navigate the stressors they face.
When we discuss mental health in the workplace, we often think of a corporate office: a desk, a screen, and a Slack channel. In reality, the need for mental health support extends to all sectors and workers. From healthcare to hospitality, construction to retail, food service to utilities, workers in non-office jobs are just as in need of support as their desked peers. There is no such thing as a stress-free workplace. As a leader, what you do to address it can make all the difference.
It’s a business imperative
At Calm, weve seen this firsthand. Through our app, we support over 3,500 organizations, including 600 non-office industries. Across sectors and industries, employees come to Calm for stress, anxiety, mindfulness, and sleep support. Workers across the board might share similar challengesanxiety, burnout, family stressbut their experiences are unique to their role or environment. An office worker may fear being replaced by AI. A warehouse worker may worry more about the risk of injury or being replaced by automation. Each of those fears is valid, and each deserves bespoke support.
Supporting workers isnt just the right thing to do; its a business imperative. According to yale researchers, the U.S. economy loses over $280 billion each year due to mental health conditions, including anxiety and depression. Gallup found that employees who report poor mental health take nearly five times as many sick days. Thats $47.6 billion in lost productivity. But more than that, its millions of people quietly struggling to get through the day. It doesn’t have to be this way and making mental health support a priority goes a long way.
It begins with open and honest communication. Leaders must be willing to share their own experiences with stress, anxiety, or burnout to normalize these conversations. Ive publicly discussed my personal journey with my team, from experiencing panic attacks starting as a teenager to leading Calm, aiming to inspire others to prioritize their mental well-being. This transparency has helped break down the stigma associated with mental health challenges and encourages employees to seek help when they need it.
Steps leaders can take
Here are some other ways leaders can help incorporate employee mental well-being as a workplace priority:
Talk about it. Leadership sets the tone and should model and share their own experiences balancing mental well-being while at work.
Listen. Be present. Find ways to hear from your teams.Understand the stressors that exist across different types of work. For some, its emotional fatigure. For others, its physical strain or unpredictable hours. All of it matters.
Meet people where they are. Whether its a digital platform, a flyer in the locker room, or a text-based check-in, delivery matters as much as the message.
Tailor support. One-size-fits-all solutions fall flat. A call center agent and a construction worker have very different needs, and your approach should reflect that.
Normalize mental health in company culture. Mental wellness shouldnt feel like an afterthought. At Calm, we begin every all-hands meeting with a short meditation. I try not to start my day by checking emails or texts. These arent big shifts, but theyre grounding. When mindfulness is integrated into the rhythm of work, it becomes an integral part of the culture, rather than just a checkbox.
At Calm, weve learned that purpose and performance arent opposites. When employees feel supported, they show up stronger and better. Engagement goes up, turnover goes down, and business benefits.
Stress isnt going away. However, we have an opportunity to transform how we support employees in handling it. Workplace mental health support isnt optional; it’s essential. It is crucial to create a supportive and sustainable workplace that enables leaders to take a holistic approach to caring for their people. After all, we cant build healthy companies without a thriving workforce across all teams in every sector of our economy.
David Ko is CEO of Calm.
