Since it launched two years ago, Spotifys AI DJ has been a one-way experience. It curates old favorites and helps listeners discover new tracks based on past listening experience and what similar users like. But now its getting interactive.
Spotify unveiled the ability to request songs from the DJ based on mood, genre, and vibe. The feature, which launched across 60 markets, is exclusive to Spotify Premium users, who can access the DJ by searching for the tool in the app.
Its the latest AI feature to come from Spotify, which introduced an AI-generated playlist builder for Premium users in the United States last fall. But Molly Holder, Spotifys senior director of product for personalization, says that tool was designed for people who want to take an active role in their listening experience. The new DJ request feature, by contrast, is designed to give users more input into an essentially lean back experience.
We know that even in a lean back moment, users still want some semblance of control,” she says.
How does the DJ request feature work?
After a user searches for and calls up the DJ in the app, they can make a request by holding down the DJ icon and speaking a prompt. (The feature requires microphone access.) After receiving the prompt, such as upbeat songs for running or ambient for a rainy day, the DJ will “think” for a bit before launching into a tailored playlist.
[Image: Spotify]
Focusing on mood or moment along with a genre tends to be the best approach for using the feature. Wanting to give it a slam dunk, I asked for early 2000s patriotic country and immediately got Toby Keiths Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue. Not too hard. But when I asked for undiscovered African gems for a summer barbecue, expecting Afrobeats and Amapiano, the DJ instead served songs from the African diaspora. (The first was by Timbuktu, who Spotify describes as one of Swedens most well-known hip-hop artists.) Once I specified the genre, the results were better, but Id forgotten to make clear I wanted undiscovered artists, so I got a lot of Tyla.
With several of the requests, the DJ seemed somewhat buggy, abruptly stopping a song and launching into its more default mode. When I asked for DIY indie rock from the mid-2010s, it played a few bars from an early Mitski song, then reset itself and introduced my top songs from 2023.
Pairing insight with a human touch
Spotify’s Holder says that while the DJs content-surfacing abilities are powered by AI, many of the comments and insights that it delivers in between songsthe bits that make the tool feel like a personalized and expert experienceare powered by humans.
We have music experts and editors who have built whats called the writers room for the DJ product, she says. These folks come together with generative AI to build the commentary that DJ offers throughout the experience.
This commentary can increase listener engagementwhich can be beneficial for artists who are trying to break through as well. In that writers room, when we build that commentary, it helps to bring artists stories to life to bring a little bit more context to the content were recommending,” Holder says. One thing we see is that users who hear commentary about a track in the DJ experience are more likely to listen to a track they might have otherwise skipped.
Holder also positions the new feature in Spotifys long history of using machine learning to build personalization into the user experience, from Discovery Weekly to Daylists and now the DJ requests. Were really applying AI strategically across our product portfolio in ways that enhance the value proposition of our products.”
U.S. President Donald Trump opened his four-day Middle East trip on Tuesday by paying a visit to Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, for talks on U.S. efforts to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, end the war in Gaza, hold down oil prices and more.Prince Mohammed warmly greeted Trump as he stepped off Air Force One at King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital and kicked off his Middle East tour.The two leaders then retreated to a grand hall at the Riyadh airport, where Trump and his aides were served traditional Arabic coffee by waiting attendants wearing ceremonial gun-belts.
Fighter jet escort
The pomp began before Trump even landed. Royal Saudi Air Force F-15s provided an honorary escort for Air Force One as it approached the kingdom’s capital.Trump and Prince Mohammed also took part in a lunch at the Royal Court, gathering with guests and aides in an ornate room with blue accents and massive crystal chandeliers.As he greeted business titans with Trump by his side, Prince Mohammed was animated and smiling.It was a stark contrast to his awkward fist bump with then-President Joe Biden, who looked to avoid being seen on camera shaking hands with the prince during a 2022 visit to the kingdom.Biden had decided to pay a visit to Saudi Arabia as he looked to alleviate soaring prices at the pump for motorists at home and around the globe.At the time, Prince Mohammed’s reputation had been badly damaged by a U.S. intelligence determination that found he had ordered the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.But that dark moment appeared to be distant memory for the prince as he rubbed elbows with high-profile business executives including Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in front of the cameras and with Trump by his side.Later, the crown prince will fete Trump with a formal dinner. Trump is also slated to take part Tuesday in a U.S.-Saudi investment conference.“When Saudis and Americans join forces, very good things happen more often than not, great things happen,” Saudi Investment Minister Khalid al-Falih said.
Oil production
Saudi Arabia and fellow OPEC+ nations have already helped their cause with Trump early in his second term by stepping up oil production. Trump sees cheap energy as a key component to lowering costs and stemming inflation for Americans. The Republican president has also made the case that lower oil prices will hasten an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.But Saudi Arabia’s economy remains heavily dependent on oil, and the kingdom needs a fiscal break-even oil price of $96 to $98 a barrel to balance its budget. It’s questionable how long OPEC+, of which Saudi Arabia is the leading member, is willing to keep production elevated. The price of a barrel of Brent crude closed Monday at $64.77.“One of the challenges for the Gulf states of lower oil prices is it doesn’t necessarily imperil economic diversification programs, but it certainly makes them harder,” said Jon Alterman, a senior Middle East analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Qatar and UAE next
Trump picked the kingdom for his first stop, because it has pledged to make big investments in the U.S., but Trump ended up traveling to Italy last month for Pope Francis’ funeral. Riyadh was the first overseas stop of his first term.The three countries on the president’s itinerary Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are all places where the Trump Organization, run by Trump’s two elder sons, is developing major real estate projects. They include a high-rise tower in Jeddah, a luxury hotel in Dubai and a golf course and villa complex in Qatar.Trump is trying to demonstrate that his transactional strategy for international politics is paying dividends as he faces criticism from Democrats who say his global tariff war and approach to Russia’s war on Ukraine are isolating the United States from allies.He’s expected to announce deals with the three wealthy countries that will touch on artificial intelligence, expanding energy cooperation and perhaps new arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The administration earlier this month announced initial approval to sell $3.5 billion worth of air-to-air missiles for Saudi Arabia’s fighter jets.But Trump arrived in the Middle East at a moment when his top regional allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are far from neatly aligned with his approach.
Trump’s decision to skip Israel remarkable, expert says
Before the trip, Trump announced that Washington was halting a nearly two-month U.S. airstrike campaign against Yemen’s Houthis, saying the Iran-backed rebels have pledged to stop attacking ships along a vital global trade route.The administration didn’t notify Israel which the Houthis continue to target of the agreement before Trump publicly announced it. It was the latest example of Trump leaving the Israelis in the dark about his administration’s negotiations with common adversaries.In March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t notified by the administration until after talks began with Hamas about the war in Gaza. And Netanyahu found out about the ongoing U.S. nuclear talks with Iran only when Trump announced them during an Oval Office visit by the Israeli leader last month.“Israel will defend itself by itself,” Netanyahu said last week following Trump’s Houthi truce announcement. “If others join us our American friends all the better.”William Wechsler, senior director of the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council, said Trump’s decision to skip Israel on his first Middle East visit is remarkable.“The main message coming out of this, at least as the itinerary stands today, is that the governments of the Gulf are in fact stronger friends to President Trump than the current government of Israel at this moment,” Wechsler said.
Restarting efforts to normalize Israel-Saudi ties
Trump, meanwhile, hopes to restart his first-term effort to normalize relations between the Middle East’s major powers, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Trump’s Abraham Accords effort led to Sudan, the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco agreeing to normalize relations with Israel.But Riyadh has made clear that in exchange for normalization it wants U.S. security guarantees, assistance with the kingdom’s nuclear program and progress on a pathway to Palestinian statehood. There seems to be scant hope for making headway on a Palestinian state with the Israel-Hamas war raging and the Israelis threatening to flatten and occupy Gaza.Prince Mohammed last week notably hosted Palestinian Vice President Hussein Sheikh in Jeddah on the sheikh’s first foreign visit since assuming office in April.Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the crown prince appeared to be subtly signaling to Trump that the kingdom needs to see progress on Palestinian statehod for the Saudis to begin seriously moving on a normalization deal with the Israelis.“Knowing how the Saudis telegraph their intentions, that’s a preemptive, ‘Don’t even think of asking us to show any goodwill toward normalization,'” Abdul-Hussain said.
Madhani reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Zeke Miller, Aamer Madhani and Jon Gambrell, Associated Press
Bids are due on Tuesday for companies hoping to acquire Rite Aids prescriptions business, which it calls its most valuable economics assets. While the pharmacy chain has indicated that there are multiple potential buyers, it has also warned of risks to itself and its customers if a buyer doesnt step up quickly.
The Philadelphia-based chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week, and as part of its court filings, Rite Aid said a timely sale is necessary to minimize significant customer attrition that could erode the value of the companys assets.
If the sale of Rite Aid’s pharmacy assets is done in a disorderly and ad hoc manner, the company said, then customers with prescriptionsnot just at Rite Aid but at competing pharmaciescould also face service disruptions if other pharmacies are inundated with requests and cannot efficiently process” the transfer of prescriptions.
Rite Aid is a distant third to CVS and Walgreens, though grocery store chains like Walmart to Albertsons also have pharmacy divisions. Still, Rite Aid said it fills more than 100 million prescriptions a year, which could equal a lot of extra time and labor for nearby pharmacies on the receiving end of transfers.
Those pharmacies must receive legal prescriptions, integrate them into their systems, acquire a sufficient supply of medication to fill the prescriptions, and be staffed to handle the additional prescriptions, the pharmacy chain said in the filing. This is no small task.
Reached for comment by Fast Company, Rite Aid emphasized that its customers can continue to access services such as prescriptions and immunizations during the sale process and that it is still in “active discussions” with potential buyers. The company didnt directly respond to questions about potential bidders or how much customer attrition it has seen so far.
‘This is it for Rite Aid’
Rite Aid previously filed for bankruptcy in October 2023 and its very unlikely there would be a third bankruptcy, says Scott Stuart, CEO of the Turnaround Management Association in Chicago. This is it for Rite Aid, he says, adding that the dynamic explains why the company wants a rapid and successful sale of its assets.
While theres some urgency, for sure, the court will have to make the determination if the urgency is as great as theyre making it out to be, Stuart says.
What also remains to be seen is what will happen with the 1,200-plus stores that Rite Aid currently operates in 15 states. The company is looking to sell its assets in two phases, with the pharmacy business up for auction first.
In court documents, it has already marked dozens of locations for closure, saying it saw “limited to no value” in keeping them open. Once the sale process is complete, all Rite Aid stores will either be closed or sold to other owners.
Its difficult to speculate about the future because there are several different potential scenarios for the outcome of these auctions, says Sarah Foss, a bankruptcy attorney and head of legal at Debtwire, who has been tracking the companys filings.
Because of the licenses and regulations related to filling prescriptions, there is a limit to the number of buyers that could step up to buy Rite Aids pharmacy assets, she adds.
Its likely the pharmacy assets will be absorbed by one of the standing pharmacy brands, Stuart adds. Thats not necessarily a bad thing, he adds, because these chains have already been rethinking their retail footprints and some consolidation is necessary.
Will other pharmacies be inundated with prescription transfers?
There could be some fearmongering at play by Rite Aid about the risks of disruptions to pharmacy care, though competitors may be incentivized to sit back and await an influx of customers that will naturally flow to them, says Joe Camberato, CEO of National Business Capital, a lending platform for business owners.
But pharmacy customers who choose to go to competitors to get their prescriptions filled upon hearing of the bankruptcy and impending sales could mean the value of Rite Aids assets deteriorate quickly, which is a valid risk for debtors, Foss says.
That said, because customers have prescription needs ranging from ad hoc to those that are regularly filled, customer attrition may be less problematic if the pharmacy assets are sold quickly, she adds.
We should know by the end of week with a little more clarity whats going to happen, Foss says.
Customers may win in the end
There may be a silver lining here for customers because a degree of reinvention and innovation is sorely needed in these pharmacy-retailer chains, Camberato says. Whereas Walgreens has been working to automate the prescription filling process to speed things up, for example, Rite Aid dragged its feet, he adds.
While its unfortunate to see a company as big and familiar as Rite Aid go bankrupt, Camberato says it could be part of a long-overdue reset for an industry that hasnt evolved in years.
If it pushes the rest of the industry to actually improve the customer experience, streamline operations, and treat pharmacy workers better,” he says, “then maybe something good comes out of it.”
AI integration remains a top priority across enterprises worldwide, yet success remains elusive despite widespread enthusiasm and significant investment. An October 2024 study by Boston Consulting Group found that only 26% of companies have derived measurable business value from their AI initiatives. As a result, CEOs face mounting pressure to deliver tangible ROI, shifting focus from experimentation to real-world outcomes.
Modern AI development increasingly relies on open-source foundations, enabling rapid iteration and innovation. Many transformative breakthroughs have emerged from community-driven developmentprimarily in Python, the dominant language in data science. However, as enterprises attempt to operationalize these advances, foundational cracks are becoming harder to ignore.
Fragmented toolchains, limited oversight, and inconsistent practices introduce significant vulnerabilities at scale. Security, in particular, is a growing concern. Over half (58%) of organizations use open-source components in at least half of their AI and ML projects, yet nearly a third (29%) cite security risks as their biggest challenge with open-source tools.
These are precisely the gaps Anaconda aims to close with its new Anaconda AI Platform, a unified system designed to bring structure, clarity, and control to the chaotic open-source AI development landscape. Founded in 2012 in Austin, Texas, as Continuum Analytics by Peter Wang and Travis Oliphant, Anaconda now supports more than 50 million users globally. As the longtime steward of the most widely used Python distributiontrusted by 94% of the Fortune 500Anaconda holds a uniquely strategic position.
Since ChatGPT put large language models on the map, enterprises have been eager to own their destiny in AI, Peter Wang, chief AI and Innovation officer and cofounder of Anaconda, tells Fast Company. Enterprise-grade AI workflows naturally break down into a few key steps, each of which can be streamlined and handled in a structured way.
Wang explained these steps include managing open-source Python libraries, tracking model weights, and continuously evaluating model performance. Right now, AI teams are stitching together ad hoc solutions to solve each piece, he added. The Anaconda AI Platform offers a unified foundation, an integrated stack that supports the entire AI lifecycle. It eliminates the need for disconnected tools and duct-tape integrations.
The platform arrives at a pivotal moment as organizations seek structure around open-source AI development. Wang described it as a centralized control plane for AI workflows, streamlining processes from sandboxed development to enterprise-scale deployment. It enables teams to develop once, deploy anywhere, whether in the cloud, on-premise, or in sovereign data environmentswithout reengineering from scratch.
Every decision we make in product update, new feature, or changeis with the intent of furthering the advancement and democratization of data science and AI for all, Wang says. Python is currently the developer language of choice for AI programming, and our new platform aims to make it easier for community members and enterprises alike to innovate freely with AI and without compromising security or compliance.
As models grow more complex and regulations tighten, organizations need full visibility into their AI systems. Beyond its bold vision, the Anaconda AI Platform offers practical features like real-time governance, role-based access control, command-line integration, automated error correction, and pre-validated package security. These capabilities aim to reduce broken environments, improve deployment safety, and support better collaboration across distributed teams.
Data scientists can continue to work in the tools they know and trust, while the Anaconda AI platform manages the complex orchestration of management and dependency resolution into invisible infrastructure rather than daily friction, says Wang. Our goal is to break down long-standing silos between data scientists, machine learning engineers, and operations teams, so that everyone works from a shared source of truth with full visibility into an AI models lifecycle, from development through deployment.
A GitHub Moment for Open-Source AI Development?
Just as GitHub centralized version control and collaboration in software development, the Anaconda AI Platform offers a similar home base for open-source AI in the enterprise. While the GitHub analogy is compelling, in reality, what were building goes much deeper, Wang says. AI development through open source faces pain points that consistently hinder progress across AI, ML, and data science teams in large organizations. Were addressing those day-to-day challenges to ensure that innovation can scale without friction.
The platforms unified CLI authentication simplifies access across the Anaconda ecosystem with single sign-on. Previously, users had to manually manage tokens and settings across tools. Now, they authenticate once for seamless access. For enterprise administrators, role-based access controls ensure that only the right people access critical resources, balancing governance with innovation.
Additionally, the Quick Start Environments feature offers preconfigured workspaces tailored for specific use cases like finance or AI/ML, eliminating setup hassles and enabling immediate productivity. This significantly improves onboarding, allowing new team members to contribute on day one.
A technical director at a financial services company told us this eliminated a one-month turnaround time for package approvals, creating a much more fluid development experience, Wang tells Fast Company. Likewise, an industrial customer shared that they’ve been able to reduce the equivalent of two full-time employees previously dedicated to manual package management and approval workflows.
Anaconda standardizes access to thousands of secure open-source packages, allowing organizations to transition away from legacy data analytics tools. By automating vulnerability scanning, package vetting, and security policy enforcement, we eliminate the risks traditionally associated with downloading open-source packages, Wang adds. This level of security results in 60% fewer breach risks when developing with Anaconda.
Building a Responsible Foundation for Enterprises
As AI becomes embedded in enterprise infrastructure, organizations are no longer just choosing modelstheyre choosing ecosystems. Wang noted that speed alone wont define success in enterprise AI; true success lies in scaling open innovation while maintaining control.
AI shouldn’t be the exclusive domain of hyperscalers or tech giants. By providing the tools that make open source AI both secure and scalable, we’re empowering organizations of all sizes to participate in this transformation, he added. The future of AI isn’t just about technological capabilityit’s about responsible stewardship of these powerful tools.
With its scale and trust, Anaconda may well become the GitHub of AI, offering centralized control and enterprise-grade security without stifling the innovation that makes open-source ecosystems thrive. Wang believes that open source is the ideal foundation for acelerating AI innovation.
When teams can deploy solutions consistently across environments without rework, they deliver value faster, Wang says. We want everyone to reap the benefits of open source, as open innovation leads to the boldest of breakthroughs.
You can learn a lot about an app before you download it from Apples App Store, such as what other users think of it, the access it has to your personal data, and how much storage it occupies. Starting soon, listings will also include a section on something critically important to millions of people: the accessibility features an app supports. Designed to help users with disabilities make more informed decisions about which apps to try, these new nutrition labels are part of a bevy of announcements Apple is making to mark this Thursdays Global Accessibility Awareness Day. The company says theyll all be available later this year.
The new accessibility-details feature, which really is called Accessibility Nutrition Labels, lets developers indicate support for existing Apple features such as VoiceOver, Voice Control, Larger Text, Sufficient Contrast, Reduced Motion, and captions. Some app providers already cover this ground in their app descriptions; third-party resources such as AppleVis are also valuable. But for the first time, Apple is providing a dedicated, consistent spot for accessibility information. Users will know where to look for it. Developers who enable these features will get credit for their efforts. And with any luck, many more companies will be incentivized to make their products as accessible as possible.
Accessibility Reader offers multiple ways to reformat text for improved legibility. [Image: Courtesy of Apple]
Apple is also spotlighting a new Mac version of Magnifier, a feature for making real-world text and other elements easier to see. (Its existed on the iPhone and iPad since 2016.) The Mac version works with USB cameras or an iPhones camera to enlarge text, adjust its perspective and contrast, and otherwise help people with impaired vision read more quickly and easily. It can handle multiple sources at oncefor instance, capturing writing on a classroom whiteboard while simultaneously scanning in pages from a book. It also works with a new feature called Accessibility Reader that reformats textual material to be more legible and is embedded in Apples operating systems, so its available in any app.
Other new items the company is previewing for Global Accessibility Awareness Day cover all of its platforms. For example, Braille Access is a feature for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro that lets braille users take notes and perform calculations, either with the Apple device alone or with specialized braille input hardware. (Apple supports more than 70 such products.) A feature called Live Listen allows an iPhone to be used as a remote microphone and displays captions in real time on an Apple Watch. Eye tracking, an existing input option on iPhones and iPads, is being upgraded for easier typing. Vision Pro is adding new features for magnification and spoken descriptions of environments, plus software hooks to let accessibility apps such as Be My Eyes get access to its main camera. Even CarPlay is getting some updates, including the ability to alert deaf and hard-of-hearing users to sounds such as a babys crying, sirens, and honking cars.
Live Listens features include real-time captioning via Apple Watch. [Image: Courtesy of Apple]
Yet another Apple announcement involves Personal Voice, a 2-year-old feature that lets people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) use an iPhone, iPad, or Mac to create a digitized version of their voice for later use after the progressive disease has made speaking difficult or impossible. When I wrote about the original version of this feature in 2023, the fact that a user needed to spend only 15 minutes recording phrases and wait a few hours for the device to generate the digital voice was an impressive advance over previous technologies for voice banking. Apple says the new version requires only 10 phrases and less than a minute of on-device computation to generate a voice. In a brief demo the company gave me, the results sounded significantly more natural than those from the first version.
Knock Apple for being behind in AI if you pleasebut Personal Voice is one potentially life-changing area where it seems to be making a giant leap forward.
Humans, for all our intellectual sophistication, are still tribal creatures at heart. We tend to gravitate toward people who are like usindividuals who look like us, think like us, share our values, and even mirror our quirks and tastes.
On the surface, this makes intuitive sense. It explains the evolutionary origins of empathy: we feel the joys, sorrows, and struggles of others more deeply when we perceive them as part of our own “in-group.”
But heres the catch: What feels good for individuals can be disastrous for diversity. If left unchecked, our biological instinct to seek sameness undermines one of the core ingredients of high-performing organizationsdiversity of thought, experience, and identity.
When everyone around you shares your values, it creates an echo chamber, rewards conformity, and inhibits innovation, which emerges when different perspectives and conflicting ideas transition from a state of tension to a state of harmony. Likewise, homogeneity of values and thoughts blinds us to the talents, ideas, and perspectives of people who might see the world differentlyeven when they are the key change agents that can help teams and organizations evolve.
Diversity is a survival strategy
Even amid todays backlash against DEI initiatives, smart companies understand that removing barriers for historically marginalized individuals isn’t just a moral imperativeits a strategic advantage. Meritocracy is only possible when individuals are evaluated on what they can do, not how much they conform to the dominant culture.
That means hiring for “culture fit”a euphemism for “people like us”is fundamentally flawed. If you only let people in who mirror the existing values and norms, you don’t have a cultureyou have a clique. The goal should be to allow cultural outliers and diverse thinkers not just to join but to thrive.
And that introduces a practical challenge: working with people who don’t share your values, including your way of thinking and working. This isn’t progressit’s a stagnant loop. You’re building your team, your circle, with people who are just like you, which means youre all stuck on the same wavelength. The result? Predictable outcomes and a whole lot of missed opportunities for innovation. Youve got a room full of mirrors, not windows. You love others ideas because they are just like yours.
Success today is less about being true to your own values and more about being open to others valueseven, and arguably especially, when they conflict with yours. Indeed, the ability to question your assumptions, see the world through others’ eyes, and remember that just because someone is different doesnt mean they are wrong, or that you are right, which will boost your social skills, and in turn your employability and career success.
The more perspectives we add to a system, the denser its cognitive landscape becomes. Each new viewpoint introduces a different angle, a fresh interpretationyielding more ideas, more possibilities, and inevitably, more complexity.
This complexity isnt a flaw; its the cost of a richer, more textured understanding of the world. But it also demands greater mental flexibilitythe ability to hold opposing ideas in tension, to think in shades rather than absolutes, and to make decisions amid uncertainty.
So how do you work with people who challenge your most deeply held beliefs?
1. Professionalism over authenticity
For centuries, people have gotten along in professional settings by pretending to like each other, or at least by pretending not to despise each other. This time-honored tradition of civility still works.
You don’t have to like everyone. You don’t have to agree with everyone. You certainly don’t have to invite them over for Sunday brunch. But you do have to work with them respectfully and constructively. This means biting your tongue, smiling when necessary, and keeping your grievances to yourself. Authenticity sounds greatbut in a workplace setting, professionalism trumps it.
2. Find common ground
Even if you clash over politics, religion, or lifestyle choices, chances are you can find some common ground. Maybe youre both passionate about the same industry trend. Maybe you both enjoy dark roast coffee. Maybe you both root for underdog sports teams. Think of it like being stuck at an airport bar during a layover. You might sit next to someone who is your ideological oppositebut after 45 minutes and a shared frustration over delayed flights, you find yourselves bonding. Finding common ground is about building bridges of human connection that can support collaboration, even across a chasm of differences. Seek those bridges. They are there.
3. Respect process over outcomes
You won’t always agree on what the “right” answer is. But you can agree on how to get there. Focusing on processasking questions, debating ideas, testing hypothesescan depersonalize disagreements. Instead of framing it as “my values versus your values,” it becomes “let’s figure this out together.” In healthy organizations, the best idea winsnot the loudest voice or the most popular opinion. Respecting the process ensures that diversity of thought isnt just toleratedits leveraged.
4. Get comfortable being uncomfortable
Most personal and professional growth happens outside your comfort zone. Working with people who reject your values forces you to examine your beliefs, sharpen your arguments, and sometimes even change your mind. Thats not weakness; its wisdom.
Instead of viewing discomfort as a threat, reframe it as a sign you are learning. Be curious, not defensive. Ask questions, listen actively, and try to understandnot to convert or convince, but to expand your own cognitive tool kit. In a world where the pace of change is relentless and the problems we face are increasingly complex, intellectual humility isnt just a virtue. Its a competitive advantage.
5. Practice rational compassion
Psychologist Paul Bloom argues for rational compassionthe ideathat empathy alone can lead to biased, shortsighted decisions, especially when working with people who dont share your values. Instead of relying on raw emotional reactions, rational compassion demands a more deliberate, reasoned approach: recognizing others’ needs without being overwhelmed by them, and acting in ways that are fair, sustainable, and strategic. When faced with ideological differences, practicing rational compassion helps maintain respect and effectiveness without slipping into resentment or moral grandstanding. It shifts the focus from feeling good to doing goodeven with those we disagree with.
In a tribalized and polarized world, the future belongs to organizationsand individualswho can collaborate across differences, not despite them but because of them. Working with people who don’t share your values is not just a skill; it’s a superpower. It requires maturity, empathy, curiosity, and a dash of tactical faking. It forces you to confront your biases, question your certainties, and grow beyond your tribal instincts. And ultimately, it makes you not only a better colleague, but a wiser, more resilient, and more open-minded human being.
For its first six decades in business, Target sat on the sidelines when a new U.S. president entered office. But on January 10, ahead of Donald Trumps return to the White House, the big-box retailer broke with tradition and donated $1 million to the Trump Inaugural Committee. Two weeks later, the corporate giant offered the new administration a different kind of gift: It announced that it was pulling back on its diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments, eliminating programs designed to increase its Black workforce and the number of Black-owned brands on its shelves.
The backlash was swift. Rallied by civil rights leaders like Jamal Bryant and Al Sharpton, customers began boycotting Targets stores. This is the same retailer, after all, that had mobilized to support the Black community in the aftermath of George Floyds murder, which took place 10 minutes from its headquarters. Within a year of that tragedy, the company had committed to spending $2 billion with Black-owned businesses and adding products from more than 500 Black-owned brands to its shelves by the end of 2025. Now even the web page that tracked these commitments has disappeared.
Many saw Targets abrupt capitulation to the Trump administration as a sign that it had never really believed in social justice in the first place. For months now, consumers have been registering their unhappiness by staying clear of Target. Since late January, weekly foot traffic across Targets fleet of nearly 2,000 stores has been down between 3.8% and 7.7% compared to last year, according to Placer.ai, which tracks people’s locations based on their mobile data. Target’s stock has plunged around 40% over the past year.
The company is also facing the consequences of Trump’s trade war. Even a 30% tariff on China means that the 30% of products from Target-owned brands that are still produced in that country will be much more expensive. And then there are the innumerable goods from other brandsand other countriesimpacted by Trumps so-called reciprocal tariffs.
Theres no question that Target is dealing with a barrage of setbacks this year, but the retailers troubles date back even further. (Target turned down Fast Companys request for an interview, but responded to questions via email.) After explosive sales growth in 2021 and 2022, the company has been flatlining: Net sales dropped $1.7 billion, or 1.6%, in 2023. Last year, they declined as well, though comparative year-to-year sales were up about 1% (2023 was a 53-week year). Target was projecting 1% growth for this yearbefore the tariffs were announced. Meanwhile, CEO Brian Cornells 2024 pay, which is tied to the companys performance, dropped to $9.9 milliona 45% decline from the previous year.
It wasn’t so long ago that Target had a reputation for providing a delightful shopping experience, with tidy, brightly lit stores and shelves stocked with well-designed products at affordable prices. Under Cornell, who became chief executive in 2014, the company built up a portfolio of more than 45 private-label brands, which are now worth more than $31 billion in annual sales. The retailer also became the exclusive launch partner to dozens of pioneering direct-to-consumer brands, helping to cultivate the retailer’s Tarzhay mystique.
But that charm has been fading due to a series of missteps that the company made coming out of the pandemic. For one, it overestimated demand and bought too much inventory, which weighed on profits. (The company’s operating income dropped by more than 50% in 2022. And though it’s recovered ground in recent years, operating income was still down 38% last year from its 2021 high.) As the company wrestled with this excess inventory, the store experience seem to degrade: Customers started complaining about messy, disorganized aisles and long checkout lines. More recently, Target’s reliance on selling discretionary products, which make up 50% of its business and most of its owned brands, has held it back at a time when consumers are feeling the pinch of inflation.
Target remains one of the biggest legacy brands on the American retail landscape, generating $106.6 billion in revenue last year. The question now is whether it can pull itself back from the brink, or whether its best days are over.
[Photo: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images]
How Shopping at Target Stopped Being Fun
The weekend before Easter, Target dropped a limited-edition collaboration with Kate Spade. Collabs like these were once highly anticipated affairs that drove shoppers into stores. A decade ago, shoppers mobbed stores to get their hands on items from Target’s Lilly Pulitzer and Missoni collections. But on the morning of the Kate Spade drop, only a handful of women showed up at my large store in the Boston suburbs.
When the doors opened at 7 a.m., customers found employees still unpacking Kate Spade merchandise from cardboard boxes and putting it on shelves. Fifteen minutes later, as shoppers got impatient, a manager said they could just go through the boxes themselves to fish for the bracelets and purses they had come to buygiving the whole experience more of a bargain-basement vibe than a partnership with a beloved, high-end designer. The problems continued from there. While the store has a dozen changing rooms, only one was unlocked. Customers tried to find an employee to open up the other stalls, but nobody was available. Some shoppers just gave up on their quest, abandoning piles of clothes on the floor.
Target says the Kate Spade collab resulted in the companys largest launch day for a limited-time collection in the past decade. Even so, Placer.ais data shows that there was a 4.7% drop in foot traffic at Target stores compared to the previous year during the week of the collections launch.
Shopping experiences like mine seem to have become increasingly common at Target, according to our own reporting and reporting from The Wall Street Journal and Vox. “The stores are disorganized, product is never where its supposed to be, and I’ve seen expired product on shelveswhich is the worst thing you can do as a retailerand there’s no one you can even complain to,” says Sucharita Kodali, principal analyst at Forrester, who specializes in retail. “These are serious executional problems.”
This decline of the in-store experience didn’t happen overnight. For years, Target stood out from low-cost competitors like Walmart and Costco by offering a more pleasant shopping experience than their warehouse-like, no-frills ambience. But things began to devolve in the wake of the pandemic.
During the COVID-19 lockdowns, many retailers saw an enormous boost in online sales as consumers used their stimulus checks to shop. Target’s sales exploded by $15 billion, or 20%, in 2020 as it sold customers garden furniture and decor for their home upgrades, and sweatpants for their homebound lifestyle. But consumers’ shopping behavior shifted quickly when society opened back up, a change that caught Target by surprise, according to Mickey Chadha, a retail analyst and vice president at Moody’s.
To head off supply chain issues during the pandemic, Target had placed advance orders for products that people would want while stuck at home. But when lockdowns were lifted, suddenly it had a lot of inventory that it couldn’t sell,” Chadha says. “It would take them a long time to recover from that decline in profitability.”
Soon after, customers started voicing concerns about messy shelves and long checkout lines. A year ago, Fast Company spoke with Target customers and employees who complained the retailer was understaffing stores. A student at Illinois Wesleyan University wrote an op-ed in her college paper describing how she has found empty shelves and trash on the floors of her local store, and urging college students to take their business elsewhere. Redditors vented that Targets grocery and bakery sections were out of stock, and inventory was often misplaced.
Target also put many products behind plexiglass in 2023 in response to a wave of organized retail theft. “Target’s strategy used to be to wow customers with their assortment of exciting, higher-end items in store,” says Nicole DeHoratius, professor of professional practice at Columbia Business School who studies retail operations and supply chains. “But if you can’t touch and feel the products, or even read the packaging, why would you even go to the store?”
DeHoratius points out that a poor in-store experience is likely to drive customers to shop online. But this presents another problem for Target since its e-commerce operations are still just a fraction the size of Amazons and Walmarts.
For several years Target has invested $3 billion to $5 billion annually to speed up its online deliveries. It’s also partnered with Shopify to bring more brands into Target Plus, its third-party marketplace. These efforts have been working: Targets digital sales now make up nearly 20% of its overall business, generating $20 billion in revenue.
But Walmarts e-commerce sales, which reached $100 billion in 2024, are growing roughly twice as fast as Targets. And Walmart continues to invest in its delivery infrastructure. In February, it announced that it was offering same-day delivery service to 93% of U.S. households (Target reaches 75% through its delivery service, Shipt). Walmart followed up with news in April that it has redesigned its approach to shipping and could now serve an additional 12 million households.
“Walmart’s online shopping experience is more sophisticated,” says DeHoratius. “If a Walmart customer doesn’t shop in store, [it] can capture that sale online, but Target is unable to do that.”
[Source Photo: Zoshua Colah/Unsplash]
Choosing essential groceries over affordable luxuries
Target is working through its operational issues. A year ago, in an acknowledgment of customer frustrations with the slow checkout process, Target said it would open more checkout lines and launch express self-checkout with limits of 10 or fewer items. But a bigger issue for the company is that its unique value propositionof offering better-designed products at good pricesmay no longer resonate with American consumers.
The Kate Spade collaboration was part of Target’s 25-year-long strategy of partnering with high-end designers, from architect Michael Graves to fashion designer Proenza Schouler, to create more accessible versions of their products. Target has also invested heavily in its more than 45 in-house brands across the fashion, home, and beauty categories. Many of these lines closely mimic the aesthetic of other popular brands. (Auden underwear is a cheaper alternative to ThirdLove; Open Story luggage is similar to Away’s minimalist suitcases.)
“Target’s cachet was that they offered good products at a decent price,” says Chadha, the VP at Moody’s. “Their private-label strategy was very successful because you could only get those products at Target, and their margins were very high.”
Target’s appeal to middle-class consumers was that they could visit a store to buy essentials like toilet paper and dish soap while also browsing for affordable luxuries. This led to the “Target effect” of stopping at the store to buy a few basics, and leaving with $100 worth of products you didn’t know you needed. But over the past four years, consumers have consistently felt worried about the economy. And in this environment, they are less eager to spend on discretionary purchases.
This gives Walmart yet another advantage. For one thing, Walmart’s entire brand centers on offering low prices. (Since 2007, Walmarts motto has been Save money. Live better.) Walmart is also continuing to expand its grocery offerings, which now make up roughly 65% of the store, and is currently building five new high-tech distribution centers for perishable products.
“In an inflationary time, consumers shift from discretionary to nondiscretionary products, which basically means food and essentials,” says Chadha. “Walmart has gained market share because of its food offerings. But it has also improved its own in-house brands, which means customers pick up a few other things on their grocery run.”
Targets competitors are, indeed, finding more success with their in-house brands. Costcos Kirkland brand now generates more revenue than Nike, and Walmart’s new private-label grocery brand, Bettergoods, is one of the country’s fastest-growing. (Target’s ultra-cheap Dealworthy brand, launched last year to compete with Amazon and Costco, is also growing quickly.)
Though grocery currently makes up 23% of Target’s selection, the company is starting to move that needle. Target generated $23.8 billion from food and beverage in 2024, up $9 billion from five years ago. To keep up with this growing demand, its opened three new food distribution centers over the past two years, bringing its total to eight. Its opening yet another in 2026.
[Source Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]
Then Came the Boycott
Target was already on shaky ground as 2025 dawned. And then Trump took office. For years, Target had positioned itself as a progressive company, supporting Pride month with rainbow merchandise and running commercials celebrating Black joy for Black History Month. Chadha points out that Target’s social justice stance made sense because it generally aligned with the company’s customer demographics. Walmart tends to have very large-footprint stores in rural locations that are more right-leaning; Target, conversely, tends to have smaller stores in more left-leaning urban areas. “Geography matters,” says Chadha. “Targets stores are in places that generally skew blue.”
Target took a particularly bold stance in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. In addition to its commitment to buy inventory from Black-owned businesses, Target vowed to increase its Black workforce by 20% over three years, to donate $100 million to support Black-led nonprofits, and to offer scholarships to students at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
The directive came from the top. In an interview with the Economic Club of Chicago a year after George Floyds murder, Cornell said the killing had compelled him to rethink his leadership at Target. I recognize that its time to take it to another level, and that as CEOs, we have to be the companys head of diversity and inclusion, he said.
But when Trump took office in January of this year, his administration took aim at DEI, saying it would draw up a list of private companies that could be investigated for “illegal DEI discrimination.” Target abruptly announced it was pulling back on all of its DEI initiatives.
Target was far from alone in capitulating: Dozens of companies, including Amazon, PepsiCo, and Walmart, quickly eliminated DEI programs. But Target’s reversal was more painful, says Jamal Bryant, the Atlanta-based pastor who helped kick-start the Target boycott. To Bryant, it revealed how superficial and performative Target’s promises to the Black community had been. “We’ve never asked Target for a handout; we were looking for a handshake,” he says. “And for Target to withdraw that hand so suddenly was disappointing.”
On February 2, Bryant used his pulpit at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest, Georgia, to urge people to fast from shopping at Target during Lent, the 40-day period before Easter. He wasn’t sure whether the boycott would have any impact. But according to Placer.ai, foot traffic to Target across all stores has been down by at least 4% every week of the boycott compared to last year. Meanwhile, Costco and Walmart were seeing increases in foot traffic. “I was shocked,” Bryant says. “You have to understand, this is the largest boycott by Black people since the Montgomery Bus boycott.”
For weeks, Target didnt acknowledge the boycott. But days before Easter, Cornell sat down with Bryant and Reverand Al Sharpton, who had also supported the boycott. The civil rights leaders asked Target to restore its internal DEI efforts, eposit $250 million into Black-owned banks, establish new partnerships with HBCUs, and renew its commitment to invest $2 billion in Black-owned businesses. Cornell committed only to the last issue, so Bryant says the boycott is still on. (The week of April 28, Targets foot traffic was down 5% compared to last year, according to Placer.ai.)
The question is whether there’s any way for Target to bounce back from these many intersecting crises. The analysts I spoke with believe there is still time for Target to turn things around. For one thing, Target is a very big company; it has the resources to invest in fixing its operational problems and making inroads with the communities it has alienated. It wouldnt be the first big retailer to rebound. Just a decade ago, Walmart’s stock plunged amid worries that it couldn’t keep pace with Amazon. But Walmart managed to beef up its e-commerce operations and is in a much stronger position today.
Kodali, the analyst at Forrester, acknowledges that Target is at a low point, but she believes it can recover. “Retail is cyclical,” she says. “Target has lost its mojo, but it is not irreparably damaged. It needs to refresh its store experience, its technology, its employee training programs, but it can make a comeback. Target is too big to fail.” She says that 30% tariffs on Chinese goodsif that rate stickscould actually help Target, along with other value retailers. “The tariffs will affect inflation more than lower sales for any mass merchant,” she says. As long as Target can improve its shopping experience, it could be a destination for what she calls “essential goods.”
Last week, Cornell sent around an email to staff acknowledging the “tough few months” Target has faced this year. “There’s been a lot coming at usmacro challenges in the environment,” he wrote, “but also headlines, social media and conversations that may have left you wondering: Where does Target stand? What’s true? What’s not?”
He noted that “silence” from the highest levels of the company have exacerbated this uncertainly. Cornell has yet to speak publicly about the company’s DEI rollback, and his message to employees didn’t mention it either. “I want to be very clear,” he wrote. “We are still the Target you know and believe in.”
Whether he was stating a fact or an aspiration, however, remains to be seen.
It can be tempting for business leaders to overly rely on data to drive their decision-making. But so often that approach can sacrifice the human connection that’s needed between leaders and their employees and customers.
At Fast Companys annual Impact Council meeting last week, Elyse Cohen, chief impact officer of the Selena Gomez-founded beauty brand Rare Beauty; and David Ko, CEO of mental health and sleep assistance platform Calm, took to the stage to discuss why leading like a human is so important, particularly at a time of striking technological advancement.
Data-driven human connection
Although Calm leverages AI, the company predominantly uses those capabilities to democratize access to its app, which includes guided meditations, bedtime stories and soundscapes, and video lessons for movement and stretching. According to Ko, Calm is using AI to translate these features into other languages, expand content options, and increase peoples comfort levels with the technology. Ko wants to employ what he calls human-centered AI, which puts the user at the center of data insights.
We want to use the data to continue to evolve, to make the product better, so that ultimately we can make you healthier and be with you in your mental health journey every step of the way, Ko said.
For Cohen, AI plays a limited role in her day-to-day operations. Rather the data she looks to comes from robust customer interactions and feedback, which, in large part, stems from the company putting mental health advocacy at the core of their business from day one.
We didn’t anticipate a community like this. It really was launching this company at a time when a global pandemic was happening. Our audience was experiencing more loneliness than ever. And so by default, we created these virtual ways to connect, which then turned into this powerful community, she said. As the brand grew, it became quite clear that our community was the heart and soul of this brand.
Letting Gen Z lead
Many of the lessons that Cohen and Ko have learned from their customers and employees about human connection comes from younger generations, who appreciate transparency in the workplace and want to see their values reflected in the brands they work for or spend money on.
The way everyone is so open about a therapy appointment, or being stressed, it’s not the same moment of hiding those feelings, Cohen said. It’s a lot more of wearing them on your sleeve and opening up the conversation for a leader to then ask how they areand they will tell you. As important as it is to allow employees to be open about their mental health in the workplace, Cohen also noted that it’s important for company leaders to engage with “kitchen conversations” across the board with their employees. “When it comes to the personal part of their life, that’s where they’re open and willing to talk and wanting to talk,” Cohen said. “I could tell you every employee that went to Coachella.”To Cohen, it’s about understanding “the whole person” and who they’re showing up to work as.
Our employees come to the office ready to talk and ready to actually share, she said.
Making mental health conversations company-wide
Cultivating an environment where people feel like theyre actually being listened to can create space for vulnerable conversations, which build trust and are crucial to companies that create products and build communities centered around mental well-being. For Calm and Rare Beauty, that ethos originates at the internal level.
Ko said that hes dealt with panic attacks since the age of 14, but he didnt start to think about how his own mental health impacted the environments he worked inincluding, initially, at Calmuntil later in life.
What I started to do was to open up dialogue around [my mental health], show my own vulnerability and talk about what I have been through, he said. If we really want to have conversations around mental health and the workplace, it’s got to be supported at all levels. If the conversation is just for HR [and] the benefit managers, it’s not enough.
Cohen agreed that the tone company leaders set permeates the business as a whole.
I think we forget that it’s how we show up every day,” Cohen said. “We can bring in every benefit we want. We can say that we focus on mental health. But it is truly how a leader shows up that creates the culture, and it’s the full ripple effect because it’s what everyone is following.”
Common personal care and beauty products like lotions, soaps, shampoos, eyeliner, and even eyelash glue can contain formaldehyde or preservatives that release formaldehydea known carcinogen that has been linked to cancer. And Black and Latina women could be at particular risk.
Formaldehyde is a preservative (its a key ingredient of embalming fluid) and so its sometimes added to beauty products as a way to extend their shelf life and inhibit the growth of bacteria or mold. Formaldehyde-releasing preservatives are seen as an alternative to formaldehyde, but these chemical compounds do the same thing: they extend shelf life while slowly releasing formaldehyde into the product over time (just how much depends on multiple factors, but studies suggest longer storage times and higher temperatures lead to more formaldehyde released).
That formaldehyde could then be absorbed by the skin, and even though the amount may be small, experts say low levels of formaldehyde still pose health risks. Personal care products are often used frequently, so repeated exposures could add up.
These chemicals have already been found in hair-straightening products, which are predominantly used by Black women. A new study, recently published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters, found that this risk extends beyond chemical hair relaxers to all sorts of beauty products: lotions, shower gels, face creams, shampoo and conditioners, hair oils, eyeliner, eyelash glue, and so on.
In that study, researchers asked a group of Black and Latina women in Los Angeles about their use of personal care products over a week. More than half reported using items that contain formaldehyde-releasing preservativesand many of those products are ones that the participants used daily, or multiple times in a week.
Finding formaldehyde in beauty products
For the study, 64 Black and Latina women were tasked with tracking all of their beauty product use, logging the information in an app developed by the Silent Spring Institute, a research organization focused on the environmental causes of breast cancer. (Silent Spring chemists authored the study, and it was part of a larger research effort between Silent Spring, Occidental College Black Women for Wellness, and Columbia University.)
That app also asked them to take a photo of each ingredient label, which allowed the researchers to analyze the ingredient lists for formaldehyde and formaldehyde-releasing preservatives. Formaldehyde-releasing preservatives often go by complex chemical names like 1,3-dimethylol-5,5-dimethylhydantoin, also called DMDM hydantoin or DMDMH, meaning they dont actually appear as formaldehyde on ingredient lists.
Fifty-three percent of participants said they used at least one product with formaldehyde releasers on its ingredient label, and DMDMH was the most common. Of the items that contained any formaldehyde-releasing preservatives, DMDMH was in 47% of skincare and 58% of hair products.
The fact that these toxic chemicals are in so many products highlights the health risks women face, particularly Black and Latina women. One woman in the study used three products with formaldehyde-releasing preservatives: a leave-in conditioner, rinse-off conditioner, and a body wash. Some women used these products multiple times a day, like hand soap or lotion. Over a five day period, 20 study participants used lotions with formaldehyde-releasing preservatives for a total of 76 times. One eyelash glue even specifically listed formaldehyde as an ingredient. The preservatives were also found in hair gels, oils, curl creams, and edge controls, predominantly used by Black women.
The study didnt list specific brands or product names containing formaldehyde-releasing preservatives, though it did note that 12 such lotions were from Bath & Body Works. While this study does not specify which of body lotions its participants were using, we rigorously test formulas for all our personal care and home fragrance products, including FRPs to meet regulatory and safety standards, a Bath & Body Works spokesperson said in a statement.
Protecting consumers from formaldehyde releasers
Formaldehyde exposure is linked to adverse health effects, including increased risk of multiple types of cancer. Researchers say theres been a growing concern about formaldehyde-releasing preservatives, and how personal care products that contain them could pose a risk to women’s health, particularly Black and Latina women. Previous studies have connected the use of hair relaxers to an increased risk of uterine cancer in Black women.
Others say these formaldehyde-releasing chemicals arent a concern. Unilever, for example, has a web page about how it doesn’t use formaldehyde as an ingredient but does use formaldehyde donors like DMDMH. It says they’re safe to use, per the U.S. Cosmetic Ingredient Review Expert Panel and Europes Scientific Community on Consumer Safety.
Still, in Europe, products with formaldehyde are more regulated. The European Union has banned formaldehyde in cosmetics, and requires any cosmetics with formaldehyde releasers above a 0.001% concentration to have a warning label.
The U.S. currently doesn’t ban formaldehyde in cosmetics (a federal ban on formaldehyde and formaldehyde releasers in chemical hair straighteners was considered back in 2023, and is currently stalled after President Donald Trump paused all federal regulations). At least 10 states, including California and Oregon, have enacted or considered laws to regulate formaldehyde in cosmeticseither by banning it, or requiring warning labels for formaldehyde releasers. There has been a drop in products containing formaldehyde in California after the state’s Safe Cosmetics Program began in 2007, but experts say even beyond warning labels, banning formaldehyde releasers completely across the country would be the best-case scenario to reduce risks.
The researchers suggest people avoid products containing DMDMH. Silent Spring has resources for how people can avoid formaldehyde releasers, including by noting the other chemical names for such preservatives that may appear on ingredient lists. Black Women for Wellness also has resources for consumers concerned about chemical exposure.
Were trying to do the right thing, Janette Robinson Flint, executive director of Black Women for Wellness, says in a statement. But there needs to be more government oversight. We shouldnt have to be chemists to figure out what kinds of products will make us sick.
In large organizations, HR usually has a process for documenting concerns about employees effectiveness that can be used either to help fix those problemsor to provide a basis for later termination. One of the central records used for this purpose is the dreaded performance improvement plan, or PIP.
If you get called in to see your supervisor and get hit with a PIP, youre likely to experience a range of emotions. Understanding your emotional reaction and how to cope with it is an important part of moving forward successfully. Lets consider a range of emotions you might be experiencing and what you should do:
Feeling Grief
One possibility is that the PIP comes out of the blue. You may be thinking that work is going fine and you suddenly find out that there are concerns. Because work is often an important part of both your identity and your ability to maintain your life and lifestyle, it represents a tear in the fabric of your life story. And that will trigger a grief process.
The five stages of grief described by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) dont necessarily have to happen in that order, but you should recognize that they may accompany the news that you are struggling in your job.
You have to resist the urge to act on the basis of these emotions. If you get angry, you should not lash out at your bosses or the organization in email or on social media. If you feel like bargaining, take a beat, and avoid making promises that you will regret later.
Instead, give yourself a few days to reflect on the situation. Were you dismissing warning signs about your performance? Are there elements of your job that you have been ignoring? Do you think the organization is looking for a way to show you the exit?
After that reflection, schedule a meeting with your supervisor to talk over the situation. In preparation for that session, make a realistic plan for how you will address issues discussed in your PIP. Develop a list of questions you have about the path forward. Wait to schedule that meeting for a time when you feel that you can really hear the answers to your questions.
Feeling Relief
Perhaps surprisingly, you may find that the PIP brings with it a feeling of relief. You may have been struggling to complete your job responsibilities. Perhaps you feel that youre in over your head. You might even hate your job, but were soldiering on by inertia.
If the PIP brings a feeling of relief, it’s probably time to look for a new job. The feelings youre having are helping you see that you can have a more fulfilling work life by changing paths.
Make a list of the things you really like about your job, as well as those you dont. Think about the characteristics of a job that would be appealing. Consider talking with your supervisor or someone in HR about alternative paths. Often, your supervisor wants you to be successfuleven if that success means that you should be working elsewhere. They may have great suggestions about a role that would best suit your talents.
Feeling Clarity
Sometimesparticularly early in your careeryou have a nagging sense that there is something wrong at work. Youre doing your work as well as you can, but feel like youre missing something. You may have the sense that everyone else is working from a different version of the script than you are.
In this case, the PIP may actually help to clarify what is going wrong. This can happen when you have a supervisor who is not good at providing regular feedback and coaching.
In this situation, you can really dive into the PIP (after taking a day or two to see this as an opportunity, rather than a punishment). Sit down with your supervisor and other team members and talk about the elements of your performance that have raised concern. Ask about training and classes you can take to improve your performance. Find a peer who is good at these tasks and ask for some mentorship.
The people who emerge most strongly from a PIP are those who embrace the opportunity for growth and lean into the chance to improve skills. As this process moves forward, talk with your supervisor about how to get more timely feedback on your performance. This conversation is likely to help you improve, and may also provide some feedback to your supervisor that can lead to their growth as well.
