For most of modern business history, accounting has been something leaders looked at periodically. Numbers were reviewed and reports arrived on a schedule (often monthly, quarterly, or at tax time). Accounting happened when there was time, not necessarily when insight was needed.
Across industries, a new model is taking shape: always-on accounting. These are systems that capture financial activity continuously, organize it automatically, and surface insights in real time.
While this shift is relevant everywhere, its especially visible in the rental housing market where millions of small, independently run businesses (often managed by individuals or families who balance day jobs) are adopting operating standards once associated only with large enterprises.
Ive experienced this evolution from multiple sides. Ive been a renter, an investor, and the cofounder and CEO of a property management software company, and over the past decade Ive worked closely with thousands of small rental business owners. Across all of those perspectives, Ive been at the forefront of a major shift reshaping how these businesses operate: Accounting is no longer something thats checked on periodically; its something that runs continuously.
FROM PERIODIC REVIEW TO CONTINUOUS AWARENESS
Traditional accounting systems relied heavily on manual processes. Financial data lived across spreadsheets, folders, and disconnected tools. Capturing expenses, categorizing transactions, and reconciling accounts took hours of focused work, which meant most businesses reviewed their numbers periodically due to time constraints.
As accounting technology has matured, many of the tasks that once demanded human attention now happen automatically. Transactions flow in without manual entry. Expenses are captured at the moment they occur. Data is categorized consistently in the background. The systems themselves maintain continuity.
That technological shift enables a behavioral one. Instead of treating accounting as something to revisit at set intervals, business owners can operate with continuous awareness. Financial insight doesnt need to be reconstructed; its already there. Patterns surface naturally over time. Trends become clearer, not because leaders are checking more often, but because the information is always current.
Weve seen similar transitions before. Cloud infrastructure replaced periodic system checks with real-time monitoring. Analytics platforms turned marketing into an ongoing feedback loop. Finance is now following the same path, moving from static snapshots to living systems.
WHY RENTAL HOUSING IS LEADING THE WAY
Small rental businesses are a revealing example of this shift. They operate at the intersection of entrepreneurship and long-term asset ownership, often run by people balancing full-time careers, families, and other responsibilities. Efficiency matters. Clarity matters even more.
For years, accounting was the last major workflow to modernize. Rent collection became digital. Communication went mobile. But financial tracking often remained manual, fragmented, or delayed.
Modern property management software systems now pull in transactions automatically, extract data from receipts, categorize expenses by property, and generate up-to-date profit-and-loss views with minimal effort. What once required hours of administrative work now happens effortlessly in real time.
The result is more than cleaner records; its confidence. When financial insight is always current, owners engage with their businesses differently. They spend less time wondering if something was missed and more time understanding what the numbers are telling them.
ACCOUNTING AS INFRASTRUCTURE, NOT PAPERWORK
One of the most meaningful mindset shifts Ive observed is how accounting is now viewed: not as paperwork, but as infrastructure.
Always-on accounting supports operations the way reliable connectivity or modern logistics do. It reduces friction, minimizes human error, and creates a single source of truth that decisions can build on.
In rental housing, this has implications beyond individual businesses. Small operators collectively provide homes for millions of people. When they run with better financial visibility, theyre better positioned to maintain properties proactively, manage cash flow sustainably, and navigate economic shifts with steadiness.
What looks like operational efficiency at the business level often translates into stability at the community level.
A BROADER LESSON FOR SMALL BUSINESSES EVERYWHERE
Whats happening in rental housing reflects a broader trend across the economy. Small businesses are increasingly adopting systems that assume continuity rather than reminders, thanks to automation technology that works without constant prompting.
The best tools today dont ask owners to remember tasks or reconcile gaps later. They capture activity automatically and organize it intelligently. This shift reduces cognitive load, which is one of the most underappreciated constraints on entrepreneurship.
When leaders arent mentally tracking loose ends, they have more capacity for strategy, creativity, and long-term thinking. Always-on accounting frees attention. And attention is one of the most valuable resources any business has.
BETTER SYSTEMS CHANGE BEHAVIOR, NOT JUST WORKFLOWS
The most interesting impact of always-on accounting isnt speed. Its behavior.
When people trust their numbers, conversations change. Instead of asking whether the data is complete, they focus on what it reveals. Better-informed decisions can be made earlier with greater confidence.
In rental businesses, this often means treating properties less like side projects and more like durable enterprises. In other industries, the takeaway is similar: Clarity reshapes leadership.
Accounting becomes something owners engage with at a higher levelreviewing trends, comparing periods, and planning next movesrather than something they have to reconstruct under pressure.
THE FUTURE OF SMALL BUSINESS ACCOUNTING IS ALWAYS-ON
The future of accounting wont be defined by louder dashboards or more complex reports. It will be defined by systems that are always on, working continuously in the background.
In rental housing, that means books that are always current and decisions that are always informed. In the broader business landscape, it signals a shift toward tools that support momentum instead of interrupting it.
Always-on accounting represents a larger evolution in how small businesses operate: fewer fire drills, more foresight; less reconstruction, more understanding.
Confidence doesnt come from having more data; it comes from knowing the data is already there when you need it. And as more businesses adopt systems built for continuity, that confidence is becoming the new standard.
Ryan Barone is cofounder and CEO of RentRedi.
For decades, digital transformation raised hopes of simpler work. And while many companies found complexity instead of clarity, the story isnt over. AI brings a new wave of hope and energy, and with that, a new kind of tension.
Whenever I connect with business leaders, I can feel their deep optimism and sincere sense of responsibility to deliver on AI transformation. Leaders want to boost productivity and stand by their people. Theyre guiding teams through uncertainty while inspiring them to embrace change.
Thats why AI transformation is a people challenge as much as a tech challenge. Org charts are shifting. Roles are evolving. And the new priority for leaders is equipping people with the skills and wisdom to adopt AI and power this transformation with confidence.
Leaders can do this with a three-step playbook:
1. BUILD THE HR ORGANIZATION FOR THE FUTURE.
If HR operating models dont evolve, leaders are asking their people to build the future on quicksand. AI demands new ways of working, which is why HR leaders are stepping into hybrid positions that mirror the real world of work, where talent and technology are intrinsically linked.
That starts by making HR and IT true partners so they can co-create AI experiences that solve real business problems. Fifty-five percent of organizations have launched 100+ AI use cases, but only 19% are tracking how those use cases impact business goals. Siloed efforts cant scale.
Thats why weve built what we call an AI Factory, a model to collect, evaluate, and prioritize use cases quickly and ethically, at scale, across the business. Employees have submitted thousands of AI use case ideas. About 100 of them have gotten past our prioritization frameworkmeaning we believe they can deliver ROI, safely and at scaleand weve prioritized about a quarter that demonstrate the most value.
As technology evolves, so must the roles around it. Leaders need to imagine new roles that move HR from an administrative function to a strategic hub. Think AI orchestration designers, or AI ethics officers. These roles are tailored to the companys business needs and critical to a people-centric AI transformation.
2. ENABLE AI ACROSS THE ORGANIZATION AND RESKILL WITH URGENCY.
AI is already increasing what employees can do and changing their daily tasks. To lead through change, we need to understand not just what people need to learn, but how they learn best.
It starts with the concept of an AI heatmap to identify which tasks can be automated or augmented and quantify potential gains. That insight helps leaders rethink how they grow and support their teams.
By using AI and data, we can map current skills, surface gaps, and design targeted, real-time development paths. Then, we need to do the hard work: Train people to know, work with, build, and lead with AI.
Weve built an AI-native learning model through ServiceNow University to do just that. Our goal is to train 3 million learners by 2027.
And this isnt just a nice-to-have. The skills gap is real. According to the World Economic Forums 2025 Future of Jobs report, 63% of employers see it as a major barrier to transformation. If we dont close this gap now, well never realize AIs full potential.
3. TRANSFORM THE WORKFORCE LIKE ITS YOUR FULL-TIME JOB (IT IS!).
Leaders are steering through massive change. Some employees will fear the unknown. Organizations that invest in an agile, resilient workforce, one person at a time, will win the AI race.
Thats why leaders need to take an X-ray of their organizationnot just charts and systems, but a deep look at the workforce structure, skills, and capacity to grow. Then, they can start closing gaps and ensuring AI is adopted in a way thats human at the core while fueling business growth.
Old org charts need a rebrand. Work is more dynamic and cross-functional. And now, we have AI working alongside people. Because of this, we need to move beyond traditional, linear models of change management toward continuous, adaptive, and decentralized change readiness.
This agentic AI workforce will require thoughtful planning, human wisdom, a focus on well-being, and a strong culture at the core. Thats why collaboration and orchestration are critical. If leaders get this right, they can unlock new business models and real growth.
THE RESULT? VALUE
Leaders who follow these steps can supercharge business results while avoiding the pitfalls that slow AI adoption. At ServiceNow, we track adoption and ROI through our AI Control Tower, a real-time measurement that creates a flywheel of value: unlock time, reinvest it, and grow faster.
The opportunity is clear: Embrace AI, lead with confidence, and bring people along the journey. The organizations that thrive will help people and AI technology co-create, not just coexist.
Jacqui Canney is chief people and AI enablement officer of ServiceNow.
There are a few odors from adolescence that are seared into the brains of most Americans who grew up after the 1980s: the aroma of freshly baked brick pizza in the school cafeteria, the acrid stink of a locker room, and the unmistakable scent of teen boys wearing an unforgivable amount of Axe body spray.
The phenomenon of teens dousing themselves in Axe has become so ubiquitous since the brand’s founding in 1983 that over the past few years it’s inspired its own subgenre of memes (see this one and this one, for example).
Now Axe has its sights set on a new generation of consumers with a redesigned spray mechanism for its signature product.
To mark the occasion, on February 20 the brand announced its self-referential History of Overdoing It campaign. Axe has always been part of the cultural conversation around guys doing too much, and for years that included how our body spray was used, Dolores Assalini, head of Axe U.S., said in a press release.
[Photo: Axe]
At last, Axe is offering a solution. According to the Unilever-owned brand, overspraying was always a design problemand to fix it, the team has invented new spray technology to keep offensive odors at bay.
The Axe bottle gets a facelift
Brajin Vazquez, senior manager of DEO formats technology at Unileverand one of the minds behind the Axe redesignsays the chronic overspraying of Axes old product was influenced by a few factors of the bottles design. The formulation of the spray, combined with the design of the bottles valve and nozzle, resulted in a thick, diffused cloud of fragrance, creating that classic overpowering smell.
For years, weve heard that while people liked the fragrances, Axes spray could feel too heavy or create too much of a cloud, Vazquez says. That feedback made us look closely at the delivery system itself. We realized that improving the user experience wasnt just about messaging, it required updating the spray technology.
[Photo: Axe]
Vazquezs team started by rethinking the products ingredients. They reduced the amount of propellant gas in the spray and added nitrogen to the mix, which, Vazquez explains, made room for a higher proportion of liquid formula and created space in the formulation to increase odor-control actives and deliver more fragrance per spray. Essentially, this means that users can spray less of the product and still get the same body-odor-masking effect.
This new formulation is combined with a reengineered spraying system. The old design, Vazquez says, operated at a high pressure, which resulted in a stronger, higher-velocity spray. The new valve component mitigates the problem by keeping the sprays flow light. The bottle also features a spray insert with a nozzle opening thats 25% smaller than the old version, allowing users to apply the fragrance to more targeted areas without that dreaded cloud effect.
Realistically, Axe’s retooled design probably won’t solve chronic overspraying altogetherbut at least now there are some guardrails in place for a problem that’s plagued middle school hallways for decades.
[Photo: Axe]
Below, Tom Griffiths shares five key insights from his new book, The Laws of Thought: The Quest for a Mathematical Theory of the Mind.
Griffiths is a professor of psychology and computer science at Princeton University and director of the Princeton Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence.
Whats the big idea?
How can we study something we cant see or touch? Mathematics allows us to develop rigorous theories about how minds work. It also lets us use those theories to build artificial intelligence systems. Just as physicists seek to identify Laws of Nature, cognitive scientists hope to discover the Laws of Thought.
Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Griffiths himselfin the Next Big Idea app.
1. The story of AI goes back hundreds of years.
For many people, AI seems to have come out of nowhere. In late 2022, it suddenly became possible for anyone to have a conversation with chatbots that could draw on more knowledge than any human. Dig a little deeper and you might discover that the approach behind those chatbotsbuilding bigger and bigger artificial neural networkshad its first dramatic demonstration in 2012, when it was used to significantly improve how well computers identify images. But the story goes back much further than that.
When Enlightenment thinkers, like René Descartes or Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, first began using mathematics to effectively describe the physical world around us, they also suggested that the same kind of approach might be used to describe the mental world inside us. Those early efforts led to the development of mathematical logic and digital computers, which in turn led to the creation of cognitive science by psychologists who used mathematical ideas to come up with new theories about the mind. Modern AI springs from that tradition: Key advances in the development of artificial neural networks came from psychologists seeking to understand how the human mind works.
2. No single piece of mathematics describes the mind.
Cognitive scientists started using mathematical logic to describe thought, but after a couple of decades realized that wasnt going to work. Concepts have fuzzy edges that logic just cant capture. Artificial neural networks were developed in parallel and became much more powerful after a group of psychologists showed how they could be used to learn more complex relationships than anyone had thought possible.
Continuing to scale up those neural networks takes us to modern AI. But understanding how neural networks learnand how to create systems that learn more like peoplerequires a different approach, one that uses ideas from probability theory. These three mathematical traditions intertwine to give us a more complete picture of how the mind works.
3. Crucial discoveries come from pursuing unpopular ideas.
The first neural networks that could learn were built by a computer scientist who abandoned the project after deciding that, in order for them to learn anything interesting, they would have to be much larger than he considered practical. But a psychologist worked out how to make them learn better, which caused a lot of excitement about the potential of that approach. However, that same computer scientist then showed that even those neural networks had fundamental limitations, and they decreased in popularity.
A decade later, some psychologists became interested in neural networks as tools for understanding human cognition, cracked the problem of how to get them to learn more complex relationships, and neural networks became popular again. Then, machine learning researchers became interested in the statistical foundations of learning, and neural networks decreased in popularity. Soon, more powerful computers and larger datasets made it possible to use neural networks to solve even more challenging problems, bringing us to the present day.
This back-and-forth between disciplineswhere an unpopular idea in one discipline is picked up and improved upon by researchers in another disciplineis a nice illustration of how an interdisciplinary field like cognitive science can have a huge impact.
4. We are closer than ever to understanding the human mind.
I used to tell my students that cognitive scientists have made a lot of progress in figuring out how to ask questions about the mind, but were still a long way from having answers. But now, the progress in AI over the last decade is beginning to suggest answers to some of our deepest questions about human intelligence.
Mathematical frameworks like logic and probability theory are fundamental to describing the nature of thought and learning, but the abstract rules and inferences they identify need to be implemented in real human brains. Artificial neural networks give us important hints about how that might work. Putting these pieces together gets us remarkably close to fulfilling the vision that Descartes and Leibniz had centuries ago of having a mathematical framework for describing thought.
5. There are still big differences between human minds and AI.
Despite all that progress, modern AI still has some important gaps. One of the biggest regards learning. If you read aloud all of the text that is used to train todays chatbots, it would take tens of thousands of years. By contrast, a human child learns to be a fluent speaker of their native language in less than 10 years. That means that theres something in human brains that is different from what is inside our AI algorithms. Figuring out what that might be is a problem that we study in my lab, and a preoccupation of many cognitive scientists.
There are also interesting questions about what exactly it is that artificial neural networks are learning, and whether they represent the world in the same way as us. In some cases, they may be, but in others, we can show that they are quite different. Figuring out what AI systems know and when they are likely to succeed or fail at a task is a great opportunity to use the methods that cognitive scientists have honed by studying humans. For a long time, we have only had one species that demonstrated this kind of intelligent behavior, so having another one to study opens the door to not just understanding more about AI but understanding more about ourselves.
Enjoy our full library of Book Bitesread by the authors!in the Next Big Idea app.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
Your colleagues decide in less than a minute whether your email is worth replying to. Microsofts 2025 Work Trend Index Report shows that the average employee receives 117 emails a day, and most are skimmed in under 60 seconds. In other words, if your email takes someone more than a minute to understand, theres a strong chance you wont be getting a timely response.
Well-written emails dont just make you sound smarter; studies show that they also reduce misunderstandings and speed up responses.
Here are five simple ways to get faster email responses, while also helping your recipient preserve mental energy and time.
BREAK UP WITH THE EMAIL BRICK
Long blocks of text are the enemy of attention. Research shows that visually uncluttered text (with white space and intentional spacing) is easier for busy readers to scan and digest quickly. Simply formatting your email with bullet points, bold text for important questions or updates, and short paragraphs will significantly increase your chances of getting a prompt response.
Structure is just as important as length. If the email is longer than this article, consider your reader overwhelmed.
DONT LEAD WITH SMALL TALK
One of the biggest mistakes professionals make is burying the lead. Instead of opening with a short anecdote or unrelated small talk (Hope your week is going well), start with the purpose of your email, and ideally, the action you need. In military and executive communication, this is known as BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front).
BLUF requires you to put key information, like the request or decision needed, in the first sentence or two. After you have led with the key information, you can share further details that the recipient can read if they need background context.
And yes, you can still ask your coworker if they have plans for the weekend or how their dog is doing. But for the sake of everyones sanity, leave this to the end.
DONT PLAY EMAIL TENNIS
The back-and-forth dance of unanswered questions (When works for you?, Morning works, What time?) costs time and demands cognitive switching. One survey of modern workplace behavior found that knowledge workers spend roughly 28% of their workweek managing email, with a large portion of that time simply waiting on or chasing down replies. To reduce this, try to include all relevant details on the first send.
One way to address this is, if youre proposing a meeting, include your availability windows, the purpose of the call, and how long you expect it to take in a single message. If you want a call back, include your direct phone number rather than waiting for the other person to ask.
Write a clear subject line
In a crowded inbox, the subject line acts as a decision filter: Is this relevant? Is this urgent? Can this wait? Studies show that email subject lines critically influence whether a recipient opens, defers, or ignores an email (before theyve read a single sentence of the message).Do your best to craft a subject lines that are specific, concise, and action-oriented. For example, Budget Review Needed by 3 PM is more effective than a generic phrase like Quick Question.
BUILD EMAIL TRUST
If you teach people over time that your emails are concise and to the point, you are building email trust. This means that recipients are more likely to respond positively and quickly when they see your name. Researchers in written communication emphasize that consistency in formatting and clarity doesnt just improve readability, it builds an implicit reputation for professionalism.
Getting faster email replies isnt about sounding smarter. Its about making decisions easier for the person on the other side of the screen. When your emails are clear, scannable, and consistent, you reduce mental load, build trust, and teach people to respond to you faster.
What do you envision when you think of meekness?
You probably see a mousy doormat, someone sheepishly acquiescing to the will of the stronger. When Jesus says, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, you might think that those wimps will hand it over without a whimper or word of objection to stronger, more ambitious people. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called meekness craven baseness.
Indeed, one of the Oxford English Dictionarys definitions is inclined to submit tamely to oppression or injury, easily imposed upon or cowed, timid. Meekness, then, is a weakness. Why would you ever want to be meek?
The same goes for docility, often characterized as a near neighbor of meekness. We can get a feel for its usage these days from the Corpus of Contemporary American English, where one finds that a docile person is slow, controllable, obedient, submissive, compliant, passive, and under control.
Or consider condescension. You likely envision someone self-important looking down her nose at a service worker, or some insufferable prig unwilling to come off his high horse to mingle with the peasants. Being condescending, far from being a virtue, is universally acknowledged as a vice.
Meekness, docility, and condescension: three traits with no cultural capital today. And yet, our ancestors typically understood these traits to be virtues. How in the world could that be?
As any philosopher will tell you, in a case of seeming disagreement, you need to settle the definitions of the words in play. How many arguments have been abruptly dissolved by someone saying, Oh, thats what you mean? When we check the meaning of these three terms, I think we come to see that theres been a switcheroo. As Ive found in my philosophical research and teaching, some of the virtues that were most celebrated in yesteryear but now go undersung are traits that can help us lead good lives, even now.
Forgotten virtues
Consider meeknessbut allow me to start with a little vignette.
In 2018, mixed-martial-arts champion Matt Serra was having a family meal in a restaurant when a belligerent drunken man entered, threatening servers and patrons. Serra could have knocked him out cold. But instead, he calmly pinned him, waiting for security to arrive.
A similar trait is on display when exasperated parents react with control, harried teachers dont rise to students provocations, and police de-escalate situations. In each case, they kept control of their emotions, especially their anger. One common feature of these stories is that the person wasnt powerless; rather, it was precisely because they understood how much power they had that they used restraint.
Such a traitexcellence with respect to ones angerused to be called meekness. We hear an echo of this original meaning even today in horse training, where to meek a horse means training it to subjugate its great power to its master, not letting its passions take control. Likewise, meekness once meant not becoming weak, but subjugating power to reasonnot letting anger take control.
In the Gospels, when Jesus calls himself meek, it is the same Greek word used for a meek horse: praus. A horse is not weaker on account of being meeked; no Greek warrior wanted a wimpy steed. The horse retains its strength, now safeguarded by self-control.
This is quite a different notion of meekness than we find in our contemporary lexicon. Yet in its traditional sense, the word names a trait almost everyone deeply values. No one wants her best friend, child, teacher, coach, or deputy to be unable to control her anger.
Such control is an important character trait for living a good life, but we no longer have a concept for it. What term do people use today for being disposed to pick battles prudently, not letting anger cloud ones judgment, not being easily baited into action theyll come to regretwithout being easily biddable or callous to real injustices? Self-control, a broad category that covers facing temptations, enduring difficulties and myriad things in between, is too broad a notion to do the work.
Nor do we have a word for someone excellent at receiving instruction and insightsbut at the same time whos unafraid to think for herself, to disregard the advice of a snake-oil salesman. That used to be called docility.
Condescension, the most surprising of the three, now suggests someone deigning to speak down from their lofty height. Yet it once described excellence at respecting people, regardless of their social status: easily connecting with those on a lower rung so they feel seen and valued, but without causing embarrassment or awkwardness. What term do we have now for inculcating such an important trait?
Why words matter
To be clear, Im not here from the Language Reclamation League. Im not necessarily advocating for a return to older languageand certainly not just because it is older. But without replacements for ethical concepts weve lost, were faced with a moral void, unable even to conceptualize the goodness that we want to see in ourselves and those we love.
Maybe you think that not much is lost. Bridges fall when engineers cant distinguish varieties of physical strength; whats lost if people cant distinguish varieties of character strength?
To my mind, there are at least three reasons why it is important to have some term or other for these traits.
First, theres good psychological evidence that goals of approachI want to get healthy, I want to get financially stableare a stronger motivation for us than avoidance goalsI want to stop being sick, I want not to be poor. Approach goals typically yield more effort, more satisfaction, and more well-being. But they require naming the moral virtue you want to cultivate.
Second, the positive traits named by these old virtues are what you really want. You dont merely want your loved ones to stop acting out of wrath. You want them to be able to restrain their power in the face of their anger. You are ignorant of your real goal if you dont have a concept for it.
Third, consider the detriment caused by not having shared language for an ethical concept. The philosopher Miranda Fricker has written of the time before the term sexual harassment was coined in 1975. She provides multiple instances of women being wronged in the workplace but being unable to articulate that wrong to those in power, owing to a lack of a shared label for it. And not only that, but the lack of an adequate concept preventd the victims from fully understanding the wrong themselves.
Having positive concepts for the traits we want to enable in ourselves and others is essential, then, to the moral life. The fact that weve let several go the way of blatherskite and bumfuzzled is telling.
We still have terms for a bloviating windbag or being bewildered, so we dont need those archaic, though admittedly fun, words to express important truths. But when it comes to undersung virtues, we do need some way to highlight character traits that help form us into our best selveseven if the words of yesteryear no longer fit the bill.
Timothy J. Pawl is a professor of philosophy at the University of St. Thomas.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The devil mightve worn Prada in 2006, but two decades later, the fashion elite are wearing books. Case in point: Coachs hot new accessory is a keychain made out of literal hardcovers.
Coach revealed the new book charms in a series of social posts on February 25. Created in collaboration with the publisher Penguin Random House, the charms include adorably teeny, fully readable versions of classics like Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, alongside more recent titles like Untamed by Glennon Doyle and A Forest of Wool and Steel by Natsu Miyashita. The book bag charms will be available for $95 on the Coach website in early March.
[Photo: Courtesy of Penguin Random House x Coach]
The charms represent an evolution of a broader trend: Physical books are making a comeback, both in the cultural zeitgeist and in the fashion world. Gen Zers are flocking to reading as a hobby, largely driven by online communities like BookTok and BookTube. Meanwhile, interest in the craft behind physical media is on the rise as more and more daily tasks shift online in the AI era.
These converging winds are turning the humble book into a kind of intellectual status symbolone that can be worn as a bag, toted around as part of a performative male ensemble, or, in Coachs world, converted into a charming keychain.
Why the hot new accessory is a book
It would be difficult to miss the recent resurgent cultural interest in reading. Since 2023, Barnes & Noble has staged a massive comeback, which it attributes in large part to Gen Zs online communities. BookTok and BookTube are driving interest in genres like romance and fantasy, while celebrity book clubs like Dua Lipas Service95, Kaia Gerbers Library Science, and Reese Witherspoons Reeses Book Club are making reading an aspirational hobby.
Inevitably, this trend has spilled over into fashion. In 2024, Saint Laurent opened its own bookshop. Last year, brands including Prada, Miu Miu, and Valentino all hosted literary-themed events or campaigns. And in January, Dior launched an extremely Instagrammable line of tote bags inspired by books. The brand advertised the bags with an Instagram Reel highlighting their detailed manufacturing process, drawing a clear parallel between the physical craft of bag-making and the intellectual craft of literature.
Shan Yichun [Photo: Courtesy of Penguin Random House x Coach]
Coach, it seems, is attempting something similar. In a press release, CMO Joon Silverstein explained that the concept for the brands book charms came from the insight that in a world shaped by fragmentation and digital overload, many Gen Zers are turning to long-form storytelling as a kind of refuge.
“The future of brand building isnt about broadcasting messages. Its about building cultural relevance through participation, Silverstein told Fast Company, noting that Coach shaped the campaign with collaborators who “helped define the insight, craft the narrative, select the books at its core, and determine how it shows up across culture. (It also features Gen Z spokespeople such as the WNBAs Paige Bueckers, Oscar-nominated actress Elle Fanning, Emmy-winning actress Storm Reid, and Chinese pop singer Shan Yichun, among others.)
[Photo: Courtesy of Penguin Random House x Coach]
How book and accessories design team up
To design the actual charms, Coach prioritized selecting books across a range of topics and aesthetics to capture different readers. While the first consideration was the stories themselves, cover designs were also a factor. Since the books were destined to be charms, the team tended to prefer bold colors and visually forward, distinctive designs that would be eye-catching at a glance ( la BookTok).
Each charm has a colorful leather spine embossed with the Coach logo: The cool-toned image of a planned community on Celeste Ngs Little Fires Everywhere, for example, is complemented with a deep green; while Camryn Garretts rainbow-hued Friday Im in Love cover pops with a rich navy. Gold hardware (a loop and clip) makes each piece easily attachable to a purse or backpack.
And to clarify, these charms are fully readable, miniature booksnot just inspired by them.
Adam Royce, executive creative director at Penguin Random House, tells Fast Company that the project represents a broader shift in how people engage with books. For many readers, storytelling is part of how they signal identity and values, he explains. Partnering with Coach allows us to bring books into a space where personal expression is already central.
In 2026, reading isn’t just a pastime. It’s a statement piece.
Generational conflict has become one of the most overused explanations for workplace tension, with plenty of stereotypical blame to go around: Baby Boomers resist change. Millennials lack loyalty. Gen Z is lazy.
But after more than three decades working inside founder-led and multi-generational companiesfrom first-generation startups to fourth-generation enterprisesIve learned something counterintuitive:
Generational conflict usually isnt about age. Its about clarity.
Family-owned businesses offer a powerful lens on this issue. In the U.S., approximately 87% of businesses are family-owned, collectively employing millions of people and contributing significantly to the American GDP. These companies dont have the luxury of avoiding generational dynamics: succession, legacy, and long-term survival depend on navigating them well.
When generational harmony fails, its rarely because one generation is unwilling to listen. Its because the organization lacks alignment on the fundamentals. When there isnt clarity, everyday decisions start to feel personal, strategy becomes something thats up for debate, change feels risky instead of necessary. And suddenly, even small choices carry more tension than they should.
But when clarity is strong, something shifts. Different generations stop competing for control and start collaborating around a shared future.
Four foundational elements consistently create generational harmony within workplace cultures. Heres how to implement them in your workplace.
1. Define Your Cultural Cornerstones
Every resilient organization has cultural pillars that provide stability regardless of who is in charge.
While perspectives may differ across age groups, most generations can agree on fundamentals: how employees should be treated, for example, or what doing the right thing means in practice. The problem is that in many companies, these standards are implied rather than explicit.
Organizations with generational alignment make their cultural expectations clear. They document core values, reinforce them through hiring and performance standards, and use them as a decision filter. When values are visible and shared, disagreements become easier to navigate because everyone is working from the same foundation. Instead of arguments turning into generational standoffs, clear values give people a neutral reference point to come back to.
2. Align Around a Shared Purpose
Many companies talk about legacy. Few define it in operational terms.
A shared purpose answers three essential questions:
Why do we exist beyond making money?
Who do we serve?
What are we trying to build for the future?
In multi-generational organizations, purpose becomes the bridge between tradition and transformation. Older leaders see their experience honored and younger leaders see a future worth building. When purpose is clearly articulated, decisions feel connected rather than reactive. Communication becomes more consistent. Growth feels intentional instead of disruptive. Tradition stops acting as a barrier and starts serving as a foundation. Purpose reframes succession as stewardship rather than replacement.
3. Clarify Strategic Focus
Many generational conflicts are actually unresolved strategic debates, such as:
Which markets should we prioritize?
Where should we invest?
Which clients should we keep or let go?
Without a defined strategy, every decision becomes a negotiation. One generation wants to preserve a long-standing client relationship. Another wants to cut losses and redirect resources. Both believe theyre acting in the companys best interest.
High-performing organizations remove ambiguity. They define core clients, priority segments, profitability thresholds, and long-term positioning. Everyone understands where the company chooses to compete, and where it does not. Strategic clarity speeds decisions and reduces emotional friction. The debate shifts from my way versus yours to what aligns with our plan?
4. Ensure Operational Alignment
Execution clarity is the final, and often overlooked, component. It answers questions like:
What are we uniquely good at?
What value do we consistently deliver?
What outcomes can we prove?
When messaging outpaces capability, generational blame often follows. Sales teams promise innovation operations cant deliver. Leaders advocate change without systems to support it. Employees grow cynical. Clients lose trust.
The strongest organizations align their value proposition with operational reality. They connect what they promise to what they can consistently execute. They define measurable outcomes and build systems that validate performance.
When expectations and capability are aligned, trust increases across generations.
The Real Competitive Advantage
Generational harmony isnt accidental. Its structural.
When leaders and managers work together to clarify cultural standards, shared purpose, strategic priorities, and operational strengths, harmony becomes a byproduct of alignment. Decisions are based on mutual goals, not age. Experience and innovation complement rather than compete.
In a workplace landscape defined by rapid change and shifting workforce demographics, clarity may be the most underrated competitive advantage of all. Because when everyone understands what matters most, generational differences stop being liabilitiesand start becoming strengths.
Youve tried it all before. Waking up at 5:30 a.m. Journaling first thing in the morning. The exercises youre supposed to do before work. But do your morning habits stick? Are you still practicing them?
We all want to win the morning, to be productive and intentional. The trouble with morning routines is that they dont work as they should if you dont fix your evening habits. People are obsessed with morning routines. But they forget that winning in the morning starts the night before.
Every single choice you make after dinner is either setting you up for a great morning or sabotaging tomorrow before it begins. That late-night binge doesnt just keep you up. Its changing your entire sleep-wake cycle. That work email you answered at 10 p.m. stays on your mind and makes you think about all the many responses youre expecting.
Doing work or dealing with issues right before bed keeps your brain thinking, figuring out options. And the worst part is that you pick it all up again when you wake up. Youre not just losing sleep. Youre training your brain to wake up in stress mode.
The quality of your evening routine determines the success of your morning habits. Every time you miss out on a better evening ritual, your morning routine will suffer. Your willpower will be lower.
The decision fatigue trap most people overlook
By the end of your day, youve already made thousands of decisions: what to wear, what to eat, which emails to answer, which tasks to tackle first. Each decision demands mental energy. The more decisions you make in the morning, the less energy you have left for your tasks.
The bigger problem? If you wait until morning to decide what youre going to do first, youre not starting your day right. Make your morning decisions at night instead.
In just 10 to 15 minutes the night before, eliminate the decisions that stop you from taking action on your ideal morning routine. Write down a list of things you want to get right in the morning. Youll sleep better and feel more prepared when you wake up. By creating a good plan the night before, you set yourself up to be productive.
Ive been using this pre-decision method to make my writing habit stick for years. And its working for me. I decide what to write the night before. I even write down the introduction. And then I pick up where I left off.
You could start by prioritizing three tasks for the morning. By reducing the number of decisions you have to make, you free up time to actually make your morning habit, whatever you intend it to be, stick.
I think of an evening routine as a systema series of small dominoes you set up for the results you want. Start with your sleep. Everything flows from this.
Your brain begins winding down for sleep a few hours before bedtime as part of your natural sleep-wake cycle. Work with this, not against it. That means two hours before bed, start dimming lights. Put away work. No more emails. Your body needs time to transition into a good morning.
You could even take it further30 minutes before bed is your clarity window. Journal if you want. Read a good book. The goal is to empty your brain so youre not lying awake thinking about all the things you need to remember.
Now try to go to bed at the same time each night. An inconsistent sleep routine prevents your body from releasing hormones at the right time, which can throw off your sleep cycle. Give your brain the right evening routine to shut down. When you prepare the night before, youre not relying on willpower in the morning. Youre just following the plan you already made.
Self-control is highest in the morning and steadily deteriorates over the course of the day. Use your evening brain, which is tired but still functional, to set up your morning brain for success.
Establishing a Routine Takes Time
Youre not going to nail this immediately. Youre going to forget something in the evening. Youll most likely stay up late watching just one more episode. If you break the chain, dont stress yourself about it. The goal is to make your defaults a little bit betterto remove some of the friction between you and the person you want to be in the morning.
Start small. Pick one thing youre going to decide the night before. Just one. Maybe its writing down three things you need to do in the morning. Do that for a week. Then add another thing. Aim to add one or two changes at a time, slowly building a routine. What you want is sustainable change.
Morning people are not more disciplined than you. They just figured out that mornings are won the night before. Do the boring work the night before. And go to bed on time. Tonight, before you go to bed, do three things. Decide what time youre waking up tomorrow. Be specific. Write down what youre doing first when you wake up.
Prep whatever you need to make that happen. Make it visible. Thats the system and the setup to give your morning a chance to be successful. Everything else can come later.
Your morning routine is failing because youre trying to build a routine without systems, and making decisions when you should be doing things. Fix the night habits, and the mornings will be better.
In 2015, in Gallups State of the American Manager report, then CEO and Chairman Jim Clifton made an assertion that startled many and quietly confirmed what others already suspected:
Most CEOs I know honestly dont care about employees or take an interest in human resources. Sure, they know who their stars are and love thembut it ends there. Since CEOs dont care, they put little to no pressure on their HR departments to get their cultures right . . .
Given the unique vantage point Clifton had into American business at the time, he offered a rather harsh and honest assessment. And, more than a decade later, the obvious question worth asking isnt whether Clifton was right then. Its whether top leaders are still operating as if he is right today.
If you ask the average American worker whether they feel their employer genuinely cares about them and their well-being, the majority will say no. Recent research shows that fewer than one-in-four strongly agreea level roughly similar to pre-pandemic lowsand perceptions of care have steadily declined even as leaders insist they prioritize their employee experience.
In my new book, The Power of Employee Well-Being, and in articles Ive recently written for Fast Company, Ive argued that companiesand their leadersmust make a transformational pivot by prioritizing employee well-being as a core driver of performance.
Sadly, Ive received many messages from readers suggesting Im fighting a lost causethat despite mountains of evidence, the leaders they work have no inclination to change. More often than not, they treat employee well-being as a complete and utter distraction from the real work of hitting goals and meeting targets.
Ive heard this lament so many times that I had to ask myself why my message hasnt gotten through. And my conclusion is that deep down, many leaders continue to fear that any support they give to their people will come at direct expense of productivity. Consciously or unconsciously, theyre convinced supporting well-being is a fools game.
Rarely stated outright, this belief system influences leaders decisions every dayhow workloads are structured, how feedback is delivered, and how much time and energy are devoted to supporting employees in ways that make a difference. The problem is theres a mountain of evidence that refutes this very fear. We now have irrefutable proof that well-being is one of the primary conditions that makes achieving goals possible.
Evidence Leaders Cant Ignore
Well-Being Drives Key Performance Metrics:Drawing on 339 studies covering 1.8 million employees, a meta-analysis from the University of Oxfords Wellbeing Research Centre found a consistent and direct relationship between employee well-being and key business metricsones most leaders are directly on the line for: productivity, customer loyalty, employee retention, and profitability.
Well-Being Predicts Performance:
As separate reinforcement, a study in Population Health Management found that high employee well-being is a predictor of future productivity, lower absenteeism, reduced disability leave and lower turnovereven when controlling for other variables. Said another way, well-being doesnt merely coexist with strong performance, it precedes it.
Investment Boosts Profitability:
New research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) shows that organizations which meaningfully invest in employee well-being are four times more profitable than those that dontand are viewed far more positively by employees and job candidates.
Well-Being Fuels Stock Growth
Irrational Capital analyzed S&P 500 companies over 11 years and found firms in the top 20% for employee well-being outperformed the bottom 20% in stock performance by nearly six percentage points annually. Companies that intentionally offered competitively better pay and benefits alone outperformed by just two points.
Why Resistant Leaders Are Wrong
Leading a team of people, and being accountable for its results, can feel formidable at timesand its a common response for managers to believe that pushing harder and demanding longer hours is a justified action. But humans are not machines who can work endlessly without meaningful separation from work and adequate rest. When workdays feel endless, and people feel a lack of empathy and support, their capacity to focus, solve complex problems, and collaborate effectively nose-dives. Creativity stalls, mistakes increase, and high-level goals become harder to achieve. In short, neglecting well-being directly undermines the very outcomes leaders need to achieve.
The High Cost of the Status Quo
Despite many leaders vows to prioritize their employees well-being, the current reality in our workplaces is stark. Recent surveys show burnout has reached epidemic levels, nearly 60% of American workers report feeling stressed very oftenor always on the job. And burnout is the leading reason employees quit. Consequently, mental health struggles are widespread with one in five workers reporting symptoms of depression directly linked to their workplace conditions.
And the stakes arent just emotionalignoring well-being hits the bottom line. Replacing a burned-out employee can cost 1.5 to 2 times their annual salary, while disengaged or over-stressed workers lower productivity, slow innovation, and increase errors. In short, neglecting employee well-being isnt just bad for peopleits bad for business.
Leaders Wont Fix This Overnight, But Must Take The First Steps
As the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, leaders must be realistic that they cannot solve all these conditions overnight. What they should do first is initiate support for their teams well-being by addressing the specific things people crave most:
Emotional and Psychological Safety: Across multiple workforce studies, roughly 60% of employees say they want a culture where they can speak up without fear of negative consequences.
Belonging: Around 55% report that feeling part of a cohesive, collaborative team that valuesthem personally is their top need.
Meaningful Work: About 50% prioritize having work they know connects to a larger purpose or makes a tangible impact.
Growth and autonomy: Neary half of employees48%seek support for skill development and more control over how they accomplish tasks.
More than a decade later, Jim Cliftons jarring observation still resonates: many leaders have never cared because theyve never thought they had to. But, ignoring employee well-being today puts leaders in direct peril. Well-beingsomething 84% of all U.S. workers now say is their number-one priority in life isn’t a reward for hitting goals; it’s a condition for attaining them.
Organizations (and leaders) that invest in it see higher performance, retention, innovation, profitability, and market value. Those that don’t will fall behind, no matter how competitive their pay or perks.
The leaders who succeed in the next decade won’t choose between results and care. Theyll see this as a false dichotomy and embrace the new reality that thriving people sustainably produce uncommon results.
If this resonates, share it with a leader who needs to hear it.
Lead with care, and your organization will follow. Ignore it, and performance suffers. Its really an easy choice.
