TikTok has been abuzz with the workplace trend task-maskingthat is, making yourself look busy so that your boss thinks youre hard at work. Cue behaviors like pounding hard on the keyboard, always keeping your status to active, or walking around the office with your laptop and looking like you have somewhere to be when you dont.
Its all show. Its all performance, one TikTok user posted. They could be typing a thousand words a minute, but really be typing nothing, posted another. Some argue that its backlash against return-to-office policies: Many of these employees, especially Gen Z, feel like their presence doesnt equal productivity, a TikTok user said. And crucially, its not just about laziness, wrote another, arguing the pressure to look busy could actually be a sign of overwhelm.
The term has come to be associated with Gen Z on social media, but in reality, the act (and art) of looking busy has been around for decades.
Task-masking is the digital equivalent of shuffling papers, says employee coach and attorney Theresa DAndrea, known as That Work Girl, whos also discussed the trend on TikTok. Its an employer’s market right now to get a job, so people feel like they have to be busier than usual in order to keep their jobs.
Nearly half (48%) of managers are concerned about employees who fake their productivity on the joband not without reason. That’s because 37% of managers and 32% of non-managers themselves admit to such fauxductivity, or trying to appear busy even when theyre not, according to a 2024 survey of 3,000 full-time employees in the U.S., U.K., and Ireland by Workhuman, an HR software company.
Thats not good for employeesor companies. Such pressure to look busy can lead to burnout and inefficiencies, DAndrea says. Rampant task-masking may be a sign of workflow or cultural issues that management needs to address. And it may be an act of defiance for some, but a scrambling to prove worth for others.
If youre feeling the pressure to look busy to show your boss how important you are, try these tactics instead of pretending to answer emails during the next all-hands meeting.
Get clear about whats important, and prioritize
ZipRecruiter career expert Sam DeMase says that in order for employees to truly add value, they need to understand the metrics used for success by both their supervisors and the company. You just need to focus on doing work that actually moves the needle, she says.
DeMase suggests asking your boss questions to get clarity: How is success defined for this project? How does this project serve the companys goals for 2025? Know your core strengths and communicate those.
DAndrea agrees. Instead of responding to every text, email, and communication platform notification immediately in an attempt to look busy, focus on what matters. Thats especially true after youve gotten a sense of what your boss and the organization value.
Maybe even help your boss put together a KPI [key performance indicators] dashboard to track the performance of the team if your boss doesn’t already have something like that, says Korn Ferry senior client partner Maria Amato. I would be delighted if someone on my team did that.
Keep learning
Instead of tackling a task just for the sake of crossing it off the to-do list, keep learning where you can, says workplace culture expert Marissa Andrada. Work on understanding more about the company and its culture and values. If you get the context of how the work that you’re doing fits in [to the team and values]why it’s importantthen you can show, Here’s what I think about it, she says.
Not only does this give you a better perspective on the work youre doing, but it can also help frame your work as more essential to your team (and boss). Its making your manager be successful by delivering on time and on point, she adds. It replaces the performative busywork of task-masking with strategic thinking that demonstrates real value.
Taking on stretch roles or additional projects can help you keep learning, too. However, Amato cautions that its important to understand the culture of your company and the nature of your supervisor: Dont make it seem like you are trying to get away or are not interested in what you’re currently doingnot wanting to pay your dues, for example, in your current role.
Document your wins
DeMase suggests keeping a weekly log of your progress and wins, such as meaningful contributions to meetings, goal completion, positive feedback, project milestones, and processes you improve along the way. She adds that documenting your successes can also keep you motivated in your job.
Amato says what you do with that information depends, again, on the culture of your organization and team. You might tell your supervisor that youve collected some data on your performance, and ask whether they would like you to share the information with them. Your boss may say, Oh, I would love to see that as it comes in. Just send it to me each and every time. But if they haven’t actually asked for [the info], it could be sort of like spamming your boss, she adds.
We need to move away from busyness bringing value, DAndrea says.
By getting more clarity about your role, reconnecting with your works meaning, and documenting your wins, you can add value and get more satisfaction. Those are payoffs that marching around the office with an open laptop simply cant deliver.
A few years into the AI boom, its clear that designers can rely on AI for some things. It can automate tedious tasks in Photoshop that once took up precious time. It can generate images on command (quality be damned!). It can schedule a meeting, respond to an email, and take notes on a Zoom call.
But for all the hype, we know that AI isnt a silver bullet for the real problems creatives face. Far from it. So we wondered: When it comes to design and creative work, in a blue-sky scenario, what do todays design leaders wish AI would actually take care of for them?
We asked nine great designers that very question, and got back some interesting answers.
Their answers, seen below, reveal more than productivity hacks. They are a prism into the pain points of a modern design practice, and a view of how some of the best minds in design are thinking about AI.
Pum Lefebure, cofounder and chief creative officer, Design Army
1. Dream Harvester: An AI that records my dreams and subconscious visions while I sleep, then turns them into usable moodboards, storyboards, or campaign concepts the next morning.
2. Taste DNA Engine: AI that learns your creative fingerprint so deeply it can filter endless options, then only show ideas that match your intuitionlike your own inner taste amplified.
3. Multidimensional Story Weaver: You give it one idea and AI spins it simultaneously into a film, song, sculpture, VR world, fragrance, and fashion lineall cohesive, all connected.
[Source Images: Westend61/Getty Images, Eugene Mymrin/Getty Images, Stefan Grau/Getty Images, Photobank2/Getty Images, PromesaArtStudio/iStock/Getty Images Plus]
Sara Vienna, chief design officer, Metalab
Everyone says they want AI to take away the busywork, and of course I agree. But I want to push it further. I wish AI could act less like a task runner and more like a thought partnera thought partner that I actually trust with context and nuance. Point out the edge cases, flag accessibility issues without watering everything down, remind me when Im stretching myself too thin, even help me recognize the milestones that matter in the lives of people around me.
Because we’re living in a sea of sameness where anyone can vibe code and ship something, the quality bar is so low. But is it good? Is it new? Does it deserve to exist? Thats the gap I want AI to help close, not just speed up production, but raise the bar on quality and meaning.
Jessica Walsh, CEO, founder and creative director, &Walsh
Join meetings for me? I know thats not great to say, but I find that when I’m in meetings all day, it takes a toll on my creativity . . . yet I know how important it is to be present for our clients.
The more obvious answerhandling all the financial aspects of the business, like accounting, invoicing, forecasting, etc. For any creative agency owner, it can be a huge creative time suck to constantly think about.
I also think there could be a much better system for archiving our work and project learnings so that anyone who touches those projects in the future has access to them in a really easy-to-understand way. After leading an agency for more than 15 years with a ton of repeat clients, were always looking to optimize this, and I think AI could integrate here in some really exciting ways
Aaron Draplin, owner, Draplin Design Co.
I will say it’s already doing exactly what I would have really ever hoped and dreamed that it would ever do, which is just that generative fill thing in Adobe. The idea that if I have a vertical image that’s given to me and I have to make it into a square, I can just do a couple clicks for that generative fillit’s not crossing an ethical line at that point. It’s just filling in dead space. That’s amazing, because I would have had to do that myself through trickery and fades and gradients and bullshits and things and stuff. Now that thing can go do it that quick.
Gui Seiz, director of design, Figma
My biggest wish for AI is to hold on to context and intent the same way a good collaborator does. I want to see AI shift from a productivity hack to a genuine thought partner in the creative process. It should track the intent behind decisions, suggest course corrections when I veer off track, and help me stay in flow. The goal isnt just to work faster, its to work with clarity and help designers navigate the messy parts of the process: the ambiguity, the feedback loops, the gap between rough sketch and refined product.
Where it gets interesting is when AI really remembers your creative journey across projects, it can start connecting dots you can’t see. Maybe it surfaces a discarded approach from months ago that suddenly fits your current work, or reveals patterns in your decision-making that point toward unexplored directions.
Leta Sobierajski, partner, Wade and Leta
I’m hyperconscious of how utilizing AI is shortening my thought process. And while it is enjoyable to embrace cut corners and shortcuts of, say, writing an artist statement or summarizing a brief, I’m a bit terrified by its ability to think more succinctly than I do and automate the processes that have led me to become the creative person that I am today, no matter how grueling they have been. A benefit to the way I work is that my interpretations are never black or whitefollowing an artistic practice is about the meandering and the daydreaming, and with the use of AI that magic may be depleted.
So, clearly I’m trying to avoid it for any high-level thiking and writing, as this dependence feels like a gradual dulling of a sharp knife. That said, I’d appreciate it more if it served me a sandwich every so often when I forget to eat, or if perhaps it could remove me from my chair when I’ve sat for too long to encourage me to go enjoy the weather instead.
[Source Images: Westend61/Getty Images, Eugene Mymrin/Getty Images, Stefan Grau/Getty Images, Photobank2/Getty Images, PromesaArtStudio/iStock/Getty Images Plus]
Giorgia Lupi, partner, Pentagram
My blue-sky scenario would be an AI model that reduces the labor of tedious tasks, allows us to test ideas faster, but does not erase the important moments of frustration, collaboration, redirection, and happy accidents in the design process, as that is ultimately what brings the language of design to life. But I think there are important considerations to be made.
First of all, when you ask about how AI can be used in the design process, you would likely get different answers from a design director than you would from a hands-on designer who might see a time-saving benefit to AI-powered visual modeling tools. And secondly, although I see value in continuing to explore what AI can do for the field, I still have open questions: Can the shortcuts made possible by AI lead to similarly valuable designs? Do these shortcuts preclude designers from important processes and experiences? Is there a way that AI can be used to eliminate tedium without necessarily informing the visual outcome?
Without AI, whether you design alone or with a team, the designs detours, loose experimentation, happy accidents, and outright mistakes all lead to a unique result. As much as Ive enjoyed generative AI in the early days, lately my experience has been marked by frustration, as AI agreeably translates my requests into outcomes that feel like the result of a very different process that is neither collaborative nor solely mine, which is what I am reflecting on these days.
When I think about why our clients come to us, it is to transform their stories, ideas, and brands into visual languages that people can connect with. For me, that still means finding the human element. No two designers will craft the same solution for a project, and the beauty in this is that a designers work so uniquely reflects their own perspective. I do not want the integration of AI, with its specific training and incentive to please, to result in a great flattening of design, where well-worn algorithmic decisions make everything look the same.
Forest Young, executive director of design, FundamentalCo
In a blue-sky scenario, a designer would never need to wait to be the recipient of a mediocre briefone that reeks with a desperate hunger for relevance. She could scrape the subreddits for unmet needs, painful experiences, and problems worth solving, for communities that she felt a kinship with, and design a solutiona brand, a product, an experience with an inspired sense of autonomy and empathy.
In short, designers should not believe the hype, but instead [they should] believe in themselves. We must endure the torrent of efficiency-laden rhetoric until we reach an equilibrium, and discover a way to harness this technology to capacitize; to imagine beyond new skins of things to new things altogether. As industries furiously build on top of identical infrastructures and de facto research implications, unique expression will become a peerless signature. Self-assured designers empowered by AI will drive world-building, product visions, and MVPs, as well as unforeseen form language. Like any worthwhile growing pains, we must place a wager on who we can become beyond who we once were.
[Source Images: Westend61/Getty Images, Eugene Mymrin/Getty Images, Stefan Grau/Getty Images, Photobank2/Getty Images, PromesaArtStudio/iStock/Getty Images Plus]
Brian Collins, cofounder, CollinsImagine if every deck, doc, and post of yours stays on-brand. Not because you had to police them all to death, but because the brand itself is living and defending its own borders like a benevolent nightclub bouncer.If AI helps the scaffolding hold itself up, we get to spend our energy on the big swingsthe ideas, the products, the campaigns no ones ever seen beforewhile the system keeps the everyday stuff from collapsing into chaos.
The dream, the way I saw it, was never to sit in front of a drafting table for three days adjusting kerning by hand. That wasnt noble. That was carpal tunnel.The dream for designers was to have a creative system that keeps running when youre asleep or sulking. To have a collaborator who has ideas faster than you can write them down, and keeps yours intact from the moment they leave your desk to the minute they appear on a screen, in a store, or in someone’s home.
Charles Eames warned us, Never delegate your understanding.
Fine. Dont.
But now you can delegate everything else and watch it go.
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As ResiClub has closely documented, Florida has been the epicenter of U.S. housing market weakness in 2025.
However, KB Home executives now believe the worst may be behind themat least for their businessin the Sunshine State.
While giant homebuilder KB Homewhich has a $4.3 billion market capitalizationisnt ready to call it an inflection point for the entire state, it believes its price cuts in Florida were more than sufficient to stabilize demand for its business. In fact, it may have cut too deeply in Florida and could now need to raise prices in some communities.
On the companys September 24 earnings call, chief operating officer Rob McGibney said its business in Florida appears to be stabilizing after the builder moved aggressively to cut prices earlier this year. In fact, KB Home now thinks some of those cuts went too far.
We’ve actually found, in some cases, we’ve gone above what we needed to [and cut home prices too much in Florida]. So, in order to optimize those assets, we’re now increasing [the] price, McGibney said.
The executive added that KB Homes new home sales in Florida in the third quarter were higher than in the second, a sign that the price adjustments worked to restore demand. He also pointed to a decline in housing starts across the state, which is easing pressure from supply.
The good news for us is that [price cuts in Florida] worked, and now you’re seeing the orders come back up [in Florida] as a result of that. It’s also, as I mentioned earlier, one of the markets where we’ve seen the biggest decline in [housing] starts. So we’ve had some of our best results in cost reductions there, too. And now, as I’m calling, that is starting to stabilizewe’ve got that combination. I think we found that market [in Florida]. We’ve driven cost [in Florida] down, and now we’re starting to take it back the other way, McGibney said.
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McGibney stopped short of declaring a statewide turnaround but said the builder is encouraged by recent trends. I’m not necessarily calling it an inflection point for the whole state of Florida, but we’ve been encouraged by what we’ve seen recently.
KB Home executives also noted varying conditions across other major markets. California’s Inland Empire, Las Vegas, Houston, and Charlotte, North Carolina, all posted solid demand in Q3, while coastal California, Seattle, and Denver remain more challenged.
Still, for Floridathe market thats defined much of 2025s housing weaknessthe shift from deep price cuts toward selective price increases marks a notable change in tone.
ResiClub PRO members can read our full report on KB Home here.
Thinking forward is an automatic process. Cause, then effect. Input, then output. A to B. It feels logicaland normal to start with a conclusion, then find justification around it.But we can always take our thinking a step further. Sometimes, the best way to get the answers you want is to think backwards. Its called mental inversion. Turn the whole thinking process upside down. As the great algebraist Carl Jacobi said, Invert, always invert.
Put another way, What would guarantee I fail at X?” is a better question than How do I achieve X? Most people focus on the obvious process because the brain doesnt like to think through ugly pitfalls. Starting from B to A helps you avoid the results you dont want. Its one of the most powerful tools I use to think clearly.
To turn your decision-making process upside down, start from the back. Thinking backwards works because it forces you to reflect on what may be missing. The human brain is wired to save energy. It wants quick answers. Slowing down to see the full picture helps you cover all the basics of your decision-making process. Inversion helps you ask better questions. It can improve your clarity. Psychology research backs this up. A study in Cognitive Science showed that framing problems in reverse helps people make fewer errors in judgment. It works because it breaks default thinking patterns. It slows you down just enough to think more deliberately.
The antidote to mental fog
Clarity disappears in abstraction. If I try to think through every possible positive outcome, I get overwhelmed. But if I ask, Whats the dumbest mistake I could make here? I suddenly see the risk clearly.
When I want to be productive, I dont just make a to-do list. I make a not-to-do list. Thats mental inversion. It opens up a whole perspective Im missing. Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu has said, To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.
When I write, I dont just think about everything I should include. I also look for what to cut. What confuses the reader? What slows them down? I try to remove what makes the post unreadable. And try to get rid of that. Inversion works because subtraction is often more effective than addition. It applies to almost every area of life.In his book, The Bed of Procrustes, author Nassim Taleb writes, Knowledge is subtractive, not additivewhat we subtract (reduction by what does not work, what not to do), not what we add (what to do).
Think like a contrarian
Reversing your thinking also trains you to be mentally independent, assuming the opposite of what you believe and testing it. It reveals hidden assumptions. Dont just look for whats true. Look for what could be false. You dont always need a new good idea. Sometimes you just need to clear out the bad ones.
Look at opposites. Always invert. Indeed, many problems can’t be solved forward, says philanthropist and investor Charlie Munger. By exploring the worst, you can unlock the best. When in doubt, reverse. Dont just pursue outcomes. Find the blind spots people normally ignore. Sometimes the fastest way forward is to look backward first.
How to apply inversion in life
If you are stuck on big, knotty questions, invert. How do I find happiness? is vague. Instead, ask, What are the specific, proven actions that make me miserable every single time? For me, its skipping quality sleep, isolating myself, and overthinking. If life satisfaction is what you want, dont just ask, How do I live a happy life?” The more helpful question is, What makes my life miserable? List those things, and get rid of them first. Is it a specific experience in your relationship? Poor health or lack of purpose? Be specific. Detail the things that make you unhappy. Now try avoiding them. Its a precise way to eliminate everything draining your soul. For good health, avoid everything that makes your body worse off over the long term. Bad sleep, ultra-processed food, no exercise, sedentary lifestyle. Think through how people ruin their health.
Dont start with what should I do? Start with what habits destroy health? Get rid of those first. Subtraction before addition. To improve your social relationships, spend less time with your connections who drain you.
Career benefits
If you want to apply inversion to your career, think about what people do that hinders their careers. Complacency. Refusal to adapt or learn new skills. Over-promising and under-delivering. Avoid those traps. You dont need complex systems. You need fewer blind spots.
Inversion applies everywhere. In business, you can focus on what would make your new project an absolute failure in record time. The answers will be clear. Ignore your customers. Spend money you dont have on things you need. Assume youre the smartest person in the room. Dont validate your idea. Be inconsistent. Start with your anti-checklist.
Your actual plan becomes the inverse of that list. Listen obsessively. Be ruthlessly frugal. Test everything. Be more consistent on what moves the needle. Seek smarter advisors. The path forward becomes clear from the list of things to avoid. Inversion gets rid of mental traps, shows you what matters, and stops you from making the same thinking errors. If you want to think clearly, start thinking backwards.
Halloween candy shoppers who bought Reese’s pumpkin-shaped candy said they felt tricked when the picture on the outside packaging didn’t exactly match the treat inside. They were so upset, in fact, that they filed a lawsuit in late 2023 seeking $5 million in damages. Now a judge has dismissed their claims.
At issue is Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkins, whose wrappers show an image of a pumpkin-shaped candy with a jack-o’-lantern face carved into the chocolate outer layer. In reality, the chocolate inside is faceless.
In a class-action suit filed in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida, plaintiffs claimed Reese’s candy wrappers were deceptive.
According to court documents, plaintiffs thought “the product contained a cute looking carving of a pumpkin’s mouth and eyes as pictured on the product packaging” and said they would not have made the purchase had they known the chocolates would not actually feature those decorative details.
[Images: USDC/Middle District of Florida]
Reese’s maker the Hershey Co. didn’t buy it. The confectioner noted the Halloween-themed packaging also included images of uncarved pumpkin chocolates and a disclaimer reading “decorating suggestion” to indicate the carvings were an idea to try yourself.
The class-action suit claimed the “decorating suggestion” disclaimer was printed in tiny letters on the back and thus inadequate, but a judge didn’t agree and wrote that these consumers ultimately got what they were after: edible candy.
“Plaintiffs paid for a consumable good, and in return, they received a delicious, edible Reese’s product,” Judge Melissa Damian wrote in her order granting a motion to dismiss on September 26. “Plaintiffs have failed to allege facts demonstrating a concrete injury.”
It’s common for packaged foods to include disclaimers like “enlarged to show texture” and “product may not appear exactly as shown” for exactly this reason. No, your Cheerios aren’t actually that big, and no, your Reese’s pumpkin-shaped peanut butter cup doesn’t come pre-carved.
For Hershey, which accounts for some 36% of the U.S. chocolate market, according to PitchBook data, these disclaimers are a way to guard against frivolous lawsuits when the company wants to use something other than ultrarealistic product images on its packaging.
Like a box of cake mix that shows a picture of a finished cake on the outside, the Reese’s wrapper wasn’t showing what the candy looked like upon opening it, but what it could look like after some DIY carving. For those who can’t bear to eat a pumpkin Reeses without a jack-o-lantern grin, the message here is clear: You’re better off with a toothpick and some creativity than a multimillion-dollar lawsuit.
A new business infrastructure is emerging with enormous potential impact but almost no conscious design. In this new world, algorithms negotiate with algorithms, making decisions that shape markets, determine the course of careers, and decide whether companies succeed or fail. Humans, meanwhile, risk being left to watch from the sidelines.
On LinkedIn, posts written by AI models are liked by bots and commented on by AI assistants. In recruiting, candidates use AI to draft résumés while companies use AI to evaluate them. In procurement, some organizations are already using AI to draft requests for proposals, or RFPsdetailed documents that invite vendors to bid on supplying goods or serviceswhile vendors are turning to AI to generate the proposals they have been invited to submit.
The efficiency gains that AI can deliver are very realautomation can save time, cut costs, and improve consistency. But this does not mean we should ignore the dangers that those gains obscure. If we want to avoid slipping into a world in which humans are increasingly irrelevant, we need to be both alert to the risks and intentional about designing processes and tools to mitigate them.
What Changes When Algorithms Interact
In order to navigate this new reality, business leaders must first understand it more precisely. Here there are four important features of our algorithmically abstracted world:
The Audience Changes
New technologies often transform business, but whats happening now is different. The new technology isnt just providing new tools, but a new audience. This isnt an entirely new phenomenon. Humans have been tuning content for algorithms in some areas for years, as in the case of search engine optimization for websites. But not only is the scale now changing, but the algorithmic audience is taking over both sides of the conversation.
When algorithms speak to other algorithms, language changes from a medium for human understanding into code for machine processing. For a job seeker writing an application today, the best path forward is not always to try to tell their professional story in a way that will be compelling to a human audience. Instead, it will often be better for them to encode keywords and phrases to maximize their score in the applicant tracking system (ATS scores). And, ironically, the best tools for creating this kind of optimized application are often algorithmic themselves: generative AI models.
This does not mean that communication has stopped. It has not. Rather, it has changed. In addition to, and sometimes in place of, human meaning, a different kind of meaning is becoming increasingly important, one that is measured in match scores, engagement rates, and ranking positions. Humans are still involved in the loop, but only at certain points, and much of the process goes on without human intervention.
Metrics Are Replacing Reality
In 1975, the British economist Charles Goodhart came up with what is now known as Goodharts Lawthe idea that when a measure becomes the target for action, it ceases to be a good measure. The idea is that once people make decisions with the goal of meeting certain metrics, the underlying behavior that the metric was meant to measure is changed as people shift from focusing on the real, underlying goal to trying to optimize their score.
Briefly put, once we understand there is a system, we always try to game it.
Goodharts Law becomes increasingly relevant as we move toward autonomous algorithmic interactions. For example, ATS systems score candidates based on keyword matches, years of experience, and educational credentials. Candidates respond by using AI tools to optimize for exactly these metrics.
But high scores in the assessment system then lose their intended meaning: Where a high score once meant that a candidate was probably a good fit for the job, now it may just mean that the candidate has access to tools that are good at gaming the scoring system.
Tacit Knowledge Erodes
Teachers and sports coaches have long known that much of the most important learning for their students or athletes happens in the process of doing the work rather than in a flash of insight when an explanation is given.
When managers write performance reviews, they arent just documenting performance; they are also developing their ability to observe, evaluate, and articulate feedback. When teams craft project proposals, in addition to bidding for work, they are clarifying their thinking, discovering gaps in logic, and building shared understanding.
This tacit knowledgethe skills and insights that emerge from doing rather than consuming informationerodes when AI takes over the process.
Purpose Shifts
Our current business functions evolved in a human-driven world. They contain processes designed by humans, for humans, to achieve some human goal. When these processes are outsourced to autonomous algorithmic interactions, often they stop serving the original purpose. In fact, the whole point of doing them can be lost.
Take performance reviews. These originally had the clear goal of assessing employee capabilities to support actions aimed at increasing the effectiveness of the human worker. But if we end up with AI on both sides of the interaction, the whole process becomes performative. For instance, if a knowledge worker uses AI to write his reports, and his managers uses AI to generate the workers performance reviews, the original purpose of the review process is no longer being served.
This doesnt mean that nothing valuable is taking place: an AI assessment of the quality of AI outputs can still tell us something useful. But it does mean that the reason for carrying out the reviews is now a pretenseimproving the effectiveness of the human worker has become irrelevant to the process that is actually being conducted.
Four Strategic Responses
As algorithms increasingly transact with algorithms, business now operates on two levels at once: an algorithmic layer where signals are exchanged between machines, and a human layer where meaning and value are created. Leaders must guide the interaction between these layers so that efficiency gains do not come at the expense of judgment, learning, or purpose. Here are four practical steps:
Protect Human Judgment: Not every decision can or should be automated. Leaders must deliberately ring-fence certain domainsfinal hiring calls, creative development, setting organizational purposeand ensure that human judgment retains the final say in these areas. Generally, where values, creativity, and culture are at stake, a human should be the final decision maker.
Translate Between Worlds: As business anguage splits into two distinct trackssignals for machines and meaning for humansleaders will need translators. These are people and processes that can interpret ATS scores, SEO rankings, or engagement metrics and reconnect them with human insight. A résumé may score well, but does the candidate bring originality? A post may perform, but did it actually persuade? Translation layers stop organizations from mistaking algorithmic proxies for real understanding.
Design for Learning: Some activities are valuable not only for their output but also for the tacit knowledge they generate. Leaders must protect key processes as sites of practice, even if they are slower or less polished. Short-term efficiency gains should never come at the cost of eroding the capabilities on which long-term success depends.
Protect the Purpose: When business activities shift into algorithmic exchanges, its easy for the form to survive while the function disappears. A performance review still gets written, but the developmental conversation never happens. A proposal gets generated, but the shared thinking never occurs. Leaders must continually bring activities back to their underlying purpose and ensure that the process still serves that purpose rather than becoming an empty performance.
Algorithms are now part of the basic fabric of business. Resisting this shift is as pointless as commanding the tide not to come in. But while this change is inevitable, it must still be managed and steered by leaders who are aware of what is at stake. By protecting judgment, translation, learning, and purpose, organizations can ensure that automation delivers efficiency without erasing the human meaning that business depends on.
In part four of How YouTube Ate TV, Fast Companys oral history of YouTube, insiders describe how the companys Partner Program began sharing ad revenue with creators, kicking off the age of the professional YouTuber. As monetization transformed the platform, creators faced the newfangled challenges of managing fame in the viral video age. YouTube, meanwhile, wrestled with hate speech and other unsavory content.
With YouTube increasingly competing with TV in its classic form, it also spent billions to bring one of broadcastings most iconic offeringsthe NFLon board.
Comments have been edited for length and clarity.
Read more How YouTube Ate TV
Part one: YouTube failed as a dating site. This one change altered its fortunes forever
Part two: Pit bulls, rats, and 2 circling sharks: The inside story of Google buying YouTube
Part three: How YouTube went from money pit to money printer
Ian Hecox, cocreator (with his high school friend Anthony Padilla) of the comedy duo Smosh: We were one of the first 10 channels on YouTube to get monetization [in 2007]. That allowed us to move out of our parents’ houses and into a house where we lived and worked for multiple years.
Shishir Mehrotra, YouTube chief product officer/CTO (20082014): At first you had to know somebody to get into the Partner Program. The choice to open it up in 2009 was big. It was heavily motivated by our interaction with Sal Khan and Khan Academy, and how important it was to support creators like that.Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy, the pioneering maker of educational videos: I think I got on YouTube’s radar because of [Mehrotra]. He’s a close friend. He used to say, You know, Sal, I checked your viewership. If you turned your ads on, you could maybe make a living off of this.Mehrotra: Of every dollar that came in [to YouTube], 55 cents went right back out [to creators]. That was a promise we were willing to make. It was a very hard decision at a time when we were losing a lot of money.Justine iJustine Ezarik, YouTuber: The first few years, I wasnt making a lot of money. But then the YouTube Partner Program came along. And then the brand deals started coming.
Zahavah Levine, YouTube general counsel, chief counsel (20062011): Paying this new generation of YouTube creatorswho developed content specifically for YouTubeled to an entirely new ecosystem for unknown performers and filmmakers by giving these artists new ways to promote their work to a global audience and rise to fame.
Meanwhile, YouTubes cultural influence was still surging.
Kevin Allocca, YouTube culture and trends executive (2010present): In 2010, you had Double Rainbow and Auto-Tune the News. Some of the Lonely Island stuff from Saturday Night Live was popping as well. In 2011, you had Rebecca Black and Nyan Cat. It was kind of the peak viral video era.
The parents of unknown 13-year-old singer Rebecca Black paid $4,000 to produce a video of her song Friday. It got about 1,000 views in its first month on YouTubeand then, after going viral, racked up 167 million more in four months.
Rebecca Black, singer: Friday was never intended to be a part of the internet. The idea of it being [seen] by anyone more than my family and the people I was making it with was the furthest thing from my mind.Allocca: The things that were viral at that point were the ones that people were sharing across different social media platforms or that were being embedded across all the big blogs.
Though Blacks song hit the Billboard charts, it was widely mocked online, and she was targeted for harassment, including death threats.
Black: The idea of putting yourself out there, for me as a kid, was terrifying. I dont think the internet knew at all what it was turning itself into, what it already was at that point. There was such a Wild West of the dark web and the deep web and strangers on the internet. As a child, theres just no way that you even can truly grasp what that means.
Founded in 2010, VidConan annual conference for creators, executives, and fanshelped make the platforms community tangible.
Tara Walpert Levy, Google ads director (20112021); VP, Americas at YouTube (2021present): We started taking advertisers and agencies to VidCon, where they could see the relationship between the creators and the fans.Jim Louderback, general manager and CEO, VidCon (20172022): All you had to do was stand there and watch a famous creator walk across the Anaheim Convention Center. The teens would scream and yell and run after them. It was Beatlemania for YouTubers.Ezarik: At the first VidCon I brought T-shirts to give away, and I was handing them out in the lobby. You cannot do that now. There are too many peopleit’s a safety hazard. But back then, we were all just hanging out. We didn’t know any better.
How YouTube Shaped CultureI Counted to 100,000!, January 2017Jimmy MrBeast Donaldson shares 40 hours of himself counting, sped up to 23 minutes. His increasingly lavish stunts eventually make him YouTubes most followed creator.
In 2014, Susan Wojcicki (19682024), a key architect of Googles ad business, succeeded Salar Kamangar as YouTubes CEO. She was soon confronted with complaints from marketers whose ads were being shown with videos that included hate speech and other offensive material. Some of them suspended advertising on the platform.
Levy: Peple would send us videos and say, This is a problem.Johanna Voolich, YouTube VP of product management (20152021); chief product officer (2023present): We needed to figure out how to lean into the community guidelines that wed had, how to make them stronger, how to work on our advertiser guidelines, how to work on enforcement.
How YouTube Shaped CultureCobra Kai, May 2018An updating of the 1984 movie The Karate Kid, this series is a hit among the companys big-budget YouTube Originals. After two seasons, it goes to Netflix.
Ultimately, creating YouTube videos is still about connecting with a community and staying human, even if the demand on creators can be incessant and the good stuff can feel like its swimming in a sea of slop.
Rhett McLaughlin, cocreator and cohost of Good Mythical Morning (2012present), whose recent topics have included a review of every flavor of Spam: You sit down and watch some videos that are designed for engagement, and you do that for an hour; you walk away and you feel like your brain has just had all its serotonin drained out of it.
Link Neal, Good Mythical Morning cocreator, cohost: The cornerstone of everything we do is that were inviting viewers into our friendship.
Chris Schonberger, CEO of First We Feast, which produces Hot Ones (2015present) featuring celebrities chatting while eating increasingly spicy wings: [Hot Ones host] Sean [Davis] says that the audience is like a cat that tells you where it wants to be scratched.
Michelle Khare, whose activities on Challenge Accepted (2018present) have ranged from joining the circus to training at the FBI Academy: When we release an episode, we have immediate feedback. Many times we take those learnings and apply them to the next video, rather than having to wait for the next season of the show.
Casey Neistat, filmmaker and YouTuber: You can have a moderately or mildly successful channel on the platform if you approach it with a moderate or mild level of attention. When I found a real inflection point in my YouTube channel by posting every day, I made the decision to go into that as aggressively as possible, to post every day for something like 800 days in a row. The demands on me were tremendous.
Felicia Day, actress, singer, writer, and YouTuber: iJustine [Ezarik] is the survivor. Shes talked a lot lately about how shes pacing herself, not sharing as much, because you cannot sustain it as a human being. If you cant fill your well, because youre always online, youre going to burn out.
Ezarik: Right now Im obsessed with Labubu, so I have a bunch of Labubu content coming out. I like sharing it with my audience, and if theyre not interested, theyll just click away and watch something else. Keeping consistent is key, even if youre not posting every day. Just letting them know that Im still here.
How YouTube Shaped CultureSkibidi Toilet, February 2023Generation Alpha binges on Alexey Gerasimovs animated series about humanheaded toilets. It garners tens of billions of views within months and spawns memes and merch aplenty.
As YouTube grows ever more central to how billions of people entertain and inform themselves, its boundaries have gotten tougher to pin downto the benefit of creators and viewers alike.
Neistat: In the mid-2010s, YouTube was elevating specific creators. And in the decade since then, theyve necessarily taken their foot off the gas of defining what it means to be a creator, because they breached this critical mass where they no longer needed to tell people what the platform was. Everyone had their own understanding. What’s come out of that is really special. It’s expanded the definition of what it means to be a YouTuber.
Day: When I launched my company, Geek & Sundry, on YouTube [in 2012], YouTube was looking to Hollywood to make content. Native creators weren’t as encouraged or valued or seen as important. And now it’s like creators rule. Its a wonderful place to be.
Kevin Perjurer, a YouTube documentarian whose Defunctland channel tells the stories of abandoned theme park attractions: When I started on the platform [in 2017], it was all about regular uploading. You know, You gotta pick your day of the week, and then hit that time with a video of similar runtime and a similar style, and that’s how you grow. That is completely gone in terms of the modern-day YouTube, for better, I think. YouTube is now much more about longer projects that took a dedicated amount of time and effort put into them.
Allocca: There’s not a day goes by that I don’t see something where I’m like, I don’t even know what I’m looking at right now. The ways that people use this technology evolve with the ways that society and human creativity evolve.
Along with enabling YouTubers to explore new frontiers, YouTube has become essential to some of the worlds most well-established content providers as they seek mass audiences in changing times. One long-in-the-making landmark moment came in 2022, when it acquired rights to the National Football Leagues Sunday Ticket package, formerly a DirecTV staple.
Hans Schroeder, executive VP and COO, NFL Media: I go back to somewhere in 2005, even before Google bought YouTube. A couple of us took a day trip out to Google and met with Jennifer Feikin, who was running Google Video at the time. Our excitement only grew once they acquired YouTube, and you saw the growth of that platform.
Mehrotra: In 2012, we tried to buy the rights to Sunday Ticket from the NFL. We were ready to pay $2 billion for it and ended up not being able to make the offer. We couldn’t get Larry [Page] to approve it. And YouTube ended up with the exact same deal for the same price 10 years later.
Christian Oestlien, YouTube VP of product management (2015present): As with all deals, it came together quickly. I was down in Australia at the time, so it was a lot of 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. type meetings.
Schroeder: There was always excitement that we could do something together. They launched the YouTube TV platform and distributed NFL Network and RedZone on that. And that led to Sunday Ticket.
Oestlien: One thing that’s really nice about NFL Sunday Ticket was it built on top of the several years of experience we had on YouTube TV of delivering sports as low-latency, high-quality broadcast-level experiences. We built a really big fan base on YouTube across sports with our clips and highlights business and our partnerships with the NFL and others.
Levy: The NFL is doing incredibly creative stuff on YouTube, above and beyond distributing their content. Their strategy was very specific: They wanted to partner with us on younger and more female viewers. And so they did a whole series of partnerships with our creators where they let them backstage at exclusive events.
Schroeder: As you think about the creator content that they have and how that gets wrapped around an NFL game, were just at the tip of the iceberg now.
Oestlien: We’re 10 years into many of us working on our partnership with the NFL. It’s a really nice milestone to showcase how far the company has come and how invested we are in making sure that these great sporting moments can be a big part of the YouTube culture.
Additional reporting by María José Gutiérrez Chávez, Yasmin Gagne, David Salazar, and Steven Melendez.
If you’re in charge of an editorial team, you’re used to objections from the rank and file about using AI. “It gets things wrong.” “I don’t know what it’s doing with my data.” “Chatbots only say what you want to hear.”
Those are all valid concerns, and I bring them up often in my introduction to AI classes. Each one opens a discussion about what you can do about them, and it turns out to be quite a bit. AI hallucinations require careful thought about where to apply fact-checking and “human in the loop.” Enterprise tools, APIs, and privacy settings can go a long way to protecting your data. And you can prompt the default sycophancy out of AI by telling it to give you critical feedback.
There’s another objection to AI that’s been growing, however, and you can’t just prompt your way out of this one. There’s a growing reluctance among some knowledge workers to use AI because of how much energy it consumes and the consequential environmental impact.
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It’s no secret that, as the number of people using AI grows, the colossal energy footprint of the AI industry increases. It’s true that chips powering AI continually become more efficient, but tools like deep research, thinking models, and agents ensure the demand for energy rises, too. It didn’t help that Sam Altman once said that saying “please” and “thank you” to ChatGPT was needlessly burning millions of extra dollars. Data center construction alone has soared by 40% year over year, raising concerns about not just energy needs but also water consumption.
When guilt over AI use turns into pushback
In the eyes of those concerned about the environment, these stories and statistics can weigh on a person. Using ChatGPT starts to feel like a betrayal, with every query producing both intelligence and a commensurate amount of guilt. If they feel their employer is pushing them to use these tools anyway, that guilt can bubble up into anger, and even resistance.
We’re already starting to see serious objections. Civil servants in the U.K. voiced reluctance to use AI tools because of net zero emissions concerns, The Telegraph reported. Various officials charged with implementing AI-driven initiatives balked, fearing that doing so would conflict with Britains climate commitments. A similar dynamic is playing out at the municipal level in the U.S. Some city IT staff and policymakers in places like California have begun scrutinizing AI projects through a sustainability lens.
Many media professionals are concerned too. A couple of weeks ago, I saw at least three journalists bring up the concernat separate eventswhile I was attending the Online News Association conference in New Orleans. And in a recent training I did with a large corporate comms team, I polled the audience: What is your chief concern about using AI, giving them five choices: hallucinations, bias, sycophancy, privacy, or energy use? A full 37% picked energy use.
All the evidence points to AI’s energy use developing into a massive PR problemnot just for the industry, but for any business. It’s hard to be “AI forward” if your workers think using it is a huge step backward for climate change.
To be clear, this isn’t to say the environmental concerns aren’t validit’s just that they’re simply not my area of expertise. But AI and managing teams are, and it’s clear this issue will be a growing challenge for AI leaders across industries, but especially media, since journalists are on the front lines of reporting AI’s environmental impact.
Dos and donts for managing employee concerns
So what can company leaders do to address this problem before it gets out of control? That will depend on a number of things: your AI policy, the tools you’re using, and the demographics of your workers. But here is some guidance, divided between dos and don’ts:
Do listen carefully to their concerns. Are they objecting because of broad climate implications, or are their concerns more specific? Does it have to do with a specific tool? A local impact? The more detail you have on the issue, the more you will know what you can do about it.
Don’t dismiss their concerns, or try to deflect them by pointing to other industries. Yes, cars spew carbon, and there are microplastics in the ocean. But there are also diesel engines and recycling programs. It’s fair to ask what the equivalent is for AI.
Do research the problem. In August this year, Google became the first major lab to produce a detailed technical report on the energy, carbon, and water footprint of its AI services, which was an opportunity for the company to brag about its progress, reducing the energy consumed per prompt by 33 times from May 2024 to May 2025. This could be useful information for your team.
Don’t encourage mitigating individual use. This might be controversial, but the worst thing an AI-forward worker can do is neglect to use AI to help solve a problem that it can really help with. And that goes for thinking, deep research, and GPT-5 Pro, too. Rather than mitigating individual use of tools, instead . . .
Do transition workflows into dedicated tools. If a particular tool or workflow proves useful enough, you should develop it such that it uses the most efficient model possible, which will save on compute costs and the environment. Paying for your own compute is the ultimate incentivizer to throttling unnecessary use.
Finally, don’t stop talking about the problem. When you give updates to your team, talk about what you’re doing, as an organization, to address the issue. Ambitious companies might even create an internally visible energy countersomething that would measure not just how much energy you’re using, but also how much compute you’re getting from it, showing how you’re improving efficiency over time.
The risk when workers lose faith
As AI advances, governed by mammoth trillion-dollar companies and world governments, it’s understandable that individuals may feel they have no agency in how it impacts society, and that includes the planet. It’s important for leaders to recognize that feeling of impotence and flip it into a quest for efficiency and open communication. Organizations that don’t might find that the workers using AI in unauthorized ways aren’t nearly as bad as the ones who refuse to use it at all.
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Below, coauthors Ulrik Juul Christensen and Tony Wagner share five key insights from their new book, Mastery: Why Deeper Learning Is Essential in an Age of Distraction.
Ulrik is founder and CEO of Area9 Lyceum. Formerly a member of the McGraw Hill executive board, he is a frequent keynote speaker and regular contributor to Forbes. He also serves on several boards including the Technical University of Denmark.
Tony is senior research fellow at the Learning Policy Institute and former codirector of Harvard Graduate School of Educations Change Leadership Group. He is the bestselling author of Creative Innovators and The Global Achievement Gap.
Whats the big idea?
In a world where AI can deliver information faster and more accurately than any human, what matters most are the uniquely human skills of critical thinking, communication, creativity, collaboration, and character. This is why we need to replace our outdated, time-based education model with a mastery-based approach. The future of learning depends on a ground-up redesign of our standards, metrics, and methods in the classroom.
1. The core purpose of education should be to develop the skills of mind and heart necessary for productive work, active citizenship, and personal health and well-being
Our current education system is far too focused on information retention and recallthings that AI can do far better than any human beingand failing to develop our uniquely human skills. The world simply no longer cares how much students know. What matters far more is what they can do with what they know.
A woman named Monique Little did everything society told her to do to succeed. She worked hard in high school, earned a bachelors degree from a good college, and yet, she was stuck in a series of dead-end, low-wage jobs because she lacked marketable skills. In fact, 45% of recent college graduates are underemployed, working in jobs that dont even require a bachelors degree. Monique told us that she had come to see her degrees as no more than certificates of attendance. She told us that she learned far more technical and people skills in 10 weeks at a nonprofit training program called Per Scholas than in all her years of schooling, which is what enabled her to land a great new job as an internet threat analyst for a startup.
2. We must abandon the traditional, time-based model of learning
Progress should be based on clear evidence of mastery, not on arbitrary measures, like Carnegie units. The Carnegie unit, which defines a course as 120 hours of seat time, was established more than a century ago. This system, along with its reliance on multiple-choice tests, is fundamentally flawed. It leaves many students behind who simply need more time to master a subject.
This system, along with its reliance on multiple-choice tests, is fundamentally flawed.
We offer an inspiring alternative: performance assessments. Schools in Allen County, Kentucky, are holding defenses of learning where middle schoolers publicly present and defend their work to community members. This shifts the focus from passive memorization to active demonstration of skill and understanding. This kind of authentic, public assessment not only motivates students but also gives the community a clear, face-to-face sense of what their students can truly do.
3. Tapping into students intrinsic interests and passions motivates them
Rote learning and external rewards and punishments (like grades) are not enough and lead to increasing levels of student disengagement and anxiety in schools.
We provide a fantastic example from a program called the Center for Advanced Professional Studies, or CAPS. A student named Antonio Linhart entered the program interested in game design. CAPS didnt force him down a predefined path; instead, it helped him apply his passion to real-world projects, including a client project, a community outreach project, and a personal passion project. This process of connecting his interests to meaningful, hands-on work sparked his curiosity and led him to discover new career paths in computer science that he didnt know existed.
We also saw this idea in practice at Red Bridge School, where a group of young girls interested in fashion created clothing designs based on their curiosity about roly-poly bugs. This kind of learning is foundational to creativity and mastery of skills.
4. A personalized approach is essential in mastery-based learning
Nearly everyone can achieve high levels of mastery, but not everyone learns at the same pace. We bring this idea to life with a powerful story from the world of adult learning, specifically from the Danish road-safety certification organization, VEJ-EU. This program trains a diverse group of workers, from civil engineers with advanced degrees to laborers who didnt finish high school, all of whom must pass the same proficiency-based certification exam.
True education is not a race.
Instead of a one-size-fits-all class, they developed a personalized, computer-based learning system that allows individuals to progress at their own speed. The program proved that all learners could achieve the required mastery, even though the slowest learners might need 10 times longer than the fastest ones. True education is not a race. Its about providing the time and support necessary for every individual to reach a defined standard of competence.
5. This new model of learning requires educators to be sources of inspiration
Teachers must become performance coaches, guides, and mentors who know and support their students. In Finland, a country whose education system is often praised globally, aspiring teachers enter a masters degree program where they spend a full year with a master teacher and a team of peers. They regularly observe each others classes, debrief on their practice, and collaboratively refine their lesson plans.
This model, rooted in collaboration and continuous feedback, transforms teaching from an isolated profession into a community of practice dedicated to improvement. This systemic, mastery-based approach to teacher training is what has enabled Finland to consistently achieve excellent and equitable education outcomes. Its a stark contrast to the conventional conference, observe, conference model that is still common in many teacher preparation programs today.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with ermission.
Youre in a meeting when your boss suggests changing a number to make the quarterly report look stronger. Heads nod. The slides move on. You feel a knot in your stomach: Do you speak up and risk being branded difficult, or stay silent and become complicit?
Most people picture defiance as dramatic outbursts. In reality, its often these small, tense moments where conscience collides with compliance.
I first saw the power of defiance not in the workplace, but closer to home. My mother was the ultimate people-pleaser: timid, polite, eager to accommodate. Barely 4 feet, 10 inches tall, she put everyone elses needs above her own. But one day, when I was 7, I saw a different side to her.
We were walking home from the grocery store in West Yorkshire, England, when a group of teenage boys blocked our path in a narrow alleyway. They hurled racist insults and told us to go back home.
My reaction was instantaneous: Stay quiet, avoid conflict, and get past them as quickly as possible. I grabbed my mothers arm, urging her to move with me. But she didnt. My quiet, deferential, never-confrontational mother did something completely different. She stopped, turned, and looked the boys directly in the eyes. Then she asked, calmly but firmly, What do you mean?
She wasnt loud or aggressive. And in that moment, she showed me that defiance doesnt always roar, and it can come from the people you least expect.
Ive carried these lessons into my work as a physician-turned-organizational psychologist. For decades, Ive studied why people comply, staying silent when they dont want to, and how they can resist wisely. In my book Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes, I offer a framework based on behavioral science research that can help you defy in ways that are intentional, effective, and true to your values.
What defiance really is
When people think of defiance, they often picture teenagers slamming doors, protesters shouting in the streets, or rebels breaking rules just for the thrill of it. But thats not the kind of defiance I study or the kind that shapes our lives most often.
Defiance is not about being oppositional for its own sake. Its about choosing to act in line with your values when there is pressure to do otherwise.
That pressure can come from anywhere: a boss urging you to fudge the numbers, a friend nudging you toward something you dont believe in, a culture telling you to stay in your place. Defiance in those moments might be as small as saying no, asking for clarification, or simply pausing instead of rushing along with the group. Other times, it means speaking up, challenging authority, or maybe walking away.
Seen this way, defiance isnt a fixed trait that some people are born with and others lack. Its a practice: a skill you can strengthen over time. Some days you might comply, other days you might resist. What matters is that you have the awareness and the tools to make the choice consciously, rather than letting fear or habit decide for you.
Why people comply
If defiance is so important, why do people so often stay silent?
One reason is a psychological process Ive uncovered in my research: insinuation anxiety. It arises when people worry that not complying with another persons wishes may be interpreted as a signal of distrust. Turning down a bosss request to adjust the numbers might feel like youre implying theyre dishonest. To avoid that discomfort, you go along, even when it violates your values.
Behavioral science has long documented this pull toward compliance. In the 1960s, for example, psychologist Stanley Milgram showed that ordinary people would administer what they believed were dangerous electric shocks to strangers simply because an authority figure told them to.
My own research has shown surprisingly high levels of compliance with obviously bad advice, even when given by a stranger with no consequences for disagreeing. People feel immense social pressure to go along with what others suggest. Thats because if youve never been trained in how to say no, it feels uncomfortable and awkward.
A framework for action
If compliance is the human default, how can you build the muscle of defiance? In my research, Ive developed a simple actionable guide that I call the Defiance Compass. Like a navigation aid, it orients you in difficult situations by asking three questions:
Who am I? What are the core values that matter most to me?
What type of situation is this? Is it safe to resist? Will it have a positive impact?
What does a person like me do in a situation like this? How can I take responsibility and act in a way thats consistent with my identity and values?
Asking these questions shifts defiance from a gut reaction to a conscious practice. And heres whats important: That third question (What does a person like me do?) circles back to the first (Who am I?), because how you act again and again becomes who you are.
Defiance doesnt always mean open confrontation. Sometimes it means asking a clarifying question, buying time, or quietly refusing. It can mean speaking up or walking away. The key is to start small, practice regularly, and anchor your choices in your values. Like any skill, the more you practice, the more natural it becomes.
Why defiance matters now
Defiance may be risky, but its never been more relevant. At work, employees are pressured to meet targets at any cost. In politics, citizens face waves of misinformation and polarization. In everyday life, people struggle to set healthy boundaries. Across all these contexts, the temptation to comply for the sake of comfort is strong.
Thats why learning to defy strategically matters. It protects personal integrity, strengthens institutions, and helps sustain democracy. And it doesnt require being loud or confrontational.
Of course, not every act of defiance is safe or guaranteed to make a difference. Sometimes it comes at real personal cost and some people still choose to act even when the impact isnt certain: Think of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat, or Colin Kaepernick taking a kee. In those moments, the act itself becomes the message. Both of those individuals were deeply connected to their values and the assessment is personal: What feels worth the risk to one person might not to another.
Defiance does require practice: noticing when values are at stake, pausing before you nod along, and choosing actions that align with who you want to be. Each act of consent, compliance, or defiance shapes not just your story but the stories of our societies.
If you practice defiance, and teach it and model it, you can imagine a different type of society. You can start to envision a world where, in that same alleyway from my childhood, one of the boys will step forward and tell his friends, Thats not okay. Let them pass.
Sunita Sah is a professor of management and organizations at Cornell University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
