Every organization believes it’s in the productivity business. Every executive thinks faster, longer, more densely packed meetings equal better results. They’re wrong.
The meetings that actually workthe ones where breakthroughs happen and teams leave energized rather than depletedoperate on a completely different logic. They’re designed around how human brains actually function, not how we wish they would.
By helping organizations transform their cultures through my Move. Think. Rest. (MTR) framework, I’ve watched the same pattern emerge: Companies spend millions on the latest collaboration software and meeting tech, then squander the opportunity by applying the same exhausting, back-to-back scheduling that got them nowhere in the first place.
Here’s what needs to change.
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Rhythm, Not Relentlessness
We should stop treating breaks as a tax on productivity and instead understand that breaks are an investment in our productivity. Most conference agendas are built on the assumption that more content equals more value. It’s an assumption that breaks the human brain.
Our cognitive architecture doesn’t work in endless marathons. It works in cycles. This is why the best meetings I’ve redesigned follow a simple principle: Build MTR directly into your schedule.
Start with Movement by designand I don’t mean “take a walking break.” I mean fundamentally restructuring how your sessions happen. Convert at least one daily brainstorming session into a walking meeting. The research is clear: When bodies move, ideas flow. The Navy figured this out decades ago with standing meetings. They’re more effective and efficient because motion isn’t a distraction from thinking, it’s a catalyst for it.
For the Think dimension, protect what I call “suspended time.” Back-to-back sessions aren’t intensive, they’re destructive. Replace that model with 75- to 90-minute deep-dive blocks followed by genuine transition time. Before bringing insights to a large group, let people first reflect individually, then discuss in pairs. This honors how people actually process: We need space to diverge before we can meaningfully converge.
And Rest is nonnegotiable, which means we should stop treating breaks like their mechanical pit stops, as if theyre stealing time from productivity. Build in 15-minute microbreaks between sessions: intentional pauses where people actually step away, stretch, move outside, daydream. Research shows that even 10 minutes of genuine rest sustains performance and enhances well-being. Daydreaming helps with generative, divergent thinking. And a midday break that’s longer than the time it takes to eat lunch at your desk isn’t a luxury. It’s the infrastructure that makes everything else work.
Redesign Your Agenda Language
Words shape experience. When you say break, you signal that time is lost. When you say integration time or reflection pause, you signal that this moment is essential to how you do your best thinking.
This matters more than you’d think.
Here’s what belongs on your ideal meeting agenda: sessions scheduled during people’s natural peak cognitive times (usually mid-to-late morning), unconference elements where participants help build the agenda in real time, movement infrastructure built into the physical environment, and explicitly named transition time. What doesn’t belong: purely informational sessions that could be prerecorded, expectations that people perform at full capacity from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. straight, and the assumption that measuring success means measuring how much you packed in.
The Changes That Actually Move the Needle
The highest-impact redesigns don’t require massive budgets. They require a different mindset.
Implement meeting-free blocks. Designate specific timeperhaps the first three hours of a multiday conference, or entire afternoonsas true meeting moratoriums. Not break time. Deep work time. People use it for reflection, processing, or the spontaneous conversations that often yield the most valuable insights. This single change transforms an event from overwhelming to generative.
Build movement infrastructure. Provide mapped walking routes with estimated times. Create outdoor spaces with seating for breakout sessions. Install standing-meeting areas with whiteboards. When movement is built into the physical environment, it becomes the default rather than something people have to engineer.
Create rituals of rest. Start each day with 10 minutes of optional guided stretching or meditation. End each day with a brief reflection session. Designate quiet zones for afternoon restoration. When rest is ritualized, it shifts the entire culture.
Measure differently. Stop asking whether you covered all the content. Start asking: What unexpected insights emerged? What new connections formed? How energized do people feel when they leave? This shift in metrics naturally leads to better design choices.
The Competitive Advantage of Flourishing
Here’s what most leaders miss: The meeting redesign isn’t (just) about being nice to people. It’s about being strategic.
When you move from productivity theater to cultivation-centered design, you unlock something more valuable than efficiency. You unlock the kind of thinking that emerges only when people have genuinely processed information, made authentic connections, and restored their cognitive resources. You create conditions where innovation doesn’t come from forcing harder, it comes from creating the rhythmic space where human flourishing and breakthrough thinking naturally intersect.
The organizations that understand that meeting are systems, not schedules, will find themselves with teams that are more innovative, more engaged, and, frankly, more loyal.
Stop stacking. Start designing.
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A few of the neatest gadgets at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2026 werent anywhere near the Las Vegas Convention Center trade show venue.
Instead, they were sitting on a table at The Venetian Resort’s food court, at least on Monday when Core Devices founder Eric Migicovsky was holding press meetings. He had a couple of quirky Pebble smartwatches to show off, with lo-fi e-paper screens in round and rectangular forms, and he was wearing an early version of the Pebble Index, a smart ring whose main job is capturing voice notes. (He moved to a booth in the bowels of the Venetian expo when CES officially got underway.)
Unlike a lot of exhibitors, Migicovsky isnt promising anything revolutionary, but he also made clear that Cores mission has expanded. Beyond just making smartwatches, he now sees the company as a purveyor of fun but indispensable gadgets. The Pebble Index is just the start.
Core Devices is building the gadgets we want, (because) no one else is, he says.
Three watches and a smart ring
Its now been about nine years since Pebble shut down, selling its assets to Fitbit after the Apple Watch sucked out the oxygen for smartwatch startups. Maybe Pebbles fate was unavoidable, but Migicovsky also regrets overextending into areas he wasnt passionate about, like fitness tracking. (Im not a Whoop guy, he says.)
Core Devices is a chance to start fresh. After spending three years as a Y Combinator partner, and then selling his messaging startup Beeper to Automattic (reportedly for $125 million), Migicovsky has no desire to go the usual startup route again. When Google agreed to open-source the original Pebble operating system last year, he put up the R&D money for a new batch of watches, then started taking preorders.
With the new Pebble watches, the core appeal is the same as the originals: Geeky watch faces, reliable push button controls, e-paper screens for long battery life, hackability. For Core Devices’ first new watch, the Pebble 2 Duo, the hardware is also similar, as Migicovsky found a supplier with some original Pebble 2 components and repurposed them into 8,000 new watches that shipped late last year.
The next batch of Pebbles is more like what the original company mightve built if it survived for longer. The $225 Pebble Time 2 looks like a standard rectangular smartwatch, except it lasts for a month between charges, while the $199 Pebble Round 2 ditches heart rate monitoring for a slim design and two weeks of battery life. Both have larger screens and much narrower bezels than any of Pebbles original watches.
As for the $99 Pebble Index 01 ring, Migicovsky says the idea came from struggling to remember things and wanting to record them in way that became muscle memory. Talking into the ring while holding its clickable button records a voice note, which a companion app transcribes into text. A double-click allows for programmable actions such as smart home controls or AI queries (whose answers, for instance, could appear on a Pebble). A Pebble app with similar functionality is coming, but the point of the ring is that you only need one free thumb to use it.
Meanwhile, Migicovsky is cutting out all the things he hated about making hardware before. He raises money for the watches through preorders instead of investors, sells them through Cores website instead of dealing with retailers, and doesnt bother with sales forecasting.
The resulting sales have been modest25,000 Pebble Time 2 preorders, 7,000 more for the Round, 8,000 for the now-sold-out Pebble 2 Duobut the company has far exceeded its minimums for what Migicovsky considers viable. That means Core Devices can keep making new gadgets.
We decided this go-round that well just do the things that are fun, he says.
Beyond the watch
Among longtime Pebble fans, the Index ring has been contentious, in large part because it’s not designed to last. Its internal battery isn’t rechargeable or replaceable, and after 12 to 15 hours of recording time, it’ll simply stop working. (Migicovsky estimates a two-year lifespan for someone who records 10 to 20 thoughts per day.) Core Devices will offer to recycle the metal, but it’ll throw the electronics away.
Migicovsky says the single-use battery was necessary for an attractive design with water resistance, and he likes the idea of never having to take the ring off, even in the shower. But because the original Pebble watches have endured for so longa decade later, thousands of people still use theirsthe Index’s disposable nature feels incongruous even if Migicovsky downplays it.
I would say that most devices are made to be thrown away, and thats the secret of the industry that nobody ever talks about, he says.
The Index also just indicates that Core Devices is more than a smartwatch company now. While the original goal was to scratch one specific itch, Migicovsky now says he has “lots more” ideas for new products.
There will be prerequisites: Whatever Core Devices makes can’t already exist, must have low R&D costs, and should be possible to build with a small team. (The company currently employs five people, all on the software side besides Migicovsky himself.) Its products will have to solve everyday problems, even if they’re niche ones.
Still, the company has more things to figure out first. While the Index uses on-device speech-to-text for voice notes, it’s unclear how it’ll cover the cost of using AI to process custom commands, or for its optional Wispr Flow-powered transcriptions. Migicovsky doesn’t love the idea of subscriptions but isn’t sure about alternatives. Employing a team obviously has ongoing costs as well, which means Core Devices will need to expand from its tiny audience, find recurring revenue streams, or keep releasing new things.
But even as it expands, Core Devices is keeping its ambitions in check, which at a venue like CES can be pretty refreshing. Were not trying to invent some new computing category,” Migicovsky says. “Were not trying to take over the world.
Although there is no shortage of AI enthusiasts, the general public remains uneasy about artificial intelligence. Two concerns dominate the conversation, both amplified by popular and business media. The first is AIs capacity to automate work, fueling widespread FOBO, or fear of becoming obsolete. The second is AIs tendency to reproduce or even exacerbate human bias.
On the first, the evidence remains mixed. The clearest signal so far is not the wholesale replacement of jobs, but the automation of tasks and skills within jobs. Most workers are less likely to lose their roles outright than to be forced to rethink what they do at work and where they add value. In that sense, AI is less an executioner than a pressure test on human contribution. As we have previously noted, AI is exposing the BS economy, in the sense of automating low-value activity and commoditizing whats not relevant.
On the second, however, concerns feel more visceral, since theres clear evidence of AI amplifying or at least perpetuating human biases. Indeed, algorithms replicate the loudest and most common outcomes. Tools trained on historical hiring and promotion data mirror the demographic preferences of past decision-makersoverlooking qualified candidates and harming both those individuals and the organizations that end up missing out on better talent. Large language models producing outputs that disadvantage marginalized users because of skewed training data. Add to this the political and moral assumptions embedded, often unintentionally, in AI systems, and its easy to conclude that AI is simply a faster, colder version of human prejudice.
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To be sure, AI will never be bias-free. And yet it can still be less biased than humans (okay, its a low bar). Importantly, under the right conditions, it can make things a lot better.
Humans are biased, but thats not a bug, its a feature. Its a consequence of cognitive shortcuts that evolved for speed and survival. But survival is knee-jerk, and often optimizes for the immediateand shortchanges the long-term success that comes from thoughtfulness and fairness. Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman showed us how quick decisions are often suboptimal, yet we rely on those quick, intuitive decisions frequently, and even more frequently when we are under stress and time pressure.
Yet one of the great strengths of humanity is that we are also capable of reflection and correction. And AI is in some ways uniquely suited to help counteract predictable distortions that have plagued humanity for centuries.
Consider six ways this is already beginning to happen.
1. AI can help us better understand others
AI is now embedded in many of the platforms we use to communicate at work. Increasingly, it can analyze patterns in language, tone, and behavior to infer emotional states, intentions, or levels of engagement. Tools like Textio help us get out of our own way by flagging language thats not aligned to our goals. These systems are far from perfect, but they dont need to be. They simply need to outperform the average human in situations where human judgment is weakest.
Research on emotional intelligence shows that people are generally better at reading members of their own group than outsiders. Cultural distance, unfamiliar communication styles, and implicit stereotypes distort perception.
AI systems trained on data from different cultures and groups can sometimes decode signals more consistently than humans navigating unfamiliar social terrain. Theres evidence that using technologies like VR to experience others realities can build lasting empathy. Used responsibly, these kinds of augmentation can support empathy rather than replace it, helping people pause before misinterpreting disagreement as hostility or silence as disengagement.
2. AI can force us to confront alternative viewpoints
One of the ironies of AI criticism is that we often accuse systems of bias as a way of deflecting attention from our own. When people complain that generative AI is politically or ideologically slanted, they are usually revealing where they themselves stand.
Properly designed, AI can be used to surface competing perspectives rather than reinforce echo chambers. Whats more, AI can do this by framing arguments and evidence in ways that make them easier to understand and accept without triggering judgment or combativeness.
For example, leaders can ask AI to articulate the strongest possible case against their preferred strategy, or to rewrite a proposal from the perspective of different stakeholders. In conflict resolution, AI can summarize disagreements in neutral language, stripping away emotional triggers while preserving substance.
This doesnt make AI objective, but it can make us less lazy. By lowering the cognitive and emotional cost of perspective taking, AI can help counteract confirmation bias, one of the most pervasive and damaging distortions in organizational life.
3. AI can improve meritocracy in hiring and promotion
Few domains are as saturated with bias as talent decisions. Decades of research show that human intuition performs poorly when predicting job performance, yet confidence in gut feeling remains stubbornly high.
When trained on clean data and validated against real outcomes, AI consistently outperforms unstructured human judgment for job decisions. This is not just because algorithms can process more information, but because they can ignore information humans struggle to disregard. Demographic cues, accents, schools, and social similarity exert a powerful pull on human decisin-makers even when they believe theyre being fair.
Well-designed AI systems can also be updated as job requirements evolve, allowing them to unlearn outdated assumptions. Humans, by contrast, often cling to obsolete success profiles long after they stop predicting performance. AI does not guarantee fairness, but it can move decisions closer to evidence and further from intuition.
4. AI can make bias visible rather than invisible
One of the most underestimated benefits of AI is its diagnostic power. Algorithms can reveal patterns humans prefer not to see. Disparities in performance ratings, promotion velocity, pay progression, or feedback language are often dismissed as anecdotal until AI surfaces them at scale.
When bias remains implicit, its easy to deny. When its quantified, it becomes discussable. Used transparently, AI can help organizations audit their own behavior and hold themselves accountable.
For example, AI can help identify whether specific interview questions (or interviewers) are driving unexpectedly uneven outcomesso that the questions used are more likely to help pick the most qualified candidates. Importantly, this shifts bias reduction from moral aspiration to operational reality.
5. AI can slow us down at the right moments
Bias thrives under speed, pressure, and ambiguity. Many of the most consequential workplace decisions are made quickly, under cognitive load, and with incomplete information.
AI can introduce friction where it matters. By flagging inconsistent judgments, prompting justification, or suggesting structured criteria, AI can act as a cognitive speed bump. It doesnt remove responsibility from humans. It reminds them that intuition isnt always insight.
6. AI can help us understand ourselves, not just others
Bias does not only distort how we judge other people. It also shapes how we see ourselves. Research on self-assessment consistently shows that people are poor judges of their own abilities, impact, and behavior. We overestimate our strengths, underestimate our blind spots, and rationalize patterns that others notice immediately.
AI can help close this self-awareness gap.
One increasingly common use case is AI as a coach or reflective mirror. Unlike human feedback, which is often delayed, filtered, or softened, AI can analyze large volumes of behavioral data and surface patterns that individuals struggle to see on their own. This might include identifying communication habits that derail meetings, emotional triggers that precede conflict, or leadership behaviors that correlate with disengagement in teams.
Consider how AI is already being used to summarize feedback from performance reviews, engagement surveys, or 360 assessments. Rather than relying on selective memory or defensiveness, individuals can see recurring themes across contexts and time. This reduces self-serving bias, the tendency to attribute successes to skill and failures to circumstance.
The same logic explains the growing popularity of AI as a therapeutic or coaching aid. AI systems dont replace trained professionals, but they can prompt reflection, ask structured questions, and challenge inconsistencies in peoples narratives. Because AI has no ego, no reputation to manage, and no emotional investment in the users self-image, it can sometimes feel safer to explore uncomfortable insights with a machine than with another human.
Of course, self-awareness without judgment is not the same as wisdom. AI can highlight patterns, but humans must interpret and act on them. Used responsibly, however, AI can help individuals recognize how their intentions differ from their impact, how their habits shape outcomes, and how their own biases show up in everyday decisionsand it can help monitor and reinforce progress to support lasting change
In that sense, AIs most underappreciated debiasing potential may not lie in correcting how we evaluate others but in helping us see ourselves more clearly.
A necessary note of caution
None of this implies that AI automatically reduces bias. Poorly designed systems can amplify inequality faster than any individual manager ever could. Debiasing requires intentional choices: representative data, continuous monitoring, transparency, and human oversight.
The real danger is not trusting AI too muchits using AI carelessly while pretending its neutral.
Bias is a human problem before its a technological one. AI simply forces us to confront it more explicitly. Used well, AI can help organizations move closer to the meritocratic ideals they already claim to valueand that help organizations be successful. Used badly, it will expose the gap between rhetoric and reality.
The question is not whether AI will shape workplace decisions. It already does. The real question is whether we will use it to reinforce our blind spots, or to finally see them more clearly.
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Roblox, a gaming app used by nearly half of the entire U.S. population of under-16s, has rolled out a new mandatory safety feature to put a stop to children communicating with adults on the platform.
Starting on January 7, players in the U.S. were required to submit to facial age estimation via the app to access the chat feature, although age verification remains optional to play the games themselves.
Users in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands are already required to complete an age check to chat with other users, but the requirement will now roll out to the U.S. and beyond.
The verification is being processed by a third-party vendor, Persona. Once the age check is processed, Roblox says it will delete any images or videos of users.
If the age-check process incorrectly estimates a users age, the decision can be appealed and the child’s age verified through alternative methods. Users 13 or older may also opt for ID-based checks.
Once users complete the age check, they are assigned to one of six age groups (under 9, 9-12, 13-15, 16-17, 18-20, and 21+). Users can only communicate with players directly above and below their own age group. For example, a 9-year-old cannot chat with users older than 15, and a 16-year-old can only chat with those ages 13 to 20.
The feature is designed to prevent children younger than 16 from communicating with adults. About 42% of Roblox users are younger than 13.
“As the first large online gaming platform to require facial age checks for users of all ages to access chat, this implementation is our next step toward what we believe will be the gold standard for communication safety,” wrote Matt Kaufman, Roblox’s chief safety officer, and Rajiv Bhatia, its head of user and discovery product, in a blog post.
Parental consent is still required for users younger than 9 to access chat features, while age-checked users 13 and older can chat with people they know beyond their immediate age group via the Trusted Connections feature.
Leveraging multiple signals, [Roblox is] constantly evaluating user behavior to determine if someone is significantly older or younger than expected, the company execs continued. In these situations, we will begin asking users to repeat the age-check process.
The face scan is launching as the company faces increased scrutiny over child safety on the app. Attorneys general around the country are investigating Roblox, and nearly 80 active lawsuits accuse Roblox of enabling child exploitation, with some parents alleging their children encountered predators on the app.
Just four days into the new year, awards season kicked off with the Critics Choice Awards. One week later, it’s time for the Golden Globes to shine.
The 83rd edition of this star-studded eventwhich takes place on Sunday, January 11, in Beverly Hills, Californiacelebrates greatness in both television and film. Heres everything you need to know about the big night, including how to tune in.
History and past controversy of the Golden Globe Awards
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the former organization behind the Golden Globes, was founded in 1943. Under this banner, journalists came together to create an awards ceremony to honor the artists they covered. The first event took place the following year, in 1944.
A 2021 Los Angeles Times article revealed several issues within the HFPA, including a complete lack of Black members. This caused many organizations and individuals to boycott the 2022 Globes. NBC declined to air the ceremony, Tom Cruise gave awards back, and several studios distanced themselves.
Because of HFPAs many issues, the organization was dissolved and the Globes were sold to Penske Media Eldridge, becoming a for-profit institution.
Many are critical of this venture, viewing it as a conflict of interest, as the L.A. Times reported. Penske also owns Dick Clark Productions, the producer of the Globes, and several trade publications such as Variety, Rolling Stone, and The Hollywood Reporter.
Who is hosting the 83rd Golden Globes?
Despite the ongoing debate, the show must go on. Funny lady Nikki Glaser will emcee the event for her second year in a row.
She will be backed up by many talented presenters, such as George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Macaulay Culkin, Kevin Hart, Snoop Dogg, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Queen Latifah, and Regina Hall.
Heated Rivalry fans will delight in seeing stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie outside of the “boy aquarium.”
Where are the 83rd Golden Globes being held?
The 2026 Golden Globes Awards will take place at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. This has been its permanent venue since 1961.
Who is being honored at the 83rd Golden Globes?
This is the first year that the Globes are presenting Golden Week, featuring multiple events leading up to the big night.
One of these is a new prime-time special called Golden Eve, during which the Cecil B. DeMille Award and the Carol Burnett Award, for outstanding contributions in film and television, will be formally presented.
Helen Mirren will receive the former, and Sarah Jessica Parker, the latter. This event aired on Thursday, January 8, but if you missed it, you can watch it after the fact on Paramount+.
Who is nominated for a 2026 Golden Globe Award?
In the movie world, One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Andersons dark action comedy, leads the pack with nine nominations.
Closely on its heels is the Norwegian film Sentimental Value, starring Stellan Skarsgrd. Ryan Cooglers Sinners has seven nods, while Chloé Zhaos Hamnet received six.
Both Wicked: For Good and Frankenstein were honored with five nominations.
In the television realm, HBOs White Lotus continues its dominance at the Globes with six nominations, while all of Netflixs shows combined received 22.
The proposed merger between Netflix and HBO’s parent company could potentially increase Netflixs laurels. Adolescence came in second place with five nods. Only Murders in the Building and Severance tied for third with four each.
How to watch the Golden Globes pre-show
If you are in it for the fashion, you have red-carpet-arrivals viewing options. The official Golden Globes pre-show will be hosted by Varietys Marc Malkin and Angelique Jackson. It begins at 6:30 p.m. ET and can be viewed for free on Fire TV, Varietys YouTube channel, or Variety.com.
Live From E!: Golden Globes 2026 will be hosted by Zuri Hall, Justin Sylvester, and Keltie Knight from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET. It is available on the E! network and Peacock.
How to watch the 83rd Golden Globes
Now onto the main event: The 83rd Golden Globes ceremony will air on the CBS broadcast network and on the Paramount+ streaming service.
The awards take place tonight (Sunday, January 11) from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET.
You will need the Paramount+ Premium service to stream the event in real time. Those with Paramount+ Essential subscriptions will have to wait until the next day to view the awards show.
If Paramount+ is not in your streaming arsenal, consider other live-TV streaming services that carry CBS, such as DirecTV, Fubo, or Hulu + Live TV.
Just be sure to double-check regional differences before committing to another monthly subscription.
And remember that CBS is free if you have an over-the-air antenna.
When the inevitable robot uprising comes, Ill be ready, thanks to some valuable lessons I picked up at CES. First, if given the choice of a dance off versus hand to hand combat, opt for the fight. Second, wear a cup when you do.
Robotics company Unitree showcased its G-1 humanoid robot at the show. The G-1 is a rarity in the robotic world in that its already on the market for under $15,000. Unitrees booth was an ongoing spectacle, surrounded by people eager for a close look at the dapperlooking unit, wearing a white shirt and button down vest, showcasing impressive dance skills, throwing down moves that even Shabba-Doo and Bugaloo Shrimp could respect.
There was another G-1, too — this one with a decidedly more combative directive.
By sheer luck, I found myself being asked if I’d like to strap on the gloves and go a round with the G-1. After being force-fed the technology for the better part of a week, I wasnt going to turn down an opportunity to whale on a robot.
The fight seemed fixed from the start, though. The G-1 had headgear. None was offered to myself or any other meatbag who stepped into the ring. Its gloves were a cherry red pair from Everlast. The ones velcro’d onto my hands? Salmon colored.
As the fight started, I knew I had a few advantages and a few disadvantages. The robot had me beat on strength and stamina, but I had the reach on it. I also had just enough boxing knowledge to know that the best approach was a combination of jabs and upper cuts and to keep my distance.
What I didn’t count on was that my height advantage meant that when the robot began swinging, it was mostly at crotch level.
I landed several solid shots on its chest cavity, sometimes hard enough to push it back and make it stagger — but, good grief, can that thing take a hit. It just kept coming.
The G-1 was terrible at protecting its head, so I focused my next round of punches square in where its nose would have been, had it had to worry about things like oxygen (which, by that point, I was gulping). That hardly slowed it down, but it might have caused some traumatic cranial injuries, as the robot then threw a wild punch combination in the air, completely off target.
In the interest of science, I did allow it to land a few hits (with my hip turned). While it wasnt utilizing all of its robotic strength when it hit me, I could feel it.
After about four minutes, the robot laid down on the ground and pretended to be knocked out — the company’s way of saying “Ok, time for someone else to have a turn.” When it hopped back up, we posed for a picture together. But I swear it looked ready to throw a few more jabs my way.
There are few things more evocative of the free American spirit and the nations wide-open spaces than the image of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle zooming down a stretch of empty highway. But while taking one of the legendary hogs for a spin may still be liberating for riders, the companys independent dealership owners are feeling an increasingly tight financial and business squeeze.
A rash of reports in recent weeks have sounded alarms about the troubles Harley dealers face, and the rising number of dealerships closing shop as a result. While Harley-Davidson still counts more than 650 of those locations in operation across the U.S., specialist automotive media warn that those numbers have been significantly decreasing as sales of the beefy motorcycles decline, and dealer operating costs grow.
I hate to admit this, but there are too many dealers for the number of new vehicles that are being sold today, second-generation Harley dealership owner George Gatto told the motorcycle publication RevZilla. Margins on the new bikes are the worst weve ever seen . . . Theyre not making any money.
As a result, owners of a growing number of Harley-Davidson dealerships have hung the Closed sign for good. Those include some well-known, high-profile stores in New York City and Florida, and the century-old Dudley Perkins location in San Francisco. But reports say many more closures in smaller cities and towns across the U.S. drew far less attention while adding to the tally of shuttered businesses.
That turn of events marks a swift reversal of Harley-Davidsons fortunes, and now leaves many independent dealers and the mother company itself fighting for survival.
As was the case with many companies selling comparatively expensive goods, the effects of COVID-19 created a sales boom for Harley-Davidson and its dealers. Government stimulus checks and rock-bottom interest rates allowed some consumers whod never had the money to afford a hog to buy one after 2020. More conservative consumers whod had the funds but waited also took the plunge.
Meanwhile, as happened in the auto sector, disrupted supply chains limited Harley inventories, allowing dealers to charge top dollar to customers they added to increasingly long waiting lists. Business had never been so good.
Flush with rising revenue, many dealership owners splurged on upgrades and expansions of their showrooms. Those who didnt were eventually obliged to do so by Harley-Davidson corporate policies that require dealers to abide by centralized rules, and adopt decisions made by the mothership.
But once those dealership improvement investments were madedriving occupation, heat, and maintenance costs higher as a resultthe sales boom petered out. Consumers facing spiking inflation, rising interest rates, tightening job markets, and other hardening realities of post-pandemic life could no longer give $24,000 to $40,000 Harleys another thought.
But at the same time, motorcycles churned out by manufacturers seeking to catch up with demand continued flowing into showrooms, further boosting dealer inventory costs. The same was true of Harley-Davidson-branded motorcycle equipment.
Even as that gear gushed into dealerships, Harley-Davidson corporate managers continued developing their booming e-commerce platform, which cut out intermediaries like dealers by selling directly to consumers.
They overproduced, so what do they do? Gatto said of the converging developments that cost dealers dearly. They mark it down 40%, 50%, 60% online, with free shipping. Why would you go into a dealership when youre getting half off online?
According to the recent reports, Harley-Davidsons corporate leadershipnow led by new CEO Artie Starrs, who took over in Octoberresponded to the downturn by shrinking the list of centralized rules dealers must follow. The company reduced other requirements, including minimum inventory volumes, to help ease financial pressure on dealership owners.
While that may ease some of the pain, the fear is that continually falling demand may prove the far more dangerous threat. The COVID-era boom aside, Harley-Davidsons unit sales have dropped by 45% over the past decade. That was again reflected in the companys third quarter 2025 results, which reported a global sales decline of 6%5% in the U.S.
Those latter figures led Morningstar analyst Jaime Katz to warn that it will take a lot of work, and a lasting return of robust sales, for Harley-Davidson and its independent dealers to start riding easy again.
There is little evidence that a recovery for motorcycle demand is in the cards anytime soon, Katz wrote in an investors memo following third-quarter results. After multiple years of inventory reduction at dealers, the firm has yet to find equilibrium and has signaled further unit reductions to protect dealer profitability.
By Bruce Crumley
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister site, Inc.com.
Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
When a grizzly bear attacked a group of fourth- and fifth-graders in western Canada in late November 2025, it sparked more than a rescue effort for the 11 people injuredfour with severe injuries. Local authorities began trying to find the specific bear that was involved in order to relocate or euthanize it, depending on the results of their assessment.
The attack, in Bella Coola, British Columbia, was very unusual bear behavior and sparked an effort to figure out exactly what had happened and why. That meant finding the bear involvedwhich, based on witness statements, was a mother grizzly with two cubs.
Searchers combed the area on foot and by helicopter and trapped four bears. DNA comparisons to evidence from the attack cleared each of the trapped bears, and they were released back to the wild. After more than three weeks without finding the bear responsible for the attack, officials called off the search.
The case highlights the difficulty of identifying individual bears, which becomes important when one is exhibiting unusual behavior. Bears tend to look a lot alike to people, and untrained observers can have a very hard time telling them apart. DNA testing is excellent for telling individuals apart, but it is expensive and requires physical samples from bears. Being trapped and having other contact with humans is also stressful for them, and wildlife managers often seek to minimize trapping.
Recent advances in computer vision and other types of artificial intelligence offer a possible alternative: facial recognition for bears.
As a cultural anthropologist, I study how scientists produce knowledge and technologies, and how new technology is transforming ecological science and conservation practices. Some of my research has looked at the work of computer scientists and ecologists making facial recognition for animals. These tools, which reflect both technological advances and broader popular interest in wildlife, can reshape how scientists and the general public understand animals by getting to know formerly anonymous creatures as individuals.
New ways to identify animals
A facial recognition tool for bears called BearID is under development by computer scientists Ed Miller and Mary Nguyen, working with Melanie Clapham, a behavioral ecologist working for the Nanwakolas Council of First Nations, conducting applied research on grizzly bears in British Columbia.
It uses deep learning, a subset of machine learning that makes use of artificial neural networks, to analyze images of bears and identify individual animals. The photos are drawn from a collection of images taken by naturalists at Knight Inlet, British Columbia, and by National Park Service staff and independent photographers at Brooks River in Katmai National Park, Alaska.
Bears bodies change dramatically from post-hibernation skinny in the spring to fat and ready for winter in the fall. However, the geometry of each bears facethe arrangement of key features like their eyes and noseremains relatively stable over seasons and years.
BearID uses an algorithm to locate bear faces in pictures and make measurements between those key features. Each animal has a unique set of measurements, so a photograph of one taken yesterday can be matched with an image taken some time ago.
In addition to helping identify bears that have attacked humans or are otherwise causing trouble for people, identifying bears can help ecologists and wildlife managers more accurately estimate bear population sizes. And it can help scientific research, like the behavioral ecology projects Clapham works on, by allowing individual tracking of animals and thus better understanding of bear behavior.
Miller has built a web tool to automatically detect bears in the webcams from Brooks River that originally inspired the project. The BearID team has also been working with Rebecca Zug, a professor and director of the carnivore lab at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, to develop a bear identification model for Andean bears to use in bear ecology and conservation research in Ecuador.
Animal faces are less controversial
Human facial recognition is extremely controversial. In 2021, Meta ended the use of its face recognition system, which automatically identified people in photographs and videos uploaded to Facebook. The company described it as a powerful technology that, while potentially beneficial, was currently not suitable for widespread use on its platform.
In the years following that announcement, Meta gradually reintroduced facial recognition technology, using it to detect scams involving public figures and to verify users identities after their accounts had been breached.
When used on humans, critics have called facial recognition technology the plutonium of AI and a dangerous tool with few legitimate uses. Even as facial recognition has become more widespread, researchers remain convinced of its dangers. Researchers at the American Civil Liberties Union highlight the continued threat to Americans constitutional rights posed by facial recognition and the harms caused by inaccurate identifications.
For wildlife, the ethical controversies are perhaps less pressing, although there is still potential for animals to be harmed by people who are using AI systems. And facial recognition could help wildlife managers identify and euthanize or relocate bears that are causing significant problems for people.
A focus on specific animals
Wildlife ecologists sometimes find focusing on individual animals problematic. Naming animals may make them seem less wild. Names that carry cultural meaning can also frame peoples interpretations of animal behavior. As the Katmai rangers note, humans may interpret the behaviors of a bear named Killer differently than one named Fluffy.
Wildlife management decisions are meant to be made about groups of animals and areas of territory. When people become connected to individual animals, including by naming them, decisions become more complicated, whether in the wild or in captivity.
When people connect with particular animals, they may object to management decisions that harm individuals for the sake of the health of the population as a whole. For example, wildlife managers may need to move or euthanize animals for the health of the broader population or ecosystem.
But knowing and understanding bears as individual animals can also deepen the fascination and connections people already have with bears.
For example, Fat Bear Week, an annual competition hosted by explore.org and Katmai National Park, drew over a million votes in 2025 as people campaigned and voted for their favorite bear. The winner was Bear 32, also known as Chunk. Chunk was identified in photographs and videos the old-fashioned way, based on human observations of distinguishing characteristicssuch as a large scar across his muzzle and a broken jaw.
In addition to identifying problematic animals, I believe algorithmic tools like facial recognition could help an even broader audience of humans deepen their understanding of bears as a whole by connecting with one or two specific animals.
Emily Wanderer is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
However uncertain the outlook is for the American auto industry in the age of tariffs, growing competition from China, and the rise of EV upstarts, the view inside the new boardroom at General Motors is stylishly optimistic.
Part of the automaker’s new corporate headquarters that’s opening January 12, the boardroom is a large and elegant space with a massive marble table surrounded by mainstay elements of mid-century modern design. Fluted wood wall treatments, subtle curves, geometric overhead lighting, minimalist bench seating, and sweeping views of a changing downtown Detroit combine to create a physical manifestation of how GM sees itself evolving through the 21st centurydrawing on the past while looking to the future.
When so much of the car industry can feel tossed in an ever-changing sea, the boardroom and the rest of GM’s headquarters evoke a steadier throughline of ambition and legacy.
[Photo: GM]
“It’s culture setting,” says David Massaron, GM’s vice president of infrastructure and corporate citizenship. “I think this space really does a great job of being a beacon of who we want to be, what our identity is. … A headquarters really serves as a reinforcing notion of our culture, of who we are.”
[Photo: GM]
Filling four floors and about 200,000 square feet in a brand-new 12-story tower in Detroit, the headquarters will serve as permanent office space for GM executives and employees in the finance, legal, marketing, and communications departments, and will have open workstations. In contrast to GM’s previous headquarters in the troubled Renaissance Center complex a mile away, the new space is much smaller and more manageable, with room for hundreds of employees, not thousands.
Its design draws heavily on GM’s past. The overarching design language of the space comes from the mid-century modern design of the company’s main real estate footprint, the GM Technical Center, in suburban Warren, Michigan.
[Photo: GM]
Designated a National Historic Landmark, the complex first opened in 1956 with a stunning design by architect Eero Saarinen that let modernist design loose on corporate America and accelerated its infusion into the homes, furnishings, and products of the post-war world. Saarinen’s streamlined design put an emphasis on natural materials and light, and brought art into and around the buildings on the campus in a holistic way.
[Photo: GM]
Crystal Windham, GM’s executive director of global industrial design, says that legacy deeply influenced her team’s approach to the new headquarters space, which was designed with the Gensler architecture firm. Elements of mid-century modernism, and Saarinen’s Technical Center specifically, wound their way into the headquarters in a wide variety of forms, from furniture pieces and material choices to the artwork on the walls.
“Because of the history and the respect for that, there are all types of interpretations here. There are details within it that you can play up or play down. It’s a full palette of moments to pull from,” Windham says.
Some elements are literal recreations. On the wall next to a waiting area outside top executive offices, steel picture frames that mount to the floor and ceiling are near-exact replicas of frames Saarinen designed for the Technical Center campus.
[Photo: GM]
Other items are drawn directly from GM’s large archive. Historic drawings from the company’s 49,000-deep setof patent applications are peppered throughout the space, including in a ring of wallpaper near the top of the building’s atrium. Other notable patents are framed in executives’ officesa mechanical heart in CEO Mary Barra’s, and the first automatic gearshift changer in president Mark Reuss’s.
Scale models of cars, old and new, can be seen in almost any direction. Touches of automotive materials can also be found throughout the space, from throw pillows made out of the interior fabric used in 1956 Cadillacs to chrome pendant lights that recall muscle car tailpipes.
[Photo: GM]
“What we loved when we were working on this project was just going back and relooking at our history,” says Rebecca Waldmeir, design manager of architecture and experience at GM. “[Saarinen] would say that when you’re trying to design spaces to relate to each other, they need to sing the same message. We need to sing some of that message into our space, too.”
This ethos has made its way into the otherwise contemporary setting of this new 12-story mixed-use building in the heart of downtown Detroit. Alongside a 49-story hotel and condo tower, the building is part of the $1.4 billion Hudson’s Detroit project developed by Bedrock, the real estate firm that billionaire Dan Gilbert has steered to redeveloping large swaths of Detroit’s once-crumbling downtown.
[Photo: GM]
For all its effort in honoring a rich design legacy, the headquarters is still a headquarters, with spaces made for the work of a multibillion-dollar corporation to get done. The executive offices and other hoteling workspaces are outfitted with office furniture from Halcon, and there’s at least one Eames lounge chair on the premises.
[Photo: GM]
Shared workspaces are buffered from more active circulation areas, and most of the main executive areas have lounge-like waiting spaces that can double as informal meeting spaces during downtimes. That huge marble table in the executive boardroom was fabricated in GM’s own facilitytypically used to make concept cars and scale modelsand designed to have a solid flat surface free of the holes and ports of modern IT equipment. All that infrastructure is hidden away.
[Photo: GM]
“We wanted, first of all, for the look and feel to be appropriately placed for the time, to be timeless in and of itself, and the layout to be very flexible for many uses and very open and collaborative,” Windham says.
[Photo: GM]
The design also left room for some intentionally contemporary elements. A hallway on each floor features a series of artworks that turn the sound signatures of GM vehicles into abstracted soundwaves. And a vestibule outside the bathrooms on the executive floor is decorated with custom-made wallpaper showing stacks of cassette tapes of some of the estimated 80,000 songs that reference GM carsfrom “Little Red Corvette” and “Pink Cadillac” to the countless country songs featuring Chevy trucks.
[Photo: GM]
The mere existence of this headquarters carries its own message, as GM leaves the Renaissanc Center. Plans are still forming between GM and Bedrock over how to deal with the largely empty 5-million-square-foot space, but GM isn’t looking back. The new headquartersa much smaller footprint, more centrally located in a resurgent downtownrepresents a new chapter for the company’s long history of innovation.
“Being in the middle of the city, being part of that vibrancy is really leaning into the dynamic change that the industry is going through,” Massaron says. “We’re trying to remind ourselves and the world that we’re ready to lead and we’re going to continue to lead.”
Most business leaders view themselves primarily as “productive” rather than “creative.” Productivity is often associated with measurable outcomes, such as efficiency, consistency, and task completion. Creativity, by contrast, is frequently perceived as spontaneous, unpredictable, and elusive. Yet, productivity and creativity are not at odds. In fact, they reinforce each other powerfully.
Leaders who successfully integrate productive habits with creative practices can unlock new levels of innovation, effectiveness, and personal fulfillment. A global Adobe survey found that 75% of professionals report growing pressure to be productive rather than creative at work, while only 25% believe theyre living up to their creative potential. This creativity gap reveals a systemic imbalance: leaders may be achieving efficiency, but theyre underperforming on innovation.
Productivity Without Creativity Leads to Stagnation
Many leaders find themselves trapped in cycles of productivity: checking off tasks, hitting deadlines, and running efficient meetings. However, overemphasizing productivity metrics at the expense of creativity can lead to stagnation, disengagement, and missed opportunities for innovation. According to Gallup, disengagement costs the global economy $8.8 trillion annually. And disengaged leaders set the tone for disengaged teams. In our work with executives, we often hear the same lament: Im getting things done, but I dont feel like I am getting anywhere. The problem isnt a lack of effort. Its that productivity without creativity produces motion without momentum.
Creativity Needs Discipline
The myth of creativity is that it arrives in spontaneous bursts of inspiration. In reality, creativity flourishes when it rests on a foundation of discipline. Cliff knows this from his dual roles. As a songwriter, he leans on courage, openness, and uncertainty. As a recording engineer, he thrives on precision, technical structure, and predictable workflow. Each role strengthens the other. The order of the studio makes space for creative leaps in songwriting. The risks of songwriting push him to keep the studio at peak performance.
Similarly, in my own work, Ive seen how structure creates room for insight. In leadership workshops, I utilize tools like the Illuminated Cubea reflective exercise that provides a framework for individuals to surface their hidden strengths. The structure isnt the end; its the container that makes creativity possible.
As organizational psychologist Adam Grant points out, productivity isnt about more output; its about quality output. And quality often comes from pairing disciplined focus with creative risk-taking. In Grants view, a disciplined focus allows individuals to produce fewer, higher-quality ideas that have a greater overall impact. Disciplined practice also builds the resilience needed to navigate creative challenges and maintain consistency.
Your Spaces Matter, Too
Leaders often underestimate the impact of their environment. But organized spacesboth physical and mentalmake breakthroughs more likely. Cliffs recording studio is a model of meticulous organization. Everything is in its place, technically reliable, and ready to go. That structure frees him to explore ideas in songwriting, knowing the foundations wont fail. He also maintains a daily haiku practicea tiny ritual that trains his creative muscles consistently over time.
Small practices like these work for leaders too: quick journaling, five-minute brainstorms, reflective pauses before meetings. These micro-habits signal to the brain: This is a space where creativity belongs.
Kate ONeill, founder of KO Insights, employs similar strategies, using structured prompts and systematic reminders to maintain consistent creative output amidst demanding productivity schedules. This disciplined consistency allows ONeill to seamlessly integrate creativity into her everyday activities, resulting in more impactful and innovative work.
Incorporating small, consistent creative rituals into daily routines can significantly improve leadership effectiveness. Activities like quick journaling, brief brainstorming sessions, or reflective writing help leaders systematically foster creativity, encouraging long-term innovation and adaptability.
The Creative-Productive Zone
The biggest shift is identity. Too many leaders see themselves as either productive or creative. But the most impactful leaders integrate both. For me, this came from reconciling two identities: The strategist and the artist. For years, I thought of them as separate worlds. However, when I began blending artistic practicessuch as visual thinking, storytelling, and pattern-makinginto my leadership development work, my impact expanded. Creativity didnt dilute my productivity; it deepened it.
Cliffs path illustrates the same lesson. His creativity as a songwriter is inseparable from the technical precision of his engineering work. Together, they create a rhythm of freedom within structure. This integration is what we call the creative-productive zone: a state where structure supports exploration and exploration fuels progress.
How to Harness Productivity and Creativity Together
Bringing productivity and creativity into balance doesnt happen by accident; it requires intention. The good news is that you dont need sweeping overhauls to start. Often, its the smallest shifts in routine and mindset that unlock the most significant breakthroughs. By making space for both discipline and imagination, leaders create the conditions where innovation feels less like a gamble and more like a habit. Here are four practical ways leaders can start today:
1. Build Creative Rituals into Routine. Add small, repeatable practicesa haiku, a sketch, a reflective questionthat keep your creative muscles strong.
2. Organize for Freedom. Create reliable structures (clear processes, tidy workspaces, predictable rhythms) so your mind is free to take risks.
3. Alternate Modes. Design your calendar with intentional blocks for both focused execution and open exploration. Dont try to do both at once.
4. Audit Your Balance. Ask: Am I measuring only outputs? Where am I creating space for ideas, not just tasks?
The future of leadership isnt choosing between productivity and creativity. Its mastering both. When you create the structures that support your craft and the rituals that spark your imagination, you dont just get things done, you create things worth doing.
The leaders who thrive will be those who can deliver results and inspire, who can hit deadlines and spark breakthroughs. In a world overflowing with efficiency, its the capacity to generate meaning and originality that sets you apart. Productivity makes you reliable; creativity makes you unforgettable. The challenge and the opportunity lie in embracing both with equal intention.
