The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has wrapped up its cuts to federal job roles and completed its push against consulting firms. Next on the list: IT service providers supplying systems and services to federal agencies.
Following a directive from DOGE, the General Services Administration (GSA) sent letters to Dell, CDW, and other IT vendors, asking for evidence that their contract pricing is competitive and that their services cant be performed by government employees. The GSA argues that federal tech needs are often less complex than what vendors deliver, and not everything needs to be outsourced.
The move marks a shift toward bringing more digital services in-house. Im fully in alignment with the need to in-house government capacity and government services, says Merici Vinton, a former U.S. Digital Service official. But, Vinton adds, with the situation right now, I have not seen DOGE build anything or actually do anything in-house. DOGE may have ambitious goals, but a working model could come from an unexpected source: one of former DOGE chief Elon Musks least-favorite countries: the U.K.
Before 2010, the U.K. governments digital services were fragmented. A 2010 report recommended a unified online platform. Two years later, the beta version of GOV.UK launched and has since won multiple awards. Digital is a core function of a modern state, says Richard Pope, author of Platformland and one of the original architects of GOV.UK. That’s as true now as it was in the 2010s when GOV.UK was built by an in-house GDS team.
Its a model the U.S. could follow. Whether it will is another question. Ann Kempster, a U.K. consultant with experience delivering digital services both inside and outside of government, notes that while DOGE wants to mirror the U.K. model, it also laid off the very staff who could have made it work. They had things like the U.S. Digital Service and 18F, the internal consultancy, that were born out of Government Digital Service and all of the work that we did here [in the U.K.], she says. Both teams were early casualties of DOGEs cost-cutting. They had that expertise in house, and they sacked them all. You have to wonder why they’ve done that.
A recent report from the Niskanen Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, echoes that concern, advising against slashing consulting contracts without first ensuring adequate in-house expertise.
The U.S. is hardly alone in rethinking digital public services. It’s a pattern that’s visible around the world, says Pope, from India and Ukraine, who have been investing heavily in digital public infrastructure, to Germany and South Africa, who have recently announced similar efforts to build state digital capacity.
Having governments, not outside vendors, build and maintain digital infrastructure is not just smart policy, Pope argues; its essential. To outsource digital public services and infrastructurethings like data exchange, welfare systems, and healthcareis to outsource the capacity to govern.
Vinton shares that concern, pointing to the federal governments deep reliance on contractors. The vast majority of systems are built, run, and maintained by vendors, she says. I think that is a threat to our government capacity, our national security, and our economic security. Still, she cautions, bringing services in-house won’t work unless the government builds the teams to do it well.
While top business leaders are increasingly investing in AI and other advanced technologies, many are not seeing anticipated returns. In fact, a survey published in May 2025 by the IBM Institute for Business Value found that only 25% of AI initiatives have delivered expected ROI over the last few years.
This is not surprising among those who have seen their share of tech implementations. Organizations have long struggled to add and integrate the most advantageous new platforms without losing time, momentum, and often market share. Among adoptions that do come in on time and on budget, relatively few yield the intended big-picture results.
Integration lapses
This reflects the tendency of leaders to separate their IT and people needs into separate categories when tech adoptions require them to focus on both simultaneously. Even the most forward-thinking executives who invest in robust change management often completely delegate this responsibility, detaching themselves from their peoples implementation experiences.
These lapses are becoming increasingly hazardous as individuals across generations internalize adverse views of AI and even act on them in alarming ways. For example, a March 2025 study by generative AI platform Writer found that 31% of employeesincluding 41% of Gen Z workersadmit to sabotaging their companys AI strategy by refusing to adopt AI. As a result, roughly two-thirds of executives say adoption efforts have led to tension and division within their organization, with 42% suggesting its tearing their company apart.
New perspective
To fully harness the power of todays most innovative tools, leaders must adjust the lens through which they view technology and recognize the outsized influence their people will have before, during, and after implementation processes. This shift in thinking will make it possible for them to fully embrace proven, though underutilized, people-first tech adoption strategies that help drive meaningful returns.
These strategies include:
1. Meet your people where they are
While top leaders spend extensive time and energy contemplating the wisdom of changes before driving them forward, their people are granted little such runway. Intellectually and emotionally, theyre playing catch up, and thus require patience on the part of leaders as well as highly tailored communication and direction that creates and enhances alignment.
2. Emphasize the why
To help team members believe, comprehend, and appreciate the rationale behind AI and other tech implementations, leaders should deliver a compelling, authentic, consistent narrative. Done well, such effort will help employees understand the all-important why, a key first step toward internalizing, accepting, and fully utilizing new technologies.
3. Consider systemic impact
While some technologies lead to groundbreaking efficiencies, many create new, unforeseen challenges, especially at the people level. Organizations should be proactive about identifying such risks, addressing potential and emerging issues through a variety of tools, from workstream design to communications and training.
4. Foster change agility
The AI technology of even six months ago is very different from today, and will be different again in another six months, necessitating that leaders prepare their organizations for future and ongoing tech adoptions. This will require companies to shed legacy cultures of change resistance in favor of change agilityefforts that are especially important in historically change-adverse industries, like healthcare.
5. Stay focused on leading
With countless competing priorities, its tempting for top leaders to delegate their organizations tech implementation efforts. Yet the gravity of todays AI evolution requires their active participation and leadership across all stages of the adoption work, from shaping the narrative to outlining critical success factors, to communicating the importance of the change.
Keeping ahead
Fundamentally, todays AI era is as rooted in people issues as it is in technology issues, necessitating human capital-oriented approaches. Leaders that internalize this reality can best harness the power of novel technologies as a means of driving transformational, profitable, and sustainable improvements, staying ahead of the competition and generating returns on AI investments.
Today, Lego is dipping its toes into a massive world of IP that it hasnt explored in nearly 100 years as a brand: anime. The company is gearing up to release a new line of sets inspired by One Piece, the popular manga and anime series thats now also a live-action show from Netflixmarking the first time Lego has adapted an anime property.
The collaboration includes five unique sets inspired by Netflixs 2023 adaptation of One Piece, which was originally published as a manga comic 1997 and made into an iconic anime show in 1999. When Netflixs interpretation of the series, co-produced by Tomorrow Studios, launched its first season in 2023, it spent eight weeks in Netflixs Global Top 10 Shows list, debuting at the top of the charts in 46 countries and amassing 71.6 million views in four months. The second season is expected to drop in 2026.
[Photo: Lego]
It appears that Lego sees an opportunity to follow up on Netflixs success with its own win. Each of the five new sets, which range from $29.99 to $329.99, are inspired by the most recognizable locations in Netflixs One Piece. The sets are available for preorder today, and will officially become available on August 1.
Lego’s foray into the anime world makes sense for a brand that’s increasingly turning its focus from open-world sets to IP-based collections. In recent years, the company has doubled down on partnerships with properties like Back to the Future, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Marvel, Minecraft, and Super Mario World, to name a few. The strategy seems to be working: In its full-year 2024 report, Lego notched year-over-year revenue growth of 13%, totaling $10.53 billion.
For years, fans of both anime and Lego have waited for an eventual crossover of the two worlds; even designing their own Lego interpretations of properties like Naruto, My Neighbor Totoro, and K-On! Now, the dream is finally a reality.
[Photo: Lego]
A first for both Lego and ‘One Piece’
One Piece follows a young pirate, Monkey D. Luffy, and his crew, the Straw Hat Pirates, to find a legendary piece of treasure called One Piece. Netflix and Tomorrow Studios live-action version of the series was created in collaboration with the mangas creator, Eiichiro Oda. The crew used a combination of CGI and practical effects to mimic the cartoony aesthetic of the source material while capturing its whimsical, magic-infused settings. According to Andrew Hugh Seenan, Legos creative lead on the One Piece collection, the show has all the ingredients to make great Lego sets.
Its a seafaring world of adventure with a vast range of imaginative island locations, Seenan explains. It has a great range of diverse and unique characters, both good and bad, all with their own visual style, personalities, and abilities. There is also a clear mission and call to adventureto find the legendary One Piece treasure.
[Photo: Lego]
The effort to adapt One Piece into Lego bricks was a two-year collaboration that involved an ongoing back-and-forth between the shows designers and creatives and Legos design team. Josh Simon, Netflixs vice president of consumer products, says it was also crucial to receive support from Oda himself.
Together with Tomorrow Studios and Shueisha, we approached Oda-sensei with a vision to bring the beloved action series adaptation to life in Lego formthe first time in the history of the franchise, Simon says.
In a statement posted online, Oda wrote of the collaboration, Even now, I have dozens of Lego boxes piled up at my workplace that I havent even had time to dig into. Theres no cooler toy out there!! For 25 years since the anime started, Ive been asking for a Lego toy, and finally my dream is being fulfilled with a live-action collection!
[Photo: Lego]
If youre an executive, there might be a time when you find yourself showing up on edge. You feel burned out, frustrated, and confused. The symptoms are familiar: You take longer to make decisions that typically come easily to you. You find it harder to move your team. Your instinctsonce your superpowerstart to misfire. Naturally, you start to wonder if youre losing your touch.
But what if, instead of breaking down, youre shedding?
We often imagine leadership development as a ladderfrom novice to expert, beginner to master. But in practice, its more like biology than business school. Leaders molt. They evolve through distinct stages of identity and presenceshedding strategies that no longer serve them, and emerging into new shapes that fit the future more precisely.
In entomology, these stages are called instarsthe phases between molts in an insects development. Each instar is complete in itself but temporary. It worksuntil it doesnt. What comes next is the shedding. And with it, an invitation to morph into an expansive form.
Leadership operates in a similar rhythm. And what many executives label as burnout or stagnation is often the discomfort of outgrowing an old identity. They just dont have the language for the new one.
Through two decades of coaching founders, CEOs, and senior executives, Ive seen this pattern emerge again and again. A seasoned leader reaches an inflection point where the very instincts that once generated success become constraints. This isnt failure. They need to evolve.
Heres how that evolution tends to unfold.
Phase 1: The original form
This is the early phase of leadership where youre the center of gravity. This stage is scrappy, reactive, and high contact. You make decisions fast, stay close to the action, and operate by instinct. Control is direct. Culture is personal. Your presence moves the work.
However, this way of operating eventually breaks down. What once felt empowering becomes exhausting. As the complexity grows, your heroic effort becomes a bottleneck. In a world shaped by AI and automation, leadership is no longer about being everywhere. Instead, its about knowing where you matter most. At this point, you need to ask yourself, What is mine to do, and what do they need to do to release?
Phase 2: The first shedding
This is the first disorientation phase. Your shape no longer fitsbut youre still wearing it.
You start to feel friction where there used to be flow. You sense the team waiting for something youre no longer sure how to give. The leadership identity that once fit you like a glovethe driver, the fixer, the gluenow puts you in a bind.
To evolve accordingly, you need to think beyond letting go of tasks. Its about shifting power, narrative, and identity. Traditional leadership prized decisiveness. Todays systems require presence in ambiguity. Youre not just delegatingyoure metabolizing complexity. You need to stop being the answer and start asking questions about what you need to do to move your team forward.
Phase 3: Adaptation
This is when you begin leading through the system, rather than over it. That means designing clarity rather than delivering it. You influence ripples through structures, rhythms, and culture, not just directives. Youre building coherence, not dependence.
You start to notice that your team starts to make decisions without you, and things can work even when you’re not in the room. Rather than jumping in to solve problems, you sense when theyre coming and empower your team to do it on their own.
This is critical because legacy models taught leaders to control. But today, your leverage is in the conditions you create. Leadership becomes less about managing people and more about managing the systems ability to adapt. At this stage, you need to figure out what would allow this system to self-correct without you.
As aspirational and freeing as that sounds, this is the biggest unconscious hijack for most leaders. You’ve spent a lifetime being the one who gets it done. Suddenly, your team doesnt need you anymore.
And that means you experience loss. Loss of your identity. Loss of your place as the person people turned to for answers, even when you wanted them to stop asking. Many leaders will unconsciously create a way “back in,” a way to return to their identity as the person people turn to so they can get out of the discomfort.
To move to the next stage, you have to attach to a bigger purpose, and attend to your loss. Its real, and its an important stepping stone in your growth.
Phase 4: Resonance
This is the stage where leadership becomes coherent. Youre no longer relying on charisma or control. Youre building not just for this quarter, but for whats emerging (or trying to emerge) in the long term.
This is the kind of leadership that organizations need if they want to be sustainable and succeed in the long term. This type of leader can sense what the system needsbefore it asksand hold that signal long enough for it to take root.
Most leadership breakdowns dont come from incompetence. They come from trying to scale a shape that no longer fits. When leaders dont recognize the phase theyre in, they double down on outdated behaviors. They push when they need to pause. They demand clarity when they should be holding space. And they burn out chasing a version of leadership that was never meant to last.
While it might sound counterintuitive, growth isnt always forward. Sometimes its through. What distinguishes those who evolve isnt brilliance or brute force. Its the willingness to recognize when a season is endingand the courage to lead from the unknown before the next form reveals itself.
If youre a leader and youre feeling the friction, take the time to pause. You might just be going through a transformation that your organization desperately needs.
Whether it’s picking out a new brunch spot or deciding which pants to buy next, the influencer economy has cemented itself as a powerhouse in consumer decision-makingand copy-trading app Dub believes the stock market is next.
Founded in 2021 out of CEO Steven Wangs Harvard dorm room, the retail investment platform launched from stealth in February last year and has since amassed more than 1 million users.
“Especially during times of volatility like this, people need more help than ever to navigate how to invest,” Wang says. “People are seeing us as a trusted source to be able to find experts who guide them on how to invest and let them sort of do the hard work for you.”
After witnessing the impact of social media and investing through the infamous GameStop short squeeze in 2021, the 23-year-old founder set out to harness social media influence to benefit young investors.
Despite ongoing economic uncertainty, more than 62% of Americans own stock, and younger generations are showing growing interest in entering the market. Gen Zers, for example, are beginning to invest at age 19earlier than previous generationsand are often turning to social media for financial advice.
While Dub first gained traction by allowing users to copy high-profile investors like longtime California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and billionaire Warren Buffett, now the app also taps into the power of everyday creators, letting users copy and be copied by one another. (Politicians portfolios are not managed by the politicians themselves, but rather Dub advisers, and may take up to 45 days to update depending on their financial filing.)
Functioning as a marketplace ecosystem, the app allows users to browse in-app creators, with visible returns displayed on-screen, offering a transparent and accessible experience for young investors.
“It’s kind of like an eBay or an Amazon,” Wang says. “You can shop through all the different people who might interest or align with your investing style, your investing thesis. Or you might be enthused by their track record and their great performance.”
Headquartered in New York City, Dub has raised $47 million in funding, including a $30 million Series A round in early May, and is growing quickly. Notable investors include Nathan Rodland of Robinhood, Dara Khosrowshahi of Uber, and major firms such as Notable Capital and Tusk Venture Partners.
Monetizing influence
In January of this year, the app launched its Top Creator Program through its registered investment adviser, allowing a select group of vetted, handpicked top performers to receive royalties.
One of the top creators is 28-year-old Kian Saidi, who started investing 10 years ago and has held various roles in the investment world. Before joining Dubwhere he runs the $UNUSUAL portfolio with $2.6 million under management and 1,500 people copy-trading himhe led the Owls Capital Discord group, sharing market insights with 2,800-plus users. His X account has also gained more than 60,000 followers for his financial commentary.
Through Dub, Saidis followers can ensure his returns are accurate and updated in real time, reflecting trades brokered directly within the app, while he continues to grow his audience.
“It was a win-win,” Saidi tells Fast Company.
In addition to monetization, he sees the creator program as a platform for young investors to showcase their skills. “Let’s say you’re interested in working for Goldman and JP Morgan,” he says. “You can showcase your performance on this app because you are only buying long stock . . . so it’s very similar to being on the floor.”
Learning while trading
Wang gained his trading insights long before his Harvard days (he says he got into investing in the second grade). But most young investors begin much later.
Daniel Tang, a 26-year-old early Dub user who works in the commodities trading industry in Houston, initially joined the app to diversify his investments but quickly discovered an unexpected benefit.
“I have a lot of insight on the commodities market, but I lack the ability to understand the equities market as much, so there are people I’m competing against where their full-time jobs is to look into the equity side of things, Tang says.
Tang especially likes that the app requires creators to explain their rebalancing decisions, noting that such transparency helps him learn from the experts he subscribes to.
“It gives me insight on the equities market that I could use even in my personal job,” he says.
The apps educational focus is designed to encourage beginners to start investing with more confidence.
“Most people never learn how to invest, and it’s one of the most powerful things that one can do,” Wang says. “The stock market is the compounding engine of capitalism, and is truly the most powerful way to make money in modern society.”
In the years following the pandemic, our workplace dress codes have become the most casual theyve ever been. For some, this shift has been welcomed with open arms. For those who enjoyed dressing up, it has felt like a departure from a wardrobe that made them feel confident and ready for their day. In the same way that some felt that pre-COVID dress codes were confining, others now feel the same kind of discomfort with an ultracasual work dress code.
Our workplaces have created a new unspoken expectation of how to dress that leaves little room for personal expression. In my work as a stylist, the feedback Ive been hearing is that rejecting the dress code will alienate people from their teamwhen in reality, dressing can, and should, be another way to bring your unique perspective to the workplace.
THE COST OF TRYING TO FIT IN
To avoid the risk of standing out, many professionals will dress like everyone else. Go into any workplace and youll quickly see similarities in what people are wearing.
In formal environments like banking, legal, or financial industries, youll be swimming in a sea of black, navy, beige, and other neutral-colored suits. When I worked in a small startup, where casual attire was encouraged, the norm was jeans (or yoga pants!), half-zip pullovers, and sneakers. I often felt out of place wearing my elevated jeans-and-blazer looks.
Yet, in ad agencies or trendy direct-to-consumer brands, quiet luxury may be on trend and relevant. Over time, our desire to adhere to these unspoken rules outweighs our desire to lean into self-expression.
Contrary to what weve been told, there is no one way to dress for success. Now that the dust has settled from our post-COVID phase, I believe the new norm of being comfortable in work attire isnt a rule for how to dress, but a call to dress in a way that is more authentic to who we are.
What standout professionals know is that dressing to appease or fit a standard can diminish your confidence and energy. But when you dress in a way that is true to you, you show up with more determination, focus, enjoyment, and confidence.
What would it look like, then, to embrace a new definition of comfort in your dress in the workplace?
Here are three tips to work with the current anything-goes dress code thats individual to youwithout sacrificing comfort.
Notice how your clothes make you feel
If you want to leverage clothes as a tool, get in tune with how they make you feel.
When you put on an outfit, does it give you energy? Does it make you feel like you want to be more social or speak up? Or does it make you feel like going back to bed and hiding under the covers?
The clothes that give you an extra lift will set your day up for aligned results. In a study that has become known as the Batman Effect, we learned that children ages 4 to 6 exhibited much greater determination, confidence, and focus when they worked on a boring task while wearing a cape that made them feel like Batman.
In another study, researchers Hajo Adam and Adam D. Galinsky concluded that what we wear affects how we think and behave, specifically our attentiveness and focus. This result was later coined as Enclothed Cognition.
All of this points to the fact that clothes are useful for more than status symbols and trends. They are tools we can use to access a different level of ourselves in the workplace and beyond.
Seek to stand out rather than fit in
The mark of a great brand isnt one that seeks to fit in, but to stand out. Your clothes, which are a part of your personal brand, are no different.
While wearing clothes that blend in with others in your industry may feel like the key to success (a mindset that might remind you of your high school days), the true marker of confidence is to express your most authentic self through your outfit.
In fact, think of the leaders in your workplace or your industry you admire. Do they wear what everyone else is wearing? Or do they forge their own path? Think of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg decades ago when they came onto the scene wearing clothes that bucked all work norms. It made the news because we all wondered, How could someone so successful show up wearing hoodies and sneakers?
Fast-forward to today: Some of my favorite female leaders who are daring to be bold and emblazon a new path with their style are Michelle Obama, Naima Judge, Rosalind Brewer, and Bozoma Saint John.
By owning their authenticity, they show us its okayand actually quite powerfulto be your authentic self. Judge was recently quoted saying, It takes energy to not be your authentic self. If I can be more authentic, I can then use my energy to focus on my clients and uplift the people who report to me.
I couldnt agree more.
Notice what rules and beliefs are holding you back
Over time, we all collect rules about what is acceptable (or not acceptable) to wear to work. These rules can be influenced by our own families or social circles but also can be defined by beliefs about dress surrounding our age, whether we have children, the industry we work in, and so on.
The rulessometimes without our realizing itcan become ingrained beliefs that affect our behaviors.
For example, if you work in an industry where everyone wears neutrals, you might subconsciously create a rule that neutrals are the only way to dress to be taken seriously. But if youre someone who loves color, questioning that rule might look like showing up in a teal suit that is not only professional but also showcases a part of your true self.
The first step in breaking free is to identify what rules have been guiding your decisions in terms of what to where and what you buy. A clue to determine whether these beliefs are unhelpful is if theyre focused on others’ expectations, rules, standards, and unquestioned beliefs. Then, ask yourself, Is this a rule that is still relevant and true in my life? Often, simply questioning whats true is the pathway to freedom and making choices that are more aligned with your authentic self.
While having less guidance on what to wear to work can feel frustrating, consider how it can also be liberating. Finallyfinally!we get to wear what makes us feel most like ourselves. And when you start to think of your clothes not just as a fashion statement but as fuel to achieve your goals, you realize the power that choosing your outfit each day holds.
My plane had just landed. I was anxious to get to the office after the departure of our team leader, a reduction in force culling hundreds of jobs just days before, and an organizational move to an unfamiliar part of the enterprise. As my teams senior ranking member, I needed to help process everything together.
I turned on my phone to a deluge of texts. Please call as soon as possible, my colleague wrote. Is everything okay? I responded. No, she replied.
I called her as the plane taxied my crammed flight to the gate. Priya, she said, Ashley died. She took her own life.
The words echoed in my headstrange sounds that made no sense and didnt feel real. Ashley had been a valued member of the team, a well-loved and developing leader whose deep empathy, perpetual curiosity, and strong work ethic were constant reminders of the nature and value of our role within the company. I didnt quite believe what I was hearing.
Sobbing from the other side of the line pulled me back. I instantly donned the mantle of doctor. I had to help my friends and colleagues through thisand separate my own emotion from what needed to be done. It was going to be my job to tell the rest of my team.
As an emergency physician, I was the one who told people their loved ones had died. I never expected to do the same in corporate America. And despite working for a healthcare company, Id soon learn Id have to do it with little support. The systems I was used to in the hospital were not in place here.
Every Companys Duty
We live in volatile times. Suicide rates in the U.S. spiked 36% over the past two decades, with nearly 50,000 deaths in 2023 alone. Across the country, job stability is tenuous, risking employer health insurance coverage. Mental health services are beyond capacity. Amid billions slashed in mental health funding and threats to Medicaid coverage, the situation will likely worsen.
These tragedies impact the workforce, though precisely how depends on the level and caliber of systems-level organization and preparedness. Even in healthcare companies, clinical expertise and informed leadership can be systemically lacking. When I ran into this absence of coordinated systems, I used skills honed in the emergency departmentthrough treating gunshots, heart attacks, and COVID-19to help my team.
But what if corporate America turned lessons from emergency medicine into a systems-level approach to suicide? We might turn tragedy into psychological safetyimproving employee loyalty, productivity, and longevityto the benefit of the business. Heres how.
1. Build a Coordinated Team and Established Process
When a patient presents to the emergency department in a critical state, the team springs into action. The doctor, nurses, and emergency techs focus on the patient, while security, social work, and pastoral care workers support loved ones. In crises, everyone has a role.
Under high-pressure circumstances, a single decision could result in death. Protocols such as American Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) and American Trauma Life Support (ATLS) standardize our approaches and maximize opportunity for survival. Large companies should adopt crisis management protocols describing who and how theyll support employees after suicide and other workplace traumas, instead of avoiding such in hope that suicide would be a rare event. Delineating processes, roles, and responsibilities mitigates variation and disorganization while enabling prompt response and engagement.
Thats fundamental because failing to quickly address a suicide can increase misinformation, distrust, and anxiety.
2. Communicate Immediately and Clearly
After communicating with her family, I wanted to tell my team about Ashley face-to-face, just as I would in the emergency department. I also wanted to secure resources should anyone need support. On the cab ride from the airport, I engaged our human resources team and asked for crisis counseling on-site. I reserved a private space on campus for the entire team to gather.
Out of respect and dignity not only for Ashley but also for the team as a whole, it was critical that the news was shared in a safe space from a trusted source. Hearing such through the rumor mill would undermine the honor I held central to the process. Human resources teams and leaders should model dignity and respectand not be the source of word-of-mouth spread.
Death-telling is an evidence-driven process that includes a few key actions: gathering loved ones together, providing resources, and meeting people where they are, which means immediately setting context, using clear words such as died, and allowing time and space to process the information.
A few hours after I got to the office, it was time. Given the recent reduction in force, I had to stave off my teams top-of-mind fear. First, I said, our jobs are secure. Then I told them Ashley had died.
We dont know all the details, I said, but we know she died by suicide.
I fell silent, giving space for the shock and emotion that followed, while my own heart broke for everyone. As a close-knit team, sadness shrouded all of us, settling into the room. The air felt heavier. The silence was replaced by gasps and tears.
After some time, I made a simple promise: Im here for anything you need. Well get through this together.
3. Provide Visible and Tangible Support
Suicide is a contagion. Exposure may increase the risk of suicidal thoughts, behaviors, and depression.
In the aftermath, companies typically provide information about employee assistance programs or counseling services to help people cope with grief. But merely pointing to resources rather than providing them can make the people processing shock feel overwhelmed. They may perceive it as absent support.
Postvention is a process designed to quash the contagion. It alleviates the effects of stress, helping survivors through immediate, short-term, and long-term responses.
Visible and strong workplace leadership, with a willingness to discuss and serve as an ongoing resource, is effective in postvention efforts. But when leaders neither acknowledge nor offer safety following the suicide of an employee, that void can feel dehumanizing and propagate stigma. If an organization cannot talk about suicide, experts have noted, it cannot properly support those impacted by it. Silence from leaders and HR can feel deafeningfurther undermining survivors sense of psychological safety and spurring feelings of isolation and neglect. Leaders who support collective mourning, through memorials or gathering events, connect people while dispelling stigma.
4. Help Managers Through It
As we began grieving, I did everything I could to give the team space and permission to care for themselves. I cleared noncritical work and nonessential meetings and absorbed parts of their workload. As a physician, I knew each person would have different needs, based on their beliefs, cultural norms, and behaviors.
High-pressure postventions usually fall to direct managers, who often have minimal to no training. They may overlook their own trauma and grieving process while tending to the needs of the team and the business.
While strict hierarchical structures pervade corporate culture, leaders, including those in HR, should break rank amid crises. They should reach out beyond their direct reports to support the larger team. The better trained and available HR leaders are, the more they can alleviate the pressures on any one manager.
5. Debrief, Learn, and Improve
Organized debriefings with leaders to review processes, execution, and opportunities for improvement are standard practice in medicine and for first responders. This not only allows for continuous quality improvement, but also provides an opportunity for various members to voice their personal experiences. Time and space from an acute event brings clarity and refinement.
Following the suicide of a colleague, an organized debriefing supports the long-term aspect of the postvention. This is a collaborative exercise, anchored in safety and humility and based in learning and a drive to improve. Through honest feedback and critical evaluation, processes can be honed and the company can benefit as a whole.
Helping Employees Heal From Crisis
At a time when systems across the U.S. appear to be crumbling, corporate America has a valuable opportunity to assimilate humanity and empathy. Through processes and protocols, organizations can navigate crises by nurturing compassion, vulnerability, and shared healing. Thats essential to employee wellnesswhich is, in turn, essential to engagement and productivity.
But systems cant solve everything. Medicines most refined processes cant prevent the guilt that plagues most survivors of suicide.
I still struggle with the questions. Had I seen Ashley in the emergency department rather than the workplace, could I have spotted a warning sign and intervened? Had I fully understood how deeply the reorganization disrupted her sense of safety, what might I have done to mitigate it? Ill never have all the answers. I have only the lessons learned from a tragedy no leader wants to endure but for which every leader must prepare.
Ashley left an indelible mark on all of us, both in life and in her absence. The shock and grief may never be gone, and a disappointment in company culture may linger. But our team got through the crisis togetherjust as Id promised.
With the Atlantic hurricane season underway and another record-hot summer ahead, corporate America is entering its most volatile stretch of the year. From tariffs to extreme weather, todays risks are hitting supply chains, markets, and investor confidence.
The environment turns every natural or man-made crisis into a business liability. If youre a CEO, board member, or C-suite leader, this is your wake-up call and your moment to prepare. To help, we offer a warning of an emerging threat to be ready for: misinformation.
Recent leadership shifts, political interference, and funding uncertainty have exposed cracks in the countrys crisis response infrastructure. If government systems cant keep up with the pace of crisis this year and beyond, businesses cant afford to wait. And misinformation cannot go unchecked or ignored.
A new front has opened that plays out on the digital battlefield of public perception, where misinformation spreads faster than facts. Lies are sensational, loud, and sticky. The truth? Its often slower and more complexand yes, sometimes boring. That imbalance is where real damage happens.
The New Crisis Reality
In any crisiswhether a public health emergency, cyberattack, or natural disastercommunication is as vital as the response itself. In todays hyperpolarized landscape, weve already seen the consequences of misinformation, which offer a sobering preview of whats ahead.
During the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, social media-fueled panic overshadowed official response efforts. In 2021s Colonial Pipeline cyberattack, misinformation triggered unnecessary fuel shortages across the eastern U.S.
In Maui, conspiracy theories about the Lahaina wildfires spread faster than emergency warnings. During last falls Hurricanes Helene and Milton, disinformation delayed life-saving actions, disrupted coordination with cross-sector partners, and triggered real-world threats of violence against federal employees. And during the Los Angeles wildfires, AI images of the Hollywood sign engulfed in flames circulated widely online, further straining a community trying to recover.
Misinformation isnt just accidental. Its being weaponized. Foreign adversaries like China, Russia, and Iran actively exploit crises to deepen divisions, discredit institutions, and disrupt coordinated responses. We also see this challenge at home, where opportunists or inaccurate reporting are driven by ideology or self-interest to spread false narratives that lead to fear, confusion, and preventable missteps.
In a crisis, these harmful tactics not only cloud reality but also actively undermine efforts to help people. Instead of leading through the crisis and mobilizing solutions, companies and government officials are forced into damage control and fighting falsehoods.
For companies, false information can trigger stock market drops, supply chain delays, and public backlash. It can erode consumer confidence, spark boycotts, and force costly crisis response efforts that wouldnt otherwise be necessary. Fighting misinformation preemptively through systems, training, and partnerships isnt just good risk management. Its a direct investment in business continuity and brand resilience. And yes, it costs money. But the cost of doing nothing is often much higher.
What Business Leaders Must Do Now
Misinformation is more than a government problem. It affects every industryfrom energy and finance to retail and transportationand every size of business, from multinationals with global supply chains to small companies serving local communities.
During catastrophic events like earthquakes, hurricanes, or cyberattacks, companies within disaster zones play a critical role in recovery. To lead effectively, they need the trust of employees, customers, and local communities. Misinformation undercuts that trust.
And its not just during major disasters. In todays always-on information environment, false narratives can surface at any time and spread quickly. The more visible a company is, the more exposed it is to misinformation that can damage its reputation and its bottom line. Companies already recognize this risk, but the speed and scale of recent eventsduring wildfires, cyberattacks, and even routine service outagesshows that the landscape is evolving faster than most are prepared for. Many still lack the infrastructure or strategy to respond effectively. That means executive teams need to start preparing nownot after the fact.
Heres how to get ahead of it:
Adopt a trusted and battle-tested crisis framework
The Federal Emergency Management Agencys Emergency Support Function #15 (ESF-15) is part of the National Response Framework, the federal playbook for how government coordinates during disasters. ESF-15 focuses specifically on external affairshow agencies manage public messaging, media relations, and stakeholder engagement under pressure.
Companies can adapt key elements by clearly assigning communication roles, syncing messaging strategies across departments and with external partners, and preparing to respond quickly when false narratives start to spiral. It offers a way to operationalize the response to misinformation by focusing first on delivering accurate, life-safety information to the publicbefore becoming consumed by brand reputation concerns.
Conduct high-stakes crisis simulations
Most companies run drills for natural disasters or data breaches, but few test how theyd respond to viral misinformation. False narratives can spread faster than the facts, especially during high-stress events. If you havent practiced for that, youre not prepared.
A strong simulation replicates how misinformation unfolds through a misleading social media post gaining traction, a fake image circulating, or a rumor targeting your product or executives. From there, teams must react in real timevalidating facts, aligning internal and external messaging, and deciding when and how to respond publicly.
Run these scenarios with your full crisis team, including communications, legal, HR, and operations. Dont underestimate the value of having your companys executive team or board in the room. Use realistic conditions like time pressure, incomplete information, and conflicting stakeholder needs. And most importantly, build i consequences. Did the company overreact and make it worse? Did it wait too long to correct the record? These are the dynamics leaders must experience before the real thing hits.
Establish public-private resilience networks
In a crisis, coordination cant start from scratch. Companies in critical sectors like energy, telecom, and water need standing relationships with local, state, and regional response partners.
Even as FEMAs future role becomes increasingly uncertain under the current administration, local and state emergency managers remain vital anchors in disaster response. Companies should identify their regional emergency management agencies and build relationships with leadership, external affairs, joint information centers, and recovery coordinators. Many cities and states already run public-private working groups and emergency operations centers where businesses can participate directly during response and recovery efforts.
The goal is to align earlyon messaging, resource coordination, and community needs. When companies and local officials are already connected, theyre in a stronger position to counter confusion, support vulnerable populations, and help stabilize recovery. If federal coordination weakens as many suspect it will under current leadership, these local and state-level partnerships become even more essential.
Diversify communication channels
Misinformation doesnt wait for a natural disaster. It can spread during a product recall, a service outage, a viral rumor, or in the middle of a major storm. In any of these cases, relying on a single communication channel is a risk. If your website crashes, social media is flooded, or email deliverability drops, how will you reach the people who matter most?
Companies already go to extraordinary lengths to get the word out when things go right. They’ll build multi-platform campaigns to sell a new streaming subscription, launch a product drop with a celebrity brand ambassador, or drive demand through social media content for the latest pair of Jordansensuring the message sticks, spreads, and leads to action. That same level of effort is needed when things go wrong.
A layered strategy is key. Use tools you control, like text messages to customers, in-app notifications, email, and internal platforms like Slack. Back that up with special hotlines, direct outreach from managers, and even packaging inserts. Traditional and local news outlets are essential, but so is engaging with digital creators who have built trusted online communities of their own. These are the same channels companies already use to drive sales or launch productsnow they need to be ready to correct the record when things go sideways.
For businesses with physical locations, point-of-sale signage or handouts can help reinforce the right message. And when systems go down, low-tech options like printed flyers, AM radio, or employee word of mouth may be the most effective of all.
Whether its a brand crisis or a major emergency, the goal is the same: Make sure the right message gets to the right people at the right timeclearly, quickly, and through whatever channels are still standing.
The Cost of Inaction
Businesses that fail to adapt arent just falling behindtheyre exposing people, assets, and long-term viability to growing risk. Public experts and former officials have warned that our national disaster response systems are being hollowed out. The ongoing dismantling of FEMAs leadership and staffing, along with the rollback of coordination functions across federal agencies, is weakening both our emergency response and our broader national security posture.
At the same time, the misinformation landscape is only getting more volatile. Bad actors are more sophisticated, AI is lowering the barrier to entry, and fewer trusted messengers remain in place to cut through the noise.
Preparedness is no longer a best practiceits a market imperative. In the next crisis, it wont be the truth that drives action. Itll be whatever people hear first and believe fastest. But theres power in what companies do next. Trusted brands, clear communicators, and credible institutions have a unique role to playnot just in protecting their reputation, but in helping the public navigate uncertainty, especially right now. When businesses lead with clarity and humanity, they not only survive the next crisis, they also help shape a stronger, more resilient economy for everyone.
And isnt that the clearest measure of brand strength todaynot just being known, but being believed when it matters most?
The look of the health and wellness products at CVS is about to get a little less prescriptive. The pharmacy chain, which reported $94.59 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2025, landing ahead of expectations, announced it is overhauling its packaging for 68 pain reliever products this month, with updated packaging to come for nearly 3,000 other health and wellness items by the end of 2026.
The outgoing packaging for the pharmacy’s private-label health and wellness products looks overtly clinical, in some cases packing product information into small areas with tiny text. Consumers are already overwhelmed with so many options in the health and wellness category, according to Musab Balbale, CVS Health’s chief merchandising officer.
While we continuously strive to innovate our brands, we had not conducted a complete update of the CVS Health brand identity in almost 10 years, Balbale tells Fast Company. Now, we are putting our CVS brand front and center to truly stand out on the shelf.
The new look is streamlined, with a simpler CVS logo instead of CVS Health, flat colors instead of gradients, and bigger product labels. The packages are easier to read, and a simplified visual hierarchy emphasizes product benefits and features. It’s made for store shelves and for easy comprehension at a glance. Products for kids and babies will be labeled with a ladybug. The redesign was done over the course of a year by teams from across CVS Health working with outside partners including the brand design agency Pearlfisher.
Why CVS is rebranding
The new packaging is the latest example of a private-label rebrand as CVS and other retailers have invested more in their own product lines. As consumers traded down from national brands to store brands due to inflation since the pandemic, stores like Target and Walmart redesigned their house brands to grow their owned shelf space and revenue. With friendly, brightly colored packaging that’s more design-forward and high-end than many of the generic brands of years past, this new generation of private-label products is meant to reach high-income shoppers with big-box-store prices.
For CVS, the new packaging was made with three goals in mind: modernizing the brand, bringing the brand front and center, and emphasizing product form and benefits to make the shopping experience easier. The larger goal is associating CVS with health and wellness at large.
With this evolution of the CVS brand, we’re not only simplifying shopping for customers, but we’re also aiming to become the health and wellness brand they think of first when seeking trusted solutions that deliver value and convenience, Mike Wier, VP of store brands at CVS Health, said in a statement.
CVS introduced a private-label snack brand called Well Market last year following an overhaul of CVS Beauty in 2023. Its new health and wellness product packaging represents a further investment into building a strong store brand for core product offerings.
The Gartner Hype Cycle is a valuable framework for understanding where an emerging technology stands on its journey into the mainstream.
It helps chart public perception, from the “Peak of Inflated Expectations” through the “Trough of Disillusionment,” and eventually up the “Slope of Enlightenment” toward the “Plateau of Productivity.”
In 2015, Gartner removed big data from the Hype Cycle. Analyst Betsy Burton explained that it was no longer considered an “emerging technology” and has become prevalent in our lives.
Shes right. In hindsight, it’s remarkable how quickly enterprises recognized the value of their data and learned to use it for their business advantage. Big data moved from novelty to necessity at an impressive pace.
Yet in some ways, I disagree with Gartner. Adoption has been widespread, but effectiveness is another matter. Do most enterprises truly have the tools and infrastructure to make the most of the data they hold?
I dont believe they do. Which is why I also dont believe the true big data revolution has happened yet. But it’s coming.
Dissecting the Stack
A key reason big data is seen as mature, even mundane, is that people often confuse software progress with overall readiness. The reality is more nuanced.
Yes, the software is strong. We have robust platforms for managing, querying, and analyzing massive datasets. Many enterprises have assembled entire software stacks that work well.
But that software still needs hardware to run on. And here lies the bottleneck.
Most data-intensive workloads still rely on traditional central processing units (CPUs)the same processors used for general IT tasks. This creates challenges. CPUs are expensive, energy hungry, and not particularly well suited to parallel processing.
When a query needs to run across terabytes or even petabytes of data, engineers often divide the work into smaller tasks and process them sequentially. This method is inefficient and time-consuming. It also ends up requiring more total computation than a single large job would.
Even though CPUs can run at high clock speeds, they simply don’t have enough cores to efficiently handle complex queries at scale. As a result, hardware has limited the potential of big data. But now, thats starting to change with the rise of accelerated computing.
Breaking the Bottleneck
Accelerated computing refers to running workloads on specialized hardware designed to outperform CPUs. This could mean field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) or application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) built for a specific task. More relevant to big data, though, are graphics processing units (GPUs).
GPUs contain thousands of cores and are ideal for tasks that benefit from parallel processing. They can dramatically speed up large-scale data operations.
Interestingly, GPU computing and big data emerged around the same time. Nvidia launched CUDA (compute unified device architecture) in 2006, enabling general-purpose computing on graphics hardware. Just two years earlier, Googles MapReduce paper laid the foundation for modern big data processing.
Despite this parallel emergence, GPUs havent become a standard part of enterprise data infrastructure. Thats due to a mix of factors.
For one, cloud-based access to GPUs was limited until relatively recently. When I started building GPU-accelerated software, SoftLayernow absorbed into IBM Cloudwas the only real option.
There was also a perception problem. Many believed GPU development was too complex and costly to justify, especially for general business needs. And for a long time, few ready-made tools existed to make it easier.
Those barriers have largely fallen.
Today, a rich ecosystem of software exists to support GPU-accelerated computing. CUDA tools have matured, benefiting from nearly two decades of continuous development. And renting a top-tier GPU, like Nvidias A100, now costs as little as $1 per hour.
With affordable access and a better software stack, were finally seeing the pieces fall into place.
The Real Big Data Revolution
Whats coming next will be transformative.
Until now, most enterprises have been constrained by hardware limits. With GPU acceleration more accessible and a mature ecosystem of supporting tools, those constraints are finally lifting.
The impact will vary by organization. But broadly, companies will gain the ability to run complex data operations across massive datasets, without needing to worry about processing time or cost.
With faster, cheaper insights, businesses can make better decisions and act more quickly. The value of data will shift from how much is collected to how quickly it can be used.
Accelerated computing will also enable experimentation. Freed from concerns about query latency or resource drain, enterprises can explore how their data might power generative AI, smarter applications, or entirely new user experiences.
Gartner took big data off the Hype Cycle because it no longer seemed revolutionary. Accelerated computing is about to make it revolutionary again.
