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Leaders learn to say things with confidence. You may assume that people will be more prone to listen to you when you speak forcefully and with a sense of belief. Despite your best efforts, though, youre going to say something incorrect every now and again. You might get out ahead of a story only to find out that things were not as they seemed initially. You might just have your facts wrong. Regardless of why you erred, you still have to be willing to admit that you were wrong. Happily, there is an easy way to do this, though you may find it hard to do at first. You have to admit you were wrong. Yup. Thats right. You just have to come out and say it. There is a simple formula for admitting you were wrong. Do it right away Let everyone know as soon as possible after you find out that you said something that was not correct. Dont sit on the error for days. It is best if everyone hears it from you rather than having someone else discover the mistake first and make your admission feel like a reaction. Of course, if someone else does point out that what you said was incorrect, you should verify that they are correct and then immediately thank them for providing the feedback. You might even credit them in your statement After all, you want the people who work for you and with you to own their mistakes. The best way to demonstrate that you value corrections is to issue your own quickly. In addition, by thanking people who pointed out errors, you encourage others to step forward with errors they notice as well. That helps to keep the organization functioning with good knowledge. Use simple declarative sentences There is some embarrassment that can come along with making mistakesparticularly when youre new to leadership. You may think that leaders need to be infallible. As a result, you may not want to put a dent in your reputation by saying that you were wrong. To cover for this embarrassment, you may use tortured sentences to avoid owning the error. You may resort to the passive voice (Mistakes were made . . .) or use lots of qualifiers (When speaking about the upcoming sales meeting, I inadvertently left out . . .) or cast blame elsewhere (Sadly, when I spoke, I was relying on . . .) It turns out that great leaders dont need an air of infallibility, they need to project transparency. You create trust by being honest, not by being right all the time. Simply saying something like, Recently, I told you X. Actually, Y is true, is incredibly effective. And, again, speaking in this way encourages other members of your team to come forward and admit when they have said something wrong. Do a postmortem Of course, just because you admit when youre wrong doesnt mean that it is good to be wrong. Youd like to minimize the number of times that you have to walk back something you said. It is important to figure out why you ended up making a statement that was not true. Perhaps you spoke too quickly without verifying information. Perhaps you relied on sources that did not have the full story. Perhaps you made intuitive leaps that led you astray. If you have trouble figuring out how you might have gone wrong, consider talking to a colleague or mentor about the situation and walking through it with them. You might find that just talking it through helps you to figure out where you went wrong. And their expertise may bring to light problems with your process that led to you saying something wrong. When mentoring some of your direct reports, you might even want to refer to the errors in your own judgment that you discover. That way, you can help the people working for you to make a different set of mistakes rather than having to repeat yours to learn for themselves.
Category:
E-Commerce
We are living in turbulent times and there is no reason to expect that things will become less so in the future. During such moments our emotions become strained and pushed to their limits. Stress increases as emotions are stretched, making it increasingly important that we are able to recognize the effects of it in ourselves as well as others in our environment. [Image: Dexterity Books] Becoming acutely aware of ourselves and others we are interacting with in this type of environment is paramount to building healthy relationships in the workplace and all areas of our lives. In my book, Emotional Intelligence Game Changers, I delve into how to navigate difficult times. Here are four ways emotional intelligence can help you navigate turbulent times. 1. Manage triggers During crisis situations, heightened emotional self-awareness allows us to recognize our triggers. Rather than reacting from our emotions, this allows us to pause, take time out, and respond after we have allowed our emotions to settle down and think things through from a rational perspective. This helps us make reasoned decisions, rather than acting impulsively from our emotions. 2. Sustain relationships Turbulent times can cause relationships to become strained as everyone feels increased pressure. If this is left unchecked, relationships that would normally stay positive could become fractured. To prevent this, we need to become more empathic and actively listen to others. Emotionally intelligent people have learned to use these tools to help overcome misunderstandings, build support networks, and develop a sense of collaboration and community around them. 3. Build coping strategies It is hardly surprising that turbulent times cause our stress levels to elevate to new highs. Emotionally intelligent people have developed coping strategies that help them thrive, even during times of unusually high stress. For example, they are aware of and continually practice asking for help, mindfulness, openness, and strategic vulnerability. Modeling these habits helps others they are involved with build their own coping strategies. 4. Deescalate conflict Conflicts, which are a constant in normal times, will spiral during troubled times, both in intensity and frequency. This requires increased empathy and the ability to listen to and get to know others on a deeper, more personal level. Emotional intelligence allows us to go beyond surface biases and stereotypes as it allows for more curiosity in our interactions with others. Instead of jumping to judgement and conclusions, it allows us to dig deeper to find out what the other person is going through during this time. Instead of reacting, emotional intelligence allows us to ask relevant questions that will help lower defenses and find out more about what motivates and drives others. Being able to form connections at a deeper level allows us to gain a much better understanding of what motivates and drives them. Even though we may not agree with them, this sets up the basis for a much healthier relationship with them.
Category:
E-Commerce
As the founder, chair, and CEO of the Exceptional Women Alliance, I am fortunate to be surrounded by extraordinary female business leaders. Our purpose is to empower each other through peer mentorship that provides personal and professional fulfillment within this unique sisterhood. This month, Im pleased to introduce Sammie Dabbs. Sammie is passionate about building and scaling high-performing commercial organizations. As chief commercial officer, she oversees revenue strategy, sales, and marketing alignmentdriving growth through a combination of operational rigor and customer-centric innovation. With a proven track record of leading teams, entering new markets, and unlocking sustainable revenue, Sammie brings a front-line perspective on how companies can thrive in an increasingly competitive and complex business landscape. Q: As a chief commercial officer, how do you define your core mandate? Dabbs: My mandate is to be the architect of growth. That means aligning sales, marketing, customer success, and revenue operations into one unified strategy. I dont see these as separate functionstheyre different parts of the same engine. My job is to ensure that engine runs smoothly, efficiently, and with clear direction. Ultimately, a CCO has to deliver consistent revenue performance, but the path there requires strategy, executional discipline, and a relentless focus on the customer. Q: Why is sales and marketing alignment such a challenge for many organizations? Dabbs: Sales and marketing often grow up in silosdifferent metrics, different budgets, different perspectives. Marketing says, We delivered leads. Sales says, Those leads arent qualified. Its a cycle of finger-pointing that hurts the business. Alignment requires shared ownership of pipeline, shared KPIs, and constant communication. In my role, I set a single commercial target, so everyone is working toward the same number. When sales and marketing win together, the customer feels it. Q: What have you found to be the biggest barrier to growth? Dabbs: Complexity. Companies layer on too many tools, too many initiatives, too many prioritiesand in the process, they lose focus. The real barrier isnt the market; its internal misalignment. Ive seen teams hit their stride when we strip away the noise, focus on ideal customers, and empower reps with clear messaging and support. Simplicity and executional discipline will beat complexity every time. Q: Whats your approach to leading a commercial team? Dabbs: I believe in clarity and accountability. Teams need to know the strategy, their role in it, and how success will be measured. Then its about coaching for execution and celebrating wins along the way. Im very data-driven, but data is only useful if it drives action. I set targets, track outcomes, and make adjustments in real time. At the same time, I want teams to feel empowered to bring forward ideas from the fieldwe learn the most from our customers. Q: How do you think about the role of marketing in driving revenue? Dabbs: Marketing is no longer just a brand functionits a revenue driver. A strong marketing team generates demand, accelerates pipeline, and positions sales to succeed. But that only happens when marketing is tied directly to commercial strategy and accountable for pipeline contribution alongside sales. When marketing owns revenue, they create campaigns that resonate with buyers, not just campaigns that look good on paper. Q: Technology is changing the commercial function rapidly. Whats your philosophy on tools like AI and automation? Dabbs: Technology is essential, but its not the strategyits the amplifier. AI and automation can make sales and marketing faster and smarter, but they dont replace human judgment or relationships. My philosophy is: Get the fundamentals right first. If you dont have clear positioning, a disciplined process, and strong teams, no tool will save you. But if you do, then technology allows you to scale, personalize, and optimize in powerful ways. Q: Can you share an example of a commercial pivot that made a major impact? Dabbs: One example is when we restructured our go-to-market model to focus on fewer, higher-value customer segments. Instead of spreading resources thin across too many markets, we doubled down on accounts where we could deliver outsized value. That shift required marketing to retool messaging and sales to change their targeting, but the results were dramatichigher win rates, shorter sales cycles, and better customer retention. Sometimes growth is about addition, but more often its about focus. Q: If you had to give one piece of advice to other executives leading commercial teams, what would it be? Dabbs: Treat growth as a company-wide responsibility, not just a sales number. Every functionproduct, finance, operationscontributes to the customer experience. As CCOs, we have to be the integrators, making sure the entire business is aligned around delivering value to customers. When you break down silos and build a culture of accountability, growth becomes sustainable. Larraine Segil is founder, chair, and CEO of The Exceptional Women Alliance.
Category:
E-Commerce
Many organizations are racing to build AI strategies, but too often they focus on adopting the latest tech, rather than creating the environment to support it. The reality is that lasting transformation is fueled by people, which requires companies to take a good look at their culture. At Architech, thats exactly what we did. By prioritizing and rewarding innovation, we aligned our culture with our AI strategyand it worked. This year, we are proud to be recognized as one of Fast Companys Most Innovative Workplaces. We are one of 10 companies globally recognized by Fast Company for excellence in AI, automation, and machine learning. Heres how we built an award-winning culture. MAKE INNOVATION REPEATABLE Innovation comes from people. At Architech, we operationalized that idea by creating an Innovation Lab, a dedicated R&D space where curiosity thrives and exceptional geeks are celebrated as heroes. Backed by a 10% reinvestment of revenue, our Innovation Lab provides the time and tools to tackle real problems. One of our standout successes: an intelligent collections application that earned a spotlight in Microsofts AI Lunch and Learn series. Infrastructure and investment create a foundation for continuous innovation, enabling organizations to tackle its top priorities. INNOVATION THRIVES WHEN EVERYONE PARTICIPATES We launched a company-wide AI Innovation Challenge in September, 2024 inviting every employee to identify their own workplace challenge to solve and to tackle organizational inefficiencies using AI. Over three months, cross-functional teams reimagined workflows and built automation tools that reduced friction, accelerated delivery, and inspired new client offerings. The challenge sparked experimentation and breakthroughs from the bottom-up. Among the most impactful was an automated quality assurance testing system that improved consistency and freed our teams to focus on creativity. We celebrated winning ideas at the town hall and they became a badge of honor for employees. We continue to spotlight the most creative employee-led breakthroughs with a monthly AI Innovation Award. Innovation happens when people are given the tools, trust, and time to experiment. LEARNING FUELS INNOVATION With AI knowledge scarce across tech companies, upskilling and mentorship have become the real differentiators. At Architech, internal knowledge-sharing sets the pace: We offer project showcases, AI Bytes Learning Series, and real-time experimentation to create a culture of continuous growth. We launched Elevate, a four-week technical bootcamp for interns led by Architech experts in product, design, data, AI, and engineering. Mentees solve real business challenges using cutting-edge tools and are encouraged to explore what inspired them the most. One finalist team built an AI-powered customer support platform and graduated knowing the AI fundamentals, and with the confidence for the next step in their tech careers. Today, our internal expertise in emerging technologies is pushing us further than external experts ever could. Our mentors are emerging as leaders, armed with new courage and bold ideas. We endeavor to empower our people and build a culture where learning drives innovation forward and grows innovators from within. EMBED INNOVATION INTO CULTURE We also created an AI Incubator to drive technology forward and a Responsible AI Governance Committee to ensure guardrails are in place to safeguard our company and clients. Nearly 50% of our workforce participates in the incubator, with active workstreams exploring real-world applications of AI: code review, test automation, developer productivity, and data enablement. AI experimentation is embedded into the daily flow of work on all our teams, from engineering to operations. Our CEO hosts training sessions, leads open discussions, and reinforces the expectation that everyone experiments with AI, every day. This is what transformation looks like: Its fueled by inspiration, grounded in discipline, and powered by people. FINAL THOUGHTS Theres no app for transformation. Theres something better: culture. Thats what powers our AI strategy and our people are leading the way. To transform your AI strategy into culture, make it: Inclusive: Invite every employee to contribute and celebrate progress. A habit: Bring change into the daily rhythm of work. A growth engine: Teach, mentor, and invest in skills development across the organization. Repeatable: Build systems that last. If your people arent part of your AI strategy, you dont have one. Lara Shewchuk is COO and CFO of Architech.
Category:
E-Commerce
Artist Edel Rodriguez is famous for his satirical images of Donald Trump. Since 2016, hes produced dozens of images of the president in an ultra-simple, pop-art style. But for Rodriguezs new cover of The New Yorker commemorating Zohran Mamdanis victory in the New York City mayoral race, he threw that signature look out the window. The illustration, which will run on the November 17 issue of The New Yorker, shows Mamdani smiling broadly as he holds onto the handrail on an M train headed to Queens. Around him, New Yorkers of all walks of lifeincluding a young woman with a dog in her bag, a child with her mother, and an elderly gentleman in a fedorajostle to board and deboard the car. The whole picture is made in expressive, sketch-like lines and depicted in toasty hues of brown and rust orange. It has a hand-drawn, humanistic quality that none of Rodriguezs illustrations of Trump possess. View this post on Instagram With the Trump stuff, I wanted to create imagery that was so visually basic and a bit dumbfor it to not have any gesture, or line, or anything soft, he says. The images are meant to be a bit like traffic signs: all symbols and conceptual shapes, intended to get the viewer to pay attention, but not to attract real visual interest. I actually want you to be repelled by it, he says. Looking beyond Trump During Trumps first term in office, Rodriguez published over 125 satirical illustrations and 25 magazine covers depicting the president as everything from a massive wrecking ball to a flaming trash can, always in a bright orange hue and typically with an angry-looking, wide-open mouth. As an immigrant born in authoritarian Cuba, Rodriguezs personal history is deeply tied to his work. Back in 2018, he compared Trumps rhetoric to that of Fidel Castros. At that time, he saw his satirical Trump art as a warning of what was to come. Now, he says, those warnings have come to fruition. The frustration with the second Trump term is, like, I already warned you everything I could warn you about and you still voted for this guy, Rodriguez says. You’re Latino, and you still voted for this guy. What can I do now? I’m able to find a few ways to tell the story in a different manner, but the purpose of it is different in the second term. View this post on Instagram Most recently, Rodriguez created an image of Trump using the Burger King logo that reads No King, an image that was widely used throughout the national “No Kings” protests. But while hes continuing to work on imagery of the president, hes now looking to branch out into other projects that center on less negativity, he says. When The New Yorker selected him to illustrate its cover of Mamdani, he saw it as an opportunity to work on something more uplifting. The difference is night and day. I mean, it’s so much more enjoyable, Rodriguez says. When you have an opportunity to do something more positive, it feels good. What I like about [Mayor Mamdani] is that it’s positive, but it doesn’t feel like propaganda. It is just showing a scene. I don’t generally like to do anything that says, Vote for this guy. What makes Zohran Mamdani different Like many of Mamdanis supporters, Rodriguez first learned about Mamdani through his social media content. Mamdanis campaign team posted videos of him walking through New York City, speaking casually to viewers about his vision for an affordable NYC for all. In one series of videos, Mamdani tried to pitch himself to all New Yorkers by speaking in fluent Bangla and Urdu, as well as in Spanish, a language that hes still working on. Rodriguez was struck by Mamdanis willingness to leave clips of his own Spanish-speaking errors in the final videoa move that, he says, was a rare choice from a politician that showed Mamdani is fallible, and not perfect. What’s made him so popular is that he’s very relatable in many ways, Rodriguez says. I think it was that idea of just riding the subway with everyone else and not taking an Uber or a black car around town, or the way he just showed up in bodegas and would do a little video. The week before the mayoral election, that idea of Mamdani as a regular New Yorker inspired Rodriguez to reach out to The New Yorkers longtime art editor, Françoise Mouly, with a few sketches for a potential cover. Having worked with Mouly in the past, Rodriguez says he occasionally sends her ideas “as they pop into my head,” to get her feedback and workshop together. His rough sketch first ideas included images of Mamdani subway surfing with the New York City skyline behind him; driving a cab across different boroughs; conducting the M train; and riding inside the M train as a passenger. Mouly, and The New Yorkers editor-in-chief David Remnick, liked the last concept the best. I have been talking to artists about the mayoral election for a while, Mouly says. Of course it’s a good topic for The New Yorker. Last week, Edel sent a flurry of sketches, anticipating a victory by Mamdani. All of Edel’s ideas showed Mamdani connecting with people everywhere in the five boroughs. The most succinct way to show that was the idea we went with: simply showing him with his bright and winning smile in the melting pot of the subway. With Moulys final approval, Rodriguez had less than a day to finalize his illustration ahead of the November 4 election. While Rodriguez lives in New Jersey with his wife today, he previously lived in Brooklyn while attending Pratt Institute and later while serving as an art director at Time magazine. During that era, Rodriguez was a frequent subway riderand, like most art students, had often used the commute to sketch fellow passengers. He used those memories of fellow subway passengers to fill out the scene around Mamdani. If you’ve ridden the subway, that’s how it is, Rodriguez says. It’s always like, the girl with the bag and the little puppy, and maybe a punk rock kid, and maybe a Hasidic Jew, and then a mom with a kid, and a guy in a hoodie. Whatever character popped into my head as I was drawing, that’s what I drew, pretty much until I filled the page. I probably could have drawn 20 more characters. Ultimately, Rodriguezs work captures a quality Mamdani has managed to convey that most politicians cant even come close to: relatability. Weve all been on the trainits totally packed, its not pleasant, he says. But if your politician or your mayor is there with you, it just makes him more relatable. I wouldn’t show Andrew Cuomo or Trump that way.
Category:
E-Commerce
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