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When companies undergo a major change, such as a CEO transition, reorganization, merger, or acquisition, most leaders default to one well-worn instinct: control the message. Lock down talking points. Tighten the language. Make it polished and official. In working with executive teams across industries, from tech to retail, weve seen time and again that simply trying to control the message isnt enough. In fact, it often has the opposite effect, creating more confusion and mistrust than clarity. Because in every high-stakes moment, your audienceemployees, customers, investorsis asking the same unspoken question: Whats in it for me? And if youre not answering it, someone else will. Why WIIFM isnt a selfish question For years, the phrase Whats in it for me? (or WIIFM) has gotten a bad rap. Leaders dismiss it as self-centered or marketing fluff. Not a serious strategy. But the opposite is true: WIIFM is one of the most powerful lenses available to a leader navigating complex change. Its not about pandering. Its about making strategy personal and anticipating needs. When people understand how a change will impact them, theyre far more likely to align with it, advocate for it, and stick around to help execute it. WIIFM isnt about promising perks or pay raises. Its about translating organizational ambition into something timely and tangible for the people you need on board. Weve seen this across the board: in mergers and acquisitions where alignment felt impossible, in CEO transitions where trust was on the line, and in executive team restructurings where internal politics threatened progress. Leaders who start with WIIFM consistently build momentum, while those who skip it often lose the narrative . . . and the talent. What happens when leaders skip the WIIFM moment Not long ago, we worked with a company making an acquisition. The executive team was excited about the deal and confident about the shared mission, but in those critical first weeks after the announcement, they froze. Without all the answers in place, they waited to finalize every detail before they communicated anything to the acquired organization. During that time, the acquired organization was left to speculate. Rumors flew. Teams filled in the blanks. Fear took over. By the time the executive team had the certainty the acquired company was looking for and formal messaging landed, it was too late. Some talent had moved on, and for the rest, they were left with months of unwinding the rumors and working from a deficit to rebuild trust. We see this pattern again and again: silence creates space for confusion. In the absence of clarity, people default to self-protection and assume the worst. The longer the silence lingers, the further they go down the rabbit hole. But when leaders show up early, even if all the answers arent yet clear, and acknowledge the WIIFM questions head-on, they build trust. As one client told us, When you show your face, you get the benefit of the doubt. By anticipating their needs, you can limit their anxieties and show that you considered how they may be impacted. How to answer Whats in it for me? (without saying those exact words) Lets be clear: this isnt about scripting new taglines. Its about pausing to ask a better question before you write the message. Before announcing any change, take five minutes to ask: What might my audience be worried about right now? What might they hope this change will solve for them? What could this feel like from their seat? As one senior leader we worked with put it: People don’t expect their leaders to have all the answersthey expect presence. Leaders must be transparent, empathetic, and engaged in navigating change alongside their teams.” One message, many audiences: How to stay consistent One of the biggest hesitations we hear from executives is: How do I tailor the message without creating inconsistencies? The answer is to identify a core message and then deliver it in audience-relevant language. Your strategy may not change, but the way you communicate it will. For example, your core message might be: Were evolving our structure to accelerate innovation. For employees, that might sound like: Were investing in clearer roles and fewer bottlenecks so teams can move faster and focus more on the work that matters. For customers: This means quicker product releases, better service, and less lag time. For investors: We expect this change to improve speed-to-market and reduce operating inefficiencies. Each message serves the same strategy. But each audience hears what matters most to them. Four prompts to make it personal Weve developed four simple prompts that help leaders shift their communication from top-down announcements to audience-centered leadership: What are they worried about losing?Security? Status? Control? Address it head-on. What might they gain?New opportunities, visibility, development, autonomyspell it out. But dont make any promises. What does this mean for them in the next 30, 60, 90 days?Use time as a grounding tool and a project management asset. This may present an opportunity to reengage with the audience after each benchmark. What will we be transparent about even if we dont have all the answers yet?Uncertainty is okay. Silence is not. These prompts do more than clarify the messaging. They help you show up as a leader who gets it and who doesnt just recite vision statements but connects them to the lived realities. Leading in the uncertainty gap As leaders, we often feel the pressure to have everything figured out before we speak up. But that instinct is counterproductive. Waiting for perfect information, especially in M&A scenarios, means youve already lost the room. As ProjectNext senior advisor Connie Rawson often reminds our clients, Even saying, We dont have all the answers yet, but heres what you can expect in the next 30 days, creates more stability than radio silence. Because the real risk isnt in saying the wrong thing, its in saying nothing at all. In an era where trust is harder to earn and easier to lose, hierarchical authority doesnt command unbridled loyalty the way it used to. People want clarity, connection, and honesty. They deserve it. The good news? WIIFM isnt just a tool for crisis moments. Its a muscle you can build into your everyday leadership. When you consistently make strategy personal across teams, stakeholders, and situations, you dont just manage chage. You lead through it.
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E-Commerce
Prior to becoming the CEO of Lyft, David Risher didnt post much on social media. That began to change just before his first day on the job, when Risher decided to sign up on the ride sharing platform as a driver. I had no plan, he says. I just wanted to get in the car and see what it feels like to drive for Lyft and hear the riders story, but also experience it from a driver’s perspective. At the end of that first outing, Risher revealed to the passenger who he was, and requested a selfie. He posted it on his personal LinkedIn account. I drove for a couple more hours and I didn’t tell anyone at Lyft I was doing this. Since then, Risher has made a regular habit of getting behind the wheel and sharing the stories (and selfies) he gathers from the road on his personal LinkedIn and X accounts, which have since added about 25,000 followers. Part of a CEO’s job is to be an external spokesperson for the company. The thing that I get the most consistent positive feedback on is my social media posts, particularly around driving, or pulling back the curtain on what it’s really like to run a company, Risher says. People trust individuals more than they trust institutions so I think it is important for Lyft. I kind of just want people to know CEOs are just people. As the personal brand of CEOs becomes increasingly tied to the brand of the companies they lead their voice, their interests, their faces more and more top bosses are taking pages out of the books of influencers. But is the expectation to whip out a phone and lead a TikTok Live changing the way these leaders function, and is it too much for a role thats already all-consuming? In this paid Premium story, youll: Learn whats driving this new expectation for chief executives Hear more from Lyft CEO David Risher The risk of turning your CEO into an influencer The age of the Chief Promotional Officer Risher isnt the only chief executive blurring the lines between business leader and social media influencer. According to author, personal branding expert and the founder and president of Sterling Marketing Group, Karen Leland, CEOs are under increased pressure to have an active online presence. People don’t just look at the company, they look at the brand of the CEO and the executives. They want to know how that person is putting themselves out there, she says. The CEO becomes almost like the chief promotional officer. Not only are potential customers interested in the CEOs online presence, according to Leland who has helped hundreds of Fortune 500 and Inc. 1,000 CEOs develop their online personas but so are prospective employees and investors. In a 2020 survey of global executives, 59% said their CEOs should have an online presence. In another, 74% of employees said customers associate their company with its executives. Other studies suggest that a positive CEO reputation can significantly improve an organizations ability to attract and retain investors, and can even positively impact their market value. To some degree, this isnt a novel idea. CEOs have been the faces of organizations for decades. But recently, stakeholders are expecting more, encouraging business leaders to fashion an authentic persona to connect with audiences the same way influencers do on YouTube, TikTok or Instagram. CEO branding as a discipline is fairly new, says Leland. Only in the last couple of years has it really gained traction. Leland even says its now common for CEOs to work with publicists to develop a personal narrative that is relevant to but distinct from the brand they represent. That could, for example, take the form of thought leadership, advocating for causes they care about, behind-the-scenes perspectives, and even personal interests and hobbies. Sir Richard Branson, for example, has long maintained a public persona closely connected to, but still distinct from, that of his companies, making frequent media appearances and posting on social media. Though Branson used to be the outlier his strategy has recently become the norm. Like Risher, many tech CEOs in particular have jumped on the branding bandwagon. As he transitioned from the COO of Shopify to CEO of Opendoor, Kaz Nejatian began posting on social media, sharing internal memos, and building his brand online. CEOs like Bumbles Whitney Wolfe Herd, Microsofts Satya Nadella, JPMorgan Chases Jamie Dimon, Ciscos Chuck Robbins, Best Buys Corie Barry, and many more have follower counts in the hundreds of thousands, or millions. CEOs as attention merchants? It may be inaccurate to group CEOs in the same camp as YouTubers or Twitch streamers, though. Influencers arent necessarily thought leaders, Leland says. But CEOs who do this right are establishing themselves as thought leaders in a particular domain. Recent media or conference appearances, product announcements, site visits, conversations with customers and employees, and other day-to-day responsibilities have all become fodder for a CEOs online content. I think today, it is a core responsibility, says Leland. If a CEO makes a lengthy, thought leadership-style post on LinkedIn that goes viral, its a huge branding opportunity for their company. But while there may be benefits to a strong social media presence for some CEOs, others may have more to lose than gain from the added visibility. Just as influencers get canceled for posting bad takes or faux pas online, so could more CEOs (and thus companies) who are following this influencer-ization model. There is this concomitant risk that goes along with it, says Jerry Colonna, an executive coach, author, and CEO of Reboot.IO. If they make a personal misstep, which every human being does, it’s not just the person who’s canceled it’s the brand. Colonna explains most people couldnt name the CEOs of most Fortune 100 companies, often because well-established organizations have the luxury of letting their products speak for themselves. At the same time, he says others Apple, Microsoft or Patagonia were more successful because of the public personas of their leaders than they could have been otherwise. As long as you’re doing it in an authentic way, then you’re probably doing good for your company, says Risher of Lyft. I think this is true for social media influence as well as for CEOs: if it feels forced, I don’t think you’re fooling anyone. While he has seen the pressure on CEOs to be more present on social media growing in recent years, Colonna who has gained a reputation as The CEO Whisperer for coaching countless prominent business leaders says the impact of their online presence has its limits. It can be really, really helpful, but it doesn’t solve the long term, build-the-business problem, he says. Because no matter how many likes and subscribes your CEO drives: You still have to deliver high quality products.
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The most common email messages I receive these days are obviously AI-generated pitches for guests to appear on my podcast. They all begin the same way, with a praising reference to one of my recent episodesusually the second-to-last posted show. Your recent interview with so-and-so was penetrating, and got to the heart of the problem of x or y. Then comes the crucial pivot: John Doughs work takes that problem even further . . . And then the pitch for John Dough to be on the podcast. The problem is not just that the publicist used AI to shotgun the known universe of podcasters with pitches artificially customized to their shows. Its that the comparisons and connections are really bad. Your guest spoke so passionately about being a death doula, I think you would be so interested in an artist who makes Halloween napkins festooned with skeletons, which are usually of dead people. So what do I do? I blacklist the sender. The human publicist ends up losing credibility because the one thing I might trust her to doto accurately assess the appropriateness of my show for her guesthad been surrendered to a machine whose job was to make that connection by any means necessary. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/adus-labs-16x9-1.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/anduslabs.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Get more insights from Douglas Rushkoff and Andus Labs.","dek":"Keep up to date on the latest trends on how AI is reshaping culture and business, through the critical lens of human agency.","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/www.anduslabs.com\/perspectives","theme":{"bg":"#1a064b","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","buttonBg":"#ffffff","buttonText":"#000000"},"imageDesktopId":91420531,"imageMobileId":91420530}} She was using AI in the fashion of an Industrial Age factory owner to increase her productivity, but simultaneously ignoring the human process that defines her expertise. I see the same thing happen with AI-generated reports and presentations. Someone gets some speculative idea and then asks Chat to justify it with a few case studies. On the surface, the case studies may sound like theyre supporting the premisebut if you look any deeper, they dont really relate at all. Theyre analogous, but not truly relevant. Worse yet, theyre sitting in what looks like a fully realized Powerpoint presentation. Concepts that could have been interpreted as half-baked, speculative, or open to discussion now appear finalized. They seem inappropriately unrealized for how elaborately they have been rendered, and make the presenter seem foolish. (That is, if the recipient is even reading the work rather than having their AI summarize it.) Deskilling ourselves By using the AI to do the big stuffby outsourcing our primary competencies to the machines instead of giving them the boring busyworkwe deskill ourselves and deprive everyone of the opportunity for AI-enhanced outputs. Too many of us are using AI as the primary architect for a project, rather than the general contractor who supports the architects human vision. (And even many of the general contractors functions are attributable to the human relationships they have developed over the years.) People are treating their chats as if they were fully realized (but as yet nonexistent) AGIs, and letting them do big stuff rather than treating them like tools that can do lots of little stuff. When facing a new seemingly gargantuan project, they turn to the AI first rather than digging in and doing some researchperhaps even using the AI as a research tool instead of relegating the whole project to it all at once. The output looks good to the user, less because it is good than because the Chat has been programmed to make the user feel good about their query. Thats an insightful project idea, Douglas! Ive managed to flesh out an entire proposal at three different price points. The positive feedback loop reinforces the user behavior, until the threshold for asking the Chat to do the project is lower and lower. In the name of getting more product out there, the user loses touch with their own processtheir core competency. No shortcuts The only ones who win in such a scenario are the AI companies, who effectively commoditize the users and their companies. Without any core competencies, the only competitive advantage a user has left is the robustness of their service contract with the AI company. The fast, slapdash results are not worth the cost in human expertise. As the researcher behind MITs study This is Your Brain on ChatGPT explained at a recent ANDUS event, when people turn to an AI for a solution before working on a problem themselves, the number of connections formed in their brains decreases. But when they turn to the AI after working on the problem for a while, they end up with more neural connections than if they worked entirely alone. Thats because the value of the AI is not its ability to create product for us, but to engage with us in our process. Working and iterating with an AIdoing what we could call generative thinkingis actually a break from Industrial Age thinking. We focus less on outputs than on cycles. Less on the volume of short-term results (assembly line), and more on the quality and complexity of thought and innovation. AIs dont have to replace our competencies or even our employees. Thats less an opportunity for success and scale than it is a recipe for deskilling, commodification, and eventual disappearance. Adopting AI as a partner in process and enhancer of competencies requires developing a new kind of culture around technology and innovationone that centers the human ingenuity at the core of a company, and supports the ways that new, intelligent technologies can foster that living resource. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/adus-labs-16x9-1.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/anduslabs.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Get more insights from Douglas Rushkoff and Andus Labs.","dek":"Keep up to date on the latest trends on how AI is reshaping culture and business, through the critical lens of human agency.","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/www.anduslabs.com\/perspectives","theme":{"bg":"#1a064b","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","buttonBg":"#ffffff","buttonText":"#000000"},"imageDesktopId":91420531,"imageMobileId":91420530}}
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A typical three-bedroom house in Austin, Texas, can sometimes rack up monthly utility bills of $200 or $300 in the summer. But in new homes under construction in a nearby suburb, residents will owe little beyond the basic utility connection fee. The homes, built by Habitat for Humanity, tap into a shared geothermal system in a fully geothermal neighborhood. Heat pumps in each house connect to pipes that loop hundreds of feet underground, making use of the earths steady temperature for heating and cooling. The houses are also built to use as little energy as possible, with features like deep eaves that shade the interior and reduce the need for air-conditioning. Solar shingles on the roofs produce enough power to match each homes expected electricity use. Our goal is to make sure that they have a very, very low energy bill at the end of the day, says Billy Whipple, chief impact officer at Habitat for Humanity’s Austin office. The nonprofit, known for working with volunteers to help lower the cost of construction, sees affordable housing holistically. Its not enough just to have a low monthly mortgage payment; homes also need to be designed to have low maintenance and utility costs, especially as energy bills keep rising. [Rendering: courtesy Austin Habitat for Humanity] A 100% geothermal neighborhood The houses are part of Whisper Valley, a larger development that was designed to rely on geothermal energy. This type of geothermal technology, also known as a ground-source heat pump, isn’t new. Habitat for Humanity has used the tech itself in other developments. But it’s still fairly uncommon because of the cost. Depending on the house, some systems can cost as much as $45,000. Building a connected network for the neighborhood, rather than adding the technology home by home, helps make it more affordable. EcoSmart Solution, a company that builds geothermal infrastructure, drills boreholes on each lot that connect to a larger energy system. “It allows us to implement the geothermal heating and cooling system at a fraction of the cost of doing it on a home-by-home basis,” says Chris Gray, EcoSmart’s CEO. “We bring it as a service. We do all of the drilling, all of the piping, all of the network connecting to each lot before the builders ever take over the lot.” Taurus Investment Holdings, the original developer behind the property, had a vision of making sustainability mainstream. “They were looking at what we can do to really create sustainability, but in an accessible, affordable way that can be approachable for the mass market,” Gray says. [Photo: EcoSmart Solution] The first homes began construction in 2017, and hundreds are now in place. Ultimately, the neighborhood is projected to have around 7,500 homes built by a variety of developers, along with businesses and around 700 acres of green space. Houses currently listed for sale range up to $465,000. Habitat for Humanity’s three-bedroom and four-bedroom homes, available for families earning 60% to 80% of the area median income, are much more affordable, at $230,000 to $245,000. (That’s also well below the average cost within the city of Austin, where the median sales price was around $575,000 last month.) The nonprofit budgeted around $33,000 per house to add the solar and geothermal systems, according to Whipple. Ultra-efficient homes To minimize energy use, Habitat’s homes are well-insulated with an extra-tight building envelope. “When [homeowners] heat and cool, they won’t have to do it as frequently,” Whipple says. The houses also use passive design techniques, like deep overhangs on the windows that provide shade on sweltering Texas days. Inside, the appliances are Energy Star certified. The homes also use LED lighting, smart thermostats, and heat pump water heaters. While it’s impossible to predict how much energy a particular family might useif they like to crank up the AC especially high, for examplethe size of the solar system installed on the roof was calculated to cover all typical usage. That obviously makes a difference for residents on tight budgets. Skyler Korgel, one future resident who will be a first-time homeowner, says that she currently pays between $35 and $70 a month on energy bills in her apartment. “Having that jump to $200 to $300 per month, or unpredictably more during the summers, in a traditional home would be financially unsustainable for me,” Korgel says. “Between the geothermal heating system, rooftop solar panels, smart energy management systems, high-efficiency appliances, and a tight building envelope, I am hopeful that I can reach energy usage of effectively zero, eliminate my energy bill for some months, and even be able to provide power when the electric grid is strained,” she says. A model for future development Habitat for Humanity is building 48 homes in the neighborhood, including 25 that will be constructed in October by volunteers in a five-day sprint. (Skilled construction workers are handling more complex tasks like connecting heat pumps to the geothermal system.) But it’s also considering using the solar-and-networked geothermal approach for future homes. That may include more houses at Whisper Valley. EcoSmart is working with other developers to plan new projects across the country, from single-famiy homes to multifamily buildings. Others are also turning to geothermal. In Brooklyn, for example, a 463-unit apartment building that recently opened uses hundreds of geothermal wells for heating and cooling. An even larger all-geothermal apartment complex is opening in another part of Brooklyn. In some cases, existing neighborhoods are also moving to geothermal. Near Boston, one neighborhood has been testing a shift from gas heat to geothermal heating and cooling over the last two years. In Ann Arbor, Michigan, the city is building a geothermal district system in a neighborhood where 75% of residents are low-incomeboth as part of the city’s work to reach climate goals and to help residents significantly cut energy bills.
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E-Commerce
Its not always fun to look your finances in the eye, but it can unlock a rewarding path forward. These five books make tackling personal finance approachable, clear, anddare we say itan enjoyable journey. Rule Breaker Investing: How to Pick the Best Stocks of the Future and Build Lasting Wealth By David Gardner The real secret to building lasting wealth on the stock market is breaking the old investing rules. In Rule Breaker Investing, Motley Fool cofounder David Gardner teaches how to craft a purpose-driven portfolio, manage investments, and even master time management for a smarter, happier, richer investment journey. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author David Gardner, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness By Eric Jorgenson Naval Ravikant is a legendary investor, entrepreneur, and founder in Silicon Valley. Beyond his business acumen, he is known for the distilled wisdom that he shares on living a rich and meaningful life. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant compiles his most powerful ideas about achieving wealth and happiness. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Eric Jorgenson, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon. All the Presidents Money: How the Men Who Governed America Governed Their Money By Megan Gorman The money dramas that plague us today are tales as old as time. We share all the same personal financial issues of the present with Americans of the pastincluding presidents. History is filled with relatable stories of money management (and mismanagement). How do your wealth-building skills compare to those of our nations presidents? Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Megan Gorman, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon. Robin Hood Math: Take Control of the Algorithms That Run Your Life By Noah Giansiracusa Robin Hood Math is a guide to navigating the algorithmic world we inhabit today. By understanding the numbers games influencing our experiences and opportunities, we can better resist their undue influence in shaping our lives. Math is a tool for empowerment. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Noah Giansiracusa, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon. The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life By Nick Maggiulli The optimal wealth strategy varies based on your financial starting point. Depending on where you sit on the Wealth Ladder, the best approach to getting more money shifts. Its not necessarily about hard work but rather picking the correct place to focus your time and energy based on your current situation. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Nick Maggiulli, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon. This article originallyappeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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