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A new year, a new quantum computing breakthrough: D-Wave, one of the quantum industrys rising stars, announced an industry-first breakthrough on Tuesday as it works to make quantum computing commercially viable. The company says it has demonstrated scalable, on-chip cryogenic control for gate-model qubits, claiming it is the first in the industry to do so, and that the breakthrough helps overcome a long-standing obstacle to building commercially viable and scalable gate-model quantum computers. The issue, as Trevor Lanting, D-Waves chief development officer, tells Fast Company, is that adding qubits to a quantum system requires additional resources, such as control lines. That involves more space, material, and an overall increase in complexity for the entire system. But D-Wave has found a way to reduce that complexity, opening the door for scalability. You can think of it as a chip in your phone or laptop, Lanting says. The CPU has transistors in it, and there are billions in a modern CPU or logic chip, but only a small number of connections that go from the motherboard and get the information on and off the chip. You dont have individual wires going to each transistor; you need to multiplex that control. That, in a corollary to classical computing, is what D-Wave is claiming to have demonstrated. Again, this means that additional quantum computing power can be controlled with fewer resources, or scalable control, as Lanting puts it. For D-Wave, its the latest major announcement among several over the past year, as the company continues to push the envelope in the burgeoning quantum computing field. Last March, the company claimed to have achieved quantum supremacy after it was able to successfully simulate the properties of magnetic materials using its Advantage2 annealing quantum computer. In October, it struck a $12 million deal to bring its computers to Europe. All of that has sent D-Waves stock to the moon. Over the past year, shares have increased by more than 200%. Two years ago, shares were trading for less than $1; as of January 5, they were trading at nearly $31. Lanting, who has been with the company for nearly two decades, says its been a long time coming. Weve been intensively investing in this technology for a decade, and now weve been able to harness it for a gate-model program. This was the step we needed to get the control technology working, he says, adding, Were very excited. This really is a differentiating technology for D-Wave. [And] our customers are excited because they get to work on cutting-edge hardware.”
Category:
E-Commerce
Organizations are increasingly turning to “Culture Coaches” to address workplace challenges that traditional management approaches can’t solve. These specialized professionals bring outside perspective and emotional intelligence strategies to help teams build stronger communication patterns, employee engagement, and alignment. In this article, experts share insights on how culture coaching is reshaping the way companies approach employee growth, leadership development, and organizational success. Leaders Shape the Operating System of Business Companies are hiring Culture Coaches because many leaders are finally recognizing that culture is not a perk and not a mood. It is the operating system of the business. Most cultural breakdowns start in leadership behaviors: how decisions are made, how conflict is handled, how communication lands, and how trust is built or eroded in daily interactions. A Culture Coach gives leaders the mirror, structure, and practice to strengthen those patterns so teams can collaborate with clarity instead of confusion. When leaders shift their habits, the culture follows. The impact is tangible. Engagement rises when employees feel seen, heard, and supported. Alignment improves because leaders stop sending mixed signals. Collaboration improves because teams feel safer challenging ideas and offering better ones. And performance improves because clarity reduces rework and friction across the system. Companies with coaching-supported cultures consistently see stronger engagement, stronger retention, and better performance outcomes. A concrete example from my own experience: At a high-growth company I worked with, the leadership team was deeply capable but stretched thin. Decisions were made reactively, communication was inconsistent, and the team began losing trust in one another. A Culture Coach helped the executives slow their reaction cycle, name the patterns, rebuild communication agreements, and establish clear decision ownership. Within months, the shift was visible. Meetings became more honest, tension eased, and teams had clearer direction. Leaders modeled steadiness instead of urgency, and that stability cascaded into the organization. Culture did not shift because of a program. It shifted because the leaders did. Culture Coaches do not fix culture. They strengthen the leaders who shape it every day. And when leaders have more awareness, more clarity, and more skill, the culture becomes a competitive advantage instead of a liability. Lena McDearmid, Founder, Wryver Culture Lives in Daily Feelings at Work I am seeing more companies look for Culture Coaches because they are finally admitting something important. Culture does not live in a policy manual. It lives in how people feel day to day at work. I often step into an informal Culture Coach role for my clients. I sit with senior leaders and ask very direct questions. How does it really feel to work here? Who is thriving and who is quietly checking out? Where are your values visible, and where are they only marketing language? Those conversations are where the real culture work begins. A Culture Coach makes it safer to name what is not working. My role is to translate what I hear from employees into language leaders can act on. Sometimes that means rethinking how feedback is given. Sometimes it means changing who is in the room when decisions are made. Often it is about slowing down long enough to listen before launching the next big initiative. Inside my company, my team holds me accountable in the same way. We are a lean, mostly remote group, so I invite honest feedback on how our workload, communication style, and tools actually feel in practice. If something feels heavy, confusing, or unfair, I want to know. That input shapes how we set expectations, run meetings, and protect rest. The impact of a Culture Coach is not just a nicer atmosphere. It is clearer decisions, fewer unspoken tensions, and a workplace where people feel safe enough to tell the truth. When that happens, engagement and performance follow, but they grow from a real foundation, not from a slogan. Alysha M. Campbell, Founder and CEO, CultureShift HR Emotional Intelligence Builds Thriving Workplace Cultures Right now, company culture is one of the most critical prerequisites for multiple younger generations. They are no longer willing to work in a hostile environment controlled by micromanagers. Companies are losing their top talent due to leaders with low emotional intelligence. My work has involved working with companies for over two decades, teaching emotional intelligence and building thriving cultures. In the last year alone, there has been a sharp increase in the desire and need for outside expert support. Creating a thriving culture is not a quick fix; it requires courageous and dedicated leaders willing to address their own shortcomings. In one such company that hired me, turnover was constant! They were losing enormous resources with this one challenge alone; yet, the backbiting and lack of safety made it miserable even for employees who stayed. Now, employees love coming to work and remain loyal, even during tough economic times. During the process, leaders were incredulous at first, until results began to show. Workplace gossip plummeted; employees worked through their own conflicts; leaders’ transparency increased; employee drama decreased; and a foundation of trust and open communication rose dramatically. Leaders went from disbelief to “hmmm” to “wow,” then relaxed into “ahhh.” Nothing beats a workplace where people love coming to work! Jennifer Williams, Executive Coach & EQ Leadership Trainer, Heartmanity Adaptive Leadership Shifts Patterns Through Behavioral Experiments Companies are turning to Culture Coaches because they’re finally recognizing what many of us in adaptive leadership have known for years: you can’t delegate your way out of a culture problem. Culture is the lived patterns of behavior a system rewards, tolerates, or ignores. And those patterns don’t shift because a CEO announces a new initiative; they shift because someone is helping people see their system clearly, experiment with new behaviors, and stay in the discomfort long enough for real change to take root. A clear example stands out for me. An international institution brought us in to conduct listening sessions and map a plan to reengage critical staff and signal a more collaborative and accountable culture following a change in leadership and direction. Traditional consulting had handed them a tidy road map, which did not adequately incorporate staff input, nor did it account for the loss and frustration they had experienced. With groups of key staff, we facilitated a gap analysis of where the organization was and where they wanted to be. Small groups, each working on one theme, then identified behaviors to bridge that gap and plotted the impact of each idea as a function of their difficulty to implement. Six months later, staff reported feeling heard, retention stabilized, and the system could better focus on their core mission. That’s the tangible impact: a culture where people are not managed into compliance, but coached into capability. Kirsti Samuels, Founder, Women Igniting Leadership Lab Coaches Provide Safe Space for Employee Growth Companies that hire Culture Coaches are finding that their employees are increasingly happier, less overwhelmed, have tools to navigate growth and performance better, and create strategies to be more visible and relevant. This equates to better retention, work, and outcomes for overall company goals. Seldom in our adult lives do we have a space to talk openly about our fears, imposter syndrome, and what’s holding us back, and doing it with key relationships in the office can be terrifying because of optics and the stakes feel too high. Employees who have this type of coaching opportunity are supported in positive regard, free of bias, find strategies to overcome these fears, and champion more productive conversations with leadership or their direct reports while quietly and powerfully making a positive shift in culture through each and every conversation. If every employee is on autopilot on a never-ending hamster wheel working, there is no pause for reflection, to find ways to navigate friction, or the pieces of the work experience that don’t feel right. Being able to work with a coach can help address these in the most positive ways and keep an employee from being disconnected, resentful, or lost. It also might keep them from leaving and help them be more productive! As a coach that works for a Fortune 100 tech company, I’ve supported my clients in finding strategies to: Onboard more successfully by working on tools for mastering their line of business and building key relationships, so they more quickly become comfortable in their role as well as valued team players. Have conversations with leadership that are more productive and drive visibility and relevance for the employee. Ask for what they want. Everyone in the workplace is human, never mind leaders, and finding the language and the ask that feels best has elicited the best outcomes. One of my clients finally asked for a promotion, and his manager’s response was, “I had no idea you wanted more.” They are now working on what’s next collaboratively. Be more authentic with their team and leaders, leading to less overwhelm even though the amount of work didn’t change. There are dozens more examples, but all these moments have made my clients more hopeful, confident, and excited about their roles. Many have gone from, “I want to leave this place,” to, “I found tools to address my needs and I like it here; I want to stay.” The benefits are endless, and an amazing tool for organizations to harness. Shannon Bloom, Leadership & Transformation Career Coach & Founder, PCC, Radiant Firefly Outside Perspective Reveals Gaps Leaders Miss Daily Companies are turning to Culture Coaches because they’re finally realizing that culture isn’t a poster on the wall or a gorgeous websiteit’s the day-to-day habits, decisions, and communication patterns that shape how people feel at work. Most leaders weren’t trained to spot culture issues early or to talk about them honestly, or they are so busy with the day-to-day that they are unable to diagnose culture cracks. Having someone who can name the gaps, coach leaders through them, and build simple systems for consistency makes a noticeable difference. A Culture Coach brings outside perspective without the baggage of internal politics, which helps teams move faster and with more clarity. This is especially true when an organization scales and the informal ways of working that once “just worked” start to break down. In my own work as a fractional people leader, I’ve stepped into this role many times. In one organization I supported, the team had expanded but the culture hadn’t kept pace (though in fairness, there hadn’t been intentional thought here). Staff and mid-level leaders (especially those who had recently joined) were reporting low levels of inclusion, while senior leadershipwho were the same founders who built the organizationwere both surprised and confused. What we uncovered was that the values were still deeply held by senior leaders, but they hadn’t been translated into clear, consistent practices consistently communicated as the organization grew. Without that structure, opportunities for growth started to feel subjective and political. Together, we mapped out key priorities and a road map to define organizational competencies and pathways for growth. We also communicated this to the organization as a whole so that everyone had visibility into the findings and the new direction. Lisa Friscia, President and Founder, Franca Consulting Intentional Culture Supports Ambitious Startup Goals Companies are increasingly hiring Culture Coaches for a few different reasons. 1. They have the resources and foresight to plan ahead, likely startups with funding trying to become a venture-scale business that recognize the importance of developing an intentional culture to achieve challenging goals. I have hired Culture Coaches for this purpose at past startups I have worked at, including Patreon and Clara. At both of these companies, the founders understood the importance of an intentional and aligned company culture from the beginning. They were aiming to grow rapidly and disrupt a traditional market. To do this, you need more than a basic business model; you need a team intrinsically motivated behind your mission and work. You need the company culture (i.e., actions and behaviors or DNA) to align with your ambitious goals. A Culture Coach in this setting comes in to help you refine vision, mission, and values and integrate those things into daily systems and practices. 2. The company has received feedback via engagement scores, performance reviews, or retention data and exit interviews that the culture is causing a problem, a “toxic” culture. This may be on a specific team or within the org as a whole. For this example, I have joined as the external “culture” coach. Here, you take a similar path, learning about the company’s goals and vision, and from there, develop the behaviors needed to be successful, and then, using listening tours and 360s, observe the culture and behaviors that exist today. You prioritize adjustments based on impact and begin intentional changes with feedback loops in a design thinking model to slowly adjust the culture over time. 3. The company may be preparing for rapid growth or another big change. In this example, the company may be aware, advised, or dealing with some early indicators of rouble with the culture. Regardless of the impetus, the company will pursue a “culture” coach, also a role I have taken, to support identifying the culture that exists today and the culture that will be needed throughout and after the change. This can be very helpful in undergoing a merger, international expansion, or dramatic shift in product/service offering and market. Chelsea Seid, CEO & Founder, Talent Praxis Regulate Nervous Systems to Transform Workplace Behavior Companies are bringing in Culture Coaches because they’re realizing something fundamental: you can’t create a healthier workplace by only teaching leadership skills. You have to teach leaders and teams how to be regulated humans first. A large portion of what’s labeled as “performance issues” is actually nervous system dysregulation showing up as reactivity, tension, poor communication, and burnout. A Culture Coach helps shift the internal state that drives external behavior, and that’s where culture genuinely starts to change. One of the clearest examples of this comes from my work with a construction company whose owner, Jac Ryan, later wrote about their experience. She shared that what immediately stood out was that my approach wasn’t the traditional top-down leadership training they were used to. Instead of piling on more skills or telling people how they should behave, we focused on helping their trainers and field teams understand their own nervous systems, how their state, presence, and energy were shaping every conversation on the job site. As Jac put it, the work was “refreshing, insightful, and deeply human.” Once their trainers understood how to center themselves, everything shifted: They communicated more constructively instead of reactively. They reframed tough conversations instead of escalating them. Their attitude set a steadier tone for the whole team. The entire field environment became more collaborative and less chaotic. What impressed leadership most was watching their team open up, make honest shifts, and actually want to show up differentlynot because they were told to, but because they finally understood themselves. Jac described the shift as “noticeable and inspiring,” calling it a true top-down change that energized their entire company. That’s ultimately why Culture Coaches are becoming essential. They don’t just improve performancethey transform the internal capacity of a workforce. And when people feel regulated, safe, and centered, culture improves organically. Companies feel that immediately in engagement, communication, retention, and the overall human experience of work. Karen Canham, Entrepreneur/Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, Karen Ann Wellness Clear Communication Norms Eliminate Expensive Business Obstacles A Culture Coach is someone who comes in and translates the values, practices, and desires of a business into what happens on a day-to-day basis, then moves pieces into alignment with that vision. When we think of culture in a global sense, we think about the physical spaces, language, customs, laws, foods, slang; we think of the lifestyle. A company has a culture as well. It can go badly when the culture is not tended or respected, it has evolved but not well, or it was not established clearly at the start. When I was a classroom teacher, my first few years were rough: I did not know how to create a classroom culture so everyone felt they belonged and knew what to expect. Once I got this down to a science, students excelled, even ones who struggled in other places. When you are part of a strong culture, it signals to your human brain that you belong there, you are part of something, and you are safe. From there, from that psychologically safe place, you are more likely to take risks, which leads to vulnerability, connection, innovation . . . these are things that eliminate expensive business obstacles, like disengagement and talent loss. I have a client that recently scaled from a four-person team to a 10-person team. They are in the business of social support, so everyone has a big heart, but you have, for example, legacy members who hate tech, newbies without experience, misunderstood neurodivergent staff, seasoned but overwhelmed leaders . . . and no one has established lanes of function, communication norms, or respectful discourse. No one has talked about why huddles and retrospectives matter. We started simply: list everything the company does and where everyone fits. Then we explored why overwhelm was predictable and how it shows up for different people. From there, we defined what requires permission, how communication should happen, and how to escalate something. They chose their norms and scheduled trainings on the tools (Slack, email, request forms, etc.). Everyone left with a communication chart and escalation map. In one month, the CEO’s time opened up dramatically. He could actually lead instead of putting out fires. Duplicate efforts disappeared. People understood each other better. Communication became clearer. They estimate a 600% ROI based on time gained, fewer bottlenecks, and the overall improvement in how it feels to come to work. That’s exactly why Culture Coaches are on the rise: when you fix the culture, everything else starts working again. Sandra Bean, Founder + Strategist, Global Girl Boss Mirrors Normalize Healthy Behaviors and Team Alignment Culture Coaches exist to ensure that the workplace is a good place to be, because if it isn’t, great employees quickly exit, and for those who do stay, their engagement and performance will decline. What does a good place to work look like? It looks like a space where healthy working relationships are expected, where work-life balance is the rule, not the exception, and where individuals treat each other with kindness, whether they are in the room or not. When I serve in the role of culture coach, I exist as the mirror. I model what it looks like to be a team player, a listener, an advocate, and a clear communicator. My role includes validating the great work that many staff are doing, and simultaneously motivating those who are not in alignment with our company culture to explore opportunities that are more aligned with their own core values. Sometimes, employees are asked to schedule a meeting with me. In this meeting, I get to wear my coach hat, which rotates between life coaching, career coaching, and leadership coaching. Some staff are elated to have an hour dedicated to their professional success. But not everyone welcomes having the support of a coach. Some staff have the complete opposite reaction and do everything in their power to avoid spending one-on-one time with a coach. This galvanizes an organization. Staff with a growth mindset get supported and increase their performance, and those with a fixed mindset realize somewhere else would be a better fit for them. Having the right culture coach in your organization is a huge win for your staff. They get supported, healthy behaviors get acknowledged, and a trusting, effectiveteam gets built that can crush business goals together and celebrate each other’s wins in the process. Kate Vawter, Founder and CEO, Ascent Solutions Gen Z Demands Purpose Beyond Competitive Salaries It’s because leaders have finally figured out that employees need more than free coffee and monthly lunches to fix team culture. Especially with Gen Z entering the workforce, and how much they care about having a sense of purpose more than a competitive salary, you definitely need a professional who’s solely dedicated to making teams open up and work together honestly. That’s how you build trust between employees and give them a sense of belonging. Unlike HR, Culture Coaches are a lot more hands-on, and they work with everyone, both the employees and the managers. That’s the crucial part because if your employees are making an effort but your managers are still aloof or don’t know how to tackle things like burnout, then the whole exercise is redundant. I think they’re incredibly valuable, but even more so in tech startups, and I’ve seen how these coaches remove all sorts of blockages that get in the way of innovation. They’re really great at helping founders spot which old-school habits are killing creativity. Mario Hupfeld, CTO and Cofounder, NEMIS Technologies
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E-Commerce
As a child growing up with his grandmother in Haiti, the artist Wyclef Jean developed an early appreciation for the idea that any worthy pursuit requires a blend of agency and preparation. On the day I spoke to him, Jean recalled a time when a missionary visited his village. At five years old, a car pulls up and a man gets out and this was like my first time seeing a white person ever. I looked at my grandma and I said, Do you know who this is? And my grandma was like, This is Jesus Christ. Later, Jean came to understand this man was a missionary, bringing rice and beans to his village. When he’s leaving, I look at my grandma, and I’m like, Yo, how come Jesus didn’t leave us the seed? Even at that young age, Jean knew the visit may have meant a meal for one day, but without the seeds to build a farming practice, little could change for him and his community. Ever since, Jean has been looking for opportunities to leave the seeds, not just the rice and beans, as a way to cultivate creativity. Wyclef Jean [Photo: Felix Glasmeyer] While hes best known as a founding member of the iconic hip hop group the Fugees, Jean has an extensive resume: Hes produced music for Shakira, Whitney Houston, and Santana; composed music for movies like Hotel Rwanda; won multiple Grammys; ran and lost a remittance business; launched a music publishing company in Africa; and even made a run for president of Haiti. Jean is boundlessly curious, and his career is a mashup of hustle and hunches. He isnt afraid to name what he doesnt know, or fumble in the process of sorting it out. Here, he shares how he frames his relationship to music, when he feels most inspired, and the value of nerding out. When I’m creating, I create in two spaces. Sometimes I like it super loud. I like people coming in and out while I’m vibing. Creation is like the pulse of the human. Humans don’t hear music. They just feel music. So that’s one part. The other part of me: When Ive gotta nerd out, I want complete silence. My inner me, my engineer, is asking, How can we take Shakira up? You know, what are we missing? To do that, it has to be, like complete silence. Its two parts of the madness, you know? I wake up and I’m a coffee head. I gotta have my Bustelo. If it’s really hot, I would go for a walk; if it’s kind of cold, I go downstairs. I like the treadmill. I just put the headphones on my ears for like an hour and a half, and literally just walk. I do very light weights, just to keep my gymnastics ability going. Then I take, like, 10 or 15 minutes to surf the net on world news. Two hundred days out of the year, I’m traveling, and I’m going to all parts of the world. and I always want to know the pulse. Whats the energy? Whats the culture? After that I hit my recording studio in the back. I’m recording, writing, looking at films, you know, building my ecosystem. I do it all at once. I could be making music, but then I have an idea for a place that I’m thinking about opening up in three years. And I’m like, what do I want that place to be like? So I could be doing the music, and then I stop. And then I start writing a little bit, put it on Chat GPT, and then get back to the music and keep on boom, boom, boom. So that’s sort of like what my days are usually like. I live in a space of creativity, day and night. My best input for output is when I travel. I’m a local head. My greatest input is the human; and not the human through any form of technologythe human touch. Last week I was in Brazil. The first thing we do, you know, we go to the local spot, and they’re doing capoeira. Then we go to another spot, you know, there’s like four or five different local liquors theyre having, and Ive gotta taste it. We went shopping. I went to the place where Michael Jackson did They don’t really care about us. Now, I could have looked at that online, but physically being there is going to do something to my brain. I call it like cultural currency, but it’s the idea of the human. My whole connection, my juju and my magic is the human connection. I couldn’t imagine someone not listening to music. Anyone who tells me they dont listen to music, I have to touch them to see if they have a heart. I always tell people, Man, tell me whatever you want about America, it’s the greatest place in the world. This is the only place I know where Wyclef could come from a hut. Snoop Dogg can come from where he comes from; 50 Cent could get shot nine times in Queens. Shakira could come from Colombia, and the next thing you know, we can appear in the forefront. And in the forefront, we get these tools, and once we get the tools, we become invincible. So whether it’s music tools, economical freedom tools, or culture currency, these tools work together and what they help us do is it helps us literally inspire and deliver an entire new generation. You get stuck because you need that pause time. You could be writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, and then all of a sudden, now you’re going into a state of forcing. So, whenever, like, I run out of it, I literally just chill. I don’t stress, I don’t be like, “Yo, whens the next bar gonna come? When’s the next idea? I feel as if it’s the universe that’s like, Just calm the fuck down. Like, chill a little bit. You have to reboot. It’s hard for people to understand that, and I’m telling you, we all have writers, block. It used to freak me out. So now if I have the block, I just chill, smoke a joint, relax, you know, play my piano, take time.
Category:
E-Commerce
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