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A decade ago, fresh out of business school, I joined a tech company in my first business development role in Singapore. Within the first quarter, I had closed two quarters worth of sales targets. But the environment was abusive. The CEO yelled regularly. Personal and sexist remarks were common, on body, appearance, even what women ate or wore. It was triggering. Having lived through a previous abusive situation, I found myself in constant flight-or-freeze mode. Every time I saw an email from my manager, my heart raced. I struggled to breathe in meetings. Despite my outward success, internally I was unraveling. Finally, I quit. That experience changed the course of my career. For the next 10 years, I delved deep into how trauma shows up in people, teams, and organizations and eventually founded a global social enterprise focused on resilience-centered leadership. Because the truth is, people dont leave jobs, they leave managers and cultures that make thriving impossible. There is a significant cost to this kind of emotional shutdown. Gallup estimates actively disengaged employees cost U.S. companies up to $8.8 trillion each year. A 2022 McKinsey Health Institute report found that one in four employees worldwide experience burnout symptoms, with women and younger workers disproportionately affected. These are signals that our leadership training is incomplete. While HR manuals continue to discuss things like performance management, whats often missed is the fact that people will escape environments where emotional strain is ignored or misunderstood. At the center of this gap is something we rarely train for: trauma literacy. What is Trauma Literacy? Trauma literacy is the ability to recognize that unhealed past experiences show up in daily behavior and to respond in ways that foster safety and resilience. You dont need to know someones history to be mindful of trauma’s effects. You just need to assume that trauma exists, and that it may be shaping how people show up at work. When employees withdrawsilent in meetings, missing deadlines, avoiding collaborationmanagers often misinterpret the signs. Silence gets labeled as disinterest; anxiety looks like incompetence; over-functioning is praised until collapse. In reality, these are often trauma responses: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Without trauma literacy, managers miss the signals until its too late. Why Managers Need Trauma Literacy Managers are trained in financial strategy, forecasting, and performance management. But few are trained to recognize the external manifestations of what I felt back in that tech office: the racing heart, the sense of dread, and the silent withdrawal. Most workers are taught to push harder instead of pausing to hold space for emotions. Emotions are messy, and it often feels safer to stick with technical tasks and leave feelings unaddressed. But the results of pushing through that discomfort speak for themselves: A Harvard Business Review study found that employees who feel psychologically safe show a 76% increase in engagement, a 50% increase in retention, and a 67% increase in referrals. Trauma literacy, in other words, is not extraits essential. Three Trauma-Informed Practices for Managers As a Harvard-trained researcher working with leaders across six countries, Ive seen how even small shifts make a difference. Teams once struggling with silence or high turnover begin to build trust and resilience. Here are three trauma-informed practices any manager can implement: 1. Treat Emotions as Real-Time Data Start meetings with an honest check-in: not a general Hows everyone doing? but How are you truly? Emotions offer real-time information about morale, energy, and team capacity. Of course, people wont open up just because you ask a deeper question. You need to create the conditions where it feels safe to answer honestly. That starts with you. As a manager, model emotional transparency in small, low-risk ways. Say things like, Im feeling a bit scattered today, but Im here, or I had a tough morning, so I might be quieter than usual. This signals that real emotions, not just polished updates, are welcome. Once someone shares something vulnerable, dont rush to fix it or dismiss it. Just reflect it back: Thanks for sharing that, I hear you, or That makes a lot of sense. From there, you might ask, Is there anything you need from me today? or Would it help to adjust your workload this week? You dont need to solve every emotional need. One of the pillars of being trauma-literate is holding space with boundaries. Trauma literacy isnt about absorbing everyones pain. In fact, its the opposite: Effective leadership requires responding to emotions without becoming consumed by them. When boundaries are missing, managers often swing to extremes, either getting too entangled in others emotions or avoiding them altogether. Im advocating for the middle: responding with care, with boundaries. This is what builds trust, morale, and sustainable leadership. 2. Adopt a Coaching Mindset Replace judgment with curiosity. Instead of Whats wrong with you?! when an employee misses the mark ask Whats happening for you right now? or How could I better support you in succeeding? The 5W1H method is another great way to explore challenging moments. It stands for six simple but powerful questions to ask: what, why, when, where, who, and how. For example, What part of this task felt unclear? or When did you start feeling stuck? These open-ended prompts help team members reflect and problem solve without feeling interrogated or blamed and avoids shutdown. This shift in tone also helps managers better understand the root of challenges before jumping to conclusions. 3. Embed Emotional Competence Into Systems Trauma literacy isnt a one-off conversation; its a culture. Build in rituals for reflection, adjust workloads proactively, and allocate time and resources toward psychological safety. When resilience is designed into structures, managers dont have to rely on intuition alone. That might mean adding five-minute emotion check-outs at the end of meetings, especially after intense sprints, high-stakes conversations, or moments of team transition, where each person shares how theyre leaving (energized, drained, hopeful, unsure, etc). As a manager, you treat that as data, just like you would performance metrics. If multiple people are feeling anxious or exhausted, thats a signal to adjust pace, revisit priorities, or check in one-on-one. Some teams Ive worked with also use a One thing I didnt say earlier . . . round to close tough conversations or retrospectives. It gives people space to share truthfully without pressure. Others run short, anonymous pulse surveys with questions like, Do you feel safe being honest at work? and then actually discuss the responses as a team. But rituals like this only work when people feel safe participating. Tht safety is shaped by what others observe. If one person opens up and is ignored, dismissed, or penalized, everyone else learns to stay silent. But if theyre thanked, respected, and supported, it opens the door for others to be honest too. Managers who develop this capacity will build workplaces defined by creativity, trust, and resilience. As AI takes over technical tasks, it wont be spreadsheets or strategy that set leaders apart, but their ability to create psychological safety and lead with emotional literacy.
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E-Commerce
I should go to the dentist more often. I really ought to join a gym. I wish I had partied less in college and bought more Apple stock. Had I ditched the pint of Guinness and invested in Apple in the early 2000s, each pint worth of stock would now be valued at $3,500. Over those college years, I would have accumulated enough stock to buy a brownstone on New Yorks pricey Upper West Side. All cash. Looking back, I probably still would have enjoyed that cold brew with my friends. A pint of Guinness felt just right in the moment. 2025 was far off. As the world gathered for the United Nations General Assembly to discuss climate change, among other global challenges, heres a contrarian take on whats just right for this moment. The climate movement, by and large, embraced the mantra of reduce, reuse, recycle and banked on enough usvoters, policy makers, businesses, consumerscaring deeply about the future to change our daily habits to curb global warming. Its not happening. Carbon emissions hit a fresh record last year, according to EU data. WE WANT IT NOW Lets pivot. Reducing doesn’t deliver a dopamine hit, nor does thinking about tomorrow’s perils. Who genuinely wants less when they can have more? Who truly saves that rich chocolate cake for another day when it looks perfectly tasty right now? Lets get more of what we want today with the cash and the resources we have. When I purchase a refurbished iPhone 13 for my daughter at a fraction of the cost of that new iPhone 17 that just launched, I am not reducing my consumption, I get more. She has the phone she (kinda) wants and I keep a few hundred dollars in my pocket. I can use that to buy her Robux, or invest it in her college fund. I can even afford a second iPhone for her brother, who will inevitably complain that her iPhone 13 camera is so much better than his iPhone 12. American consumers are drowning in record debt, reports from the Fed show. Levels exceed $18 trillion, with average interest rates on credit cards soaring to 21%, and typical cash advances running even higher. Eleven cents for every dollar in after-tax income now pays off debt and interest. For low- and moderate-income households, its even more. A quarter of buy now, pay later users reported a late payment last year. Transunion data shows delinquencies on car loans now surpass 2009 levels, while a PYMNTS Intelligence study found that two-thirds of American households live paycheck to paycheck. A perfect storm of rising prices, high interest rates, growing consumer debt, and tariff uncertainty creates ripe conditions to re-imagine our daily spending choices. EMISSIONS AND BUDGETS GO TOGETHER To date, one of the biggest winners of this financial squeeze are debt providers stepping in as consumers scramble to afford essentials. Klarna reported 24% gross merchandise value growth year-over-year for June and BNPL is now available virtually everywhere for virtually anything, from groceries to fast food. Affirm raked in $1.2 billion from interest payments in the year ending June, up 76%. Facing the near-total reversal of hard-won policies designed to curb emissions, especially in the U.S, many in the climate movement have yet to capitalize on this opportunity hiding in plain sight: rewiring today’s spending to benefit consumers wallets and the planet. When every dollar counts, the choices that stretch our paychecks further often align perfectly with the ones that reduce our environmental footprint. We don’t need to care about 2050 to make smarter decisions today. I dont need to worry about my emissions profile to enjoy driving my ID.4 electric vehicle. Its got more horsepower than a Mustang or a Camaro. Its far cheaper to run. I avoid the queues at the gas station and charge for free at work. It parks itself. My kids no longer complain that the car is too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. Theres no difference in the quality of electricity that comes out of my sockets, except that it is generated by community solar, and I pay less for it. Taking the Metro from the airport to our offices in DC is frequently faster, more relaxing, and often less than a tenth of the rideshare price. OFFER MORE I am not alone. PBS reports that thrifting has exploded in the U.S. amidst high prices for fashion and tech. Reuters analysis showed that a popular basket of apparel at fast fashion leader Shein increased 123% between April and July this year. Too Good To Go, which connects users with businesses that have surplus food, is now one of the top apps in the food delivery category, up there with Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub. Its surprise baskets, filled with unsold items like baked goods, takeout meals, or groceries, offer consumers great value at half price or less from Whole Foods, Cava, and other popular chains. The climate movement spent decades asking people to sacrifice today for tomorrow. Lets flip the switch. Give people more todaymore money in their pockets, more value from their purchases, more control over their finances. Lets seize this moment to innovate and drive efficiencies that make daily essentials more affordable, without relying on costly loans. Lets shutter the failing business of offering people less and double down on optimizing what we have. Weve gotten good at it. This is our time. For my family, the smartest financial movesbuying refurbished, driving electric, rescuing surplus foodhappen to be sustainable ones. We’re not saving the planet because we suddenly started caring more about the future. We’re doing it because we figured out how to make the most of what we have to live better today. The greenest choice is often the one that keeps you out of the red. Jean-Louis Warnholz is the cofounder and CEO of Future.
Category:
E-Commerce
Berkshire Hathaway is buying Occidental Petroleum’s chemical division for $9.7 billion in what may be the last big acquisition involving the consummate dealmaker, Warren Buffett. Buffett wasnt mentioned anywhere in materials released by Berkshire Hathaway discussing the deal Thursday, potentially signaling a passing of the torch to Vice Chair Greg Abel, to whom Buffet will hand the CEO title in January. Buffett will remain chairman at Berkshire and will still be involved in deciding how to spend the conglomerates colossal pile of more than $344 billion in cash. Berkshires cash reserves have been growing for years because Buffett has been unable to find any major acquisitions at attractive prices since completing the $11.6 billion acquisition of Alleghany Insurance in 2022. Prices for big acquisitions have been driven higher in recent years by the entry of more hedge funds in the market. OxyChem makes things like chlorine for water treatment, vinyl chloride for plastics, and calcium chloride thats used to treat icy roads, along with an assortment of other chemicals. It will fit nicely within Berkshire alongside Lubrizol, a chemical company Buffett bought in 2011 for $9 billion. Berkshire is acquiring a robust portfolio of operating assets, supported by an accomplished team, Abel said in a prepared statement. We look forward to welcoming OxyChem as an operating subsidiary within Berkshire.” OxyChem generated $213 million in pretax earnings for Occidental in the second quarter, though that is down from last year, when it generated nearly $300 million for the company. This year, Occidental has been selling off some of its assets in the Permian Basin to generate $950 million to pay down debt. Since it completed the CrownRock acquisition in December 2023, Occidental has sold off roughly $4 billion worth of assets to help it pay down $7.5 billion in debt. This OxyChem deal will accelerate that. Occidental expects to use $6.5 billion of proceeds from the Berkshire deal to lower debt and achieve the target of principal debt below $15 billion set following the announcement of its CrownRock acquisition. Berkshire held more than 28% of Occidentals stock and had warrants to buy another 83,911,942.38 shares in the major oil and gas producer for $59.58 per share before this deal. And Berkshire held about $8.5 billion worth of preferred Occidental shares that it picked up in 2019, when it helped finance the oil producers purchase of Anadarko that Occidental has been paying 8% dividends on every year. Buffett had previously told Berkshire investors that he wouldnt sell off the Occidental stake and he has been periodically buying more shares, but he also told shareholders in 2023 that he had no plans to buy all of Occidental. Berkshire owns an eclectic assortment of dozens of companies, including Geico and several other insurers, BNSF Railway, a portfolio of major utilities, and some well-known brands like Dairy Queen and Sees Candy. Buffett has built up the conglomerate over the past 60 years. In addition to owning companies outright, Berkshire holds stocks worth more than $250 billion, including large stakes in Apple, Coca-Cola, Bank of America, and American Express. The OxyChem deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year. By Josh Funk, AP business writer AP Business Writer Michelle Chapman contributed to this report.
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E-Commerce
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