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Jane, a vice president of Human Resources at a growing tech company, often found herself overwhelmed by her team’s reliance on her. Because her job required her to manage a flat, decentralized organization with a mix of senior managers, rising leaders, and embedded HR personnel within the product business units, she was frequently the go-to person for problem-solving. One particularly hectic week, she skipped lunch for three days. Despite her exhaustion, she agreed to a last-minute meeting late in the day before heading out to her daughters soccer match. When her direct report, Jesse, presented a complex issue, Jane, feeling pressed for time, interrupted: I do not have time for this. Come back tomorrow with your recommendations. Her response was understandable, but it inadvertently reinforced a culture of dependency, which leaves her team reliant on her and stalling their growth in the process. Janes experience highlights a common challenge for leaders in flat organizationsbalancing immediate demands while fostering team independence. Overcoming this requires intentional strategies to build autonomy, resilience, and self-reliance within teams. Below are some of the common reasons that explain why organizations create dependency. The need to control outcomes Leaders often hesitate to delegate because theyre worried that their team will make mistakes or cant handle complex challenges. While this need for control is understandable, it can hinder team growth and create a bottleneck. This leaves leaders overwhelmed and can leave their teams feeling disempowered. Gallups State of the Global Workplace 2024 Report shows that 70% of variance in team engagement depends on managers, underscoring the importance of empowering leadership behaviors. Lack of trust in the team A lack of trust in team members skills or judgment can lead to micromanagement. While the leader might take this approach to reduce risks, this deprives the team of learning opportunities, and reinforces reliance on the leader. Inadequate training or clarity on roles According to Gallup’s 2025 US Engagement research, only 46% of employees clearly understand what is expected of them at worka significant drop from 56% in March 2020. This uncertainty fosters disengagement and diminishes accountability. When team members lack the necessary training or clearly defined responsibilities, theyre less likely to be proactive and act independently. Without a structured decision-making framework, even skilled employees avoid taking risks. They perceive mistakes as failures, rather than growth opportunities. Strategies for addressing dependency Deloitte’s 2024 Global Human Capital Trends report highlights a significant disconnect: 89% of executives believe they are promoting human sustainability, but only 41% of employees share this view. This underscores the importance of investing in workforce development to build trust, enhance engagement, and align with organizational goals. Managers need to foster independence by training direct reports to be self-sufficient problem-solvers. Leaders should also drive growth by cultivating critical thinking and self-reliance, empowering teams and ensuring long-term success. 1. Adopt a coaching mindset Leaders should shift from solving problems to guiding their teams to find solutions. Thus, encouraging greater accountability. One effective technique is the Socratic Method, which uses open-ended questions to explore perspectives, clarify concepts, and challenge assumptions. This approach encourages a discovery process and an experimentation mindset, countering the rigidity of a fixed mindset that views mistakes as failures rather than opportunities for growth. For example, managers ask questions like, What steps have you already taken? or What options are you considering? The GROW model also offers a structured approach to fostering critical thinking and self-reliance. It stands for the following: Goal setting: What do you want to achieve? Reality assessment: What is the current situation? Options generation: What possible strategies can you pursue? Way forward: What specific actions will you take? By utilizing these methods, team members gain on-the-job experience and develop confidence and skills over time. 2. Clarify roles and decision protocols Ambiguity in roles often leads to unnecessary escalation. Establishing clear expectations about when and how to escalate issues can address this challenge. For example, leaders might require team members to conduct stakeholder analyses or gather key insights before seeking guidance. McKinseys DARE decision-making model offers a structured approach to clarify roles and responsibilities, enhancing team efficiency and accountability. DARE categorizes roles as: Deciders: The individuals with final decision-making authority. Advisors: Experts who provide insights to inform decisions but do not have the authority to make them. Recommenders: Team members responsible for conducting analyses and presenting options. Execution Stakeholders: Those responsible for implementing decisions and ensuring desired outcomes. In Janes case, applying the DARE model brought much-needed clarity and structure to her teams decision-making process. As the Decider, Jane retained ultimate authority, ensuring accountability for outcomes and alignment with organizational goals. Senior HR and Labor Law experts acted as Advisors, providing critical insights and guidance. Jesse stepped into the Recommender role, conducting analyses, exploring options, and presenting well-researched recommendations. Finally, the Execution Stakeholders, who were the other team members, took responsibility for implementing the decisions, asking clarifying questions, and addressing challenges to ensure success. With these clearly defined roles, managers can effectively distribute decision-making responsibilities, reduce bottlenecks, and empower their teams to operate independently and efficiently. 3. Conduct reflection check-ins and after-action reviews Structured reflection promotes continuous learning and growth. Using the ORID model, leaders engage with employees in brief but meaningful reflection sessions to analyze their actions and decisions with questions like: Objective: What facts or events were relevant to this situation? Reflective: How did this situation make you feel? Interpretive: What does this experience reveal about our processes? Decisional: What actions will you take? The After-Action Review (AAR) framework complements reflective practices by guiding teams through a structured evaluation of outcomes. Key questions such as, What was supposed to happen?, What worked well?, and What will you do differently next time? helps ensure a thorough comparison of expectations and actual results, highlighting both successes and areas for growth. These reflective practices play a crucial role in helping team members internalize lessons and apply them in future scenarios, fostering greater independence and resilience. Leaders in flat organizations need to shift from being problem-solvers to enablers of growth and autonomy. By adopting coaching techniques, clarifying roles, and embedding reflection into their teams workflow, leaders like Jane can reduce reliance on themselves while building a more confident, capable, and self-sufficient team. Over time, these strategies cultivate a culture of continuous improvement and proactive decision-making, empowering everyone to thrive.
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E-Commerce
Fifty years ago, McDonalds purple mascot, Grimace, introduced his uncle in an extremely 70s ad promoting the Shamrock Shake. Uncle OGrimacey was a bumbling, fuzzy, top-hat wearing creature hailing from Ireland, who would go on to rep the Shamrock Shake for a few years before ultimately disappearing into the ether of early McDonalds mascot lore. But now, for the first time since 1975, McDonalds is giving Uncle OGrimacey another shot at the limelight. The green mascots reappearance is promoting the return of the Shamrock Shake, which is set to land at McDonalds stores on February 10. Its also celebrating the 50th anniversary of Ronald McDonald House Charities, which will receive a portion of the proceeds from this years Shamrock Shake sales and Uncle OGrimacey-themed merch. Uncle OGrimaceys unexpected return comes in the wake of McDonalds 2023 birthday campaign for the unsettling-yet-beloved mascot Grimace, which gave the world the oft-memed purple Grimace Shake. In comparison, the Uncle OGrimacey play is a much bigger swing for McDonalds, relying on less character recognition and fewer nostalgia points from customers. And it shows that goofy mascots might just be having an American renaissance. [Photo: McDonald’s] Whoor whatis Uncle OGrimacey? Uncle OGrimaceys stint repping McDonalds in the mid-70s included a few seriously dated ads showing the Irish mascot visiting his nephew. Oddly enough, it also yielded the creation of a hand puppet toy in 1978. When asked what kind of creature Uncle OGrimacey is meant to represent, a McDonalds spokesperson didnt respond directly, instead sharing the following: While the rest of the Grimace family lives in McDonaldland, Uncle OGrimacey resides on a small island off the coast of Ireland called Sham Rock. Back home in Sham Rock, Uncle OGrimacey spends his time going on nature walks, bowling in his local league, and attending the Sham Rock Street Fair and Music Festival (he plays the bagpipe!). They added that his favorite color is green, his nickname is Uncle O, and, for all those who are wondering, hes a Pisces. (Yes, mascot lore is a thing: Hi-Chew’s new mascot, Chewbie, supposedly loves skateboarding and Chapell Roan.) Its unclear whether Uncle O will appear on packaging or in stores, but he has already made his debut on McDonalds socials. Hes also the star of a questionable line of merch from the company, which includes a crewneck, ringer tee, and sweatshirt with the phrase Whos your uncle? next to a graphic of the uncle in question. [Photo: McDonald’s] Why revive Uncle OGrimacey in 2025? McDonald’s sudden investment in a little-known character might seem like a strange move, but it actually makes a lot of sense. Mascotsespecially goofy onesare having a moment right now, spurred on by what Fast Company has termed DGAF branding: a form of indirect social media marketing that leans into all things weird and nonsensical, rather than explicitly hawking a product’s value. The goal is awareness, engagement, and building and tapping into a fan community, as Fast Companys Jeff Beer noted last October. Duolingo was one of the first companies to embrace this strategy with its lovable but occasionally homicidal owl, Duo. Brands like Pop-Tarts and Nutter Butter (if you can call its peanut a mascot) have followed suit. Out in the real world, sports mascots like the 2024 Summer Olympics’ Phryge, the New York Libertys Ellie the Elephant, and the Philadelphia Flyers Gritty are embodying wackier personas that appear curated to go viral. McDonald’s new mascot of DGAF branding McDonalds got in on this trend with the Grimace Birthday Meal in 2023, which inspired a bout of feel-good articles about the mascot and spawned the Grimace Shake trend, wherein dozens of TikTok users put a deadly spin on the purple beverage. (Grimace then acknowledged the trend from McDonalds X account.) While McDonalds didnt respond to Fast Companys request for specific data on the Grimace activations success, its been enough for the company to keep the purple creature around. Grimace experienced another bout of fame over the summer, after his opening pitch at a New York Mets game was credited with saving the teams postseason run. Now it seems that the company is trusting the internet to do what it does best and run with this new character. Of course, the trick that will determine the success of McDonald’s 2025 Shamrock Shake campaign is whether it can get its fan base to engage with a lesser-knownif similarly shapedmascot. Would any fan be as happy if a celebrity’s similar-looking relative showed up instead? The people want Britney, not Jamie Lynn. O’Grimacey’s ability to win hearts will come down to whether he can sell the lore as a strong personality hireand if McDonald’s new DGAF mascot can make fans give an F about Shamrock Shakes.
Category:
E-Commerce
President Donald Trumps return to office has inspired hats north of the border, while Republicans have turned his expansionist foreign policy pronouncements into shirts for fundraising. The campaign might be over, but the merch has just begun. After Ontario Premier Doug Ford wore a Canada Is Not for Sale hat earlier this month at a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other premiers (the Canadian equivalent of a U.S. governor), the hats maker, Ottawa-based Jackpine Dynamic Branding, was overwhelmed with orders. Trumps statements about tariffs and annexation have struck a nerve with our neighbors to the north. Nothing is more important than the country, Premier Ford said during a press conference while wearing the hat. President Trump wants to devastate Canada. He wants to devastate Canada through economic sanctions and tariffs. Thats unacceptable. [Image: Jackpine Dynamic Branding] The $45 hats spell out the slogan in Times New Roman, the same font as used for Trumps original Make America Great Again hatsand because this is Canada, theres also a version in French: Le Canada nest pas vendre. Jackpine founder Liam Mooney told Reuters he was inspired to create the hats as a response to Trumps unseemly rhetoric toward Canada and as a statement about nationalism and unity. It’s an opportunity to bring people together from all of civil society, regardless of political persuasion, he said. Our sovereignty is threatened when our dignity is disrespected. Meanwhile, Republicans are fundraising off Trumps second-term priorities for the U.S. sphere of influence in the Americas. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is out with $35 tees showing an illustrated bald eagle with Trump hair relaxing on a beach chair with a beer, featuring the words, Greetings from the Gulf of America to celebrate Trumps executive order unofficially renaming the Gulf of Mexico. To sell the Trump National Committee joint fundraising committees own $35 Gulf of America! tee, a recent Trump campaign fundraising email asked recipients if they live near the Gulf of Mexico? followed by, Well, now you dont! It’s also selling Make Greenland Great Again tees. No word yet on official Panama Canal merch, but a third party is selling Make Panama Canal American Again shirts on Amazon. A promotional graphic for the NRCCs Greetings from the Gulf of America tee (top) and two Trump National Committee JFCs tees The Canada Is Not for Sale hat is a statement of nationalism and sovereignty, and apparently, the Gulf of America and Make Greenland Great Again tees are meant to communicate much the same thing. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded to Trump earlier this month by joking that North America should be renamed América Mexicana. (Nothing of this ilk has been printed yet as merch, but, um, give it time. . . . ) Most contemporary political merch tends toward sloganeering over policy proposals (although a No Tax on Tips decal sold by the Trump campaign during the 2024 race was a rare exception). Still, its not as if the Republicans new foreign-policy-themed merch is focused on, say, bringing peace to the Middle East or remaining competitive with China. What is Gulf of America, really, but sloganeering? This story originally appeared in Yello, a newsletter about politics, art, branding, and design.
Category:
E-Commerce
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