3 Noticias economicas ingles

Software applications—apps—drive everything about how we function in the world. But can apps function as medicine? Can they treat our health problems, or better yet, prevent them?

An organization founded in 2017 called the Digital Therapeutics Alliance believes that software can prevent, treat, and manage a range of health issues. And now its members, armed with stacks of peer reviewed papers, are trying to get the government to write legislation that creates a pathway for their success.

“Think of us as a digital drug,” says Big Health founder Peter Hames. The company has two mobile apps, Daylight, which treats anxiety, and Sleepio, which treats insomnia. The apps deliver cognitive behavioral therapy, a skills based therapy that, through a virtual professor, teaches you techniques for falling asleep and mitigating anxiety. It also asks users to log progress through a sleep diary. This level of data collection allows Big Health to document whether or not its app is working.

Together, the two apps have been the subject of 56 peer-reviewed clinical papers, of which 13 included randomized controlled trials, involving 13,000 participants.  There is fairly thorough data supporting their usefulness, because the effects of apps—just like drugs—can be measured and validated. “More participants have taken part in controlled studies of Sleepio, our insomnia therapeutic, than have ever taken part in studies of Ambien,” says Hames.

In general, digital therapeutics tend to take a lifestyle approach to illness, teaching patients how to manage health problems ranging from chronic pain and diabetes to anxiety. The Digital Therapeutics Alliance has 59 member companies, including pharmaceutical giant Boehringer Ingelheim. In the last few years, it’s seen growing investment from venture capital. In 2015, the category attracted $134.3 million in venture funding, but by 2019, digital therapeutics had cleared $1.2 billion worth of deals, according to Pitchbook data. Pitchbook’s analysts estimate that digital therapeutics will be worth $6.9 billion by 2025.

“Through data we’re tying to make sure users are more engaged, retained, and eventually help them improve clinical outcomes,” says Erez Raphael, CEO of DarioHealth. “Further, we have the data to prove the clinical outcomes.” Part of why these interventions are successful is because they make keeping up with healthcare regimens much easier. The apps not only allow members to track their own progress, but often feature other accountability measures, like check-ins with a coach—all of which can be done from home.

Ostensibly, any kind of treatment proven to treat sleeplessness or reduce anxiety should be prescribable and covered by health insurance. Some major insurers do cover Sleepio (the company also has a deal with CVS/Caremark and the National Health Service in the U.K). However, other digital therapeutics companies are still struggling to be accepted for insurance reimbursement. Many digital therapeutics provide treatment for on-going conditions, which are not always easily reimbursable under fee-for-service insurance models.

For instance, DarioHealth uses a digital platform combined with coaches and sometimes medical devices to treat diabetes, hypertension, weight loss, and musculoskeletal issues. Part of the issue the company encounters with insurers is that there aren’t corresponding insurance billing codes for the kinds of services its digital therapeutics provide. Instead, it has also worked out deals wherein its 185,000 users can be reimbursed for Dario’s medical devices, like it’s glucometer. It primarily sells its program to patients directly and employers as an employee health benefit.

“The biggest hurdle that we have right now is that [Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services] has yet to define a benefit category for software as a medical device,” says Therapeutic Alliance CEO Andy Molnar. While CMS does not dictate what insurers will and will not reimburse for, it sets the standard because it is the largest payer in the country. Typically, insurers cover drugs and healthcare services provided by doctors. Digital therapeutics don’t fall into either of those categories.

There are signs that CMS may be embracing digital therapeutics soon. In January, CMS finalized a rule called the Medicare Coverage of Innovative Technology, which would make technologies with a breakthrough status from the Food and Drug Administration eligible for reimbursement under Medicare for four years.  However, implementation of that rule has been delayed until at least December 15, to give the Biden administration an opportunity to review and amend it. MCIT currently doesn’t address digital therapeutics directly, but it does reimburse for medical equipment, often a component of digital therapeutics.

In addition to MCIT, a bill introduced last year may create a stronger pathway to reimbursement for digital therapeutics. The Prescription Digital Therapeutics to Support Recovery Act would ensure Medicare and Medicaid cover prescription digital therapeutics that render behavioral health services, including programs that address mental health disorders and substance abuse. If it is eventually passed, this bill would create a benefit category for digital therapeutics, as Molnar described.

Other countries have already taken steps to make sure that patients have easy access to digital therapeutics and telemedicine. In 2019, Germany passed The Act to Improve Healthcare Provision Through Digitalization and Innovation, so that healthcare apps could be covered by insurance. That same year, the U.K.’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published guidance for digital therapies on how to gain acceptance by the NHS.

Raphael is encouraged by the progress. “It’s a much more modern way for people to manage their health.”

“No one in his or her right mind would argue that quantity guarantees quality,” bestselling novelist Stephen King wrote, “but to suggest that quantity never produces quality strikes me as snobbish, inane, and demonstrably untrue.”

Many of the people we think of as the most creative in history had staggeringly prolific levels of output in their careers. Charles Darwin published around 120 scholarly papers, Albert Einstein published around 250 papers, and Sigmund Freud published 330 papers. Thomas Edison held nearly 2,000 patents on his inventions. Johann Sebastian Bach composed more than 1,000 musical pieces, and Pablo Picasso is credited with more than 20,000 paintings, sculptures, and drawings.

In the journal writing challenge set by my own seventh-grade teacher, my classmates all commented that it helped them become less self- conscious. Furthermore, even those who had previously hated writing started to enjoy it. For me, it acted like a creativity release valve. Perpetually dogged by perfectionism, I found that the new stakes finally loosened me up.

Without the fear of judgment, I spontaneously produced poems, songs, and short stories. Boosting the quantity of your output could help you become more creative, as we discussed above. A positive, elevated, and open mood also seems to disinhibit and allow for more ideas to come. In this state, you are unhindered by internal criticism.

Lest you think that creativity is all about being in a good mood and just waiting for magic, it’s clear that the emotional recipe for creativity is, well, not fully clear. Emotional intensity and even ambivalence seem to play a role in creativity, too. Researchers used to believe that positive moods led to creativity, but recent research has revealed a messier truth. High-intensity feelings, even if they are negative, can lead to completing a set goal, whereas low-intensity feelings, again, even if they are negative, enable us to think more broadly, more diffusely—the kind of thinking necessary to shift perspective and “see the big picture.”

Expertise matters, too. Two of the criteria for creativity are novelty and usefulness. If you know nothing about a field, you might get lucky and produce a few creative ideas (especially if you are expert in another area and are transferring your skills from there), but how can you know what is useful or novel in this new area without expertise? Being at the right challenge for your skill level is key.

In short, the idea is practicing a lot, being in the right mood—and more the magnitude than whether you’re happy or sad—and don’t forget you need to have a level of expertise in that area, of course. All of these will affect your creativity.

Where creativity lives in the brain

Ever heard that the right brain is creative and the left brain is logical? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but recent brain imaging data has debunked that idea. The old idea seems to have come from language centers being in the left hemisphere and spatial abilities being in the right, but recent findings show a far more complex and interesting picture.

Recent studies of people lying in brain scanners and performing tasks requiring creativity or creative thinking showed that they tended to engage not just one part (say, the right or left hemisphere of the brain) but multiple large-scale brain networks that run through the frontal area, the temporal lobes, and the limbic system. This could be seen not just in randomly selected people, but also in people who are indisputably creative, such as freestyle rappers and jazz improvisers.

Why increase your creativity?

There are many reasons why interventions designed to boost your creativity might be worth pursuing. First of all, creativity brings a special kind of focused joy: flow. Flow, also known as being “in the zone” or being immersed, fully absorbed in a feeling of energized focus, is an inherently pleasurable experience. It’s common when in the throes of creativity. Many artists, scientists, and performers report that they lose track of time and lose any sense of themselves when they are immersed in their craft.

Second, creativity may lead to interesting careers. In the 21st century, we are going to need a lot of innovative solutions for everything from climate change to how we should try to coexist with AI. Not to mention how to bridge the widening gap between rich and poor, how to make our food sup- ply chains more sustainable, or how to travel to other planets. If you want to be part of solving these problems—some of which may involve lucrative career paths—you may want to boost your creativity.

Creativity also offers the possibility of personal glory and immortality. If you want fame or fortune now, doing the same things as everyone else but faster and more reliably could be your ticket. If you want to be remembered forever, however, creativity is the path to get there. Maybe when you unlock more of your creativity you will become the next Coco Chanel, Edison, Marie Curie, Ludwig van Beethoven, or Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Your art could be in museums, your music could be played on everyone’s devices, your company could be publicly traded, your cure for a disease could save millions, and your inventions could be sold in stores everywhere.

Elizabeth R. Ricker is the author of Smarter Tomorrow: How 15 Minutes of Neurohacking a Day Can Help You Work Better, Think Faster, and Get More Done. She received her undergraduate degree from MIT and holds a master’s from Harvard University studying the mind, brain, and education.

Excerpted from Smarter Tomorrow. Copyright © 2021 by Elizabeth R. Ricker. Used with permission of Little, Brown Spark, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. New York, NY. All rights reserved.

Europe’s largest lender to pay $575m for insurance assets in city as part of pivot to region

Europe’s largest lender to pay $575m for insurance assets in city as part of pivot to region

Biggest Covid outbreak this year coincides with signs of deeper structural shifts in the economy

Corporate sustainability pledges, from net zero to carbon negative to nature positive, are now a fixture of daily life. And I’m worried.

Having worked in sustainability for the past decade, I’ve had a front-row seat on the way these commitments often play out. And without deep business transformation, they won’t. I’m hearing a lot of noise around where businesses are planning to land, but not so much on what it will take to get there.

Could it be that business leaders don’t actually know what it will take to deliver on big commitments? Or are they struggling to tackle the obstacles to change? I’m observing a bit of both.

Regardless of the sticking point, leaders need to be honest with shareholders, internal teams, and consumers about the contradictions between current business models and sustainable production and consumption. Only then can leaders get real about what it will take to deliver on promises and start rolling up their sleeves to make it happen. Here’s what leading true transformation looks like.

Lead, uncomfortably

Most business leaders I know understand that they can’t reach their sustainability goals on a business-as-usual path. They’re well aware that the systems in place favor short-term gains over long-term value and resilience.

This uncomfortable reality may make playing the “not my problem” card seem tempting. That’s precisely where the problem lies. Now is not the time to shrug at things that seem outside of our control. Instead, leaders must dig deeper and challenge their long-held beliefs about doing business.

It’s time to start questioning the rules of business and getting answers: Will our current business model get us to the goals we’re promising to achieve? Which of our products or activities are at odds with our sustainability goals? Leaders need to normalize posing these existential questions at shareholder meetings, to board members, and among industry peers. This requires being honest and up-front about inconsistencies and how to address them.

And these conversations shouldn’t happen in a generational silo. In the classic clash of youth versus business leaders, it’s easy to use dismissal to mask discomfort. But what if leaders started leaning into the energy of the younger generations to find new solutions and common ground?

Practice—and advocate—what you preach

I see two sides of the corporate sustainability spectrum today. On one end are companies that have acknowledged reality: It’s impossible to engineer a road to sustainability without transforming the way we do business. On the other are those who give lip service to the sustainability movement while actively undermining progress within and outside of their company.

Presenting as a politically neutral business is a thing of the past. Consumers are demanding more than words; and they’re watching for inconsistencies. Leaders must tear down silos between sustainability departments and corporate influence teams, ensuring that those lobbying on behalf of the company are walking the talk, too. Companies that are truly committed to fulfilling their promises know that they must advocate for public policies that create the conditions necessary for change.

To fully embody their commitments and values, businesses should become sustainability activists and throw their weight behind causes they claim to care about—not as a performance or just when it’s convenient. Focusing on fixing the issues their operations impact directly is key. The companies that actively work to rewrite the rules of the game for the better are the ones that will maintain their license to operate and be the example for their peers. A true leader focuses not just on cleaning up their own yard but the entire neighborhood.

Get authentic inside and outside the company

Sometimes a “fake it ’til you make it” attitude can help you persevere through a challenge. This is not one of those times. By acknowledging the roadblocks faced and errors made, leaders can contribute to a culture of authenticity and build the trust to lead transformation.

It’s time to challenge traditional boundaries with competitors, too. It’s cliché but it’s true: We’re stronger when we work together. From the Science Based Targets initiative to the brand new Business Alliance to Scale Climate Solutions, I’ve seen initiatives like these skyrocket over the past decade. This trend is only going to accelerate, so companies that aren’t part of a pre-competitive collaboration should be asking themselves why that is. When an entire industry bands together, the remaining stragglers become increasingly hard to ignore, and excuses for going it alone increasingly slim.

When I look at the state of sustainability today—on the cusp of the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP26)—I’m concerned. But I’m also optimistic, and I hope that business leaders are, too. The worst thing to do would be to pretend true sustainability is possible while secretly believing the challenges are insurmountable—because they aren’t.

The opportunities of shifting business to operate within the limits of our planet far outweigh any short-term costs or temporary feelings of discomfort. Those who recognize that big challenges call for more than big words—but big action and follow-through—are the ones who will make it to the other side.

Dimitri Caudrelier is the CEO of Quantis.

For over two decades, journalist Karen Given was the producer of a popular nationally syndicated sports radio show, Only a Game. Given identified so closely with this role that when she introduced herself, she would say: “Hi, I’m Karen, the executive producer of Only a Game.”

But when the show and her job came to an abrupt end in September 2020, Given found it hard to maintain a clear sense of identity. “With the loss of my job, I struggled to figure out who I was professionally,” said Given.  

Given’s feelings around job loss are not unique. Work provides many of us with much more than a paycheck. A job can offer recognition and status, instill a feeling of belonging, and reinforce self-worth, which together create a tangible professional and personal identity that can be hard to let go of when the position ends.  

Research shows that having a concrete “work identity”—which can be defined as how important your job is and who you believe yourself to be professionally—can be closely tied to your well-being. In a Gallup poll, unemployed Americans were more than twice as likely as those with full-time jobs to say they had been treated or were being treated for depression, and this situation has become endemic during the coronavirus pandemic as millions of Americans have experienced unemployment.

Regardless of the reason why you lost your job, here are some steps you can take to regain your sense of self:

Grieve the loss of your work identity

As a coach who works with people in job or career transition, I’m acutely aware of the intense feelings of anger, sadness, and abandonment that generally accompany a layoff. After having a go-to response to the icebreaker question, “what do you do for a living?” it’s hard to be forced by circumstances to let go of the pithy answer that helps us position ourselves in other people’s worlds, as well as our own.

When a job that you once identified with becomes a thing of the past, it’s essential to acknowledge your feelings about the loss, and not dismiss or hide from them. As with any kind of grief, before you can move forward, you must first mourn what you’re leaving behind.

Reframe the situation

When I spoke with Given about how she was handling the recent end of her long-time radio role, she explained that this year has been all about reframing the way that she looks at things. “When I start to get sad about losing the job I loved, I remind myself that the commute was really terrible,” says Given. “When I start to worry about what the future will hold, I challenge myself to think of the possibilities.” 

She emphasized that while uncertainty is scary, it also creates a blank canvas on which you can build something new. “I can no longer do the thing I’ve always done, which gives me the freedom to try the things I’ve always wanted to do,” says Given. “With the entire world upside down [due to COVID-19], could there be a better time to take a risk?” 

Reach out to your network

Social support is crucial in times of change and challenge. Isolation and loneliness are compounding factors that can accompany job loss, so it’s essential to connect with others in the wake of a layoff.

When my client Josh lost his job in a biotech company due to a merger, he asked people in his network to recall a time they had seen him at his best. He also invited them to identify the skills he was using to help him home in on his most marketable capabilities. Doing so allowed Josh to reconnect to supportive people and regain his footing during an incredibly difficult time.

Return to your values

Values are fundamental beliefs or principles about what you stand for, and can be considered the “essence” of who you are. Values—such as creativity, honesty, collaboration, personal development, and autonomy—underpin career decisions over the long term, though how you express those values and rank their relative importance can shift over time.

While values can help you find meaning and fulfillment in your work, they transcend your work identity and can also be expressed in many contexts outside of work. They’re another lens from which to view yourself during a career transition. That’s why grounding yourself in your values and vision is a powerful way to navigate uncertainty and regain a sense of self in the wake of a job loss. 

Brad, one of my clients who ran social media marketing for his tech company, was always interested in mentoring younger employees—particularly those who had fewer opportunities growing up that resulted in less exposure to the business world. Brad’s value of helping others laid the foundation for exploring other possible career options. His passion for diversity and inclusion guided him to start a consultancy aimed at assisting tech companies that wanted to diversify their engineering organizations. 

Do something unrelated to work

To regain your sense of identity after a layoff, it’s important to incorporate some activities that are potentially less frustrating and rejection-filled than looking for a job. When I coach professionals in transition, I’ve often observed how volunteering helps many rediscover a sense of purpose and accomplishment. Taking on a volunteer role can broaden your networks, and in some cases leads to concrete job opportunities. Most importantly, engaging in activities that are important to you and that help others can foster a sense of confidence, competence, and control over your life—qualities that may have felt shaky after being let go.

Job loss can usher in a corresponding loss of identity and shaken self-image—but keep in mind that what makes you unique isn’t determined solely by your job title or the organization to which you used to belong. Your work isn’t who you are; it’s just what you do. If you’re open to it, losing a job can reveal possibilities to explore sides of yourself that lay dormant until now.

Susan Peppercorn is an executive transition coach, corporate speaker, and writer. Download her free Career Fit Index.

Remote work has oodles of benefits for employers and employees alike: a larger talent pool, less overhead, flexible scheduling, and more.

There are some drawbacks, though, especially for hybrid companies with a mix of remote and in-office workers: potential communication issues, isolation for remote people on in-person teams, and culture challenges.

To address such drawbacks, of course, we have the now-ubiquitous video meeting. And while the technology’s come a long way, it’s still tough to replicate the feeling of being inside an office, from casual catchups to in-person meetings. Open offices, despite its many, many, many flaws, do offer a major benefit: the possibility of open dialogue between team members at all times.

Now, the race is on to build video technology that replicates constant communication between teams. Here’s a look at some interesting contenders.

Owl Labs: Meeting Owl 360-degree smart camera

Have you ever been on the remote end of a call that’s got 12 people packed in a distant, echo-y conference room with a corner-mounted camera so they all look like tiny smudges and you can’t tell who’s talking? If you plan to stay remote while your coworkers head back to the office, this unpleasant experience is in your future.

That’s a problem Owl Labs is trying to solve with its line of Meeting Owl cameras. There are two models—the $799 Meeting Owl (designed for small rooms) and the $999 Meeting Owl Pro (designed for large rooms)—which both look like… well, owls, if they’d been designed by Isaac Asimov. Their neatest trick (aside from being adorable): capturing videoconferences in 360 degrees.

[Animation: courtesy of Owl]That might not sound super exciting at first, until you realize that you can see everyone in the room up in a video strip that runs along the top of your window, and then a larger spotlight video section below that intelligently focuses on whoever’s talking. Better yet, if multiple people are talking, it’ll slide them in and out of the main video section, making it feel more like you’re in a real-life meeting.

The cameras integrate with popular videoconferences services such as Zoom, Slack, GoToMeeting, and others, and can be connected in pairs if you need to cover cavernous conference rooms.

Around: Bring Your Own Camera

Not everybody has the cash for an $800 owl-shaped camera, of course, but camera-equipped phones, tablets, and laptops sure aren’t hard to find.

The idea behind Around—which is currently free in public beta—is that sometimes the best camera-and-mic setup is the one closest to your face, regardless of where your workspace is located.

Imagine a team that needs to jump into a war-room of sorts to hammer out last-minute details on a launch. Everyone fires up Around, and people in the group show up in little video circles that block out distracting backgrounds and follow people’s heads as they speak. It makes collaborating via video easy because it gets the actual video part of it out of the way.

[Animation: courtesy of Around]Around leverages AI to frame your face in a small circle and to auto-mute common unwanted background noises like sirens, pets, and HVAC noise. It integrates with Slack and is available on just about every major platform as well: Windows, Mac, and Linux, plus iOS and Android, and directly via popular web browsers.

The company says it’ll always offer a free option, but paid plans look set to roll out later this year, so get in now while the gettin’ is good.

Video Window: Always-on common spaces

OK: you’re in the office and you need to speak with your remote co-worker on the double. Email’s too slow. Chat won’t get the context across. Phones are too old-timey.

Walk up to your company’s Video Window, which streams a constant view of the office for remote workers, and tap on the image of the remote worker you need to talk to.

On the remote worker’s end, the Video Window Remote app is up on a secondary monitor or tablet with the video turned on and the audio turned off. This way, he or she can see what’s going on in the office and notice when someone’s walking up to chat.

[Image: courtesy of Video Window]The remote worker can also just unmute to try to get someone’s attention or tap the “knock” icon, which makes a knocking sound on the office Video Window. Multiple in-office Video Windows can be connected together as well, making for quick site-to-site communication, and there’s a cool-looking whiteboarding feature.

Now, this is a software-based offering from the company Collaboration Squared, but you’ll need to supply some slightly-specialized hardware for an office-based Video Window: namely, a touch-capable display, computer, and webcam.

Obviously the bigger, faster, and higher-resolution the better—the company recommends a 65-inch or larger touch display (which cost thousands), Intel i5 or up processor, and 4K webcam—but does mention that it’ll run on commodity hardware, even using just a mouse and keyboard instead of touch if you’re on a budget.

Pricing is a flat $2,400 per office device, per year. The Video Window Remote app, which runs on standard tablets, phones, and computers, is free.

Earlier this year, Barack Obama became the first American president to launch a podcast. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Almost every high-profile job these days, ranging from movie star to talk-show host, is now technically a stepping stone to society’s true highest rung: podcast host. But among eligible former presidents who might have first crossed the rubicon, Obama seems particularly suited to it. Renegades: Born in the U.S.A.—the show he created with Bruce Springsteen, a sort of ne plus ultra of dad bait—hails from Higher Ground, the production company the 44th president formed with his wife Michelle (who also has a podcast), to facilitate their creative ambitions. The Springsteen collab joins a robust slate of other projects in a burgeoning media empire that spans books, TV shows, feature films, live events (pre-COVID-19), and an upcoming stint hosting Saturday Night Live. (That last part isn’t true, at least as far as Fast Company knows, but who wouldn’t believe it?)

[Photo: Renegades: Born in the USA]This year has seen Higher Ground transform from what might have initially been written off as a vanity production shingle—Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos was a big supporter of the Obamas, and his wife served as Ambassador to the Bahamas from 2009 to 2011—into a rather active content creation hub. They released one kids series in the spring, another on July 4, and have yet another scheduled for next month. In addition, the Kevin Hart feature Fatherhood, acquired on the festival circuit early this year, bowed in June. At least seven more projects have also been announced recently and are in development.

Although most Hollywood producers follow their taste for material or work within a defined genre, there are a few who have sought to create a niche out of developing socially redeeming material. Perhaps the best known of these is Participant Media, which builds impact campaigns around the films it makes, such as RBG and John Lewis: Good Trouble. Another upstart production company, One Community, which made Michael B. Jordan’s Just Mercy, has positioned itself as “impact first,” using its content to amplify the change it wants to see in the world.

What change does the President turned mogul—and his ascendant mega-influencer spouse—want to achieve with this torrent of projects? Does the Obamas’ output add up to more than just extra tiles on the Netflix homepage?

Producer-in-Chief

At the beginning of his post-presidency era, Obama seemed to split the difference between his two immediate predecessors. Like Bush, he withdrew from the spotlight—with the exception of an eyebrow-raising kite-surfing vacation on Richard Branson’s private island—and into writing his presidential memoir. Like Clinton, he took high-paid speaking gigs, some of them to Wall Street firms, earning as much as $400,000 a pop, and shoring up funds for his foundation.

Anyone curious about what he would do long-term, though, could only speculate.

“I’m spending a lot of time thinking about the most important thing I could do for my next job,” he told a panel of young community organizers in April 2017. “[There are] all kinds of issues that I care about and issues I intend to work on. But the single most important thing I can do is help in any way [to] prepare the next generation of leadership to take their own crack at changing the world.”

This declaration is vague and positive in a quintessentially Obama-esque way. A lot of things could be described as “preparing the next generation of leadership.” Lining up more Wall Street speeches could technically qualify. To which version of preparation would the former president devote himself as a civilian?

The answer arrived in May 2018.

[Photo: The White House]Just two months after revealing a joint book deal with Penguin Random House worth $65 million, Barack and Michelle Obama announced their deal with Netflix. For an undisclosed sum, the former first couple would be cultivating and shepherding scripted and unscripted series, documentaries, and feature films. Although this would appear on its face an unconventional post-presidential career pivot, with a reality-television host in the White House ripping up the presidential playbook, perhaps the post-presidential formula of ranch retirement and occasional shuttle diplomacy deserved a shakeup, too.

Americans have always been curious about their presidents’ tastes, but no one had quite leaned into that bit of voter relatability more than Obama, with the president regularly releasing summer reading lists and end-of-the-year playlists. Producing content of his own was theoretically a fitting follow-up project for a presidency marked by mavenhood.

In both an early NYT scoop about a potential Netflix deal, and the eventual announcement confirming it, Michelle Obama and senior advisor Eric Schultz used identical language to describe how the former First Couple has “always believed in the power of storytelling to inspire.”

All politicians rely on storytelling in one way or another, spinning yarns about themselves, their constituents, and the entire world. Obama, however, is rare among politicians in that he was already the author of a memoir before he ever held office—a literary one to boot, not just the typical boilerplate campaign tome. Storytelling was key to his early success as a politician, and a lens through which to refract his worldview.

“I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story. That I owe a debt to all of those who came before me. And that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible,” he famously said at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

But how would he and Michelle use the power of storytelling to inspire people in the Trump era?

Higher Brow

The only hint anyone had about what to expect from the Obamas’ output at that point is their production company, Higher Ground, which name-checks a universally beloved Stevie Wonder track and nods to Michelle Obama’s most famous quote. It would be another year before Netflix revealed anything further.

In late April, 2019 the streaming service announced an initial set of offerings. These included: American Factory, a blunt look at the incompatibility of a globalized economy; Waffles + Mochi, a children’s show about the virtues of eating healthily, featuring puppets, celebrities, and occasionally Michelle Obama; and Bloom, a class-focused drama set in the fashion world of post-WWII New York City. It looked as though Higher Ground’s material would offer insight into the challenges facing Americans, further plumb the Obamas’ personal interests, and provide some high-brow fun as well. Essentially, it would be a line drive right down the middle.

The rollout of these projects so far has been marked by a kind of frictionless efficiency uncommon to government matters. American Factory won the Best Documentary Oscar in 2020, blasting a prestige gloss over the entire enterprise. Michelle Obama continued her transformation into a trusted guru of social-consciousness, launching The Michelle Obama Podcast on Spotify and adapting her bestselling memoir, Becoming, into a Netflix special. Higher Ground also began acquiring more features at film festivals, including Hart’s Fatherhood, and the forthcoming Worth, a patriotic tear-jerker about the 9/11 Victims Fund starring Michael Keaton. The company’s slate of originals is rapidly expanding as well, and now includes a series of love stories about Black teenagers, a feature adaptation of the Pakistani-penned bestseller Exit West, and a kids show applying the Doc McStuffins formula to scientists.

Some of these projects are exactly what you’d expect. We The People, a Schoolhouse Rock update released earlier this summer, and which I need not even mention features Lin-Manuel Miranda, is more on-the-nose than rhinoplasty. Civic-minded kumbaya for kids. In one episode, a young woman registering voters is slightly intimidated by a young man decked out in hip-hop regalia . . . only for him to smile, revealing bejeweled gold fronts that read “I voted.”

Some of the upcoming projects are head-scratchers. The G-Word, a loose adaptation of Michael Lewis’ The Fifth Risk, caused a stir in 2020 when Insider incorrectly characterized it as “a Netflix comedy series about the ‘chaos’ that occurred when Trump came into power.” This description had the Obamas taking a momentary break from going high, to fire back at their chief antagonist. It didn’t seem like a particularly wise move, and definitely not a necessary one, but it was at least an interesting direction for the pair to go in. The show’s actual logline—a part documentary, part sketch-comedy look at how government really works, hosted by Adam Ruins Everything creator Adam Conover—sounds like a joke premise Ben Shapiro might suggest when talking about what liberals watch on TV.

The Brand called Obama

The most representative project in Higher Ground’s repertoire is probably Overlooked, an anthology series examining some of the more incredible lives left out of the obituary section of the New York Times over the years. If there’s a unifying theme to the Obamas’ itinerary overall, it’s an emphasis on drawing attention to lives and perspectives too often left out of the American entertainment landscape: devoted single Black fathers, refugees, disabled athletes, and America’s indigenous population. Getting these kinds of stories into the televisual bloodstream is a noble cause. Most of them, however, don’t scan as hidden gems found in the rough but rather obviously worthy projects that would have found homes anyway. Why do they need a Presidential Seal of Approval, if not for that?

Perhaps the Obamas are just voracious consumers of content as well as canny curators, who find being on the supply side “a more palatable way to make money than the paid-speech circuit,” as the former president reportedly said. The pair has plenty of other ways to generate revenue, of course—albeit mostly in other parts of the media business. They can parlay a book into an arena tour, a podcast into a book, and a book into a Young Adult version of itself. But branching out into film and television production is not only lucrative, it’s also perhaps something in between fulfilling job and brand-burnishing exercise. It’s a chance to program an official Obama summer watchlist totally from scratch.

This collaboration has been carefully packaged, however, as a matter of purpose; a mission to inspire through storytelling. In reality, it’s more like a holistic, worldview-signifying imprimatur. Any loftier framing than that is just a testament to the power the Obamas’ storytelling has to inspire themselves.

Yesterday much of the world looked on in horror as the Taliban took the Afghan capital of Kabul and with it, control of the entire country. The Taliban’s rapid advance across Afghanistan took little more than a week after U.S. forces withdrew from the country after two long decades.

The consequences for the Afghan people will be immediate. As for the rest of the world? Many are predicting that a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan could once again become a hotbed of terrorist activity that could see plots of the scale of 9/11 happen again.

While governments around the world are still rushing to digest what Afghanistan’s fall means from a geopolitical perspective, here’s how newspapers around the globe have already covered the fall of Afghanistan.

Tomorrow’s USA TODAY front page is hard to look at.

For 18 of the 20 years of America’s war in Afghanistan, I was a reporter and editor in a military town.

We covered every angle of the post-9/11 war on terror, particularly its toll in lives.

Today was heartbreaking. pic.twitter.com/zarLP5yrIj

— Matt Leclercq (@Matt_Leclercq) August 15, 2021

Tomorrow's @nytimes Front Page. #Taliban #Afghanistan #Kabul #Afghanishtan #KabulAirlift #20years pic.twitter.com/6YNBPsabK5

— Rohit Sharma (@DcWalaDesi) August 16, 2021

Take an early look at the front page of The Wall Street Journal https://t.co/nuCO0ciOnY pic.twitter.com/kqDphtG4qq

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) August 16, 2021

Los Angeles Times
Published in Los Angeles, Calif. USAhttps://t.co/XDnpuaVG45
Post date : 16/8/2021 14:30:54 pic.twitter.com/Lvb17dMfHI

— News Front Page (@News_FrontPage) August 16, 2021

Just published: front page of the Financial Times international edition Monday August 16 https://t.co/gjMXJnkUDW pic.twitter.com/8OtCuKAY5E

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) August 15, 2021

Happy day, readers! Please enjoy today's front page. Read all these stories on https://t.co/qUf46kEbMt. Enjoy ad-free reading with Premium Plus: https://t.co/WBVBBe4Zt3. pic.twitter.com/KBwQqi6wVI

— The Jerusalem Post (@Jerusalem_Post) August 16, 2021

Today's front page signals the end of the 20-year Western experiment to remake #Afghanistan.
On Sunday, the Taliban swept into Kabul after the government collapsed and the country's embattled president joined an exodus of his fellow citizens and foreigners. pic.twitter.com/AWQo1chb6m

— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) August 15, 2021

Tomorrow's front page:

Kabul falls: US military admits “there was no assessment pessimistic enough’

You can't buy a revolution, but you can subscribe to the only paper that's fighting for one: https://t.co/hxrtOVmwoD pic.twitter.com/C90hCwfuDu

— davo (@davo_shire) August 16, 2021

Our Front Page splash today "Triumphant Taliban take Kabul as president flees". Islamists demand 'absolute power'. With @scribblercat @Charlie_Faulk & @hzeffman #Kabul #Afghanistan #Taliban pic.twitter.com/ytHfNObwiy

— Haroon Janjua (@JanjuaHaroon) August 16, 2021

#FrontPage today: Taliban assume total control of Afghanistan; India unveils $1.35tr infrastructure plan; Burns, tears as Beirut medics treat fuel blast victims; 100-day plan to boost Emirati jobs in private sector… For more latest news check: https://t.co/js8VOvuhFF pic.twitter.com/f3tiubVarD

— Gulf News (@gulf_news) August 16, 2021

The front page of tomorrow's Daily Telegraph:

'The West flees as Kabul falls to Taliban'#Kabul #Afghanistan #Taliban #KabulHasFallen #طالبان pic.twitter.com/glNQKQGcW8

— پاکستان اردو نیوز (@sb_qureshii) August 15, 2021

Vatan-e Emrooz blames the US for the Taliban’s expansion in Afghanistan with its front page: “The United States of Taliban” pic.twitter.com/B0LCzV6S0v

— Omer Carmi (@CarmiOmer) August 14, 2021

Here's the @guardian front page, for Monday 16 August 2021. #Kabul #Afghanistan #Talibans pic.twitter.com/v2xDmE3tWV

— Illia Djadi (@idjadi) August 15, 2021

Front page of Daily Mail "After 20 years, Afghanistan abandoned in days" "what the hell did they all die for?" pic.twitter.com/wmngBukOat

— Yalda Hakim (@BBCYaldaHakim) August 15, 2021

Monday front page of Arab News says it all. pic.twitter.com/axTEggVcpK

— Adam Fitzgerald (@_AdamFitzgerald) August 16, 2021

Good morning! Here’s today’s front page and headlines: pic.twitter.com/lJdelUI0Zy

— South China Morning Post (@SCMPNews) August 16, 2021

It took 20 years to change front page story @washingtonpost #Kabul #afghanistan pic.twitter.com/eqMuSfQaZM

— Nasir Mehmood Kiyani (@NM_Kiyani) August 16, 2021

The old phrase “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” may need a makeover.

Parting Stone is a “death tech” startup that can turn the cremated remains of your loved ones into “solidified remains” that resemble smooth, stone-like objects but are in fact almost 100% ashes. Self-described as the first company to provide such a complete alternative to ashes, Parting Stone allows for a more meaningful experience that can be held comfortably, shared with others, displayed, or even scattered. It also fits into an ever-growing death care industry—expected to be worth about $68 billion by 2025— that is increasingly catering to the desire for more personalized, meaningful, and often sustainable ways to honor the departed.

[Photo: Courtesy Parting Stone]Parting Stone’s patent-pending technology was developed with ceramic engineer Chris Chen of Los Alamos National Laboratory. It involves a few simple steps following cremation. After arriving at the Parting Stone lab in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the full amount of cremated remains is refined through a milling process that turns the ashes “from a granular consistency to a really fine powder,” explains founder Justin Crowe. After that, a small amount of water and a “glass-like binder” helps turn the powder into a clay-like substance that is formed and placed in a kiln before being polished and returned to the family.

Typically, the remains from an average adult weigh about 4 to 8 pounds, or what Crowe says equates to about 10 cups. “All we do is take that material and compress it into solids,” he says. In the end, the family gets between 40 and 60 stones. Sizes vary from that of a thumbnail to the size of your palm, and colors range from one person to the next, from white to light-green hues, with the occasional deep blues, chocolate browns, or even lavender with speckles of blue.

[Photo: Courtesy Parting Stone]Crowe says these colors are completely natural and not at all influenced by the firing process. The company is doing research to identify the reasons, but Crowe’s team has a few theories that range from the medication people were taking, to their diet and lifestyle, to medical implants they may have had.

Parting Stone officially launched in 2019, but Crowe came up with the idea in 2014 when his grandfather passed away. “That was the first death in my life,” he says, adding that “his remains felt meaningless. I wanted to feel a connection with them, but I didn’t want to look at them.”

After that, Crowe set out to understand other people’s experiences with death and loss. Typically, cremated remains come in a bag, and Crowe quickly realized this level of care doesn’t match the love people have for those they’ve lost. “We don’t accept this experience in any other part of modern life. Why are we accepting it for people we love?” he says.

In 2017, about 55% of bodies in the U.S. were cremated rather than buried, and according to the Cremation Association of North America, the number of people choosing cremation over burial is predicted to rise to 60.7% by 2024. Meanwhile, about 25% of the U.S. population, or 75 million Americans, choose to keep the cremated remains of their loved ones in their homes. Those people, Crowe says, “they get it.”

[Photo: Courtesy Parting Stone]When a family chooses the urn, Crowe says, “what they get is the end of the experience.” With Parting Stone, “it’s the beginning of their experience,” he notes, referencing the sheer portability of the stones, and how easy it is to share them with friends or other family members. “It’s a canvas for the experience, not the experience itself.”

That experience costs $695 for adults, and around $300 for pets. Compared to an urn, the service is costlier, but Crowe believes that a collection of stones provides a more meaningful connection. “The trend that is clear right now is that people want death to feel personalized,” he says.

In the last decade, this quest for more meaningful, alternative solutions to traditional burial and cremation has translated into a multimillion-dollar industry and a sea of death tech startups. Ashes can now be repurposed into diamonds, pressed into vinyl records, or even scattered into fireworks. A more down-to-earth experience involves spreading the ashes under a redwood tree in a 20-acre forest.

[Photo: Courtesy Parting Stone]Parting Stone is a public benefit corporation, whereby a company’s very purpose is to combine for-profit services with the pursuit of social good. In 2019, the company received a $100,000 grant from the Los Alamos National Laboratory to study the environmental impact of scattering stones compared to ashes. Conclusive results should be ready next January, but initial data shows that solidified remains have a lower pH level, and therefore a lower impact on the environment, than cremated remains, which are considered highly alkaline, with a pH level close to that of ammonia.

About a third of Americans whose loved ones have chosen cremation end up scattering the ashes—and almost 20% do so at non-cemetery locations—so Parting Stone may have a meaningful impact on the environment. But for Crowe, it’s also “a matter of user experience,” he says, hinting at that dreadful moment when people don’t check the direction of the wind before scattering the ashes.

Crowe remembers an epiphany he had at a business incubator conference. “I had a stone made from human remains, and about 200 people asked me to hold it,” he says. “All we did was change the form of remains and it made them comfortable, desirable. This is a design solution.”

The chocolate industry has problems. Twenty years after promising to phase out the “worst forms” of child labor on cocoa plantations, chocolate brands still haven’t succeeded. In Ivory Coast, where a third of the world’s cocoa is grown, rainforests are plowed down for cocoa plantations; in the last 50 years, the country has lost more than 80% of its forests, mainly to cocoa production. By some estimates, the carbon footprint of chocolate isn’t far behind meat and dairy, making it worse for the climate than most foods. Climate change is also making cocoa harder to grow.

But what if a chocolate bar could be made from other plants instead? QOA, a Germany-based startup now part of the tech accelerator Y Combinator, makes cocoa-free chocolate using “precision fermentation” of other ingredients. Over a little more than a decade, the company hopes to fully replace the cocoa used in mass-market products.

Cofounder Sara Marquart, a food scientist who previously worked at another startup creating coffee-free coffee, began working on the project earlier this year with her brother, an entrepreneur who wanted to find more meaningful work than his previous consulting firm. “We started making chocolate in my brother’s kitchen,” she says. “We bought seven Thermomixes and set them up on my brother’s table.”

Along with a tiny team of scientists, she started analyzing the flavor of cocoa. “Pretty much every food has a fingerprint, like a human has a fingerprint, right? It’s very unique,” she says. “We analyze the fingerprint of raw cocoa, fermented cocoa, roasted cocoa, to understand what is making cocoa this unique little bean that has so much flavor?” Then they did the same analysis of byproducts from food production, such as the residues left after pressing sunflower seeds to make oil. By fermenting a handful of these ingredients, they were able to “extract the building blocks of the flavor,” she says. “And then we reassemble that in a big brewing tank. You can think of it like beer brewing, in a way.” After fermentation, the final product can be roasted and dried like conventional cocoa.

The flavor took time to get right. In taste tests of an early version, the sample chocolate got low scores, with an average rating of 4.9 out of 10. “One of the people commented that she had to brush her teeth three times,” Marquart says. But as the team reworked the formula and sent new samples out to the same random group of testers, the ratings doubled. The team then went to chocolate sensory experts at a research organization called Fraunhofer, who said that they couldn’t distinguish between the startup’s version of chocolate and conventional chocolate. “Then we were like, okay, now we’re ready to launch,” she says.

They’ve now started talking with major chocolate brands. “The best feedback that we got is that from a person who was super skeptical, like, ‘Yeah, you can never never do that,’ when we first talked to him,” she says. “And then he tastes it and he wrote us an email the next morning saying, ‘Hey, guys, how can we collaborate?”

The startup plans to also launch its own brand to help make more people aware of issues like child slavery in cocoa production. (In a common case, children living in Mali might be recruited for work and told they’ll be well paid, and then trafficked across the border to Ivory Coast, where they’re forced to work without pay for years, and isolated from other child workers.) “I think only a few know about the child labor, and even less know about the climate impact,” she says. They’re working with a Michelin-starred chef, for example, to showcase how the chocolate can be used. But the primary goal is to replace the cocoa in mass-market candy and other chocolate products. Pilot tests with bigger brands are likely to begin next year.

By using byproducts as ingredients, QOA can shrink the carbon footprint of chocolate. But produced at scale, the cocoa replacement can also be less expensive that the real thing. The intent isn’t to replace sustainably-produced single-origin chocolate. “We love chocolate, we love cocoa, and we love the product that is produced in a sustainable and just way by small-stake farmers,” says Marquart. “The only problem is that it’s not a scalable approach to make chocolate for the global consumption of chocolate. We’re just wanting to offer a solution for mass market chocolate that we can skip the CO2 footprint and the child slavery.”

World’s biggest miner in negotiations to combine petroleum business with Perth-based group

World’s biggest miner in negotiations to combine petroleum business with Perth-based group

Incumbent Edgar Lungu accepts results as Hakainde Hichilema sweeps to victory

When I founded Pipeline Equity in 2017, one of my first priorities was finding the right people for the right positions. Geography wasn’t going to limit my search, so I decided we would become a remote-friendly company. Today, we are 100% remote with employees spanning six time zones. They live in urban centers, small cities, and suburbs. You can find them on the East Coast, West Coast, and everywhere in between. And regardless of their geography, they earn equal pay for equal work. At Pipeline Equity, we believe pay is a function of value. As such, people should receive wages based on the value they provide to the organization, not based on their physical location or time spent in the office. Here’s why. 

Knowledge workers deserve equal pay for equal work, regardless of location

Let’s start with the basics. What does it mean to pay someone fair and equitable wages? Many organizations struggle to answer this question, and we know that because we see it in the data. 

Recently, on August 3, we recognized Black Women’s Equal Pay Day. It represents the extra seven months and three days into the 2021 calendar year that Black women had to work to earn what non-Hispanic white men earned in 2020. They make 63 cents on the dollar. Latinas experience even greater pay inequity. This year their Equal Pay Day, which falls on October 21, meaning they earn just 55 cents on the non-Hispanic white man’s dollar.

Breadwinner moms (who support 40% of U.S. households with children under the age of 18) face some of the deepest intersectional pay gaps. In fact, my research found that Black breadwinner moms have the largest gender pay gap of any women in the U.S. They earn 44 cents for every dollar earned by white breadwinner dads.

If we keep digging, we find evidence of pay equity across all education levels. Despite making up 50.2% of the college-educated workforce, women receive an average of 26% less pay than their male counterparts in comparable jobs. As educational attainment levels rise, so too does the severity of intersectional pay inequity. Women with bachelor’s degrees earn 71.4% of what men with bachelor’s degrees earn, whereas women with graduate degrees earn 69.1% of what men with graduate degrees earn. 

If you think you’re not affected by pay inequity, think again. Pay inequity is more than an individual issue of fairness. When companies don’t pay equitable wages, they stifle economic growth and business performance. 

Pay equity stifles economic growth for all 

Intersectional pay inequity costs the U.S. economy $512 billion. And that’s not all because wages have both supply-side and demand-side effects. 

Wages determine everything from the level of healthcare you receive to the quality of food, education, and housing you have access to. It impacts your ability to save for retirement, pay down student loans, open a business, and run for political office. 

These household issues flow back into the larger economy. Our economy takes a hit when people don’t receive the income they deserve. In addition to strengthening the U.S. economy by $512 billion, closing the intersectional gender pay gap would: 

• Lift 50% more working women out of poverty. 
• Cut the Social Security shortfall by 35%, or $4.7 trillion. Higher wages earned during working years put more money in women’s retirement accounts. 
• Reduce dependence on social welfare programs. Women head 72.9% of households enrolled in Medicaid because their lower wages inhibit their ability to afford healthcare.
• Reduce student loan debt. Women make up 57% of undergraduates yet hold 67% of all student debt. 
• Strengthen the middle class. The share of breadwinner mom households has increased by 166% since 1970. Middle-class families depend on the wages of breadwinner moms.

Business performance suffers from pay inequity

And let’s not forget that consumer spending drives 70% of the U.S. economy. Businesses rely on healthy wallets to hit performance targets. Plus, from a labor supply perspective, it’s advantageous for businesses to pay employees equitable wages. 

After all, women are the most educated cohort in the labor force, and 72% of them said they would not apply to work at a company where a gender pay gap exists. Moreover, “slow salary growth” was the third most common reason women gave for leaving a career in STEM. (In first place was “lack of career growth.”) Companies risk alienating at least half the talent base by failing to pay equitable wages. 

Which brings us full circle. What does it mean to pay people equitable wages? It means paying people based on the value they bring to the organization. Not their gender. Not their race, ethnicity, or age. Not their proximity to leadership. And certainly not their zip code.

Location-based compensation opens a Pandora’s box 

By paying workers regardless of their location, companies can reduce the amount of surface area for bias to creep into compensation decisions. They can also reduce the amount of complexity that goes into making these compensation decisions.

For instance, how do you measure the cost of living? We need a standard, equitable system for calculating the cost of living—not one based on the whims of exclusionary indexes. Besides, people don’t allocate their budgets identically. 

Some people enjoy dining at high-end restaurants. Others appreciate home-cooked meals. Some people spend money on luxury cars. Others are content with public transportation or ride-sharing. And what about the number of dependents someone has? An employee with four children will spend more money on education than an employee with no children. How does that factor into the cost of living? 

What if someone moves from a high cost-of-living location to a low cost-of-living location? Must they take a pay cut? And what if some employees want to work remotely while others don’t? Will those who decide to stay remote see their income drop as a result of choosing what’s best for them?  Already it appears Google employees who choose to work from home permanently could face a 15% to 25% salary reduction. 

Paying people based on the value they deliver to the company—not geography—is the equitable and easier way to go. 

Pay equity for remote workers is win-win, not a zero-sum

As more companies adopt remote and hybrid work arrangements, it’s important to underscore the financial upside of giving employees the autonomy to work from anywhere. In one of the most comprehensive studies conducted on the topic, Global Workplace Analytics found that the average U.S. company can save $11,000 per year for every remote-hybrid employee. 

For a company with 1,000 employees working remotely, that’s over $1 million in savings per year. These massive savings stem from a combination of increased productivity, increased business continuity, reduced office costs, reduced absenteeism, and reduced turnover. 

Employees can save upwards of $6,400 per year by not having to allocate budget on transportation, work clothes, or meals. Plus, 73% of employees say they are very successful working from home and report greater well-being under these arrangements. 

Allowing knowledge workers to work remotely—and paying them equitably for doing so—makes sense. It’s time we reimagine what work and compensation look like in the digital economy. Geographic location shouldn’t determine an employee’s worth. 

Katica Roy is the CEO and founder of Pipeline Equity. 

This past week while recording a podcast, the host asked how I would advise someone trying to challenge their company’s return-to-office plans. It’s a simple question with a complicated answer, which we keep trying to solve in a binary way: either work hybrid or in the office. This oversimplification misses the opportunity to evolve company culture.

Many toddlers have a toy that is a box with openings cut out for different shapes. Circle, square, star, and diamond blocks are to be pushed through each respective opening. Children can spend hours trying to unsuccessfully smash the square through the circle opening before finding the right shape. 

That feels a bit like the time we are in now. Employees are the blocks and employers keep trying to push them through the openings with their return-to-office plans. Companies assume employees are the same shape they were in February 2020, not recognizing the changes of the past 16 months. Through a transformation of personal and professional values, the shape of their nonnegotiable demands is remarkably different. Trying to force the shape into the wrong opening just doesn’t work. 

Let’s say you cross paths with a colleague you hadn’t seen in 10 years. You wouldn’t automatically assume they had the same knowledge, skills, experience, and motivation as they did 10 years prior. You would recognize they had evolved and would want to learn about who they are today. 

Some employees had many years’ worth of transformation and growth in the past year and a half. Values were sharpened, behaviors refined, and clarity was gained. Yet leaders are making assumptions that employees and teams are the same shape as they were in February 2020 and missing this opportunity to evolve. 

Both employees and companies are midair between two trapeze bars. Employers are trying to define return-to-office strategies so employees can plan for the months ahead. Employees are looking at their nonnegotiables and defining their point of no return. We’ve released the first trapeze and are in motion towards the second, unable to go backward. There are two options. Try to grab the second trapeze and evolve approaches to work, or experiment with different options, and trust the safety net. Still, many leaders are kicking to turn back and grab the first trapeze bar because of five culture myths.

Myth 1: We can ‘fix’ culture

This makes culture sound like an initiative with an endpoint. Culture continually shifts and is reinforced or discouraged through the actions of each employee. You are never done shaping culture. Healthy cultures are agile enough to make real-time adjustments to support the employee and business outcomes.

Myth 2: Virtual or hybrid work erodes culture or causes the loss of culture

Remote work doesn’t kill company culture. If your culture isn’t working, it is a symptom of larger issues. There were already things not working in your culture before February 2020. You just either didn’t notice or didn’t experience enough discomfort to make changes. They will surface again until you address them. 

Myth 3: There is a perfect organizational design

Companies spend millions every year making changes, only to change them back a few years later. Focus less on the design and more on equipping leaders and teams to be agile across a variety of circumstances. There isn’t one perfect working location that will solve all problems. Instilling healthy behaviors of frequent check-in conversations and tools to embrace constructive conflict helps leaders navigate a variety of challenges.

Myth 4: Leaders have to see their employees to control their work

Control results in worse performance and will likely cause your employees to quit or disengage if they stay in their job. If leaders have to physically see employees, their company hasn’t equipped them with expectations or skills to be effective. Great leaders recognized the pivots needed to keep each team member engaged and performing, and intentionally dedicate time to replace informal interactions. 

Myth 5: If we send out a culture survey now it will be negative

Leaders want to avoid, delay, and peer between their fingers at culture survey results when they think it will be negative. Culture surveys shouldn’t be sent to only provide positive responses. Withholding sending or sharing results only erodes trust. You should be listening to your organization with increased frequency in times of challenge.

What leaders can do now

Don’t solve complex problems with binary options. Work location decisions are being made at the company level in an attempt to be equitable. However, not everyone is the same shape. Either/or decisions miss the exploration of nuances. Companies can equip managers and teams to make these decisions at their individual levels. 

Embrace experimentation. The safety net is there to catch you as you try different things. Not everything will or should work and that is okay. Evolution and performance come with experimentation. Test different configurations of work location at the team level. Collectively reflect on what worked and didn’t and decide the path forward.

Reframe your problems into “How might we . . .” I’ve heard the protest: “People in the office will have informal interactions that give preferential treatment in career advancement.” Reframe that as a problem to solve and ask: “How might we ensure everyone has informal interactions and career opportunities?” Instead of listing obstacles, explore how you might solve for each circumstance. 

Take a hard look at your meetings: Your average employee is only authorized to approve a few hundred dollars, yet anyone can schedule a meeting that costs tens of thousands of dollars in time. Teams should protect meetings for discussions and decision-making, not updates. Give each team member 100 points to allocate across their weekly meetings in terms of value. Review and discuss the distribution to see what shifts or cancellations are necessary.

The reverse offsite: Some teams are holding an in-person day-long meeting once or twice a month. They find they are able to cancel many standing meetings and use technology in between for updates. They maximize their time together and minimize their time spent in ongoing virtual meetings.

There is no perfect design or location for work. However, this is an opportunity for each team and company to explore new and better ways of working to improve performance.

Karen Eber is the CEO and chief storyteller of Eber Leadership Group, a talent development boutique. She is also an international consultant, keynote, and TED speaker.