"In an era when every competitor is racing to add more features, channels, data, and spend, the real differentiator is the courage to remove. Subtraction is neither austerity nor minimalism; it’s strategic design. By carving away the non-essential, leaders create the white space where breakthroughs can grow and position their organizations to be first off-the-blocks when the rebound arrives."

"It’s the best way to anticipate the many secondary effects of change in an interconnected world."

"...are architects of group performance who bring people together optimally. [They] integrate diverse expertise, promote equitable contributions, and cultivate trust. In doing so they generate collective intelligence, or a group’s ability to reason, innovate, and solve problems."

"They assume the size of the pie is fixed—and miss opportunities to create value." [KJ: For an excellent companion perspective from a former hostage negotiator, see Scott Walker's HBR article delineating his approaches to effective negotiation.]

"Timely input, candid feedback, and robust debate are as vital for ensuring innovation as for preventing strategic blunders. Leaders who create the kinds of teams that practice these ways of interacting will be poised to outperform those who do not. Ultimately, psychological safety is about changing the expectations for how we work together to successfully navigate the storms ahead."

"When leaders constantly push forward without pausing to recognize progress, they risk burnout, diminished resilience, and poorer judgment...By making progress visible, separating real from self-imposed urgency, and redefining what celebration looks like, leaders can strengthen confidence, sustain motivation, and stay grounded in what’s working—even amid relentless demands."

"...Many employees don’t feel that they matter to their employers, bosses, and colleagues. Mattering—a mainstay concept in psychology—is the experience of feeling significant to those around us because we feel valued and know that we add value...[What should leaders do?] First, leaders need to truly see and hear team members during daily interactions. They must also regularly affirm their people’s significance. And finally, senior leaders need to scale these skills up to the organizational level so that mattering becomes a cultural norm. These behaviors may seem like common sense, but they’ve ceased to be common practice in a world of brief digital communications and condescension toward soft skills, and they’re well worth relearning."

"At some point, everybody dreams of quitting their job to do something completely different. Sometimes, those dreams fall under pure fantasy. At other times, they’re grounded in reality and hope. In the spirit of such hope, we found seven people whose major career changes worked out astoundingly well — both financially and emotionally."

"Many important tasks can be done by other people. Focus on what you can do a lot better than anyone else."

“Whether you are an employee or employer, it is a better investment to increase happiness at work and in life, rather than simply trying to increase measures of success.”