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In 2014, I left a secure job at Goldman Sachs to start a nonprofit. On paper, it looked like a reckless move: no funding, no team, barely any experience. But it was the best decision I ever made because it taught me that adaptability matters more than certainty. While you cant control President Trumps second term, you can control how you respond to it by learning to work with uncertainty. As his policies rock supply chains, jobs, and lives, the best career plan is the one that can bend and flex. Transformation But lets be clear: Its not just Trump driving this uncertainty. AI and automation are transforming entire industries. Generational shifts are changing how people work and what they value in their careers. No matter whos in the White House, uncertainty is constant. The message couldnt be more explicit: Nothing is guaranteed except the importance of adaptability. This is what I call Trump-proofing your career, and its not about being anti-Trump. Whether you support him or not, his leadership brings unpredictability, and your career plan cant hinge on any one leader or policy. It must be built to flex and shift with the world around you. The old idea of climbing a single career ladder no longer holds up. In today’s job market, staying in the same role for too long can hold you back. According to HRreview, workers who change jobs regularly earn, on average, 31% more than those who stick around in the same job for years. The best plan isnt a perfect five-year road map. Its about treating your career like an ongoing experiment, in which trying new roles, taking smart risks, and building transferable skills is more important than following a linear path. This mindset keeps you adaptable and engaged in a world thats changing faster than any one job can keep up with. The ripple effects of this new reality are already apparent. More than 120,000 U.S. federal workers have lost their jobs or been targeted for layoffs in 2025, a stark reminder that even government work, once considered the gold standard for stability, isnt immune to sudden change. THE PLANNING FALLACY According to psychologists, the planning fallacy is how we fool ourselves into thinking the future will follow our plans. Ive seen this firsthand. At 22, I thought I wanted to work in finance. I had spent years pursuing that path, convinced it was the surest way to build a successful career. But once I got there, I realized that the skills I wanted to develop and the goals I cared about didnt match what I was doing. The daily work didnt challenge me in the ways I needed, and it didnt lead me in a meaningful direction. I realized that sticking with a path that didnt fit was actually riskier than stepping into the unknown. So I did it. I moved back to Canada to build something that felt real and important, which pushed me to grow in the right ways. This led me to founding my nonprofit, Venture for Canada, which raised $80 million and empowered more than 10,000 young professionals to launch their careers. Most people thought I was out of my mind. But I learned that real progress in your career and life happens when youre willing to adapt your skills and goals to match what you and the world at large need most. Not everyone can walk away from a steady paycheck. My story is just one example. But adaptability isnt about giant leaps. Its about small experiments that keep you aligned with what matters most. FOCUS ON OBJECTIVES AND KEY RESULTS One tool thats made a real difference for me is using objectives and key results. OKRs are a great way to break down overwhelming goals into small, measurable steps. Instead of mapping out the next 10 years, focus on the next three months. Pick one meaningful short-term objective, like exploring mission-driven work or building skills in a new sector. Then set two or three key resultssmall, specific actions you can track. At the end of three months, look back. What worked? What didnt? Where do you need to pivot? Heres how I explain this in my upcoming book, The Uncertainty Advantage: First, identify your top three personal values. For example, if youre in marketing, your values might be creativity, collaboration, and growth, which inspire you when the world is unpredictable. Second, set one short-term objective that aligns with those values. Dont worry about the next decade. Focus on what you can start todaysomething specific and achievable, like launching a new marketing campaign that pushes your creative skills and brings your team together. Third, define two or three key results to measure your progress. In this marketing example, your key results might be testing three campaign concepts, meeting with two colleagues to brainstorm fresh ideas, and sharing early results with your manager within the month. Theyre small steps that build momentum, keep you learning, and help you stay adaptable. TREAT YOUR CAREER LIKE AN EXPERIMENT For some, adaptability might mean staying the course in a stable job. For others, it might mean pivoting into something entirely new. The key is to treat your career like an experiment. If you treat your next move as a chance to test what you care about and what you can build, you can shift from panic to purpose. I think of a friend who shifted from teaching to technical program management and now wants to work in AI. He didnt have a 10-year plan. He focused on what sparked his curiosity and where he wanted to grow. It wasnt about having all the answers. It was about testing, learning, and staying true to his values. So heres my challenge to you: Treat your career like the most crucial experiment of your life. Stay curious. Stay connected to what matters. Keep testing new ideas. Because in a world that can shift overnightand it willthe only plan that keeps working is the one youre willing to adapt.
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E-Commerce
For centuries, weve believed that the act of thinking defines us. In what is widely considered a major philosophical turning point, marking the beginning of modern philosophy, secular humanism, and the epistemological shift from divine to human authority, the French philosopher and mathematician Ren� Descartes (15961650) famously concluded that everything is questionable except the fact that we think, Cogito, ergo sum(I think, therefore I am). Fast-forward a few hundred years, however, and in an age where generative AI can produce emails, vacation plans, mathematical theorems, business strategies, and software code on demand, at a level that is generally undistinguishable from or superior to most human output, perhaps its time for an update of the Cartesian mantra: I dont think . . . but I still am. Indeed, the more intelligent our machines become, the less we are required to think. Not in the tedious, bureaucratic sense of checking boxes and memorizing facts, but in the meaningful, creative, cognitively demanding way that once separated us from the rest of the animal kingdom. The irony, of course, is that only humans could have been smart enough to build a machine capable of eliminating the need to think, which is perhaps not a very clever thing. Thinking as Optional Large segments of the workforce, especially knowledge workers who were once paid to think, now spend their days delegating that very function to AI. In theory, this is the triumph of augmentation. In practice, its the outsourcing of cognition. And it raises an uncomfortable question: if we no longer need to think in order to work, relate to others, and carry out so-called knowledge work, what is the value we actually provide, and will we forget how to think? We already know that humans aren’t particularly good at rationality. Nobel laureates Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky showed that we mostly operate on heuristics (fast, automatic, and error-prone judgments). This is our default System 1 mode: intuitive, unconscious, lazy. Occasionally, we summon the energy for System 2(slow, effortful, logical, proper reasoning). But it’s rare. Thinking is metabolically expensive. The brain consumes 20% of our energy, and like most animals, we try to conserve it. In that sense, as neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett noted, the brain is not for thinking; its for making economic, fast, and cheap predictions about the world, to guide our actions in autopilot or low energy consumption mode. So what happens when we create, courtesy of our analytical and rather brilliant System 2, a machine that allows us to never use our brain again? A technology designed not just to think better than us, but instead of us? Its like designing a treadmill so advanced you never need to walk again. Or like hiring a stunt double to do the hard parts of life, until one day, theyre doing all of it, and no one notices youve left the set. The Hunter-Gatherer Brain in a High-Tech World Consider a parallel in physical evolution: our ancestors didnt need personal trainers, diet fads, or intermittent fasting protocols. Life was a workout. Food was scarce. Movement was survival. The bodies (and brains) weve inherited are optimized to hoard calories, avoid unnecessary exertion, and repeat familiar patterns. Our operating model and software is made for hungry cavemen chasing a mammoth, not digital nomads editing their PowerPoint slides. Enter modernity: the land of abundance. As Yuval Noah Harari notes, more people today die from overeating than from starvation. So we invented Ozempic to mimic a lack of appetite and Pilates to simulate the movement we no longer require. AI poses a similar threat to our minds. In my last book I, Human, I called generative AI the intellectual equivalent of fast food. It’s immediate, hyper-palatable, low effort, and designed for mass consumption. Tools like ChatGPT function as the microwave of ideas: convenient, quick, and dangerously satisfying, even when they lack depth or nutrition. Indeed, just like you wouldnt choose to impress your dinner guests by telling them that it took you just two minutes to cook that microwaved lasagna, you shouldnt send your boss a deck with your three-year strategy or competitor analysis if you created with genAI in two minutes. So dont be surprised when future professionals sign up for thinking retreats: cognitive Pilates sessions for their flabby minds. After all, if our daily lives no longer require us to think, deliberate thought might soon become an elective activity. Like chess. Or poetry. The Productivity Paradox: Augment Me Until Im Obsolete Theres another wrinkle: a recent study on the productivity paradox of AI shows that while the more we use AI, the more productive we are, the flip side is equally true: the more we use it, the more we risk automating ourselves out of relevance. This isnt augmentation versus automation. Its a spectrum where extreme augmentation becomes automation. The assistant becomes the agent; the agent becomes the actor; and the human is reduced to a bystander . . . or worse, an API. Note for the two decades preceding the recent launch of contemporary large language models and gen AI, most of us knowledge workers spent most of their time training AI on how to predict us better: like the microworkers who teach AI sensors to code objects as trees or traffic lights, r the hired drivers that teach autonomous vehicles how to drive around the city, much of what we call knowledge work involves coding, labelling, and teaching AI how to predict us to the point that we are not needed. To be sure, the best case for using AI is that other people use it, so we are at a disadvantage if we dont. This produces the typical paradox we have seen with other, more basic technologies: they make our decisions and actions smarter, but generate a dependency that erodes our adaptational capabilities to the point that if we are detached from our tech our incompetence is exposed. Ever had to spend an entire day without your smartphone? Not sure what you could do. Other than talk to people (but they are probably on their smartphones). Weve seen this before. GPS has eroded our spatial memory. Calculators have hollowed out basic math. Wi-Fi has made knowledge omnipresent and effort irrelevant. AI will do the same to reasoning, synthesis, and yes, actual thinking. Are We Doomed? Only If We Stop Trying Its worth noting that no invention in human history was designed to make us work harder. Not the wheel, not fire, not the microwave, and certainly not the dishwasher. Technology exists to make life easier, not to improve us. Self-improvement is our job. So, when we invent something that makes us mentally idle, the onus is on us to resist that temptation. Because heres the philosophical horror: AI can explain everything without understanding anything. It can summarize Foucault or Freud without knowing (let alone feeling) pain or repression. It can write love letters without love, and write code without ever being bored. In that sense, its the perfect mirror for a culture that increasingly confuses confidence with competence: something that, as Ive argued elsewhere, never seems to stop certain men from rising to the top. What Can We Do? If we want to avoid becoming cognitively obsolete in a world that flatters our laziness and rewards our dependence on machines, well need to treat thinking as a discipline. Not an obligation, but a choice. Not a means to an end, but a form of resistance. Here are a few ideas: Be deliberately cognitively inefficientRead long-form essays. Write by hand. Make outlines from scratch. Let your brain feel the friction of thought. Interrupt the autopilotAsk yourself whether what youre doing needs AI, or whether its simply easier with it. If its the latter, try doing it the hard way once in a while. Reclaim randomnessAI is great at predicting what comes next. But true creativity often comes from stumbling, wandering, and not knowing. Protect your mental serendipity. Use genAI to know what not to do, since its mostly aggregating or crowdsourcing the wisdom of the crowds, which is generally quite different from actual wisdom (by definition, most people cannot be creative or original). Teach thinking, not just promptingPrompt engineering may be useful, but critical reasoning, logic, and philosophical depth matter more. Otherwise, were just clever parrots. Remember what it feels like to not knowCuriosity starts with confusion. Embrace it. Lean into uncertainty instead of filling the gap with autocomplete. As Tom Peters noted, if you are not confused, you are not paying attention. Thinking Is Not Yet Extinct, But It May Be Endangered AI won’t kill thinking. But it might convince us to stop doing it. And that would be far worse. Because while machines can mimic intelligence, only humans can choose to be curious. Only we can cultivate understanding. And only we can decide that, in an age of mindless efficiency, the act of thinking is still worth the effort, even when it’s messy, slow, and gloriously inefficient. After all, I think, therefore I am was never meant as a productivity hack. It was a reminder that being human starts in the mind, even if it doesnt actually end there.
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E-Commerce
Enterprises are on track to pour $307 billion into AI in 2025more than $35 million dollars every hour. Yet most of that cash will never see daylight: an S&P Global survey found that 42 percent of companies scrapped most of their AI projects this year. The problem isnt funding or ambition; it is a failure to see that the moonshots need to be balanced by sure things, the stretch goals by easy wins. AI’s true transformative power emerges not from any single initiative but when leaders orchestrate a portfolio of projects that runs the gamut from the revolutionary to the routine. The organizations that will thrive in this new era are those that pursue both the audacious bets that can redefine their industry and the mundane victories that provide the resources to fund the journey. These modern alchemists understand that transformation requires both vision and groundwork, both aspiration and application. And they know that going all in on a single idea offers an almost guaranteed path to failure. The Innovation Portfolio Just as financial portfolios balance risk and return across diverse investments, organizations approaching AI need to develop what we call an “innovation portfolio”a carefully curated collection of AI initiatives that offer multiple paths to transformation while effectively managing risk. This portfolio approach responds to a fundamental truth about innovation: long-term success requires a pipeline of projects that vary in their size, scope, risk, and transformative power. The portfolio and financial management approach allows organizations to maintain a comprehensive view of potential AI projects and to systematically manage their development. Think of it as the difference between a chess grandmaster who sees the entire board versus a novice fixated on individual pieces. The portfolio approach enables leaders to understand how different AI initiatives interact, where synergies might emerge, and how risks in one area might be balanced by stability in another. Crucially, it also lets leaders orchestrate a combination of big and small bets, long- and short-term plans, that fit the businesss needs and resources. Some projects will deliver value immediately while others represent longer-term bets on emerging capabilities that might fundamentally reshape entire industries. By maintaining a portfolio that encompasses both time horizons and risk profiles, organizations create the conditions for sustainable innovation rather than sporadic breakthroughs. The CEO as Chief AI Orchestrator The transformative power of AI is so great that it demands a fundamental change in the role of the CEO. In this new landscape, AI strategy cannot be delegated to the CTO alone. The CEO must become the chief orchestrator of the AI portfolio, balancing competing priorities while maintaining strategic coherence. While a foundational AI tech literacy is essential for making informed decisions, this doesn’t mean that CEOs need to understand the technical minutiae at a highly granular level. Instead, they must excel in three critical areas: Vision Setting: The CEO must articulate how AI aligns with organizational purpose. When employees grasp AI’s significance beyond its ability to deliver financial gains, adoption accelerates and resistance diminishes. Resource Allocation: Making tough decisions about which AI initiatives receive funding and attention is vital. This demands the courage and authority to discontinue promising projects that don’t align with strategic priorities. Cultural Transformation: Most critically, CEOs must embody the shift in mindset that AI requiresembracing uncertainty, celebrating intelligent failures, and demonstrating continuous learning. When the CEO publicly shares their AI learning journey, including their mistakes, it empowers organizational experimentation. The Macro-Micro Balance A successful AI portfolio should operate on two levels simultaneously. At the macro level, you’re asking profound questions: How might artificial general intelligence reshape entire industries? What happens when AI agents take over most knowledge work? How should a company be reconfigured to make the most of a hybrid human-AI workforce. These aren’t philosophical musingsthey’re strategic imperatives that guide long-term positioning. But here’s where organizations often stumble: they become so intoxicated by grand visions that they neglect the micro-level victories that are necessary to fuel the journey. At the same time as planning for whole-of-organization transformation, you also need to ask what your company can do this quarter. Can you use an algorithm to optimize delivery routes? Is there a commercially available chatbot you can use to process customer inquiries? The mundane funds the miraculous. Strategic Priority Mapping Not all AI initiatives deserve equal resources. Comprehensive frameworks for harnessing AI’s potential and managing its risks, such as the OPEN and CARE frameworks, provide systematic tools for evaluating capacities and needs. For instance, the OPEN frameworks FIRST assessment provides a tool for rapid viability screening Feasibility: Can current technology deliver your vision? Don’t confuse science fiction with strategic planning. Investment: What’s the true costnot just dollars, but organizational attention and cultural capital? Risk/Reward: Map the potential downside as well as the upside. Remember, though, that the biggest risk might be doing nothing. Strategic Priority: How closely does this idea align with our core purpose? An AI initiative that is at odds with your organizations identity and goals is doomed regardless of its technical merit. Time Frame: Can you sustain investment long enough to see returns? Many AI projects fail not because they were wrong, but because they are too early. The Continuous Evolution Model Static strategies die in dynamic environments. Your AI portfolio needs built-in adaptation mechanisms: Regular Rebalancing: Quarterly reviews of project mix. Are you maintaining appropriate risk levels? Have new capabilities opened fresh opportunities? Learning Loops: Every experiment feeds strategic understanding. Failed projects often teach more than successful ones. Cultural Evolution: Organizations must embrace perpetual beta. Yesterday’s mindset won’t create tomorrow’s success. From Theory to Practice A financial services firm might simultaneously pursue: A moonshot project using AI to predict market movements with unprecedented accuracy A medium-risk initiative automating compliance reporting Several low-risk projects improvig customer service chatbots Each initiative serves distinct portfolio purposes. The moonshot could transform the business model entirely. Compliance automation delivers clear ROI within 18 months. Chatbot improvements show immediate returns while building AI capabilities. The CEOs role is to ensure that each initiative receives appropriate resources while maintaining portfolio balancenot picking favorites, but orchestrating the symphony. The Transcendence Factor Ultimately, successful AI portfolios recognize a profound truth: AI isn’t just about efficiency or cost reductionit’s about transcending current limitations entirely. But transcendence requires groundwork. Like alchemists purifying base materials before transformation, your AI journey begins with the mundanecleaning data, upskilling teams, running small experiments. These pedestrian activities build toward something greater: a point at which AI doesn’t just improve existing business operations but enables entirely new possibilities that were previously unimaginable. Who will win? The organizations that will thrive in the age of AI won’t be those that bet everything on a single strategy. The winners will be those who build diversified portfolios that balance transformational ambitions with incremental improvements, macro visions with micro victories, human wisdom with machine capabilities. For CEOs, this balancing act isn’t optional. Leaders who treat AI as just another type of new technology have already lost. Those who recognize its power to fundamentally transform both companies and markets are the ones who will write the next chapter in business history.
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E-Commerce
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia has persistently targeted attacks on power grids and energy infrastructure, often leaving whole communities in the dark. In response, a transformation is happening across the country, as war has forced Ukrainian society to quickly pivot toand start innovating infinding renewable energy solutions that can keep the power on in the face of continued infrastructure bombings. Ukrainian communities are prioritizing energy security Communities across Ukraine are becoming energy secure and energy independent: adding solar power stations to schools, hospitals, and homes; backing up that solar with battery storage capacity; and switching to more energy efficient heating and cooling with heat pumps and insulation. This is happening across Ukraine in response to the war and the years of large-scale attacks on power grids and energy infrastructure, which Russia continues to this day. Cities and communities across Ukrainefrom Kyiv and Horenka to Rivne and Zviahel to Lviv and Sheptytskyiare scaling up this energy-secure trifecta wherever possible. And its paying off both in energy independence and economic savings; in many cases, these critical upgrades are cutting annual energy bills in half or more. Hospitals have become the natural first stop for these kinds of upgrades since attacks to power grids and resulting blackouts jeopardize medical safety and medical procedures. The advanced Unbroken medical facility in Lviv, for example, which treats many of the veterans and victims of the war, is rapidly covering its many roofs with solar power and filling its basements with batteries so that its patients are protected from further energy insecurity and instability during surgery or recovery processes. School facilities have become a second stop for upgrades since their energy footprint is both substantial and switchablemeaning theres usually ample roof space for a quick solar retrofit. Since schools also come with a sizable building footprint, theyre often utilized as bomb shelters for the community, which makes the energy secure retrofit even more essential and life-saving. Multifamily housing unitse.g., homeowners associations (HOAs) in bigger cities like Kyiv and dormitories in cities like Zviahel for internally displaced persons from the warhave also become easy retrofits, transforming roofs into solar stations, backyards into heat pump housing, and basements into battery storage facilities. These HOA retrofits have been so successful at the local level, the national association of homeowners may soon become the organizing mechanism for more of these whole-system energy security retrofits, coordinating a national campaign across the country. Ukrainian industry is transforming Communities across Ukraine are seeing the future of industryand where the job markets are headedand readying the renewable workforce of tomorrow. They understand where the market is going, especially in a country like Ukraine that is quickly transitioning to a more energy secure future. Which is why theyre launching training centers and school programs to teach Ukraines youth in renewable energy technology. This is happening in coal mining towns like Sheptytskyi, where youth are learning how to build, operate, and repair solar panels and wind turbines, batteries, heat pumps, and more. Call it a just transition, or just call it smart business modeling. This is forward-thinking planning that could easily envision a future Ukraine that is exporting this industrial expertise and clean energy products across Europe and Asia. Utilities are also transforming their industry to meet the moment. Water utilities in places like Rivne are realizing that in order to sustain their business model of providing clean and accessible water to communities, solar power stations must be an integral component of their business strategy. In order to ensure that drinking water is available to residents 24/7, and free from the all-too-common blackouts that come with wartime and aging infrastructure, water utility managers are becoming powerful messengers for more solar power stations across Ukraine and unlikely leaders in the clean energy transition. Leading innovation locally In response to the war effort, cities across Ukraine have had to give up a sizable chunk of their tax revenue to the national government and as a result have had to become resourceful in thinking about local innovation, leadership, and autonomy. This is another reason to do all of the abovefrom pursuing energy security to supporting a local clean tech industrybecause nothing is guaranteed in terms of national government support during wartime. This dynamic has also led to the emergence of a new kind of local leadership that is rising to the occasion. Local mayors and their deputies are making the compelling case for the energy security and clean tech industry identified above, building new trust and momentum within the community at a time when its desperately needed. Now, these three trends above are all positive developments, even if theyre in response to an awful and devastating war. But for them to be sustainable and scalable to other communities across Ukraine who are desiring the same level of energy security and independence, viable new clean tech industry, and local autonomy, foreign aid dollars and technical support flowing into the country need to be configured accordingly. As is often the case with aid dollars and technical support from Western countries during wartimea dynamic that was visible in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for examplethose funds often go to larger foreign contractors and consultants versus local organizations doing the work on the ground. As a result, those aid dollars and technical expertise end up leaving the country instead of building and strengthening local capacity for postwar leadership and long-term viability. For these gains to be sustainable, more foreign aid and support needs to stay in Ukraine versus leaving it, building new capacity, industry, and infrastructure. Thats how the West helps Ukraine achieve the security, independence, industry, and autonomy its looking for. Much of the existing work is already being driven by strong leaders on the ground who want to build a more resilient Ukraine. Now just imagine what good could be done if U.S. funders stepped up to really scale this work nationally. And imagine if funders within the European Union seized this moment to help Ukraines accession to the EU be a role-modeled one, of a country that is retrofitting to be more climate resilient. Thats the opportunity in Ukraine. To leapfrog into a country that is energy secure and independent, leading the clean tech industrial revolution, and supporting local leaders and autonomy in the process. The West can support this vision. Its waiting to be realized.
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E-Commerce
Each generation of employees is shaped by its times. In todays era of perma-change, Generation Z is exhibiting distinct professional traits. Having come of age during a period of economic instability and a global crisis, theyre less likely to hang their hats on a single career identity. Theyre less focused on salary and more drawn to balance, but theyre also highly pragmatic. The latest Gen Z workplace trend, adopting a standard work uniform, is just one example of that pragmatism. It also shows that while they value work-life balance, theyre also open to clever ways for achieving it. Leaders stand to gainor losea lot by making the effort to understand Gen Z. Because if theyre not satisfied, theyll move on. According to the a 2024 workplace survey by EY, 38% of respondents said they were likely to quit their jobs in the next yeara rise largely driven by Gen Z. Understanding their work habits and expectations is essential to retaining top talent. As the CEO of a company with over 750 employees and a growing percentage of Gen Zers, Ive had the opportunity to observe generational differences firsthand. Here are the strategies I use to address the habits and expectations of our youngest cohort. Promote an automation-first mindset Ive written before about the virtues of lazy employees. While that adjective is usually pejorative, I use it to describe something powerful: a professional who looks for the easiest, most efficient way to get something done. In my experience, Gen Z tends to share this superpower. These days, that often entails using the latest tools and apps on the market. Indeed, Gen Z expects tech tools at work to match the ease of use of social media apps they use in their personal lives. If theres a new project management platform that matches the intuitiveness of TikTok, chances are theyll be proficient in hours. Promoting an automation-first approach in your organization empowers Gen Z employees to tap into their digital fluency and find the most efficient ways to complete tasks. At my company, for example, we encourage employees to set aside time to stay informed about the latest tech releases relevant to their job functions (with the help of sites like G2) and share their favorites with the team. Crucially, leaders should emphasize that tools like AI are meant to enhance, not replace, human work. This approach naturally fosters multigenerational collaboration. While older generations might impart important lessons in leadership and management, younger employees can bring their innate tech literacy to the table. This not only breaks down unnecessarily rigid hierarchies, but it also helps to engage Gen Zers and boosts their feelings of investment in the company. Offer personalized training and development In the past, employee training was fairly linear. For professionals in a given role, the progression from entry-level skills to management typically followed a similar path. Todays requisite skill sets look different on a conceptual level. Deloitte has called it the return of the Renaissance figuresomeone with multidimensional talents, interests, and knowledge. That means building skills in tools and technology, data and analytics, as well as in management, creativity, and people leadership. The onus is on leaders to ensure employees receive the training they need. Dont assume they already have the necessary skills, especially since younger employees may sometimes overestimate their abilities. In addition to traditional (and irreplaceable) person-to-person training and mentoring, Im a big proponent of AI platforms to offer employees personalized, scalable training, including both hard and soft skills. Companies like BetterUp, for example, offer employees actionable professional development skills, like how to handle a sensitive work conversation. Whats more, as your company grows, AI tools are a cost-efficient solution for continuing to offer employees at all levels the training they need. To bring it all together, create a training pipeline that gives younger employees hands-on opportunities to apply the skills theyre learning and build the ones they aspire to develop. Present flexibility on your terms Its no secret that Gen Z is more accustomed to flexibility than any other generation. Many of them entered the workforce when working from home was the norm. For younger professionals, a flexible workplace is a priority. According to ZipRecruiters 2025 Annual Grad Report, 82% of college students hope to work remotely at least one day a week. However, just 33% (of the class of 2023) want fully remote workplaces. Some companies are already on board with offering hybrid work arrangements. I happen to believe that working in the office is important for collaboration, training, and doing our best work. Striking a balance can be tricky. To address the needs of Gen Z without overthrowing your organizations goals and values, leaders can offer flexibility in intentional ways. For example, a structured hybrid schedulelike a few days of their choice each month to work remotelycan give young professionals the breathing room they need. You could also offer work-from-anywhere weeks once a quarter, allowing employees to work where they feel best able to focus in that moment. Even if the norm is to work within the office, leaders should make it explicit that employees can request time away if a personal need ariseswhether its a mental health day, a family obligation, or just space to recharge. You can also reinforce the idea that your organization values its employees rich, full lives outside of work. Gen Z employees who feel free to share their full selves, including their unique interests and hobbies, are more likely to feel engaged and committed to their organization.
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E-Commerce
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