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The Grammy Awards return February 1 at a pivotal moment for the music industry, one shaped by trending Latin artists, resurgent rock legends, and even charting AI acts. To unpack what will make this years broadcast distinctive, the Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. shares how Grammy winners are chosen, and how music both reflects and influences the broader business marketplace. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. This year’s Grammy Awards come at an intriguing inflection point for the music business. I mean, the music business is always changing, but I was looking at your Album of the Year nominees, which feature a bunch of mega artists: Justin Bieber, Tyler the Creator, Lady Gaga, Kendrick Lamar, Bad Bunny. How much do Grammy nominees reflect the marketplace? The Grammy nominees are meant to reflect the marketplace, and that’s our hope, but it really reflects the voters will. And you don’t know what’s going to resonate with the voting body year over year. We have roughly 15,000 voting members. Those members are all professional music people, whether they’re writers or arrangers or producers or artists. So they’re the peers of the people that are being nominated. Sometimes they surprise you and they vote for something that I wasn’t thinking of and sometimes they are right down the middle. But the hope is that the nominations are a direct and unencumbered reflection of what the voters appreciate and want to vote for. And in this sort of more fragmented media ecosystem . . . do the biggest artists have the same kind of cultural sway, or is the cultural impact more diffuse? It’s debatable. . . . I’m sure everyone has an opinion, but the big artists are always going to be impactful and important and shift the direction of music. And there’s always going to be a new class of creators coming up. KPop Demon Hunters [is] the animated band [from] this breakthrough filmthe most-watched movie ever on Netflix. But the [soundtrack] album charted No. 1 on Billboard also. Did that surprise you? Are there any messages in that about music and where it’s going in the future? It didn’t surprise me, because it was really, really good. And the message that it sends is you can come from anywhere, any country, any medium. You can come off a streaming platform, off a show, off of a garage studio. And if your music resonates, it’s going to be successful. It’s going to find an audience. And that’s what’s exciting to me right now about music is the diverse places where you’re finding it being created and sourced from. And also, the accessibility to audiences. You don’t have to record a record and then hopefully it gets mixed and mastered and hopefully somebody releases it and markets it the right way. You can make something and put it out. And if it creates excitement . . . people are going to love it and gravitate towards it. One of the bands that ended up putting up big streaming numbers was the Velvet Sundown, an AI-based artist. I’m curious, is there going to be a point where AI acts have their own Grammy category? Are there any award restrictions on artists who use AI in their music now? I know there was a lot of tumult about that with the Oscars last year with The Brutalist. AI is moving so darn fast. . . . Month to month it’s doing new things and getting better and changing what it’s doing. So we’re just going to have to be very diligent and watch it and see what happens. My perspective is always going to be to protect the human creators, but I also have to acknowledge that AI is definitely a tool that’s going to be used. People like me or others in the studios around the world are going to be figuring out, How can I use this to make some great music? So for now, AI does not disqualify you from being able to submit for a Grammy. There are certain things that you have to abide by and there are certain rules that you have to follow, but it does not disqualify you from entering. You’re a songwriter, you’re a producer. Are you using AI in your own stuff? I am. I’m fine to admit that I am using it as a creative tool. There are times when I might want to hear a different sound or some different instrumentation. . . . I’m not going to be the creator that ever relies on AI to create something from scratch, because that’s what I love more than anything in the world is making music, being able to sit down at a piano and come up with something that represents my feelings, my emotions, what I’m going through in my life, my stories. So I don’t think I’ll ever be that person that just relies on a computer or software or platform to do that for me. But I do think much like auto-tune, or like a drum machine, or like a synthesizer, there are things that can enhance what I’m trying to get from here out to here. And if those are things that come in that form, I think we’re all going to be ultimately taking advantage of them. But we have to do it thoughtfully. We have to do it with guardrails. We have to do it respectfully. What is the music being trained on? Are there the right approvals? Are artists being remunerated properly? Those are all things that we have to make sure are in place. So, let me ask you about Latin music. I know the Latin Recording Academy split off from the Recording Academy 20 years ago or so. Do you rethink that these days? Latin music is all over the mainstream charts, and plenty of acts are getting Grammy nominations. Should Latin music be separated out? The history of it is a little different. We were representing music, the Latin music on the main show, and the popularity of it demanded that we have more categories. In order to feature more categories and honor the full breadth of the different genres of Latin music, we created the Latin Grammy so they could have that spotlight. Currently, members of the Latin Academy are members of the U.S. Academy. So we’ve not set aside the Latin genres. We’ve not tried to separate them. We’ve only tried to highlight them and lift those genres up. As you know, in the U.S. show we feature Latin categories, we feature many Latin artists, and that will be the same this year, maybe more so, especially with the Bad Bunny success. So in no way does that try to separate the genres. And I think we’ll see some more of that in the future as other genres and other regions continue to make their music even more globally known. It’s not just about music that’s made in one country, right? At least it shouldn’t be. It should be about music everywhere in the world. Instead of narrowing, you might have . . . additional or supplemental academies or projects so that you have tat expertise in those new and growing areas across the globe? Absolutely. We’re going to have to continue to expand our membership. In order for us to honor all the different music that’s being made now, which is more than ever and music coming from more places than ever, our membership has to be reflective of that. Just like, I don’t know what type of music you’re a fan of, but I wouldn’t ask you if you didn’t know everything about classical to go into the classical categories and say, “What did you think was the best composing?” [There are] so many categories you wouldn’t be able to evaluate other than say, “Oh, I recognize that name. Let me vote for that.” And that’s what we can’t have. We have to have people that know the genres. And you’re seeing K-pop, you’re seeing Afrobeats, you’re seeing Latin, you’re seeing growth in the Middle East, you’re seeing growth coming out of India. There are so many great artists and so many great records. And you’re hearing a blend of genres where you’re seeing Western artists interact or collaborate with artists from different parts of the world. That’s what’s happening. You can’t argue it. You can’t deny it. You can’t pretend that it’s not what’s going on.
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Its 7:45 a.m. in the office. Someone bounces in, already back from the gym, already through their emails. Cheerfully asks if everyone’s “okay” because its so quiet and people seem a bit tired. Around the office, people clutch coffee like a life raft, waiting for their brains to come online and cursing the 8 a.m. meeting. And the cheerful colleague. But at least they got in early enough to find parking and grab coffee before it ran outthis time. Now: which person are you? The early riser, or the one watching them, wondering why you can never feel that awake at this hour no matter how hard you try? Those clutching their strong brews are probably not just tired, they are socially jet-lagged. Up to 80% of the workforce uses alarm clocks to wake earlier than their body is primed to. That’s not a discipline problem. That’s a design problem. That coffee isn’t a character weakness. And the fact that most humans require chemical and digital intervention to function at socially mandated hours should tell us something important about those hours. Neurodiversity and Chronodiversity What comes to your mind when people mention neurodiversity at work? Many people have heard that neurodiversity refers to ADHD or dyslexia, or they equate it with cognitive diversitydifferent ways of thinking or processing information. However, these interpretations are narrowand insufficient for supporting neurologically friendly environments. Neurodiversity is neurological diversity: the full range of ways human nervous systems can be wired. It encompasses cognition, emotion, sensory processing, motor coordination, speech, and crucially, circadian regulation: how our nervous systems manage sleep-wake timing, energy fluctuations, and daily rhythms. But the latter is rarely discussed in the context of talent processes in organizationsand hardly ever in the context of neurodiversity. Neurodiversity and chronodiversity are as central to human life as biodiversity to life on Earth. Maximizing the thriving of human talent at work requires understanding of many ways diversity manifests itself and impacts the ways we work. Normativity and Its Enforcement The parallel between neurodiversity and chronodiversity is that societies and cultures treat forms of neurological wiring and time orientation as normative, and others as aberrant. While neurodiversity and chronodiversity are biological facts, neuronormativity and chrononormativity are the social enforcement of what is deemed to be “normal.” Chrononormativity expresses itself in workplace assumptions and behaviors that are rarely questioned: Early arrival is equated with ambition and commitment Morning responsiveness is read as professionalism Meetings default to early hours those with more power prefer Leadership visibility clusters in morning time Performance reviews implicitly reward temporal conformity Just as neurodivergent individuals often feel pressure to mask, performing neurotypicality to appear “normal,” chronodivergent individuals simulate morningness with sheer grit and coffee. This comes at a cost. The Current Reality: The Difference Tax Most organizations are yet to achieve meaningful neurological inclusion. The few that have begun addressing neurodiversity typically focus narrowly on its cognitive aspects or communication styles. And most organizations continue to operate as if everyone’s internal clock were identical. The timing structures of modern workearly meetings, fixed hours, morning-centric performance expectationswere inherited from agricultural and industrial time systems. But they were never designed for biological realityand those whose bodies do not fit cultural models pay a significant price not only in fatigue, but in mental (e.g., depression) and physical health (cardiovascular risks, metabolic dysfunction). The healthcare cost of this preventable damage also adds up. Population-scale research reveals that chronotype follows a normal distribution, with approximately 30% early chronotypes, 30% intermediate types, and 40% late chronotypes. Among specific populations, the distribution skews laterstudies of young adults consistently find the prevalence of evening types. The chronic misalignment between biological and social timesocial jet lag that most of us feelproduces accumulating sleep debt, cognitive function loss, and increased health risks. Chrononormativity produces what might be called the chronodiversity paradox: a biological majority is treated as a cultural minority. When late chronotypes struggle with early starts, they are labeled unmotivated and lazy, while mismatches with the system are ignored. Neurodivergent populations are disproportionately impacted. Research consistently demonstrates that adults with ADHD exhibit delayed circadian rhythm phase, with up to 7578% showing significantly later timing of physiological sleep readiness and preferred sleep-wake schedules compared to neurotypical peers. Autistic individuals also frequently experience irregular or delayed sleep-wake patterns. These are not poor behavioral choices or signs of insufficient discipline. They are neurological realities stemming from genetic, neurological, and hormonal processes. A Holistic Inclusion Framework: Where Chronodiversity Fits Early-morning meetings exclude late chronotypes from social participation. Fixed schedules ignore cognitive performance variations across the day. Forcing temporal conformity produces emotional exhaustion. Misaligned timing creates physical stress through chronic sleep disruption. Early risers can suffer from misalignment too – night shifts, late-night email expectations, commutes that devour their best creative time. Without attention to chronodiversity, everyone suffers. A workplace that insists everyone perform on the same schedule harms people and limits the expression of their full talent. But applying the holistic and intersectional inclusion principles developed in Ludmilas book, The Canary Code: A Guide to Neurodiversity, Dignity, and Intersectional Belonging at Work, can make much difference. Here are some suggestions for what this might look like: Participation: Include employees in designing schedules rather than imposing “flexibility” designed by morning-normative managers. Those who experienced social jet lag firsthand understand the impact a 9 a.m. “optional” meeting has on the rest of their day. Designig for people without their input produces policies that look inclusive on paper while excluding in practice. Even when shift work is required, having a choice makes all the difference. Focus on Outcomes: For most jobs, productivity has no timestamp. If an employee delivers exceptional analysis submitted at 3 a.m., does it matter they weren’t visible at 8 a.m.? When performance evaluations reward “responsiveness” measured by morning email reply speed, or when “commitment” is assessed by early arrival, we evaluate temporal style rather than substance. Review your criteria: do they measure what gets accomplished, or when someone is seen accomplishing it? Flexibility: Remove arbitrary temporal barriers. Genuine flexibility means examining every time-bound requirement: Must this meeting be synchronous? Must it be morning? Must everyone attend the same session? Expanding flexibility to include schedule self-determination supports the vast majority of employees. Both larks and owls can thrive when design is thoughtful and work is aligned around meaning. Organizational Justice: Examine schedules and policies from the justice perspective. Are scheduling procedures applied consistently, or do senior leaders get flexibility denied to others? Are decisions free from bias, or do early risers receive more favorable evaluations? Are parking, food, and workspaces available for people of later chronotypes? Transparency: Make temporal expectations explicit. Many organizations claim flexibility while maintaining hidden norms: the unspoken understanding that “real players” attend the 8 a.m. leadership meeting, that promotion requires visibility during executive hours, that working remotely in the afternoon signals lower commitment. Make expectations explicitand make them job-relevant. Valid Tools: Stop using temporal proxies for personal qualities. Early arrival doesn’t indicate dedication. Visible presence during specific hours doesn’t measure performance. These shortcuts embed chronotype bias into talent decisions. Valid assessment examines what someone produces, not when they produce it. Moving toward chrono-inclusive practice requires organizations to recognize that morningness is cultural, not biological, and remove stigma around biological timing differences. Normalizing chronotype differences can help develop systems that offer meaningful flexibility and create infrastructureparking, food access, workspace availability, and chronoleadership approaches developed by Camillato address temporal bias. Talent thrives when organizations practice holistic inclusion. And holistic inclusion requires neurological and time rhythm inclusionneither is optional if relying on coffee, alarm clocks, and fumes to function is to stop being a default.
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Corporate America likes to believe its moved past bias. But it still has a very specific idea of what authority looks like, and its deeply masculine. This is a complex issue most men contend withand its even murkier for gay men. Especially for those who are out at work. For gay men, workplace success has always been contingent on performing the right kind of gayness. The palatable kind; one that blends easily into existing leadership culture: Clean-cut, composed, confident without being expressive, and careful never to appear too gay in how one speaks, dresses, or leads. In short, masculine. This dynamic is shaped by unstated cultural hierarchies of sexuality. These hierarchies are informal, powerful ideas about which kinds of gayness are seen as professional, authoritative, or leadership-ready, and which arent. Recent DEI program rollbacks, rising anti-LGBTQ sentiment, and record levels of hostile legislation exacerbate this existing tension. Being openly gay is a complicated minority experiencelargely because many people arent openly out. Experts estimate that 83% of those who identify on the LGBTQ spectrum keep their orientation hidden. Being out at work is even more complex. If you’re out, you’re more likely to be discriminated against than you’re not outabout three times more, says Brad Sears, distinguished scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles and founder of its School of Law Williams Institute, which researches policy around sexuality and gender. Research from 2024 reports that nearly half of LGBTQ employees are not out to supervisors, and that 47% of LGBTQ workers have experienced harassment or discrimination of some sort because of their sexuality. The type of discrimination hes talking about isnt often overt homophobia. Its a subtle barrier known as the gay glass ceiling: the unseen force that limits advancement for out gay men, quietly favoring those who perform the right kind of masculinity. Implicit Bias in Action This past summer, Jerry was up for a managerial promotion at what he thought was a progressive tech company, where he still currently works. After several years, strong reviews, and a good rapport with leadership, he assumed hed be a shoo-in. Instead, a younger colleague who had been there only two months became his manager. (Jerry spoke to Fast Company under a pseudonym to protect against potential retaliation.) Jerry did get a promotion of his own soon after, along with higher pay and responsibilities, but organizationally it was a lateral move, which was disappointing. I was excited to finally get some managerial experience, Jerry says. He suspects this choice was due to his sexuality. He doesnt identify as particularly feminine, but assumes others see him that way. Im what youd call flamboyant, he deadpans. People know Im gay when I open my mouth. Jerrys a self-assured man whos exactly what were told we should beourselvesbut has since worried this means people dont take him seriously. That concern was validated when a C-suite leader told Jerrys colleague, Laura (also a pseudonym), that while they all liked Jerry and valued his contributions, they wanted someone more authoritative. Laura has worked closely with Jerry for four years. Hes a strong, decisive leader, she tells me. Unfortunately, research supports Jerrys hypothesis. A 2023 study published in the journal Sex Roles found that both heterosexual and gay men prefer masculine-presenting men, regardless of their sexuality, for leadership positions. That probably shouldnt be surprising, especially in our current society, which increasingly prizes a very narrow view of traditional masculinity. Society seems to assume that a higher degree of masculinity equates to a leader, says Ryan Federo, a lecturer at Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona in Spain, who has studied LGBTQ related topics in the upper echelons of business. Gay men aren’t the only LGBTQ+ workers running into a similar roadblock at work, either. Federo published a blog in July 2024 identifying a rainbow glass ceiling that prevents LGBTQ individuals from reaching top corporate positions, including board membership. He pointed out how in 2023, out-LGBTQ+ individuals occupied less than 1% of available board seats. The Trickle-Down of Acceptable Gayness In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects LGBTQ employees from workplace discrimination. On paper, the question of whether gay men can work without bias is settled. But theres a concept in play here called hegemonic sexuality: the dominant, idealized, and often unquestioned norms for sexual orientation, behavior, and identity within a culture. If youve ever heard someone described as being too gay, you already understand the concept of hegemonic sexuality, explains sociologist Travis Speice, who studies sexuality and gender. This hierarchy is entirely subjective, yet over repeated interactions, groups of people come to agreeoften implicitlyon which forms of sexuality are socially desirable. Gay men and straight men police one another. Whether theyre consciously aware of it is almost beside the point. The key thing is that it happens. It shows up in vague performance feedbacksomeone being told theyre not quite leadership material, that they lack gravitas, or that they should be more polished, without anyone ever naming what, exactly, needs to change. Because research shows that ideas about professionalism and masculinity often go hand in hand, he says, expressions that are seen as too gay are also more likely to be labeled unprofessional. This is precisely what Jerry believes happened to him, even at a progressive company that hasnt rolled back its DEI programs. We’ve often looked to the federal government as a strong protector for workers’ rights to be free from discrimination and harassment, says Sears. But that has shifted significantly in the first year of the Trump administration. When President Donald Trump came into office for his second term, one of his first executive orders was rescinding Obama-era Executive Order 13672, which had explicitly prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity for federal employees and contractors. Still, there seems to be somewhat of a concerted effort from the administration to paint itself as LGBif not necessarily LGBTQfriendly. A New York Times feature ntitled Donald Trumps Big Gay Government highlights the gay men who have successfully climbed the administrations corporate ladder. At first glance, it telegraphs that you can be gay and successful. Upon closer inspection, the pattern is striking: they are overwhelmingly white, conventionally masculine, and visually coded as authoritative. Close cropped haircuts. Windowpane suits. Golf shorts, the article states. Theyre not the type to be telling anyone their pronouns or using the word queer. Its the corporate version of masc-for-masc: you can be gay, as long as youre still reliably a man. Individual Success Doesnt Equal Structural Equity I asked many gay men on social media and in professional groups whether being gay had hindered their careers. Some, like Jerry, said yes. Others insisted that success is about performance, not sexualitythat being gay doesnt matter as long as you deliver results. On the surface, that belief is sincere: it reflects some mens individual lived experiences of advancement and resilience. But, as Speice explained to me, it can also obscure broader patterns. Job performance is often measured against traditionally masculine normsauthority, restraint, and credibilitythat shape whose work is taken seriously in the first place. Its often easier to embrace the American bootstraps success story than to acknowledge the historical and structural barriers that shape peoples opportunities, he says. I think this becomes clearer if we replace the word gay with another marginalized identity, Speice continues. Saying Im successful despite being gay starts to sound a lot like Im successful despite being a woman, or despite being Black, or despite having a disability. An individual person can absolutely succeed, but the broader pattern still shows that these identities are treated as obstacles rather than neutral or valued traits. This made me think back to a 2014 Time magazine piece, written by an executive who said being gay hadnt held him backbut he also acknowledged his advantages: a supportive family, coastal geography, being male, and being white. But he also looked the part: conventionally masculine, composed, and culturally legible in a way that made his sexuality unlikely to challenge authority. The headshot reinforced the point: a conventionally masculine visage that doesnt ruffle any feathers. Broadening Masculinity . . . and Leadership When advancement depends on performing the right kind of gaynessshaped by hegemonic sexual normsorganizations dont just hamper individual workers. They also limit the range of leadership styles available to them. They trade collaboration, creativity, and psychological safety for a more rigid exercise of authority. But awareness matters. Understanding how these implicit machinations, cultural expectations, and political currents shape perceptions of leadership can help us challenge them. It can invite us to value diverse expressions of masculinity, create space for diverse voices, and recognize that anyone can wield authority effectively, so long as they have the right skill set. Employers should ensure that all workers feel a genuine sense of belonging in the workplace. Conducting annual staff surveys can help surface how employees experience their work environment. But leaders must be prepared to truly listen and make responsive changes based on what they hear, Speice says. He also suggested auditing company policies to see whether they require workers to fit into narrow boxes or unintentionally marginalize some team members, as well as examining how bias can creep into hiring and promotion practices. This goes beyond what is written in policy documents, Speice says. Talking the talk without walking the walk does not cultivate belonging. The question isnt whether gay men can succeed at work. Many do. The question is whether we can broaden our definitions of successand allow a broader range of people, perspectives, and leadership styles to thrive.
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