By Peter Aykens, Kaelyn Lowmaster, Emily Rose McRae, and Jonah Shepp, February 2, 2026 CEO expectations for AI-driven growth remain high in 2026—at the same time their workforces are grappling with the more sober reality of current AI performance. Gartner research finds that only one in 50 AI investments deliver transformational value, and only one in five delivers any measurable return on investment.In 2026, executive teams will have to navigate this difficult tension: delivering on today’s growth targets while nurturing a workforce capable of driving future value amid AI transformation. To do that, they must prioritize:Navigating [...]

By Mark Thompson and Byron Loflin, HBR Magazine, January-February 2026 When vying for a C-suite role, you’ll need to win over many different stakeholders: board members, the CEO (existing or outgoing), executive peers, and external parties like customers and shareholders who might weigh in on the decision. But all candidates, even internal ones, must prepare for another set of increasingly powerful gatekeepers: professional recruiters and assessors. In our work coaching executives and consulting to companies, we’ve seen a steep increase in the use of these advisers, not just to search for CEOs but also to fill [...]

By Roberta Matuson, Forbes, November 18, 2025 Executives love to say, “We just can’t find good people.” But let’s be honest: the problem isn’t the labor market. It’s your talent strategy. U.S. job openings in some key areas remain high, time-to-fill is off the charts, and executives are convinced that there is always someone better just around the corner. Spoiler alert: good is good enough. Here’s how to significantly reduce your time to hire and fill jobs with great people. 1. Stop Writing Job Postings Like Legal Documents Cut the fluff. Focus on the five [...]

By Caroline Castrillon, Forbes, October 28, 2025 The dreaded email arrives unexpectedly. Or maybe you saw it coming for weeks. With Amazon reportedly cutting 30,000 corporate jobs, Target announcing layoffs and similar headlines across industries, this reality is hitting professionals everywhere. Being laid off feels unsettling at best. But here's what many successful professionals have discovered: a layoff can be the catalyst for a career change that propels you toward work you actually love, rather than one you simply tolerate.The key is resilience—the ability to transform adversity into opportunity. Here are five strategic ways to transform [...]

by Callum Borchers, Wall Street Journal, September 17, 2025 The official story of the job market is finally catching up to the harsh reality. Job seekers have complained for some time now—to me, their friends, pets or anyone who will listen—that it is deceptively hard to get hired. Normal people don’t wear out the refresh button on BLS.gov when the federal government is about to drop new employment data, like I do. But they know in broad strokes that the numbers continued to look good long after the postpandemic hiring frenzy subsided. Many felt a disconnect [...]

by Ray Smith, Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2025 Artificial intelligence has taken over so much of the job search that employers are resorting to a retro move: the in-person job interview. Virtual interviews have become the new normal in hiring in recent years, driven by the rise of remote work and companies’ desire to speed up hiring. Trouble is, more candidates are using AI tools to cheat by feeding them answers off screen, especially in technical interviews, recruiters say. In rarer cases, AI-enabled scammers are impersonating job seekers with the aim of stealing data or [...]

by Alexander Kirss and Kate McLaren-Poole, Harvard Business Review, July 18, 2025 The past five years have proved a crucible moment for business leaders as volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) threatened not just organizational progress but outright viability. Having an experienced C-suite has been an essential driver of performance. An October 2024 Gartner survey of 200 C-suite executives found that companies where executives have an average tenure of five years or more outperformed on revenue, customer experience, and other key metrics, as compared to companies with less tenured executive teams. Retaining senior executives, though, is [...]

by Ethan Bernstein and Michael B. Horn, Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2025 Today’s playbook for retaining high-performing employees is pretty straightforward: more money, a fancier title, better benefits and a greater sense of “purpose.” The problem? It isn’t working. Individuals change jobs more than ever before—every 3.9 years, on average, globally, with younger generations moving even more often. Our research shows that their reasons for switching are more complex than the ones people consistently check off on surveys—such as better salaries and titles. After 15 years of studying more than 1,000 job changes, we’ve [...]

by Zach Mercurio, Harvard Business Review, May 29, 2025 Last year, I worked alongside a major airline’s cleaning crew at a busy airport. In the airline business, turnaround time is everything. When you deplane, these workers begin sanitizing the bathrooms, seats, and floors. They’re under constant pressure. The team I observed that day had some of the highest cleanliness scores at the airline, and it didn’t take me long to find out why. Tanya is the cleanliness support coordinator who audits the planes and is responsible for the team. When I met her, she took me [...]

by Ron Carucci, Harvard Business Review, April 28, 2025 Recent research reveals a sharp decline in people’s confidence in their executive teams’ capacity to execute, align, and endure the volatility of economic, geopolitical, and technological disruptions. These views hold true across organizations: Everyone from boards to the C-suite to employees believe their leadership teams are unable to withstand the demands of conflicting constituents and put the interests of the enterprise above their own. I’m hearing this too. My clients cite several forces that are encroaching on their cohesion and ability to lead—and subsequently diminishing others’ confidence [...]