Essays on companies with exceptional cultures of continuous learning.
Learning ultimately comes down to personal growth. In a VUCA world (characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity), personal growth is steeped in resilience: the ability to harness chaos for creative output. But we think about learning at work all wrong. We see them as separate things. We force people into having split identities. What …
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Do you have a cherished “Kodak Moment” from your childhood? I don’t. In the future, I’ll probably be sifting through the cloud to find my beloved photo memories. Kodak Moments are a dwindling phenomenon, a statement that would astonish anyone born in the twentieth century who had heard the words “camera” or “film.” This is …
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The United Parcel Service (UPS) hires people who fit its culture, full stop. Tall order for a company that employs 500K+ UPSers in over 220 countries. Customer-first, people-led, hard-working, cooperative, and committed employees comprise its workforce. Hiring managers are entirely willing to sacrifice experience in favor of shared values. There was once even a historic …
Sometimes I marvel at the sleek little rectangle I carry around with me every day. Often, I take it for granted. In all honesty, I’ve broken quite a few of them. But when I’m reminded of all that goes into engineering this magic box in my pocket, I think to myself, how could a company …
Amazon. It’s doubtful that you’d be here (on the internet) and not know of Amazon. You probably have an opinion about what it’s like to work there. You’re also probably a patron, and you’ve probably wondered how, despite all the controversy and negative attention Amazon draws, every appendage of Amazon’s business works, and works incredibly …
Which are more valuable: good ideas or good people? I’ll let Ed Catmull, former president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, share his own opinion before I dissect his thoughts: “The view that good ideas are rarer and more valuable than good people is rooted in a misconception of creativity.” Developing complex products requires teams …
Xerox saved itself $100 million over breakfast. It had nothing to do with the food they ate or the coffee they drank. It had everything to do with a delicate balance of process and practice. Chatter at Breakfast Anthropologists at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) noticed a unique way customer service reps addressed machine …