#ICYMI: Josh Levine's upcoming book "Great Mondays" Excerpt

The 6 Components of Company Culture

Excerpt from Chapter 1 of GREAT MONDAYS: How to design a company culture employees love.

What will it take to be a place people not only want to work, but love to work? A persistent and consistent commitment to designing culture. *Persistent* because culture is a core business capability. Don’t think of it as this year’s priority; it will certainly be usurped by the next shiny business imperative that comes along. *Consistent* because the best solutions come from constraints. Design is messy. Imagining, creating, and implementing something new is hard, particularly in business. (Just ask any executive who attempted to build an innovation team.) But by having a system in which to work, the tasks become much more understandable. And do-able.

The six-part framework in this book can enable leaders at all levels in all types of organizations to imagine, create, and implement a work-life that supports employees, customers, and business. It is a process that builds on its own momentum to become a self-reinforcing system. An upward cycle that will draw in the people who want to help an organization reach its purpose.

The first three components are about creating the vision for the culture, while the second three are about bringing the culture to life. Together all six create a system for taking an active role in the outcome of how people feel and are engaged in the organization. A system for designing a culture employees love.

Read more here.

#ICYMI: Natalia Petrzela for The Washington Post

The new Colin Kaepernick campaign captures the tension between Nike’s values and its reality

Nike ignited a firestorm with the announcement that it has re-signed an endorsement deal with former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. During Thursday night’s Eagles-Falcons game, the company launched its new “Just Do It” ads starring the quarterback best known for being blackballed for popularizing “taking a knee” during the national anthem as a protest of racism in America. The new Kaepernick contract and ad have boosted Nike’s bottom line, while prompting a furious backlash from the president and his followers.

This new campaign fits with Nike’s painstakingly developed image as a forward thinking, innovative company that has evolved from selling sneakers out of co-founder Phil Knight’s trunk nearly half a century ago to promoting sports as an almost spiritual, self-actualizing exercise. Since 1988, the "Just Do It" ads in particular, featuring athletes including jogging folk hero Walt Stack, golfer Tiger Woods, tennis star Serena Williams and groups of girls gaining confidence through sport, have all cultivated this capacious sensibility.

But these inspirational branding efforts have often been out of step with the on-the-ground experience at Nike, where issues of equity have long dogged the corporate giant. Like all corporations, profit propels Nike, but the loftiness of its professed principles makes the disconnect with some of its internal practices seem especially stark.

Read the rest of this piece here.

#ICYMI: Samantha Nutt Op-Ed for The Globe and Mail

The lessons women are asking men to learn

The entire circus around Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation was an unwanted refresher for women and girls of the lessons forced upon us throughout our lives.

As girls, we learn that:

To have opinions is to be angry,

To be angry is to be unattractive,

To be smart is to be threatening,

To speak up is to be shut down,

To have confidence is to be demeaned,

To have strength is to be intimidated,

To be difficult is to be lonely.

As women, we learn that:

To have ideas is to be ignored,

To ask questions is to be discounted,

To be ambitious is to be obnoxious,

To tell the truth is to be accused of lying,

To have expertise is to be dismissed,

To be successful is to be judged,

To be in the spotlight is to be attacked.

Read the rest of the piece here.

#ICYMI: Dr. Hallowell shares some of his upcoming memoir

Dr. Hallowell’s 20th book, Because I Come From A Crazy Family: The Making Of A Psychiatrist, will be released this June. It’s unlike any book he’s written before, because this one tells the story of his own upbringing. It was a childhood that was filled with trauma, but lots of love and laughter too. Listen as Dr. Hallowell reads a few passages from his soon-to-be-released memoir.

To pre-order your copy of Because I Come From A Crazy Family, The Making Of A Psychiatrist, CLICK HERE. Read the first chapter for free HERE.

#ICYMI: Ruha Benjamin reflects on Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" Speech

Dr. Ruha Benjamin talks about the importance of both the dream and the nightmare messaging in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech. Watch her dissection of his famous speech: