Charter

1/x Welcome to the 2023 #CharterSummit The whole Charter team is so excited to join speakers and attendees in writing the new people-first paradigm in organizational leadership. You can still register to watch virtually. Click here to register: charterworks.com/events/cws/

ICYMII: For Sunday's Charter Briefing newsletter, Charter editor-in-chief Kevin Delaney sat down with General Stan McChrystal, who is known for his deep and successful change management during his years in top military posts. Read an excerpt from their conversation for McChrystal's advice on leading through uncertainty, navigating upcoming policy changes, and bolster workers' trust in leadership. buff.ly/417POeG

From Charter AI reporter Jacob Clemente: the first in a series about how genAI will change different industries and professions, focused on AI adoption in the legal field. "The productivity increase that I have experienced over this last couple of years by integrating a whole suite of AI tools into just how I work, it's astonishing," David Wang, chief innovation officer of the law firm Cooley, told Clemente. "I'm handling easily five times more work than I was able to handle before." Read more in Charter Pro: buff.ly/4gAW435

In 'Talk,' Harvard Business School professor Alison Wood Brooks shares her four TALK maxims, a research-backed framework for having better conversations: Topics - "We have to choose good topics, but we also need to manage them well. Even if you start with a bad topic, good conversationalists can make any topic good," she told Charter. Asking - Brooks recommends "asking more questions and better questions," particularly follow-up questions and open-ended questions that start with the word, " Levity - "Most people tend to think of levity, especially in the workplace, as an afterthought or as this extra bonus that maybe sometimes happens. What we find is that humor and warmth and levity are a core determinant of how we view the status hierarchy among human beings," she says. Kindness - "It's important to acknowledge and affirm what's said, validate their feelings, be able to show them that you hear them and you care about them, even if you're going to go on to disagree with them vehemently," says Brooks. Read our interview for more from 'Talk.' Link here: buff.ly/3WxGH45

Earlier this week, Trump signed executive orders targeting DEI programs and flexible-work privileges for federal workers. Here's what that means for employers: buff.ly/3E2x9rJ

Charter editor-in-chief Kevin Delaney has been in Davos, Switzerland this week for the World Economic Forum's annual meeting. He wrote about his insights from this year's convening, based on panels, interviews, and other discussions. Read his takeaways from what leaders are saying about AI, DEI, trust, and the US economic outlook: buff.ly/3E7v0ea

With Monday's inauguration still fresh for many workers, some managers are bracing for potential political conflicts in the workplace. In this week's Charter Pro newsletter, Dr. Kurt Gray, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at UNC Chapel Hill and author of Outraged, shared his advice for managing political discussions at work, including: 👉 How human evolution shapes our current perception of conflict, at work and elsewhere. 👉 The case for good change management to help prevent conflict about politics. 👉 The power of telling personal stories to build empathy and understanding. Read his advice: buff.ly/40rispl

Is ESG investing illegal for employee 401k and other retirement plans? One federal judge in Texas thinks so. “If it's upheld—and I think it's probably likely that it will be upheld if I had to wager,” says Gregory P. Feit , it “could effect a sea change in how investment managers and companies invest and divest and consider making investment decisions in these 401k plans,” regardless of where in the US they're located. We covered what that means for 401k plans, and what employers should do now: buff.ly/4jpmKX6

Ahead of our Jan 30 summit, "Leading with AI," we sat down with Rebecca Hinds, head of the Work Innovation Lab at Asana and one of our summit panelists. She shared insights from Asana's research on AI adoption including: 👉 Factors that influence whether or not someone adopts AI. 👉 How AI has reshaped workplace collaboration. 👉 The link between AI use and satisfaction at work. Check out our Q&A here: buff.ly/3Cgh3tU

Journalist Eva Dou’s forthcoming book House of Huawei documents the Chinese tech company’s rise from a small telephone-switch company to global behemoth. While the focus of the book is detailing Huawei's development amid domestic and international developments including Chinese economic liberalization, the Tiananmen Square massacre, US sanctions on Iran, and the US-China Trade War, Charter journalist Michelle Peng argues that the company's history also contains management and leadership lessons for US organizations. Read her book briefing on House of Huawei: buff.ly/4ai396X

What happens when employers’ efforts to solicit worker feedback fall short of true worker voice? In a recently published study on a 2014 unionization effort at Disneyland, researchers identify a phenomenon called “voice veneer,” or “when employers appear to address concerns voiced by workers but at the same time, limit the impact of voice, usually by trying to decrease their dependence on those who voiced these concerns,” explains co-author Michel Anteby of Boston University. The consequences? Burnout and disengagement for workers and reputational damage for the company. We covered the paper and what leaders can learn from the research: buff.ly/40hppt7

How are you supporting your employees in Los Angeles? LA-based reporter Michelle Peng shared advice in this Monday's Charter Pro newsletter, including emphasizing flexibility, offering material support, and sharing resources. “What [employees] really want to feel is that my leaders care,” crisis response expert Dr. George Vergolias told Charter, and that “they're responsive to threats and they're doing what they can to help create a safe workplace.” Read our guide to supporting employees amid wildfires: buff.ly/3WjeYnL

Could an AI mimic your writing so convincingly that even your colleagues couldn’t tell the difference? A new research working paper suggests we might be closer to that reality than many think—at least for one CEO. We spoke to Harvard Business School professor Prithwiraj Choudhury, co-author of the study, about his findings: “If this holds up in other studies, then why not imagine a world where each worker—each one of us—would have a chatbot that could…[produce] written answers like we would?" he said. Read our takeaways from the research and our conversation with Choudhury: buff.ly/40vz6FP

For yesterday's Charter newsletter, we spoke with Gabriella Rosen Kellerman, co-author of Tomorrowmind and chief innovation officer and chief product officer at BetterUp, on BetterUp's research on how to communicate better around AI. She shared practices that drove employee confidence and AI adoption, including: 👉 Show both agency and optimism when communicating about AI. "We see this trickle down from leaders, so if a manager has that combination of optimism and agency around AI, then their teams are more likely to embody that," says Kellerman. 👉 Emphasize "machine-like" rather than "human-like" qualities of AI tools. "When we emphasize what the AI is really good at that's different from what a human's really good at, it encourages people to want to engage with it rather than trying to position it as a person or a substitute for a person," she explains. 👉 Increase prospection, or the "capability to imagine and plan for the future " Kellerman cites a two-part framework for pragmatic prospection from Roy Baumeister and co-authors : "The first one is really fast and optimistic, and he calls it 'dream big.' Then the second is slower and more deliberative, more evaluative—it's 'get real,'" she says. Read more about communication practices and AI adoption: buff.ly/4fUKKOX

A recent study on Github's Copilot revealed that use of the AI tool may reduce software developers' reliance on teammates, changing the way they collaborate and interact as a team. We spoke with one of the lead researchers for what this means for workers and organizations: buff.ly/3PoZdI3

Over the past four years, the Biden National Labor Relations Board has left quite the legacy under the leadership of general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo. "We’ve made great gains in enforcing labor law in the way Congress intended—to protect the rights of workers to organize, engage together to improve their wages, benefits and working conditions, collectively bargain through representatives of their free choosing, or refrain from these activities," she told Charter. More from Abruzzo on the Board's achievements during the Biden administration, and what comes next for workers, employers, and policymakers: buff.ly/408AiNZ

Each week in 2024, Charter AI reporter Jacob Clemente shared his "AI Tip of the Week," a suggestion for experimenting with AI for readers to try. To close out 2024, Clemente rounded up his favorite tips from the year, with an eye towards the tactics he still uses in his work. Read his roundup here: buff.ly/41Y48Hy

One way to start the year off right: the 'One Word' activity, inspired by One Word That Will Change Your Life by Jon Gordon, Dan Britton, and Jimmy Page and Gordon’s work with the Clemson Tigers football team. Since 2022, Charter has kicked off each year by picking both individual and team-wide words of the year, an exercise that has helped us accomplish both individual and team goals. For example, Charter’s 2022 word of the year was “bold,” a reminder to spend time on stories, initiatives, and products that were innovative, exciting, and, well, bold. Individual words from 2022 include “try,” “empathy,” “persist,” and “expedition.” In 2023, as we were focused on making Charter Pro an indispensable part of members’ work, we chose “essential” as our word of the year, with individual words like “generosity,” “ambition,” and “expand.” Curious about trying the activity on your team? Read our "Pro TIp of the Week" on the one word activity for prompts to get you started: buff.ly/4iTtpc1

Looking for a sense of purpose to drive you as you enter the new year? Hospice care doctor and writer Jordan Grumet offers a practical guide for doing so in 'The Purpose Code,' out next week. We took a look at 'The Purpose Code,' with an eye towards the most practical insights for our readers. Check out our book briefing here: buff.ly/3BPXisQ

Charter's best advice from our "Pro Tip of the Week" and "Steal This Idea" features throughout 2024, including: 👉 Roll out an "Offsite in a Box," inspired by Dropbox's practices. 👉 Use "white flagging" to gracefully exit conversations, from Isabel Berwick's 'The Future-Proof Career.' 👉 Make your office a school bus stop. More on these tips and more: buff.ly/3BXTtlm

As 2024 comes to a close, we looked back at everything we've read for our book briefings and author Q&As throughout the year. We rounded up all of our favorite insights, advice, and case studies from 14 books we read this year, including Supercommumicators by Charles Duhigg, Over Work by Brigid Schulte, Never Lead Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, Co-Intelligence by Ethan Mollick, and more. Read our year-end books roundup here: buff.ly/3DCxdhu