a keen observer of corporate cultures

As a young man, I was fortunate to spend two years in Spain. The Spanish culture was rich and intriguing, yet also opaque and mysterious. Those years opened my eyes to the world and how other people experience life. One of the most salient lessons was the importance of culture. Culture can be both an enabler, and a stumbling block. It can bind people in unity or pit them against each other.  As a result, I’ve been a keen observer of corporate cultures throughout my career. The interplay between leadership and culture is similarly fascinating. Leaders either engender and move forward the culture, or they can drag it down by tacitly allowing their teams to violate it. As practitioners, we know how critical it is to recruit leaders that can articulate how they’ve built up the culture and inspired their teams to do the same…. 

Edward Stanworth

Meet Edward Stanworth (video). Global Leader Group. Accessed January 10, 2023

the best thing is subtraction

Shopify will be eliminating all recurring meetings involving more than two people in a bid to give employees more time to work on other tasks, Kaz Nejatian, vice president of product and chief operating officer at Shopify told employees in a Tuesday email viewed by Fortune.

The changes, which are effective immediately, will also see no events at all scheduled on Wednesdays, while any large meetings involving more than 50 people can only be held on Thursdays between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern Time. Big meetings are limited to one per week.

The changes to Shopify’s operating structure will eliminate 10,000 company events or the equivalent of more than 76,500 hours of meetings, a company spokesperson told Fortune.

Nejatian called the policy change a “useful subtraction,” which would free employees from excessive amounts of time currently spent in meetings. In his email to employees on Tuesday, he urged them not to add any meetings back to their calendars for at least two weeks, and to be “really critical” when deciding whether to add a meeting back to schedules at all.

Shopify CEO Lütke referred to the approach as a “calendar purge” in a statement to Fortune.

“The best thing founders can do is subtraction,” he in a recent interview with The Knowledge Project Podcast. “It’s much easier to add things than to remove things. If you say yes to a thing, you actually say no to every other thing you could have done with that period of time.”

Tristan Bove

"Shopify is axing all meetings involving more than two people in a remote work ‘calendar purge’ that the company itself calls ‘fast and chaotic’," Fortune. Jan. 4, 2023

we are the change that we seek

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. 

Barack Obama

"Barack Obama’s Feb. 5 Speech," New York Times. Feb. 5, 2008. As found in 2022 Great Quotes from Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes from Leaders Who Shaped the World.

things you only hoped for

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you do not have. Remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

Epicurus

The Essential Epicurus: Letters, Principal Doctrines, Vatican Sayings, and Fragments. By Epicurus. 1993. Prometheus Books. As found in 2022 Great Quotes from Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes from Leaders Who Shaped the World.

inability

Never confuse someone else's inability to do something with its inability to be done. 

Steve Maraboli

Life, the Truth, & Being Free by Steve Maraboli.  Createspace Independent Publishers. 2014. As found in 2022 Great Quotes from Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes from Leaders Who Shaped the World.