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We often focus on the visible obstacles stopping women from getting ahead: pay inequality, missed promotions and opportunities, and those boardroom tables with not quite enough seats. Yet there is another, less-visible hindrance to womens career success: our internal habits, harder to name and even harder to shake. The opportunity passed over not because it was out of reach, but because our inner dialogue said it wasnt ours to take. The apology slipped into an email that didnt need one. The shrinking, the over-preparing, and the relentless self-editing. These arent flaws. They are learned responses to a system that taught women to be capable but cautious, competent but not disruptive, and yes, to have a voice, but not one that was too loud. These unexamined habits are shaping the careers we never meant to build. 1. Confusing competence with visibility The sabotage: Many women believe if they work hard enough, someone will notice. Excellence in silence is rarely rewarded. Doing exceptional work and not drawing attention to it isnt noble. Its often just an efficient way of handing credit to someone else. The insight: Hard work that goes unseen and waiting politely for ones turn builds resentment. Being good at your job isnt the same as being known for it, and in competitive environments, what isnt seen often doesnt count. How to avoid it: Dont wait to be discovered. Learn to self-promote and name what you do, so no one else gets to define it for you. Regularly share winsboth yours and those of othersin team settings. 2. Waiting for certainty The sabotage: This is self-doubt amplified. When it comes to promotions, unless almost every box is ticked, women are reluctant to put themselves forward. One unchecked box and its a hard stop . . . until next time. The insight: What if there is no next time? When rejecting an opportunity, what might the perception being sent to your boss be? Your boss isnt a mind reader, magically understanding your thoughts moving back and forth. Instead, they take it on surface value, assuming youre not so engaged or interested in being here. And hesitations compound over time: not just in missed opportunities, but in lost wealth, confidence, reputation, and influence. How to avoid it: Adopt a progress, not perfection mindset. Practice tentative boldness and redefine your readiness, taking steps forward and refining as you go. 3. Being modest with achievements The sabotage: Women often downplay workplace achievements, opting for humility over self-advocacy. The reluctance to self-promote is confused with bragging and arrogance. But being comfortable in naming your achievement is necessary for self-worth. The insight: What begins as humility can morph into invisibility. Habitually softening your impact and deflecting praise reinforces a narrative where your work is assumed rather than acknowledged. It can train those around you to expect performance without credit. Visibility isnt vanity. Its professional accountability. How to avoid it: Replace vague self-effacement with concrete contribution. Say, Heres what I contributed to that outcome, rather than, I just helped out a bit. Plus, adopt an internal mantra: Its not arrogance if its accurate. 4. Seeking career advice from the wrong counsel The sabotage: Turning only to people who mirror your fears instead of challenging your growth. Often these are friends, family, or colleagues. Their intention might be for the best, but they have a bias to protect. The insight: Whats the point? Friends and family often want to shield us from discomfort. But their advice can reflect their own fears, rather than your potential. And not every colleague has honorable intentions. Discussions like this can snowball, reinforcing not only why you shouldnt take up the opportunity, but any other advancements, ever. The validation might feel safer, but it doesnt help. Its damaging. How to avoid it: Seek advice from those who will challenge your thinking, not just nod along. Limit conversations that turn into bandwagoning. Seek to have actions as a result of purposeful career discussions, even if they are micro-moves. Take responsibility for your decisions: When coming to a decision, do you say, I have decided or My partner and I think more often? Clarity begins with ownership. 5. Being busy instead of strategic The sabotage: Investing in extra work tasks that dont pay dividends. This is saying yes to everything in the name of being helpful while it slowly erodes your capacity. The insight: Over-functioning is not the same as overachieving. The cost is invisibly paid in missed raises, burnout, and career stagnation. The perception of your busyness might be that you are not in control of your workload. How to avoid it: Be discerning and politely decline what dilutes your focus. Track value over volume and pick strategic tasks that upskill and serve your growth. Practice saying no not with guilt, but with respect for where youre headed.
Category:
E-Commerce
Theres a new energy brand on the market, and its betting that the next frontier in caffeine isnt coffee, soda, or any other drink, for that matter. Its the pouch. Wip is a caffeine pouch, available in 100-milligram and 200-milligram strengths, thats designed to be popped between your lip and gum to provide a quick dose of what it describes as natural caffeine. The pouches come in candy-like flavors, including mint, sour cherry, orange citrus, and strawberry kiwi, all packaged in a brightly colored, hockey-puck-size container. If any of that sounds familiar, thats probably because, at least in form factor, its pretty similar to the nicotine pouch brand Zyn, which exploded in popularity after gaining traction on TikTok, primarily among young users. Meanwhile, over the past few years, the caffeine market has also been buzzing with a similar demographic. Energy drinks have gone mainstream, appearing on menus at Starbucks, Dunkin, and Dutch Bros. Older brands like Jolt Cola and Rockstar have gotten supercharged facelifts, while the newcomer Alani Nu notched more than a billion dollars in sales in just one year. From 2018 to 2023, energy drink sales jumped by 73%. In all, the global caffeine market is expected to reach $28.95 billion by 2030. Wip is betting on the idea that if consumers are gravitating toward a pouch for their nicotine boost, it might be a major new unlock for the caffeine industry, too. [Photo: courtesy Wip] The origin of a new form of caffeine The idea for Wip was conceived by David Cynamon, a Canadian entrepreneur who is now the brands chairman and a major stakeholder. According to Wip CEO Richard Mumby, Cynamon understood the ubiquity of pouches in other form factors, mainly in nicotine, and recognized an opportunity to expand the consumer category into caffeine. The brand debuted last summer under the name LF*GO! (alongside a marketing partnership with Mike Tyson), a move that Mumby describes as more of a market test than an official launch. In four months, they got really meaningful traction and realized they needed to bring in the right team to realize the full opportunity of creating an altogether new category for energy and caffeine, he says. Mumby stepped in as CEO last October. Given the inspiration that Wip is pulling from the nicotine industry, Mumbys previous experience makes sense for this new role: From 2014 to 2017, he served as CMO for Pax Labs, the umbrella company for Juul and Pax vapes. In less than a year, Mumbys team at Wip worked to create an entirely fresh identity for the brand before it hit the market in early June. The new branding takes a page out of Red Bulls iconic playbook, positioning the product as a tool for athletesand, like Zyn, also a cool accessory. [Photo: courtesy Wip] Is the pouch the new energy drink? From an outside perspective, its easy to see why consumers might choose a nicotine pouch over a cigarette: You can pop one on the go, it has no odor, and, more recently, has become a kind of status-signaling habit among its young male target audience. [Photo: courtesy Wip] Its less clear why one might abandon their daily cup of coffee in favor of a caffeine pouch. Mumbys pitch for creating this new consumption category comes down to what he calls the three Cs: confidence, convenience, and cost. He argues that consumers want to have confidence in the quality of their caffeine (a need that Wip purports to meet by deriving its caffeine from green coffee beans); they want the convenience of a handsfree caffeine option; and they want a cheaper caffeine fix (a 15-pouch pack costs about $8, or about 60 cents per serving). For an emerging brand or category, sometimes you have to go to the periphery to find these unmet needs, Mumby says. But in caffeine, they’re really at the heart of the product. [Photo: courtesy Wip] Branding the caffeine pouch To get the public on board with this novel form of caffeine intake, Mumby says he had a few main goals with the new branding. First, he needed to clearly articulate what caffeine pouches actually are, and establish a brand name that consumers could easily remember. He also needed a high-energy look to compete in an already saturated category. In collaboration with the branding agency Studio George, his team checked the first box with Wip, a name designed to be short, zingy, and catchy. You can’t will consumers to do it, but I wouldn’t be disappointed if I heard somebody walk into a bodega and say, Do you have any mint Wips, or refer to having to Wip their way through a workout, Mumby says. For the wordmark, Studio George opted for a forward-leaning, slanted bold font with jagged edges, meant to convey a sense of momentum. The packaging features flavor-signaling neon colors, metallic silver, and pops of energetic yellow, clearly evoking the world of sports branding. Mumby imagines Wip as a product that could see mass adoption, but its specifically marketed as a companion for athletes and others whose pastimes involve using their hands. Someone headed to the gym, for example, might prefer a Wip over the “cumbersome” proposition of packing energy drinks in their bag, Mumby explains. “Also, a cup of coffee on a construction site is hard to put down and not have dust get into it,” he says. “If you work with both of your hands, you need dexterity. The form factor just lends itself to some obvious solutions.” On first glance, Wip does look strikingly like a nicotine product, especially given its rounded packaging and hardcore aesthetic. Mumby says the brands main strategy to ensure consumers dont get confused is to incorporate clear signals at the point of sale, including by labeling the pouches as clean caffeine on display units. Currently, Wip is available online, on Amazon, at convenience stores in Florida and Arizona, and at some smaller athletic stores across the country. [Photo: courtesy Wip] I Wip my way through this article Before writing this story, I gave Wip a try for the first timespecifically, the 100-milligram mint flavor. While Ive never tried a Zyn, and therefore cant compare the two, this experience was akin to sucking on an abnormally sweet Altoid, or maybe a less-powerful Listerine strip. It wasnt unpleasant (and it did prevent the onset of a morning caffeine headache), but it also wasnt my personal favorite way to consume caffeine. Still, I could see how the form factor might be convenient as a pre-workout boost or a pick-me-up on the job. [Photo: courtesy Wip] My main concern with Wip, actually, is how easy it is to consume. One of the 200-milligram pouches is equivalent to about two cups of coffee. A standard 8.4-ounce Red Bull contains just 80 milligrams of caffeine. Pop two max-strength Wips, and youve just hit the maximum amount of caffeine that the Mayo Clinic defines as safe for the average adult, likely in significantly less time than it would require to chug five Red Bulls. When asked about Wips safety, Mumby says the brands website and social media sets out clear guidelines on safe caffeine consumption, including the 400-milligram limit. Its worth noting, however, that theres no such information on the package itself. While I didnt experience any adverse effects from my 100-milligram Wip, Im not sure I want to know what it might feel like to mindlessly have one too many. For now, Im sticking with coffee.
Category:
E-Commerce
Have you ever admired a leader so dialed into their long-term mission that it seems nothing can shake their focus? Every move appears premeditated, every milestone perfectly timed. Now think about a leader who seems to always be in step with the moment. Their company launches timely features, aligns instantly with market shifts, and always feels fresh. For every leader who succeeds through single-minded focus, there are others whose obstinacy has led them and their organizations to arrive at a destination that is no longer desirable. And while adaptability can be a gift, it also leads many organizations to shift strategies with each change in the winds without ever hitting on a true contribution. This tension between structure and adaptability isnt just theoretical; its a foundational dynamic that has shaped industries for decades. Approaches to enterprise software development provide a useful way to gauge whether youre leaning too far in either direction. Balancing Your Leadership Approaches Early on in the history of the software industry, a waterfall strategy reigned supreme. Road maps guided development, with possible major platform releases happening every one to two years, version releases quarterly, feature sets monthly, and bug fixes weekly. Teams operated with near-military precision towards long-term goals, broken down into shorter term deliverables. But as the pace of change accelerated, that model began to break down. Agile software development emerged, favoring speed, iteration, and real-time user feedback. Short sprints (often 60 to 90 days) determined what was going to be released. Each sprint on a project added features, fixed bugs, and adapted to feedback from the previous release. Unlike with waterfall, employees from across agile teams were empowered to fix things and make many changes without going through their chain of command to get approval. In our coaching work, weve seen that the same push and pull between waterfall and agile playing out in leadership styles and company cultures. Some leaders operate like agile systems: adaptive, fast-moving, iterative, and with a distributed decision structure. They respond quickly to new data and arent afraid to pivot when the market shifts. Others take a waterfall-inspired approach: structured, methodical, deeply focused on long-term outcomes, and more rigidly hierarchical. They chart a course and stick to it, often prioritizing consistency over speed. Neither mindset is wrong, but over-indexing on either one can create serious blind spots. Agile thinkers risk spinning in circles when they follow the tides. Waterfall thinkers risk charging toward goals that become outdated or foundering on unsolvable problems. For executives, the ability to integrate both approaches is no longer optionalits essential. Heres how to strike that balanceand why your teams future may depend on it. 1. Assess your own leadership style In our coaching conversations with leaders, we often start by asking them to reflect on whether they naturally lean toward structure or spontaneity. We can expand on their natural preference by administering a personality profile survey as well. Are they more likely to build a road map and stick to it, or pivot at the first sign of change? Developing this self-awareness isnt about labeling or even changing your styleits about recognizing where you need balance. If you default to agile thinking, ask yourself: Are we making measurable progress? Or changing directions without setting a course? Are we building anything lasting? If you favor waterfall thinking, ask: Is our goal still relevant? What feedback are we ignoring? Which market changes do we need to take into account? During a recent coaching conversation a senior marketing leader at large hospitality company expressed frustrations about her proposed product launch, a new menu item, being challenged by her colleague who runs operations. He thought a different item would be faster, easier, and aligned to what customers recently told him they wanted. Her team had spent the last six months toward brand alignment, market research, product iterations, testing, launch planning, and marketing planning and were now finally ready to do something. Her waterfall approach and his agile approach were in conflict. Both made great points. In the end, they struck a balance between both proposals and management styles. 2. Understand when culture amplifies leadership style As a leader, you have to ask whether your company culture reflects your style or balances it. A culture determines how people behave naturally, on average, even when a leader is not in the room. Do people tend to work in a structured manner, with long-term goals in mind, always talking about progress against objectives? Or, does it feel like people question the current state, proposing new ideas and take initiative without seeking executive approval. Crucially, if the culture leans in a particular direction, how easy and safe is it for people who lean the other way to challenge the others. A lot of can depend on whether the company typically hires and promotes a type that matches the leaders biases or whether it embraces individuals who bring unique perspectives and skills to the workplace. When you build a corporate ethos in your image, you magnify your own tendencies in ways that create a harmonious work environment. People are not likely to argue with your decisions, because they reflect their own opinions as well. Day-to-day, that can be pleasant. In the long-run, though, it creates problems. If the leadership and organization are all Agile, then chaos may manifest. A slow-moving Waterfall culture may stall innovation. Take Boeing as an example; it continued reliance on a hierarchical, Waterfall-style of leadership and development culture has been widely criticized for contributing to recent crises. The rigid, top-down approach delayed necessary changes in engineering and quality control, despite repeated warnings from employees and whistleblowers. The 2024 mid-air panel blowout on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX reignited scrutiny, and internal documents revealed slow, structured processes that resisted fast adaptation or real-time feedback. The Waterfall mindsetprioritizing schedules, approvals, and internal reporting linesled to safety risks, brand damage, and regulatory backlash. In contrast, consider Netflix. In the late 1990s, they recognized an inefficiency in the movie rental business. Leaders in this space had significant overhead costs from the physical stores from which people rented and returned movies. By allowing customers to select movies online and have then delivered, they created an economy of scale. Building this business required attention to detail and customer service. Yet, the company remained sensitive to technology trends. They realized that they were essentially sending computer files through a low-bandwidth connection (the U.S. Mail) and disrupted their own business model by pivoting to streaming. Further realizing that many companies could develop streaming models, they pivoted again to content creation. Becoming a content creator requires a lot of expertise, and so they had to implement this model using a more traditional Waterfall approach. This balance between Agile and Waterfall approaches has enabled Netflix to remain a significant force in the market. The takeaway? While a particular cultural and leadership disposition around Waterfall or Agile may b the natural to the organization and may have served it well for many years, great leaders are aware of those tendencies, and build a culture that can challenge the status quote and balance, when needed, Agile and Waterfall approaches to yield healthy (if sometimes uncomfortable) debate. 3. Combine long-term vision with real-time feedback A 2024 meta-analysis in the Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Innovation found that agile leadership has a significant impact on organizational outcomes, team effectiveness, collaboration, and innovation. But the key isnt to replace long-term thinking entirelyits to layer agility on top of it. Thats why the most successful leaders use both mindsets. They know when to zoom outbuilding toward five-year goalsand when to zoom in, listening to customer feedback or shifting based on real-time performance indicators. New Balance has done this exceptionally well, maintaining its long-term manufacturing commitments in the U.S. while evolving its brand to meet changing consumer tastesa move that helped drive a record $6.5 billion in sales in 2023. A CMO we coached recently calls her approach glocal marketingthe balance between local and global marketing, which includes honoring the long term brand promise (Waterfall) while still connecting, through customization, at the local level to what is relevant and popular at that moment in a particular area (Agile). At the team level, this looks like maintaining a steady mission while adapting tactics. At the leadership level, it means pairing clarity of purpose with the humility to course correct. 4. Build balanced teams that challenge your defaults Theres a method in psychology to measure individual tendencies known as need for cognitive closure, and it provides a useful way to think about your own leadership approach. People high in need for closure prefer action to thinking, so they tend to react to situations and engage with available information, which is characteristic of an agile approach. People low in need for closure prefer thinking to action and typically mull over information, which often leads to the focus on long-term goals characteristic of a waterfall style. Understanding your own tendencies as a leader as well as those of your trusted associates is valuable, because it gives you the opportunity to balance your team to include those with a range of levels of need for closure to ensure your team isnt heavily biased toward either the agile or waterfall style. You can measure these tendencies with the Need for Closure scale. It will help you to see whether the people you work with tend toward High (i.e., Agile) or Low (i.e., Waterfall) Need for Closure. If you find that your team tends to be biased more toward reaction or more toward deep thought, you can use timelines to help overcome those tendencies. For example, if your team tends to react quickly, set a deadline for finalizing a decision thats far enough out to allow your team the time and space to slow down and proceed carefully and thoughtfully. In contrast, if your team often deliberates too long and gets stuck in long-term patterns, an earlier deadline can push them to make decisions more quickly. Dont surround yourself with people who think exactly like you. Instead, build teams that stretch your instincts, pressure-test your assumptions, and help you operate at both 30,000 feet and ground level. Often, peoples preferences reflect hidden assumptions that they themselves may not be aware of. Being forced to justify your strategic decisions explicitly in conversations brings those assumptions to the forefront. In addition, these strategic choices may sometimes reflect reasoning gaps that these conversations will also bring to light. Navigate with intention The best leaders dont choose between agile and waterfallthey learn to navigate the tension and switch gears with intention. Agility without direction leads to burnout. Direction without agility leads to obsolescence. So, ask yourself: Are you leaning too far in one direction? What conversations, feedback loops, or partners could help you rebalance? Because real leadership isnt about having a single styleits about learning when to move fast, when to slow down, and how to bring your team with you, every step of the way.
Category:
E-Commerce
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