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Ill never forget the first time I heard someone say, This meeting couldve been an email. You can probably imagine exactly the voice they said it in (and what their face looked like). Youre probably heard it many times yourself. The meeting in question was a project check-in with multiple departments, where wed spent an hour listening to one person giving an update that could have been written in a few bullet points. The rest of us just sat there, nodding along, waiting for it to end. No one really needed to speak, no one gave feedback, and no one asked any questions. As we all shuffled out, someone muttered, Well, that was a waste of time, and I couldnt help but agree. The wasted hour likely meant Id be working an extra hour that night with my laptop cracked open on my couch. It got me thinking: Should we cancel these types of meetings altogether and just rely on email updates? Whats the point of meeting if its not helping anyone? Ditch the conference room One of the biggest misconceptions about meetings is that they always need to be in a formal conference room with a set agenda and an hour on the clock. In reality, the most effective meetings dont always look like that, especially depending on your industry or the makeup of your team. For example, if youre working in health care, manufacturing, or retail, your meetings might take the form of pre- or post-shift huddles. For teams that work remotely or across different time zones, you may turn instead to asynchronous communication methods, like shared documents or video updates, instead of meeting in real time. The key is to adapt your meeting style to the needs of your team. But effective meetings arent just about planning; theyre also about how you engage with your team during them. This is where active listening becomes essential. For managers, using the Pause-Consider-Act framework can help ensure your meetings are effective and purposeful. Its all about stopping to think about the structure, content, and timing of your meetings. 1. Pause Take a step back and assess your current meetings. Are they too frequent? Too far apart? Are you meeting with no real purpose? Look at your schedule and figure out where things might need to be adjusted. If you find your team members constantly knocking on your door or sending chat messages because they dont have scheduled time with you, its a sign you might need more regular time with your team members. 2. Consider Think about the purpose of each meeting. What are you trying to accomplish? For one-on-ones, the goal might be to check in on progress, provide feedback, or support your team members development. Team meetings could include brainstorming, decision-making, or updates. Be clear about what each meeting is for, and make sure your team knows whats expected of them. Consider teammates perspectivedo they feel like theyre too busy for the meeting? Are they feeling overwhelmed and just need more structure? Or do they feel like you already know everything and dont see the need to communicate details? Looking at these angles, adjust your approach accordingly. (Remember that if you fear overcommunicating, that rarely happens. Its more often the opposite: team members would love to hear more from you, not less.) 3. Act Implement changes that make your meetings more structured and intentional. Use shared agendas to help your team prepare, and make sure youre prepared, too. Show up on time, be present, and make sure your team walks away with clear action items. For example, if youre setting up a one-on-one, include questions about workload, challenges, and opportunities for growth. Make these meetings actionable by leaving each one with the next steps for both you and your team members. Let them know their concerns have been heard, and show them how youre going to support them moving forward. Moving your meetings along You dont want people dreading a meeting invitebut some might be. Not to your face; more likely to each other, or quietly hoping it gets cancelled. That usually happens when meetings lack a clear purpose and feel like they exist just for the sake of existing. Every meeting should have a reason to get that specific group together. Sometimes its about business needssharing information, making decisions, solving problems. Other times its about something thats equally important: building connection, and recognizing the humans doing the work. When meetings have intention, they make work easier, not harder. They help people understand what matters, whats expected of them, and how their work connects to everyone elses. But that only happens when someone is deliberate about it, and that someone can be you. When you Pause to take a real look at the meetings youre running, Consider what your team actually needs from that time together, and Act to structure (or restructure) them with purpose, you turn time spent into time invested. And sometimes the best compliment youll ever get as a manager will be someone walking out of the room saying, That was actually a really good meeting. Adapted from The Manager Method: A Practical Framework to Lead, Support, and Get Results by Ashley Herd (Hay House Business, February 2026).
Category:
E-Commerce
QR codes have become a convenience of modern life. Just scan the black and white mosaic with your phones camera and you can do everything from connect to your hotel room Wi-Fi to pay for that public parking space to pull up a restaurant menu. But QR codes can also leave you vulnerable. Thats because scammers, organized criminal gangs, and shady nation-states are using the unassuming tech to get you to hand over your data unwittingly. Heres how theyre doing it, and how you can protect yourself. People love the convenience of QR codesbut so do scammers Its hard to believe that something nefarious can lie within a QR code, but it can. In order to understand why, it helps to know how a QR code works. Short for quick response code, a QR code is essentially a more advanced version of UPC bar codes that have been found on packaged products for decades. An old-school UPC code (short for universal product code) is a one-dimensional image composed of vertical bars of different widths that represent different numbers. When the barcode is scanned, the numbers are read and compared with a database to identify the related product. QR codes are two-dimensional images with glyphs of various sizes that store not just numbers, but text. When scanned, your phone extracts the encoded information and can act on it. For example, QR codes often embed URLs, allowing you to scan, say, a parking meter to launch a webpage where you can pay online. For sure, this is a lot more convenient than manually typing a URL into your phones browser to load the payment page. But our desire forand unquestioning acceptance ofthis convenience is now being exploited by scammers through what has become known as quishing. The growing threat of quishing Increasingly, everyone from scammers to nation-states are trying to exploit our willingness to use QR codes. They do this by embedding malicious links in them and sending them to a person via email, often purporting to be from their bank or an online service they use. Alternatively, individual malicious actors have been known to print QR codes with malicious links embedded and physically place them over authentic QR codes on parking meters, restaurant tables, and in hotel rooms. Unsuspecting individuals then scan these QR codes, not realizing that the URL embedded in them leads to a scam site designed to mimic the real one. These look-alike sites are designed to steal the users login credentials, credit card details, or other sensitive data. If this sounds a lot like the old school phishing weve been dealing with since the dawn of the internet, thats because it isjust updated for a QR-coded world, hence the term quishing. How to protect yourself from fake QR codes Quishing is becoming a growing problem, but there are ways you can protect yourself against it. The first is by adopting healthy skepticism about QR codes. Just because a QR code is on the hotel room nightstand, below the parking meter dial, or in an email that looks to be from your bank doesn’t mean its benign. Understanding that is your first step toward protecting yourself. The next step is to carefully examine QR codes before scanning them. Scammers often place fake QR codes over real ones in the physical world. So, before you scan a QR code on a restaurant table, take a moment to inspect it for signs that it might be a sticker covering the authentic code. Look for rough edges, tears, or black squares from a deeper QR code showing through the white space, as these can indicate that the QR code isnt one you should be scanning. Likewise, be extremely cautious of QR codes you receive in emails, especially from senders purporting to be your financial institution or online services you useand particularly if these emails contain messages that use language like scan the code now to secure your account. Scammers rely on urgency to compel people to enter their login details hastily on fake websiteslogins the scammers will then use to access your accounts on the real website. Finally, never enter information on a web page that was loaded from a scanned QR code without first manually checking the URL in your web browser. The web page might look like your banks login screen, but a scam website will have a URL that doesnt match the authentic websites address. When in doubt as to whether a URL is authentic, its best to open up another browser window, do a Google search for the website in question, and click on the link Google gives you.
Category:
E-Commerce
Stablecoins that offer interest-bearing rewards may increasingly resemble bank deposits. But unlike traditional deposits, they lack the regulatory safeguards that undergird the banking system. That gap, according to JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum, risks creating what he calls a parallel banking system. The issue is already on lawmakers agenda. During JPMorgans fourth-quarter 2025 earnings call, Evercore analyst Glenn Schorr noted that Congress is preparing to debate stablecoin policy, referencing a letter from the American Bankers Association that underscores the urgency of addressing a loophole around interest on stablecoins. Schorr added that Treasury estimated $6.6 trillion of bank deposits could be at risk if they dont close that loophole. Against this backdrop, Barnum zeroed in on the growing overlap between crypto productslike stablecoinsand traditional banking. The creation of a parallel banking system that sort of has all the features of banking, including something that looks a lot like a deposit that pays interest, without the associated prudential safeguards that have been developed over hundreds of years of bank regulation, is an obviously dangerous and undesirable thing, he said. Barnum stressed that his concern is not rooted in resisting competition or technological innovation. Instead, he argued that allowing deposit-like products to operate outside the regulatory framework banks must follow introduces systemic risk, creating an ecosystem with similar economic functions and vulnerabilities, but without the protections designed to safeguard consumers and the broader financial system. Clearly, there is some risk for some firms, maybe for many firms, and some version of a threat to the business model, he said. The JPMorgan CFO isnt rejecting crypto advancements entirely. Rather, hes warning against regulatory gaps. Weve been quite involved in the whole blockchain technology space for some time. As you know, we launched our first tokenized money market fund, he said. So I say that all by way of saying that we see the interesting developments in the space, the technological innovation. Were engaged. Were watching. We care. For Barnum, the debate ultimately comes down to consumer protection. As interest-bearing stablecoins grow in popularity, the question facing regulators is whether deposit-like products should carry deposit-like safeguards. Correction: This story originally misattributed Jeremy Barnums quotes to CEO Jamie Dimon. Leila Sheridan This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister website, Inc.com. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
Category:
E-Commerce
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