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Almost lost and nearly forgotten, a sculpture by one of the most noted mid-century modernist designers has been given a meticulous restoration and a starring place in the new headquarters of General Motors in downtown Detroit. Designed by artist Harry Bertoia and first installed in 1970, the sculpture is made of two clusters of long steel wires intertwined like twigs in a bird’s nest. Stretching 26 feet in height, the sculpture is now hanging in the atrium of a newly built 12-story mixed-use building in Detroit that’s the home of GM’s new global headquarters. GM, which has featured Bertoia’s work in other company properties since 1953, spent an undisclosed sum of money to have the sculpture restored and installed in the heart of its new offices. It’s a remarkable resurgence for a sculpture that was nearly lost in the rubble of a demolished shopping mall. Lost to time The sculpture was originally commissioned as decoration outside a J.L. Hudson’s department store at the Genesee Valley Center in Flint, Michigan, which opened in 1970. Bertoia, an Italian-born artist who moved to Detroit in 1930 at the age of 15, designed the sculpture using simple steel rods that were coated in melted brass, bronze, and other metal alloys. Most famous for his furniture design work for Knoll Associates, Bertoia also had a long career as a sculptor, creating mainly metal-based works. His first project for GM was a 36-foot-long decorative wall screen installed in a cafeteria at GM’s Global Technical Center in 1953, which is still in place today. [Photo: GM] The nest-like sculpture Bertoia made in 1970 hung in the Flint mall until 1980, when it was removed during a renovation. It was taken to another nearby regional mall, the Northland Center, where it was stored in the basement and eventually forgotten. Built in 1954 in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, Northland Center is considered by some to be the first regional shopping mall and was designed by shopping mall creator Victor Gruen and his firm Gruen Associates, which was also involved in designing the Genesee Valley Center. An open-air cluster of stores connected by pedestrian paths and green plazas, it preceded by two years the enclosed and air conditioned Southdale Center in Edina, Minnesota, another Gruen project that is more often referred to as the first shopping mall. The developer and anchor tenant of Northland Center was the J.L. Hudson’s department store, which originally commissioned Bertoia’s sculpture for its Flint location. Presumably, the company moved the sculpture to the Northland Center basement because it wanted to keep the artwork for future use. Instead, the sculpture languished in the Northland Center basement for decades. Then, in 2017, during a partial demolition and renovation of the mall, the sculpture was rediscovered, coated in dust and partly bent out of shape. The Hudson’s company had long since dissolved, so the city of Southfield’s arts commission took over stewardship of the sculpture. A restoration process ensued, and about halfway through, GM’s design team learned about the sculpture. “It looked like there were decades of dirt and grime covering the metal rods. It was tough looking,” says Christo Datini, manager of GM’s archive and special collections. Given GM’s long association with Bertoia, the company felt obligated to finish the restoration. “We started to think about how we could help the situation. What could we do?” says Datini. “And then of course when the new headquarters came into play, it seemed like an obvious place.” A new place to hang The new headquarters is on the site of the old Hudson’s department store in Detroit, once the second-largest department store in the world. The building was demolished in 1998, and has since been redeveloped into a $1.4 billion skyscraper complex. GM’s offices fill the top floors of the 12-story mixed use building that makes up half of that project, and look out on a large atrium in which the Bertoia sculpture now hangs. Getting the sculpture there was challenging. Given its size, there was no easy way to bring it into the building, which finished construction in late 2025. To crane the sculpture inside, a 15-foot-wide and 75-foot-tall section of the facade of the building had to be partly deconstructed. It was then carefully moved, in two pieces, into the atrium, where it now hangs below a wide skylight. “There are no anchor points directly above. It’s actually anchored at several points, suspended kind of like a tight rope,” says Datini. Walking into the building’s atrium on a recent day in January, the sculpture soars overhead, with its jumble of metal rods appearing both orderly and chaotic. Corridors wrap around the sculpture on each of the six floors in the atrium space, offering varied views of an artwork that’s at once simple and complex. Unfortunately this atrium is not open to the public, but Bertoia’s sculpture will be a daily presence for hundreds of GM workers at its new headquarters. After decades sitting in the dust of a shopping mall basement, it’s a triumphant second act.
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Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. In recent weeks Modern CEO has published predictions for 2026 from CEOs across industries and a list of books that can help leaders get ready for the year ahead. We invited readers to share their own prognostications and book recommendations. (Respect to the author who endorsed her own book.) Heres a sampling of the responses. Bold Predictions ChatGPT becomes the new DoorDash 2026 will mark a fundamental shift: ChatGPT and other AI platforms will become the primary interfaces between consumers and restaurants. Discovery will evolve into actionpeople wont just find new restaurants on ChatGPT; theyll order and review there, too. In an AI-first world, the need for intermediaries fades as ordering rails connect restaurants directly to these platforms. This creates a massive opportunity for restaurants to reclaim the direct relationships they lost to third-party marketplaces. Savneet Singh, CEO, PAR Technology Customer experience shifts from speed to substance Over the past two years, companies raced to embed AI into service interactions, but many of those deployments are now revealing cracks. Our testing data proves it: In a recent analysis of enterprise models, 82% of AI failures stemmed from misinformation, especially in chatbots. These silent errors quietly erode customer relationships long before companies realize it. The next phase of CX (customer experience) innovation wont be about smarter automation; it will be about trustworthy automation. Ultimately, the companies that win customer trust wont be those deploying AI the fastest, but those ensuring every AI-driven interaction is accurate, safe, and human-centered. Dean Hickman-Smith, chief revenue officer, Testlio More technology, more vulnerabilities, more responsibility Let us all individually be ready for more and entirely new technologies in 2026, [and] embrace and prepare to secure ourselves even more. A lot of work is to come, especially for the specialists in the field. We can clearly see more vulnerabilities coming our way, but we should be ready to fight back. Experts should expect their expertise being needed more than ever in all aspects and fields, including policy development [for] and general awareness [of] cybersecurity. Ella Hamwaka, cybersecurity specialist Prepare for the “vibe coding” compliance crisis Organizations rushing to adopt AI coding assistants without proper governance will face a reckoning in 2026. While vibe coding feels efficient, its creating invisible and silent security gaps that traditional audits arent designed to catch. Companies that fail to implement AI-specific governance frameworks now will find themselves scrambling when regulators start asking hard questions about AI-generated code provenance and security controls. Shrav Mehta, CEO, Secureframe Cybersecurity hits the limits of system complexity 2026 is the year the cybersecurity industry confronts an uncomfortable truth: Were nearing the fundamental limits of sustainable complexity in distributed systems. This isnt about better tools or bigger budgets; its about the thermodynamic coordination constraints weve ignored for too long. Organizations that recognize this earlyand design for graceful degradationwill adapt and survive. Trey Darley, founder, Proper Tools Companies will rehire for jobs eliminated by AI Next year, companies that rushed to make layoffs hoping AI would fill a significant gap will realize they need to rehire to fill some of those roles. We saw this starting this year with companies like Klarna, rehiring to fill customer service roles that chatbots failed at. Next year, well see more of this. Mahe Bayireddi, founder and CEO, Phenom 996 culture loses steam because the output is not real We used to call it hustle culture, but this year it was rebranded to 996. Outside of short sprints (less than three months), I have never seen anyone produce long-term quality work for six days a week, 12+ hours in front of a screen. Actual output is similar to a normal day. VCs often push this culture more than founders, which fuels the perception that extreme hours are required. Its not sustainable, and it signals that a company is not building a culture for the long term. Immad Akhund, cofounder and CEO, Mercury Book Recommendations Sound Is Not Enough by Svetlana Kouznetsova The book explains why accessibilityparticularly audio and communication accessibilityis not optional or a nice to have, but a core business requirement for all organizations of any size. Svetlana Kouznetsova, accessibility strategy consultant The Art of Living by Epictetus This book sits on my desk (and in my work bag when I am on the road) 365 days a year. I commit to reading a page from it every day and have for over a decade. It is a practical manual for Stoic philosophya reminder of core values and whats actually in our control to live a happy, virtuous, and resilient life. Leagh Turner, CEO, Coupa The Odyssey by Homer If youre looking for inspiration on how to write a comeback story for your company, theres no better tale than The Odyssey. On the surface, its a Marvel comic-style adventure story of a warrior conquering obstacle after obstaclethe Sirens song, Cyclops grasp, Charybdis pull. Its also a story of leadershipof what it takes to overcome a fractious, even mutinous crew. Its a tale of tapping into motivation (over 10 years!) and keeping your eyes on the prize. David Risher, CEO, Lyft Share your thoughts and recommendations What books, resolutions, or big ideas are you embracing in 2026? Write to me at < href="mailto:stephaniemehta@mansueto.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">stephaniemehta@mansueto.com, and well revisit some of these topics throughout the year. Read more: the year ahead Venture investors share their market predictions How to rewire your brain for success in 2026 Five ways to build global teams this year
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Its become almost a cliché to talk about how consistently organizational change fails. Study after study finds that roughly three-quarters of change efforts dont achieve their objectives. There are underlying forces that work against us adapting to changeincluding synaptic, network and cost effectsthat lead to resistance. Another problem lies in how we study change itself. Typically, researchers at an academic institution or a consulting firm interview executives that were involved in successful efforts and try to glean insights to write case studies. These are famously flawed, lacking controls, and often relying on self-serving accounts. One unlikely place to look for insight is a little-known academic named Gene Sharp, who wasnt interested in business at all, but political revolutions. What he found was that there are sources of power that support the status quo and these have an institutional basis. As long as they remain in place, nothing will ever change. But if you can shift them, anything becomes possible. A Revolutionary Shift Before 1789, the world was ruled by monarchies rooted in the divine right of kings and the feudal system. Yet that year would prove to be an inflection point. The American Constitution and the French Revolution began a fundamental realignment of power that culminated in the revolutions of 1848, a widespread uprising against monarchies that spread across Europe. But in the late 19th century something new emerged: nonviolent movements. Rising out of the abolitionist efforts in the US, which then morphed into the struggle for womens suffrage, new techniques of fighting for change emerged. Among those watching closely was a young law student, Mohandas Gandhi. He would later perfect their techniques in South Africa and India. It was Gandhis work that Gene Sharp first began to study and led him to an epiphany: violent revolts would always be at a disadvantage because the regime controls the means of violence, such as the military, police and other security agencies. It also has the power to create and enforce laws. Nonviolent movements, on the other hand, could fight with very different weapons, those of psychology, sociology, and economics, where the regime can be put at a disadvantage. Thats how Gandhi was able to win against seemingly impossible odds. What Sharp wanted to do was create a systematic strategic framework so that anyone could achieve what Gandhi did. Thats what led to his key insight: power is rooted in institutions, and only by shifting them can true transformation occur. Understanding Sources Of Power Think about an all-powerful dictator somewhere, like Vladimir Putin in Russia or Xi Jinping in China. Then, imagine that all of the janitors decide not to come in to work. That all-powerful dictator is now powerless to get the trash picked up. He can arrest the janitorsor even have them killedbut picking up all the trash in the country is not something he can do himself. The point is that a leaders power extends only as far as their ability to control or influence institutions. They can only make laws to the extent that they control the legislative system and can only enforce those laws if they control or influence the legal system and the police. The same goes for commercial institutions, educational institutions, the media and so on. That, in a nutshell, is Sharps key insight: power is never monolithic but distributed across many institutions, all of which have vulnerabilities. It can be attacked wherever you find a weakness. If you can influence the institutions that the regime depends on to maintain and enforce its power, you can create genuine transformation. This is not just a theory. It has been proven to work in practice. The color revolutions were rooted in Sharps ideas as was the Arab Spring in Egypt. The Center for Applied Non-Violent Actions and Strategies (CANVAS) has put them to work in over 50 countries and even offers a comprehensive curriculum to help others bring about the change they want to see. Yet Sharp’s ideas dont apply only to political movements. As I showed in Cascades, they can be just as effective in driving organizational change. Mapping Power In Your Organizational Ecosystem One thing every leader quickly learns is how little real power they really have. Formal authority only goes so far. Much like Gene Sharp observed about regimes, the status quo has sources of power keeping it in place. Often these have had yearseven decadesto entrench themselves. They will work against any significant change effort. Consider the dilemma of the PC manufacturers in the 1980s. It was clear that Dells direct sales model was vastly superior to selling through distributors and market leaders like Compaq and HP made a number of efforts to adopt it. Yet so many stakeholders, including powerful executives within the company and external partners, had a stake in the existing model. So nothing ever changed. Think about that for a minute. Pundits like to portray firms that get disrupted as simply not paying attention. But thats often not true. In this case, the leaders of these PC firms accurately diagnosed the problem and created strategies, such as modified compensation schemes, to address it, but still failed to overcome the forces keeping the status quo in place. Thats why in our transformational change workshops, one of the first steps is mapping the sources of power well nee to influence to make change happen. Much like Sharp revealed about political revolutions, once youve identified institutional targets, you can start designing tactics to address them. Change Isnt About Persuasion, Its About Power All too often, we think about change in terms of persuasion. We think if we can just come up with the right message, broadcast it widely and get it to the right people, that change will happen. But decades of evidence shows thats not true. Even if we are able to inform people and change their attitudes, they are unlikely to change their behavior. What Gene Sharp showed us is that change isnt about persuasion, its about power. To bring about transformation, we need to undermine the sources of power that underlie the present state while strengthening the forces that favor a different future. If you can influence the institutional stakeholders keeping the status quo in place, change can happen. If you cant, it is unlikely things will ever change. That also helps explain why so many change efforts fail. They start with tactics designed to create a specific effect, such as build awareness or create a sense of urgency. Leaders roll out communication campaigns, design training programs, or host events like hackathons. Then they congratulate themselves when the action achieves the intended effect and wonder why genuine change never happened. Until you identify, analyze, and understand exactly what your actions need to be targeted at, youre just wasting your time. Every enterprise, whether its an organization or an entire society, is governed by institutions that maintain the status quo. Once you are able to internalize that simple truth, you are ready to lead change effectively. Change isnt about snappy slogans or clever campaigns. Its what happens when you build the capacity to influence institutions.
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