That moment your manager thinks you've gone rogue. Your stomach drops. All you wanted to do was make things better, and now you're being seen as a problem.

Let's step back here. In response to my post about transforming companies from within, a LinkedIn comment stood out:

"I've been fired …

What is a company?

It seems like such a simple question. We spend most of our waking hours in them. We build our careers around them. They shape our communities and define modern life. Yet when I ask people this question, the answers always feel hollow.

There's one truth I …

"How are you handling working for a company that is not innovative?"

Drop this question at your next team meeting. Watch the reaction.

Most likely, you'll be buried under an avalanche of examples proving how innovative your company is. It's like telling someone their child isn't behaving nice, in that …

Energy matters. What you choose to do with your energy matters.

Every day, we have many choices about how to spend our available energy. What are we exchanging our available energy for?

When you choose to walk ten minutes to work, you're exchanging your energy for motion. When you choose …

I saw a post on LinkedIn this week suggesting job seekers should avoid using the "open to work" setting and instead they should just build something to showcase their abilities. Show us what you can do and company leaders will find you and hire you.

The logic: demonstrate you can …

Innovation should happen top-down. Or was it bottom-up?

Innovation works best when it’s close to the source. Proximity matters.

There’s a misconception that innovation flows from the top down. In reality, the most impactful ideas often come from those closest to the work.

Innovation isn’t about hierarchy …

Your mature company is built to kill ideas. That's normal and necessary for survival. How do you know you're killing the right ideas?

When you are first creating a new company, you have to cast wide opportunity net. You must try different approaches, test various markets, and pivot freely. As …