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In 2015, I had a stillborn baby girl. I found out during a prenatal appointment that my daughter had no heartbeat. Because I was in my second trimester, I was admitted to the hospitals labor and delivery ward. The same ward where women deliver live babies. Except I did not get to bring my baby home. October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. Ive talked openly about pregnancy loss for many years. Ive advocated for more openness in the workplace. Its a way to honor my daughter, to use my voice to make things better for other grieving parents. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/04\/workbetter-logo.png","headline":"Work Better","description":"Thoughts on the future of work, career pivots, and why work shouldn't suck, by Anna Burgess Yang. To learn more visit workbetter.media.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.workbetter.media","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}} Bereavement policies should cover pregnancy loss My employer at the time had a very flexible leave policy. I ended up taking nearly three weeks off from work after my daughters stillbirth. My entire world felt like it didnt make sense anymore. My body needed to heal. Unfortunately, pregnancy loss often falls into a gap in companies bereavement policies. They dont allow any time off for a miscarriage or stillbirth. I met a woman through a support group who delivered her stillborn baby via C-section and had to go back to work mere days later. When theres no living baby, maternity leave does not apply. And the standard three-day bereavement leave that many companies have is wholly inadequate. Only a few states in the U.S. provide any guaranteed bereavement leave, and even fewer specifically include pregnancy loss as a qualifying event. Its mostly up to individual employers to craft their own policies. Many years later, I was working for a young company that was working to solidify its leave policies for the first time. I asked the HR person to include pregnancy-loss leave specifically. I said, You dont want to wait until a situation comes up and then be scrambling to define the leave. I fear that happens too often. Companies dont include pregnancy loss in their bereavement leave until an employee asks about it. At that point, the employee is in the throes of grief, which is the worst time to wait for HR to figure out a leave policy. In 2022, theSkimm launched a Show Us Your Leave campaign. Pregnancy-loss leave was included in the data collected. If you can influence HR policies and are unsure what type of bereavement support to offer, theSkimms database is a place to start. How to support a coworker who has experienced pregnancy loss Pregnancy loss is incredibly common: 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, according to WebMD. Some researchers believe that the number is much higher. Yet pregnancy loss is still a taboo topic, especially in the workplace. As a result, parents feel isolated in their grief. Recently a friend came to me because one of her employees had a miscarriage. She asked me, What can I do to support her? I believe that caring, compassionate coworkers often dont know what to do, especially if theyve never experienced pregnancy loss themselves. Here are my suggestions: Review this list from Miscarriage Association of what to say (and what not to say). Listen to this podcast episode: How to Support Someone Experiencing Pregnancy and Infant Loss. Set a reminder on your calendar to check in on a regular basiseven weeks or months later. Offer to listen if the person wants to talk. If youve experienced pregnancy loss yourself, Im so sorry. I know how devastating and isolating it is. I highly recommend resources from Share Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support. I want to see the narrative around pregnancy loss change, especially in the workplace. I didnt simply lose a pregnancy. My much-loved child died, as did all the dreams I had for her. Theres a hole in every family photo, because she isnt there. Workplaces canand shoulddo better. Pregnancy loss isnt rare. The workplace shouldnt be a source of awkwardness or additional pain. Companies and coworkers need to figure out how to support someone, because it will inevitably come up. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/04\/workbetter-logo.png","headline":"Work Better","description":"Thoughts on the future of work, career pivots, and why work shouldn't suck, by Anna Burgess Yang. To learn more visit workbetter.media.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.workbetter.media","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
Category:
E-Commerce
Below, Eric Becker shares five key insights from his new book, The Long Game: A Playbook of the Worlds Most Enduring Companies. Eric is the founder and chairman at Cresset, an award-winning multi-family office with billions in assets under management. He also co-founded Sterling Partners, a value-added, growth private equity firm. With his long history of starting, backing, and nurturing companies, Eric advises founders, entrepreneurs, private equity partners, and ultra-high worth families. Whats the big idea? Companies that last not one generation, not two, but for a hundred years and beyond share certain things in common. It is no accident when a company ends up lasting, rather than being sold. What it takes is setting your business up intentionally for the long game. Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Eric himselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea App. 1. Recognize a moment of truth Businesses dont fail for a lack of vision. They usually fail because of a lack of great execution. Its knowing what to do and when to do it that makes all the difference. Thats a moment of truth. Im fascinated with moments of truth. In a lifetime, how many moments of truth might there be? Its probably less than 20, or maybe less than a dozen. Theres just not that many of them. Learning to identify a moment of truth is an incredibly important skillwhether its deciding where to live, who to marry, choosing a career, or what kind of company to start. Every leader faces critical moments of truth, but recognizing when you are faced with that decision is essential. The ability to not only see and accept that you must act but also recognize when you shouldnt. A moment of truth is what follows. A Centurion has this special talent of recognizing moments of truth and making the necessary pivots. They learn who they can trust in these moments and make critical, tough decisions. If you make the right decision in a moment of truth, it can change everything. 2. Adopt a myth-busting mindset Centuries-old businesses are often seen as dusty, bureaucratic, or slow and resistant to change. But Ive found its the complete opposite. Centurions are some of the most agile, adaptive, and forward-thinking organizations in the world. Theyve mastered the art of adaptation because their very existence depends on it. Companies today that will likely outlive the next century share the same qualities. This is the idea of embracing resiliency, adaptability, and vision. Legacy organizations have a great sense of urgency. They dont tolerate poor performance, and they dont sit on their laurels. They have a sense of priority, importance, and timing. Centurions are some of the most agile, adaptive, and forward-thinking organizations in the world. Take a business like Ferragamo, or families like the Vanderbilts who have operated the historic 130-year-old Biltmore Estate since 1895, and even the famous Smuckers Family. On the surface, they might seem like echoes of the past, rooted in history and resistant to change. But dig a little deeper and youll see theyve survived through war, the Great Depression, the Great Recession, the Pandemic, natural disasters, competition, technologyyou name it, theyve seen it all. A myth-busting mindset helped them survive. Think about what stereotype you are working against. How can you break the myth? How can you hone that survival instinct to do whatever it takes to change perception and move your company forward? 3. Be a super steward Embracing stewardship supersedes any other mission-critical priority. Very few leaders or families truly understand what this means when we say it. Stewardship is recognizing that the enterprise is greater than any one individual in the organization, including you. Every decision you make is made with the understanding that this move will protect and preserve the company for generations to come. Thats not how most entrepreneurs and even many family businesses operate. As a result, there is a crisis happening in America right now involving succession. But when you consistently demonstrate that stewardship supersedes everything else within your organization, that ethos ripples into every facet of your organization and becomes ingrained within your business or family and onto the next generation. Its a big mindset shift, but stewardship has the power to become the protective shield for everything you love most. Thats how you start to build your legacy. Ive seen it time and again: when employees understand and are included in their companys mission and principles, and believe in it themselves, theyre proven to be more committed. Youre essentially building a dedicated army of stewards, passionately carrying out the founders vision. 4. Have a succession plan The best CEOs and leaders realize its not about them. Its about everyone else. They look at the organization or the family and realize that they are responsible for bringing this business into the future. Only one-third of family-owned businesses make it to the second generation, and just 12 percent survive to the third. I had grown up in a family business. My father started a company that lasted for 53 years, which was amazing. But he didnt have a succession plan. Ultimately, the company had to be sold. What had been missing? What had my dad needed to pass his business on? Ethical succession is seen in these 100-year-plus businesses. Having a viable, thoughtful, and ethical long-term succession plan is a critical part of being a steward. Only one-third of family-owned businesses make it to the second generation, and just 12 percent survive to the third. There is nothing that matters more to me than my own family and business knowing and trusting that the value Ive placed on the plan ahead will carry them forward for generations. The family office has to evolve in order to survive. 5. Build centurion culture from day one To break through and to get ahead, culture is critical. Centurions were the commanders that led 100 soldiers in the Roman army, and they didnt lead from behind. They led from up front. They were the strong leaders who set the culture for that group and took them forward into victory. When Avy Stein and I started Cresset, we put culture first and told people to act like owners. Now, 65 percent of Cresset is actually employee-owned. Our 100-year horizon shapes every decision, from technology to talent. From day one, we focused on questions like: What kind of company will we become? How will we treat each other? How will we treat customers and clients? We also told the first 10 team members tht we were on a 100-year journey together, which is what The Long Game is all about. When you build a company with that kind of long-term focus, you dont need an exit. Ironically, thats what makes it even more attractive, because its built to last, not to sell. We developed what we now call the culture card. We took all the principles and practices around great culture and put them all together on one card. Having a culture card is something that almost no business seems to do. And yet, it is the most important tool that weve used in building an organization in less than eight years to over $70 billion in assets under management. Enjoy our full library of Book Bitesread by the authors!in the Next Big Idea App. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
Category:
E-Commerce
On October 27, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that President Donald Trump has narrowed down his search to replace Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, whose term does not end until May 2026. Powell, who has butted heads with Trump over lowering interest rates amid the risk of increasing inflation, has said he will serve out the remainder of his term. After his term ends as chairman, his board term still extends until 2028. Trump is expected to announce a Federal Reserve chair replacement as early as December, according to reports. Were down to five,” Bessent told reporters as he was traveling with Trump on Air Force One, according to Yahoo Finance. “Were going to do a second round and we hope to present a good slate to the president right after Thanksgiving. . . . It will ultimately be his choice. Bessent said those five picks are: Michelle Bowman and Christopher Waller, both members of the Federal Reserves board of governers; Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council; Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor; and Rick Rieder, chief investment officer of global fixed income at BlackRock, according to several media outlets per CNBC. Trump’s choice must be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate. Like Powell, the new Fed chair will be charged with navigating inflation, the countrys weakening labor market, and stagnating growth. Fed members remain divided on whether the Trump administration’s economic policies, including high tariffs and a push for even lower interest rates, are helping or hurting the U.S. economy, CNN noted. Powell first became Fed chair in February 2018 and was reappointed for a second four-year term in May 2022. His term as a member of the Fed’s board of governors ends on January 31, 2028. Last month, he explained the Fed’s dilemma when it comes to cutting or raising interest rates: whether to use it to fight inflation or instead to help offset a struggling job market (while controlling prices and unemployment). We only have one tool, which is monetary policyreally, interest ratesand [the situation] is calling for different answers,” Powell said. “It’s a very difficult policy environment when your two goals are telling you two different things, you’ve got to make a compromise.”
Category:
E-Commerce
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