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To understand how America’s Ivy League universities see themselves, read their admissions brochures. Leafing through the just-so photos of giggling students on tidy lawns, a vision emerges of sanctuaries for personal growth and intellectual exploration—as much cocoon as ivory tower. The world has come to a different impression. Portrayals of the Ivies dwell on out-of-control woke politics and tented encampments protesting against the war in Gaza. The presidents of four Ivy League schools have stepped down since late 2023 after being accused by politicians and alumni of excess sympathy for the latter vision.

But neither image captures the full reality in the Ivy League now. A better place to look is the Whitney, a museum in New York. In September 800 students were hosted there by D.E. Shaw, a hedge fund, to mingle between canapés and sculptures. The event’s goal, attendees say, was to nudge this young and impressionable cohort towards a particular view of success.

Look at where graduates of Harvard, for example, end up. In the 1970s, one in 20 who went straight into the workforce after graduation found jobs in the likes of finance or consulting. By the 1980s, that was up to one in five; in the 1990s, one in four. That is perhaps no shock, especially considering those were boom times for Wall Street. But in the past quarter-century there has been an even more pronounced shift: in 2024 fully half of Harvard graduates who entered the workforce took jobs in finance, consulting or technology.

More than before life on campus feels like a fast track to the corporate world. Around the same time as the D.E. Shaw party at the Whitney, Harvard ran an activities fair for new freshmen. Hundreds of clubs laid out their wares: the beekeepers, the bell-ringers, the Model UN team.  But as the freshmen wandered between stalls, they would soon clock a pecking order. Among the most coveted clubs were pre-professional groups in consulting, investing and the like. 

The pre-professional clubs are merely the most visible part of a pervasive process of acculturation, one that slowly reshapes many students’ worthy ambitions to make a difference, ill-defined and unrealistic though they may be, into a plan to get a management-consulting internship. And such ambitions for career-hustling starts early.  

It was not ever thus. Twenty years ago, says Deb Carroll, the head of Harvard’s careers office, summer internships (often served after the third year at university) might be secured just a few months in advance, even in competitive fields like investment banking. These days, banking internships start the hiring process two years out. Some students already have plans for the summer of 2026. “It’s really unfortunate,” says Ms Carroll, “but it’s not something that we can stop.” Students at Ivies feel the crunch; at Yale some second-year students bid for tech internships meant for third-years by claiming they will graduate early.

All this raises the question of what a university is meant to be. Ivy League schools exist in the imagination as places to search for one’s calling, whether it is to become a playwright, a cancer researcher or some other surprising possibility. Or, yes, a Wall Street banker (a few people know the suit fits them from an early age). Today corporate recruiting has become a dominant feature that shapes campus life from the moment students step into it.

They say you learn more from failure than success. If so, this is the story for you: MIT Technology Review’s annual roll call of the biggest flops, flimflams, and fiascos in all domains of technology.

1. Woke AI blunder.  People worry about bias creeping into AI. But what if you add bias on purpose? Thanks to Google, we know where that leads: Black Vikings and female popes.  Google’s Gemini AI image feature, launched last February, had been tuned to zealously showcase diversity, damn the history books. Ask Google for a picture of German soldiers from World War II, and it would create a Benetton ad in Wehrmacht uniforms. Critics pounced and Google beat an embarrassed retreat. 
2. Boeing Starliner.  Boeing, we have a problem. And it’s your long-delayed reusable spaceship, the Starliner, which stranded NASA’s 2 astronauts on the International Space Station.  The June mission was meant to be a quick eight-day round trip to test Starliner before it embarked on longer missions. But, plagued by helium leaks and thruster problems, it had to come back empty. Now the astronaus won’t return to Earth until 2025, when a craft from Boeing competitor SpaceX is scheduled to bring them home. But this wasn’t Boeing’s only malfunction during 2024.
3. CrowdStrike outage.  The motto of the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike is “We stop breaches.” And it’s true: No one can breach your computer if you can’t turn it on.  That’s exactly what happened to many people on July 19, when thousands of Windows computers at airlines, TV stations, and hospitals started displaying the “blue screen of death.”   The cause wasn’t hackers or ransomware. Instead, those computers were stuck in a boot loop because of a bad update shipped by CrowdStrike itself.
4. Vertical farms.  Grow lettuce in buildings using robots, hydroponics, and LED lights. That’s what Bowery, a “vertical farming” startup, raised over $700 million to do. But in November, Bowery went bust, making it the biggest startup failure of the year, according to the business analytics firm CB Insights.  Bowery claimed that vertical farms were “100 times more productive” per square foot than traditional farms, since racks of plants could be stacked 40 feet high. In reality, the company’s lettuce was more expensive, and when a stubborn plant infection spread through its East Coast facilities, Bowery had trouble delivering the green stuff at any price.
5. Exploding pagers.  They beeped, and then they blew up. Across Lebanon, fingers and faces were shredded in what was called Israel’s “surprise opening blow in an all-out war to try to cripple Hezbollah.”  The deadly attack was diabolically clever. Israel set up shell companies that sold thousands of pagers packed with explosives to the Islamic faction, which was already worried that its phones were being spied on.  A coup for Israel’s spies. But was it a war crime? A 1996 treaty prohibits intentionally manufacturing “apparently harmless objects” designed to explode. The New York Times says nine-year-old Fatima Abdullah died when her father’s booby-trapped beeper chimed and she raced to take it to him.
6. 23andMe.  The company that pioneered direct-to-consumer gene testing is sinking fast. Its stock price is going toward zero, and a plan to create valuable drugs is kaput after that team got pink slips this November.  Customers are starting to worry about what’s going to happen to their DNA data if 23andMe goes under.  23andMe says it created “the world’s largest crowdsourced platform for genetic research.” That’s true. It just never figured out how to turn a profit. 

The other two are: AI slop, and Voluntary carbon markets.

Michaelis a star witness in a lawsuit 64 families are pursuing against Snap Inc., alleging that the company’s Snapchat app helped fuel an epidemic of teen overdoses. At 13 he connected with a dealer he met on Snapchat and bought a pill that, unbeknownst to him, was laced with fentanyl. He took it, blacked out and stopped breathing. Now 17, Michael is a star witness because he’s one of only two teens in the case who can describe what happened firsthand. All the other kids are dead.

Since 2020 drug overdoses, driven by fentanyl, have become one of the leading causes of death for teens in the US, killing more than 1,600 each year. The Drug Enforcement Administration has stressed the role social media is playing in the crisis, saying criminal drug networks are “now in every home and school in America because of the internet apps on our smartphones.”

Although drug sales can be found on all social media platforms, teens, lawyers and law enforcement officials have singled out Snapchat, the yellow app with the ghost logo, whose 850 million monthly users send billions of messages every day. The DEA has linked some deaths to Snapchat, and the FBI is investigating the platform’s role in the spread and sale of fentanyl-laced pills as part of a broader probe into counterfeit drugs.

Snapchat’s popularity is based on its automatically disappearing messages. It thrives on evanescence, unlike Instagram and Facebook, which retain every message or photo sent and only recently began offering the option of vanishing messages. Snapchat users can be silly, or naughty, because everything disappears within 24 hours by default. The app attracts minors who want to hide things from their parents, and drug dealers who want to hide evidence from police.  

Snap says its disappearing messages are meant to mimic the ephemeral nature of real-life conversations, not to enable crime. “We are deeply committed to the fight against the fentanyl epidemic, and our hearts go out to the families who have suffered unimaginable losses,” says Jacqueline Beauchere, Snap’s global head of platform safety. The company says it’s spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing technology to detect dangerous content and wants to become the most hostile place on the internet for dealers. It removed 2.2 million pieces of drug-related content in 2023 and locked more than 700,000 dealer accounts.

Inside the courtroom, Snap makes a different case for itself. There, the company says it shouldn’t be blamed for the fentanyl crisis because, like a phone provider, it isn’t responsible for what’s said on its platform. The families’ lawsuit should be thrown out, Snap argues, because Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act immunizes it from liability. Social media platforms have long cited this controversial provision to assert that they can’t be held responsible for what their users say or do, and courts have agreed.

But a novel legal theory is starting to crack that immunity shield. Over the past three years, more than 1,000 lawsuits have been filed in the US against social media companies, alleging that they’ve harmed children in myriad ways, including addicting them to screens, connecting them with sex offenders and promoting suicide content. The cases argue that the platforms are dangerous products and that the companies building them should be held accountable when they cause harm. It isn’t about the platforms’ content, they say; it’s about the design. Some judges are proving receptive to the argument.

The families’ lawsuit has gotten further than most. On Dec. 5, an appeals court in California denied Snap’s second request to dismiss, and now the plaintiffs could be in for a yearslong legal battle that goes all the way to the US Supreme Court. A win would upend a law that has shielded tech companies for decades, radically changing our digital world.

Today’s business leaders recognize transformation as the courageous choice required to deliver an ambitious business agenda. As we reported earlier this year, companies pursue transformation to reset the business, venture into areas of greater ambition, deliver bold growth, enable operating-model change, build new and competitive capabilities, and evolve their culture in ways that can set them apart from competitors.

One of the most critical new directions for transformation is growth. McKinsey’s latest analysis suggests that about 50 percent of transformation value today comes from growth initiatives, up from less than 40 percent two years ago. The authors looked closely at dozens of companies that successfully transformed for growth to understand what makes them unique.  The data is clear. Growth transformers that outperform their subsector median do five things differently:

1. They start with competitive insights. These include an external view of where and how to win. These growth leaders build a strategic vision of who they want to become by applying competitive insights, consumer sentiment, market trends, and an investor’s perspective. They don’t begin with an internal view of their own performance.
2. They use external partnerships to fuel growth. Leading growth transformers recognize that their ability to realize their growth ambition requires skills, capabilities, and offerings that are effectively held by a partner.
3. They make ambition a part of leadership expectations. They challenge and reward employee behavior that brings bold thinking and new solutions to bear.
4. They use technology and digital strategy as part of the foundation, enabling business case development and execution. Leading growth transformers see digital strategy as a foundational enabler of business performance. They build automation for a frictionless customer experience and integrate generative AI from the outset.
5. They make decisions based on a strong fact base. This fuels more effective and efficient decision making and becomes embedded as a way of working.

Leading growth transformers saw above-median revenue growth and above-median profitability when compared with peers in the same subsector. In addition to the five differentiating behaviors, the authors’ research also identified a set of behaviors that were common across all growth transformers:

1. They keep the customer at the center. All growth transformers prioritize customer feedback and link this to strategic choices. This is a rich fact base, as opposed to sales leader sentiment.
2. They use formal feedback mechanisms to drive individual performance. Companies transforming for growth recognize the need for performance management systems as part of their overall operating model.
3. They set clear expectations for employees. These expectations include desired shifts in norms and behaviors. A clear understanding of behavioral expectations is critical for employees to embed these shifts into their daily work.
4. They are transparent. Growth transformers are transparent regarding the operational metrics driving execution and performance.
5. They push decisions to the lowest levels to encourage ownership. All growth transformers give employees the power to take initiative and make decisions.

To embed these behaviors into the daily work of a growth transformation requires a bold aspiration, the right infrastructure to enable technology, rigorous execution, and performance management with evolved ways of working to support necessary cultural shifts.

In the late 1940s an engineer named Taiichi Ohno began developing the Toyota Production System, basing it on the Japanese principle of kaizen, or continuous improvement. As more operations become digitized, kaizen—augmented by generative AI and other advanced technologies—is once again reshaping process management. Now that features like natural-language interfaces have made gen AI accessible to nontechnical employees, it’s driving both large and small process changes. With the help of AI, employees can synthesize data of all kinds, including unstructured data. They can turn once-inscrutable masses of numerical information into insight-driven workflow improvements, continuously increasing performance, reducing waste, and achieving higher levels of quality. Rather than displacing humans, as gen AI is widely presumed to do, kaizen 2.0 is moving them to the center of new machine-assisted processes and achieving a long-held aspiration of much management theory: putting business transformation in the hands of all employees.

But successfully reimagining business processes isn’t as easy as asking ChatGPT to audit workflows. To get up to speed, leaders need to learn which processes are ripe for algorithm-powered redesign and understand how other companies have used gen AI to revamp them.  Some of the lessons learned from  how the best companies are deploying gen AI are:

1. Empowering Employees Throughout the Enterprise.  Across industries from automaking to life sciences to consumer products, and across functions from R&D to manufacturing to supply chain management, gen AI is boosting employee empowerment in new ways.  Using prompts in everyday language, rather than technical database queries, a production employee – for example can ask about assembly-line bottlenecks or hard-to-notice opportunities for streamlining processes and receive data-rich insights from the AI. Such insights amplify, rather than replace, workers’ ability to generate improvements based on their own experience, powers of observation, and creativity.
2. Redesigning Scientific Processes.  In the pharmaceutical industry, gen-AI-powered synthetic data is helping workers create data-rich processes, reduce waste, speed up analysis, and strengthen quality control.  Drug discovery is also being transformed by gen AI.  Creating them via AI instead of through trial and error could reduce the time it takes to get new biologics into the clinic from as much as six years down to 18 months, while increasing their probability of success. Waste, as kaizen has taught us, is not only a matter of materials but also a matter of time and effort.
3. Augmenting Creative Processes.  Several leading consumer-products companies are harnessing cutting-edge AI and digital technologies to catalyze the human creativity that drives growth in the sector.  Product and component design has long been a mix of art and science—combining the experience and sensibilities of a designer with the rigor of prototyping and testing. Across industries, gen AI is accelerating and transforming numerous elements of the process: creating 3D models of new ideas, suggesting modifications to designs, recommending the materials to be used, optimizing costs, rapidly creating digital prototypes, and identifying which ideas are most promising.
4. Animating Physical Operations.  Gen AI is also transforming the ways humans interact with complex physical systems, from robots to the human body to organizations like hospitals.  What’s next? The convergence of gen AI and digital twins, already underway, provides a glimpse of a future in which continuous process improvement becomes even more democratic. Digital twins are used to model complex systems—such as jet engines, wind turbines, factories, and human hearts—and simulate their functioning with an accuracy that allows users to remotely create solutions to any problems that arise (and often before problems arise). Digital twins can be used to make production processes more efficient, improve quality, increase operational performance, and create more-robust and -resilient supply chains.
5. Autonomous Agents.  The new AI agents take kaizen to a new level, not only offering advice but making decisions, taking action, and improving processes on their own. They range from simple chatbots to self-driving cars to robotic systems that can run complex workflows autonomously.
6. Ecosystems of Autonomous Agents.  Completing some tasks requires more than a single agent. In those cases companies may custom-build a system of agents wherein each one is expert in a specific task. Take the mortgage-underwriting process. When a human underwriter provides the instruction “Review this loan application based on our company’s lending policies,” one agent might extract relevant information from the application. Another agent might act as a librarian of bank policies, making them available to agents that compare the application against them. Yet another agent might generate a final report, recommending a course of action to the underwriter considering the loan. A “connector” agent might oversee and orchestrate the activity of all these agents.

Can founders run their companies better than hired managers by challenging management conventions? That perennial question has been buzzing especially loudly around the startup world in recent months. In September, Paul Graham, investor and cofounder of the San Francisco startup investment firm Y Combinator, wrote that a hands-on “founder mode” approach to management is far superior to the more traditional delegation approach, which he termed “manager mode.” The latter option, Graham argued, often leads businesses to “hire professional fakers and let them drive the company into the ground.”

Not surprisingly, Graham’s essay ignited fierce debate online: Those who agreed saw founder mode as crucial to building great companies, while critics warned that it could excuse founder overreach, citing counterexamples of professional managers who have been exemplary leaders.

Founders possess three key advantages over professional managers. 

1. Domain Expertise.  Founders often possess a “unique depth of knowledge” around their companies and markets that transcends traditional credentials. 
2. Earned Legitimacy.  Founders carry unique earned legitimacy due to their extended tenure, early risks, and personal sacrifices; Airbnb’s Chesky has likened it to being “the biological parent” of the company. In a study conducted by researchers at leadership advisory firm ghSmart, 86% of founders “possessed an ability to inspire through passion, charisma, and loyalty,” whereas two-thirds of nonfounder CEOs struggled to do so. Researchers have also determined that founder CEOs are more likely to take a longer-term view of managing their companies than do nonfounder CEOs, which contributes to their authority. 
3. Stakeholder Forgiveness.  As a consequence of their earned legitimacy, founders also have extraordinary leeway with stakeholders when it comes to controversial decisions and missteps, including instances of lying, that are typically not afforded professional managers. 

For professional managers joining founder-led companies, adapting to these unique dynamics might feel like a step back from traditional corporate roles — but it shouldn’t. By joining a startup or early-stage company, managers have already placed a massive bet on the founder’s long-term vision and capabilities.

The most successful executives lean into this bet, using their experiences to amplify founder strengths in a few ways.   First, they act as translators between the founder’s intuitive leaps and the rest of the organization by breaking down unorthodox decisions into actionable steps, testing and validating those intuitions with data and feedback loops, and scaling the founder’s domain knowledge across the organization without requiring their direct involvement. Next, they position themselves as extensions of the founder’s vision and establish complementary credibility in areas where the founder is less involved. Finally, they help the founder pick and fight their battles — advising them on which controversial moves are worth sacrificing some goodwill, managing stakeholder relationships, and creating guardrails and contingency plans around the founder’s risky bets.

To be clear, the unique advantages of founder leadership can be a double-edged sword.  The key is recognizing when founder leadership serves the company’s needs and when different approaches might be required.

Assessing whether you have what it takes to be a CEO requires a comprehensive evaluation of your skills, traits, and experiences in relation to the role’s demands. Few understand this better than executive recruitment and management consulting firms, which specialize in advising companies on C-suite appointments. Fortune interviewed over a dozen such experts to understand how they identify candidates with the potential to lead some of the world’s largest and most influential organizations.  Here are some key insights from these interviews.

Fernando Ortiz-Barbachano, CEO of executive recruitment firm Barbachano International, says he focuses on how candidates have handled past challenges, as this often serves as a reliable predictor of future behavior. While it’s not an absolute measure, the approach involves probing deeply into specific scenarios to uncover leadership tendencies. Candidates might be asked to describe a time when their team had conflicting views, how they managed the situation, the steps they took, the responses elicited, and the outcome. Similarly, they might be asked to recount experiences such as addressing an underperforming group or adapting to cultural nuances to foster inclusion.

Ortiz-Barbachano notes a shift in the typical CEO career path: While leaders traditionally emerged from sales or business development, there is now growing interest in candidates with expertise in fields like engineering or technology operations, especially when combined with sales and operational experience. He also values candidates with consistent career progression, marked by regular promotions and the acquisition of new skills. 

Aileen Alexander, CEO of Philadelphia-based Diversified Search Group, evaluates candidates by asking about their vision for the organization’s future. This reveals their ability to think strategically and holistically, connecting strategy, operations, and culture. Alexander cautions against candidates who focus solely on operational or strategic aspects without addressing the human dimension, as successful leadership requires balancing all three. 

For Rick Western, CEO of management consulting firm Kotter, leadership is defined by the ability to inspire and influence others.  High-potential CEO candidates, he says, have demonstrated an ability to collaborate, solve problems, and build trust and cooperation long before stepping into the corner office.

An often overlooked aspect of ascending to the corner office is understanding the why behind the aspiration. Prime CEO candidates have a clear North Star for the organization that aligns with their personal value systems, explains Erin Zolna, global assessment capability leader at Russell Reynolds Associates.

Lastly, says Baumgarten, many aspire to become CEO without realizing that their desire is often tied to ideal circumstances—when the company is thriving, profits are strong, and employees are happy. “It’s a wonderful and happy place to lead,” he acknowledges. However, in today’s unpredictable and disruptive business climate, aspiring CEOs must engage in self-reflection about why they want the role. “This is really a time of complexity, so make sure that context meets your motivation,” he advises.

As businesses continue to adapt to change and uncertainty, leaders are grappling with challenges that demand both resilience and adaptability. Professional coaches can play critical roles in helping leaders tackle these complex problems that can affect not just their careers and organizations, but also the broader business landscape.  14 Forbes Coaches Council members explore some of the key issues they anticipate focusing on in client coaching engagements in 2025. 

1. Targeted Networking.  Targeted networking is increasingly essential as remote work grows and industries evolve. Leaders need to build strategic, high-impact relationships—rather than broad, shallow connections—focusing on innovation, enhancing adaptability and providing critical insights across sectors.
2. The Human Aspect Of Using AI.  While AI holds the promise of doing more with less, the assumption is teams can apply it with intentionality, focus and care to alleviate errors and improve outcomes. Yet teams need strategic thinking time, iterative feedback and collaborative communication to do this effectively.
3. Understanding A Company’s Strategic Vision.  Having this understanding can sometimes lead to making decisions that may look like a short-term “loss” but, in fact, ultimately further the company’s long-term goals—it’s not always easily understood.
4. Self-Awareness.  A vital issue leaders face today is a lack of self-awareness, which will be a focus in 2025. Without trust and candid feedback from team members, leaders can lose sight of their strengths and develop blind spots, impacting team dynamics and outcomes. Self-aware leaders build confidence and foster growth, making it essential for people-first leadership in today’s complex workplace.
5. AI Transformation Anxiety.  Leading through AI transformation anxiety will dominate 2025’s coaching landscape. While C-suites push AI adoption, middle managers fear obsolescence, creating a dangerous implementation bottleneck. The critical challenge isn’t technical upskilling—it’s helping leaders transform fear into opportunity and guide teams through this seismic shift.
6. Modern Employee Expectations.  A key issue leaders face is adapting to the demands of the modern workforce, particularly the need for transparency, flexibility and purpose-driven leadership. This will be a major focus in 2025 because employee expectations are evolving rapidly, and leaders who fail to inspire trust and align with these values risk losing top talent and falling behind in innovation and engagement.
7. Talent Acquisition And Retention.  The competition for talent has grown more fierce, prompting organizations to revise their hiring strategies to attract a workforce that values flexibility and work-life balance. Leaders must communicate a compelling vision that not only draws in top talent, but also cultivates a workplace culture that supports long-term engagement.
8. Not Getting Behind And Feeling Overwhelmed.  A big challenge is not getting behind and feeling overwhelmed by the rapid speed at which things are happening in the world. Leaders must be proactive, plan for increasing consumer demand and disruptions, and ensure they have the right players on the team.
9. Shifting From A Profit- To A Purpose-Driven Mindset.  This is a critical topic because the innovation and talent of the business sector are too valuable to be focused on wealth generation alone. We need business leaders to step up to play on the bigger stage of purpose.

Learning To Delegate Problem-Solving, Constant Learning And Adaptability, Managing Teams Through Worker Shortages, Learning New Skills, and Aligning AI-Driven Innovation With Human-Centric Values.

They say great minds think alike — or maybe they land on similar ideas because they are observing the same world all around them. Every year, as the author and his team curate the absolute best books of the year, they discover some themes across the 1000-plus submissions they consider.  They call them themes — and they reflect a combination of the cultural zeitgeist of what’s happening in business today and the hot topics on the minds of entrepreneurs and business professionals right now. 

1. Calming anxiety and burnout.  From destressing to conquering anxiety, the idea of calm in work and life became an urgent topic.
2. Math mindedness.  Can math explain the world? This year, math minds took center stage to offer perspectives on everything from how AI actually works to how it powers the most popular games in the world. This group of books put math back into the spotlight and argued that understanding the world, making new friends and shifting our perspective all come down to better understanding math.
3. Good aging.  If longevity exploded in 2023, then this year offers a correction to books focusing on how we live instead of just techniques for living longer. Alongside the longevity topic, many new books this year shifted to offering insights on how to be old successfully. 
4. Rethinking higher education.  As the workplace shifts and the costs of higher education continue to spark debate, a range of books this year offered either a commentary on the higher education experience or a suggestion for a compelling alternative to the traditional four-year college experience. 
5. Generosity first.  Perhaps in response to a world that feels as though it rewards toxicity, several books this year put generosity and the idea of generous leadership front and center. Fostering a friendly team dynamic, maintaining hope instead of becoming cynical and living life by giving more back were all key themes that stood out this year as authors offered a more optimistic prescription for how to live and work that reminded us about the too easily forgotten power of actually caring for one another and why doing it may be the key to prosperity and happiness.
6. Saving humanity.  Last year, the big theme with AI-focused books was all about designing AI in more human ways and reducing bias or other potential issues with the technology as it gains widespread adoption. This year, that trend continued, but many books took a decidedly more philosophical turn as they pondered human existence in a world ruled by AI. 
7. The female lens.  For the past several years, there has been a growing number of writers turning their attention to the previously neglected female perspective on many different topics. This year, that feminine lens focused on the history of women on Wall Street, memoirs from female trailblazers like Connie Chung, female-first branding techniques, and the exploration of women’s role in creating the crossword puzzle. 
8. Finding purpose.  This year, a big topic for many books focused on finding your passion and purpose. Rather than living a rudderless life, people of all ages are seeing reminders of living a life with purpose and leaving a legacy they can be proud of.
9. Climate solutionism.  In past years, many books about global warming and climate change both chronicled the problem as well as aimed to offer legislative or advocacy solutions. This year, a new perspective emerged regarding “solutionism.” In other words, many books provided the prescription for us actually to fix some of the human-created global environmental problems.
10. The citizenship imperative.  The idea that we all need to better understand and perhaps reimagine the fundamental beliefs of our governments.
11. Quiet leadership.  In what might seem like the ultimate irony, several counterintuitive books this year focused on the quieter side of leadership. From embracing silence to increasing cultural intelligence and focusing on the softer side of management, the conclusion seemed to be that the noisier the world gets, the more effective leaders who buck this trend and embrace their quiet side might actually be.
12. The friendship antidote.  A year ago, a range of books explored the loneliness epidemic and offered a dire warning of the negative health and emotional effects of isolation. This year, the antidote took the main stage in the form of encouraging people to forge and solidify more friendships. These books offered encouragement, tactics and perhaps most importantly, a reminder that having strong friendships requires investing the time to make them work.

According to the author as a coach who has worked with dozens of CEOs to prepare their companies for sale, he knows firsthand how critical it is to identify and enhance key capabilities within the business. By focusing on these core areas and positioning them effectively to potential buyers, you can drive your valuation above industry averages. If you’re a CEO planning your exit, start identifying these capabilities now and work on strengthening them well before you begin the sale process.

1. Expertise and knowledge.  Buyers value businesses with deep expertise and knowledge in their industry. This expertise could come from a highly skilled leadership team, specialized insights into a niche market, or proprietary understanding of customer behavior.  Highlighting this capability, especially when it’s difficult for competitors to replicate, can significantly boost your valuation.
2. Production systems.  Buyers look for companies that can produce at scale without excessive cost or waste. Well-optimized production processes increase profitability and allow for easier growth, making your company more appealing.  Buyers are often willing to pay more for a business with proven, well-oiled systems they can integrate seamlessly into their operations.
3. Marketing and lead generation.  Buyers want evidence of a proven, consistent way to bring in new customers.  Whether it’s digital marketing, content strategies, search engine optimization, or a well-oiled referral system, the ability to generate leads at a predictable cost can significantly enhance your valuation. Make sure your marketing efforts are documented, scalable, and ready for handoff before entering sale negotiations.
4. Sales and closing deals.  A company that consistently closes deals and drives revenue growth will always command a higher valuation. Sales capabilities, including strong teams, established customer relationships, and a well-documented sales process, are critical assets in any business sale.  Buyers want to see a smooth sales funnel with strong conversion rates and minimal friction. 
5. Process and technology development.  Buyers are increasingly looking for companies that are adaptable and innovative in how they operate.  Businesses that invest in automation, software, or unique technological platforms that improve efficiency or enhance the customer experience are more valuable. Highlight any proprietary systems or tools that set your business apart, demonstrating to buyers that they are acquiring not just a company, but a platform for future growth.
6. Research and innovation.  A track record of developing new products, staying ahead of market trends, or innovating within your field will make your business stand out.
7. Process improvement and quality assurance.  A commitment to process improvement and quality assurance is a valuable asset when selling your business. Buyers want assurance that your operations are continuously evolving to improve efficiency and reduce errors.
8. Strong industry reputation.  Having a solid and positive industry reputation is a critical asset that can be leveraged for future growth and expansion. Buyers look for companies that are well-regarded within their industry, as this enhances trust and credibility.