The most-read articles in 2025 (and what they reveal about where we're headed)

Inside This Issue:

Well, here we are. The last newsletter of 2025, which somehow feels both impossibly fast and completely earned after the year we've all had.

Before we collectively log off and pretend to unplug (we know you'll still be checking Slack), let's talk about what really mattered to you this year. We looked at the data—the articles you devoured, the pieces you bookmarked for your teams, the content that sparked actual conversations in your organizations.

And two pieces stood head and shoulders above everything else. One tackles the cross-cultural dynamics that every global team is navigating right now. The other? A deep dive into Amazon's famously intense culture that had practitioners either nodding in recognition or thanking their lucky stars.

Let's revisit them together.

Featured Insights:

Understanding Trompenaars' Cultural Dimensions: A Complete Guide

In a year when remote teams went truly global and "culture" stopped meaning "ping pong tables," this comprehensive breakdown of Trompenaars' seven dimensions became the framework thousands of you turned to.

Whether you were navigating universalism versus particularism with your EMEA partners or trying to understand why your achievement-focused messaging landed flat with certain teams, this guide offered something increasingly rare: a practical lens for making sense of cultural differences that actually affect day-to-day work.

The model doesn't tell you how to measure preferences perfectly, but that's not the point, it gives you the vocabulary to have better conversations and spot potential friction before it derails collaboration.

As we head into 2026 with even more distributed teams, understanding these dimensions isn't optional anymore..

Read the full article.

The Company Culture at Amazon

This one sparked debates all year long.

Amazon's culture, with its six-page memos, two-pizza teams, and "friendly and intense, but if push comes to shove, I'll settle for intense" philosophy, represents something many organizations are wrestling with: can you build a high-performance culture without burning people out?

The piece explores Amazon's distinctive approaches, from reading documents in silence during meetings to actively encouraging calculated failure as part of innovation.

Some of you read it as a cautionary tale. Others saw elements worth adapting. Most of you just wanted to understand how one of the world's most successful companies thinks about culture so differently from the "warm and fuzzy" narrative that dominates EX conversations.

The truth? There's no single right answer, but Amazon's transparency about what they are—and aren't—offers a refreshing counterpoint to culture-washing.

Read the full article.

A Final Thought for 2025

As you head into the holidays and year-end planning, here's something worth sitting with: the most successful EX initiatives in 2026 won't be the ones with the biggest budgets or the flashiest tech.

They'll be the ones rooted in genuine understanding: of your people's actual needs, of the cultural dynamics at play in your teams, and of what kind of workplace you're honestly building (not just what you say in your employer branding).

The practitioners winning right now aren't the ones with all the answers. They're the ones asking better questions and creating space for honest conversations about what's really working and what's not. That's the work that matters.

See you in 2026. We've got a lot to build together.