Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor. I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, a firm

specializing and helping teams and organizations optimize their working experience.

I use a framework to help companies understand the employee experience. It's got these four

pillars you may have heard me yammer on about before, but at its core, it's really

about creating the conditions in which our teams can deliver, develop, connect, and thrive.

What's been so interesting to me over these past few years is how the lens of these pillars

has really helped me make sense of what's been happening in the world of work. Like really early in

2020 when the corporate world went remote like overnight, companies understandably were focused

on that deliver pillar. They were asking questions like, how do we do our work and equip our teams

and meet with our clients and customers. The logistics of just getting work done

got so hard. And so Deliver was where I was focused. After a few months, the question shifted

to that connect pillar. Now the conversation was more like, okay, we're getting our work done,

but we are all feeling kind of isolated and lonely.

We've hired new people. We've never met in person. And Zoom is sucking the life out of us.

How do we start to reignite a feeling of connection? And so that's where I focused.

And then at some point, the great resignation hit and suddenly companies were like, hey, we need to invest in our talent so they don't leave us.

We need to remind people we care about their growth.

We want to help them achieve new things and feel challenged and expanded.

And so that developed pillar became the driving force.

Can you see where I may be heading next?

Yes, it is time to thrive, because these past few months have been a new brand of draining and exhausting. There's been creepy corporate

surveillance and talk of recession, and we've seen layoffs, or even just have had anxiety

...