When the Culture Committee Killed the Culture Documenting the Distraction

When the Culture Committee Killed the Culture
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Robin Schooling | Substack People + Work Strategist | HR Leader | Author + Speaker | Drive Thru HR (podcast) Co-Host | Making sense of the art, angst + absurdity of modern work. Click to read Robin Schooling on Substack. Launch...

Robin Schooling

the blog continues but moving some/all/most content over to Substack too. Subscribe for content! Thx!

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Go Along to Get Along | Robin Schooling “Go along to get along" sounds like pragmatism in the workplace. In practice, it's how organizations silence dissent by suppressing opinions.

“Go along to get along" presents itself as wisdom, but it’s really a negotiated surrender. Rolling over. White flag. Latest post here: robinschooling.com/go-along-to-...

Low-Hanging Fruit. Reach May Vary. | Robin Schooling Low-hanging fruit sounds clear until you realize nobody defined "low." It's the workplace phrase that assumes a consensus that doesn't exist.

Two people, same grove and completely different assessments of what’s reachable. This is not a fruit problem. robinschooling.com/low-hanging-...

The Culture Committee That Killed Culture There's a particular moment in organizational life that I've come to recognize with the same familiarity I usually reserve for bad weather or a Monday calendar full of scheduled “sync-ups”: the moment...

Your company's Culture Committee has a charter, a meeting cadence, and a subcommittee for t-shirts. The actual PROBLEM has a corner office with a view and a covered parking spot. My latest musings: velvetcubicle.com/blog-%7C-vel...

"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." - Nelson Mandela

"Are you around?" - arriving via your Slack, Teams, Google Chat, et al - is a deceptively simple question with a surprisingly complicated relationship to how we think about and measure "work". robinschooling.com/in-defense-o...

He’s Not Grifting Anymore. He’s Just Taking It. Guest article by Dina Doll

He’s Not Grifting Anymore. He’s Just Taking It.
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The Corporate Polo Shirt: A Uniform Built for No One | Robin Schooling Corporate polo shirts are ugly, uncomfortable, and built for no one. This default company swag/branded apparel conveys more than you think.

The Corporate Polo Shirt polo endures not because anyone loves it, but because no one has questioned it. And that, it turns out, is a very HR problem to have. robinschooling.com/the-corporat...

The Reply-All Hero We Deserve You know the email chain I'm talking about: it’s the one sitting in your inbox that has 47 replies, a subject line that reads "Re: Re: Re: Re: FW: Parking Lot Update - PLEASE READ," and approximately ...

There's a hero in every inbox. Today we find ours. velvetcubicle.com/blog-%7C-vel...

someone is losing BIGLY today and I am here for it

HR Career Realignment: Ditch the Logo, Chase the Impact | Robin Schooling HR career realignment is underway - and the biggest logo isn't your safest bet anymore. Here's why SMBs are where the smart money is in 2026.

Big logo or big impact? Here's why those two things are rapidly diverging in HR careers right now ..... robinschooling.com/hr-career-re...

*** waving from the bayou *** 😘

The Yard Sale Theory of Talent Optimization | Robin Schooling A yard sale reminded me about talent sharing strategy — and why sharing people and skills across companies might be the smartest talent move.

Transparent pricing. The swap economy. Letting go of what no longer serves you. There are some yard sale principles that also happen to be excellent HR strategy.

robinschooling.com/the-yard-sal...

Trans-formation by Heather Bussing

Trans-formation
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I love this from @heatherbussing.bsky.social !

Why Thursday Night Feels Like Friday Eve. And Always Has. | Robin Schooling Thursday night has always felt like the real start of the weekend, and there's a reason. Some workplace rituals are immune to disruption.

The four-day workweek is just the workplace finally catching up to what everyone was already doing....... robinschooling.com/why-thursday...

Guilty Until Proven Sick | Robin Schooling Your company requires a doctor's note for a cold but not for a bad contract. Let's talk about trust - and how we extend it.

We scrutinize the sniffles....to what end? The gap between what organizations say about trust and what they build into their policies is ... considerable.

robinschooling.com/guilty-until...

one million percent!

Icebreakers: Weapons of Mass Discomfort There's a special kind of dread that settles over a room when someone, usually from HR, announces, "Let's start with a quick icebreaker!" The collective groan may be silent, but it’s unmistakable.

Welcome to corporate icebreakers - when everyone scrambles to find something they can share that is:

• interesting enough to not be boring
• safe enough to not be weird
• neutral enough to not be fired

velvetcubicle.com/blog-%7C-vel...

as always….its been delightful to do the communal viewing of #rexcomus! G’night all! 💜💛💚

I am always in wonder at how these Queens (who are like 22), dress like 62 year old women (little Chanel suits). All of them always #rexcomus

what a bunch of useless geegaws #rexcomus

No, it's my first time here at Mr. Epstein's Island. Why do you ask? #RexComus

Do the maids throw throw their bouquets at the end and whoever catches them is a racist? #rexcomus

If *I* were a Dancing Head, I would need to be the lion : looks the most manageable #rexcomus

“intern in the office of Steve Scalise” 😂😂😂😂 #rexcomus

"Some people are kind of snarky about it" Well dude it's white supremacists in huge paper mache animal heads, so yes, one will snark. #rexcomus

much

oooooo!!!!