Issue No. 13 - THE CLARITY MEMO: Unfiltered.
From Control to Creation.
On what we keep protecting when the future asks us for change.
Founder’s Note: This issue is late because I took time away to launch the inaugural cohort of the “Hi, Have We Met?” Masterclass. Keeping the schedule would have been a safe move, but building a beautiful product was a better one. Much better that the cohort has asked for a Part 2. And during my time away, I kept thinking about how clinging on to what we know often costs us what is possible.
The Memo.
Between 2020 and 2023, some of the largest companies in the S&P 500 ordered employees back to the office, citing financial performance, culture, and collaboration.
When University of Pittsburgh researchers studied 137 of these firms, they found no significant improvement in financial performance post-mandate. Their explanation for why leaders issued the mandates anyway is blunter than anything a consultant could summarize. The findings were:
“consistent with managers using RTO mandates to reassert control over employees and blame employees as a scapegoat for bad firm performance.”
That decision came with measurable costs. A follow-up study from the University of Pittsburgh and Baylor tracking 54 major tech and financial firms across three million worker profiles revealed that turnover rose 13% to 14%. Senior, highly skilled employees — the ones with options — were the most likely to leave, and their vacancies took 23% longer to fill.
RTO was never about culture or productivity; it was about restoring a familiar picture of work. But this impulse isn't limited to physical offices. We see it whenever organizations try to control the past while reality reshapes itself in real time:
Protecting inherited models of talent: We reward toxic high performers simply because they hit their KPIs, even though MIT Sloan research found that a toxic culture predicts attrition ten times more powerfully than pay.
Structuring work against how people live: In KPMG’s survey of U.S. working parents, 53% said work schedules frequently clash with parenting, and half cited flexible schedules as the single most valuable benefit an employer could offer.
Prioritizing prestige over alignment: We assume brand prestige will keep top talent, yet Edelman Trust Barometer research shows that 60% of employees choose or leave an employer based on shared values and ethics; frequently choosing alignment over compensation or brand name.
Control is deft. It rarely announces itself as power-grabbing; instead, it disguises itself as loyalty to “how things have always been done.”
Contrast this with Heinz. For decades, Heinz protected its iconic glass bottle — even as customers stored it upside down, tapping, shaking, getting an arm workout just to get ketchup out. Heinz could have continued defending the iconic bottle. Instead, they asked: “What are people actually trying to do, and how can we make that experience better?” That informed the company's upside down bottle, a redesign shaped by actual consumer behavior.
The shift from control to creation begins when we become willing to question what we’ve been protecting.
The Unfiltered Take.
I'll start with myself.
For a long stretch of building my practice, I operated from control. I chased deals, trying to convince leaders to buy my ideas because I was certain they needed them. I ran full presentations for executives who were interested in the concepts but nowhere near ready to implement. I left those meetings frustrated, drained, and annoyed.
Other times, I was trying to convince people that leadership isn't a monolith. And that I (a young executive and CEO with an accent and an exuberant presence) am indeed, what leadership and brilliance looks like.
Eventually, I stopped forcing outcomes and returned to creation:
What problem was I actually trying to solve?
What expertise and lived perspective did I uniquely bring?
And why was I spending so much energy convincing people to see my value, when I could create the conditions for the right people to find me instead?
So, I changed my strategy. I stopped trying to fit into pre-existing molds and chose to exist in my multidimensional brilliance, unapologetically. I positioned my work so leaders aligned with my values and ready to implement those bold ideas, could discover it.
Creation is expensive. And the cost isn't always what you have to build. It's what you have to let go of, who you have to stop being, and who you might disappoint as you evolve.
For organizations, the cost can be just as significant. It may mean new commitments to investors, resetting expectations for employees, or dismantling an iconic product line or service offering. There will be resistance, missteps, and moments when the old way feels safer. And leaders may think they are protecting business stability, when in reality, they are protecting the comfort of being recognized for what they already know how to do.
Control disguises itself as the responsibility to force predictable outcomes. Creation, is taking responsibility for what you can build next. And it challenges you upfront. It asks what the future requires, even when the answer threatens the very assumptions that made the past successful.
The Action.
This week, conduct a Control vs. Create audit on your own calendar and projects, and invite your team into the conversation. Pick one major policy, meeting, or strategic initiative and ask:
“Are we defending an assumption that made us successful in the past, or are we building what the future actually demands?”
Where you spot energy being spent holding on to the past rather than building for reality, create the space to let it go. Give your team permission to drop one legacy requirement, and ask them what they would build in its place.
If you know a leader who is protecting the status quo at the expense of what’s possible, share this with them. The Clarity Memo: Unfiltered drops bi-weekly. Subscribe to get it directly to your inbox.
This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional, legal, financial, or organizational advice. For guidance specific to your organization, contact Fadéké Strategic Consulting, LLC at admin@fadeke.com