Ben Thinking: Everything's changed. Except you.

Written by Ben Brugler | Aug 7, 2026, 11:00:00 AM

Different isn't being like everyone else.

(Originally released 8.5.26)

“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”

-Gloria Steinem*

Have you stopped to consider just how much the last five years have changed pretty much everything about how we work and communicate? Of course you have. But I’m not asking if you’ve looked back at what’s changed…I’m asking if you have thought about what has changed? (And more importantly…how you’ve changed or what you may need to change?)

Because despite the fact we talk a lot about how much things have changed, I continue to see people operate as if nothing has changed.

We are in the last third of the year. (I don’t count December. How productive are YOU in that month?) So it’s time for some real talk. At this point no one can say they’re surprised by how things have changed. Or are ‘waiting to see’ what will stick. We’re past all of that. And in the last three years especially, the workplace dynamics (read: AI) have really changed. We’ve had more new words, skills and realities injected into our day-to-day. Think about how you communicate with something that didn’t exist less than four years ago and tell me this isn’t the equivalent of an alien species?

Everything from how companies market, write, target their audiences, plan; how we interact and connect with our organization and its employees; what we expect from ourselves v. what we think others are doing. It’s all changed.

If we can admit it to ourselves, why haven’t we embraced it in our day-to-day and started to change how we work? We know the environment we’re living in yet the preference seems to copy more than create. Model strategies and content around what others are doing. Yet put no time into what our own company could be doing to take advantage of where we are and how to stand out.

We’re in August. And as is the case with baseball, it gets late early out there (God love ya, Yogi Berra).

This is our chance to win by being different. Those chances don’t come along very often.

*I first heard that line in the N.E.R.D. song, Lemon but it’s been around for a bit.

Onto what I’ve ‘Ben Thinking’ about:

Are CEOs tone deaf to what’s going on in the ‘real world’?

I’m not sure but as is usually the case, perception is the reality. And right now the perception is…they are out of touch.

More good news! This is becoming a habit.

Manufacturing activity has expanded for the seventh straight month to 55.6% - which is more than 2% higher than this time last year.

We’ll take it!

“Are women executives people?”

Weird phrasing but an important question that HBR asked in 1965 to provoke and research how women were perceived in the workplace. 60 years later they're revisiting that question to see what’s changed.

We’re not doing so well in the gender equality department. Maybe the most alarming part of this? The fact that men's opinions remain relatively unchanged in their thinking that women don’t have to work harder, perform better and are denied certain opportunities. In some cases men think women don’t have it as hard…while women’s responses have gone up in all those categories.

This isn’t meant to spark a debate. It’s meant to inform. (But in my opinion? I would 100% say it’s harder for women in those areas outlined.)

3 words that shut people down.

If you’re a leader, saying any of these three words, you might as well be saying these three words: Stop talking now.

“The nurse practitioners for manufacturing.”

This is a truly innovative idea from MIT where they are launching the Technologist Advanced Manufacturing Program. This is a new area of focus where technologists will fill the gaps in how manufacturing systems are supported, treated, maintained and improved.