While the world continues to battle the Covid-19 pandemic, another, slower-moving health crisis remains. Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) — chronic conditions like cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and chronic respiratory conditions — were responsible for 71% of all global deaths in the years before Covid-19 and will remain problematic long after the pandemic ends....

The 18th-century polymath Jeremy Bentham once wrote, “Pain and pleasure govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think.” Modern neuroscience strongly supports Bentham’s intuition. The brain’s limbic system, which is important for emotion and motivation, projects to the rest of the brain, influencing every aspect of our being, from our ability to learn, to the people we befriend, to the decisions we make....

Although family members are often committed to the business, they sometimes lack the skills and fortitude necessary to maintain it across generations. In response, family firms are increasingly hiring non-family employees to help their businesses survive and grow. However, family firms face a challenge in this regard as they generally offer lower compensation, extend fewer opportunities for advancement or skill development, and have policies and cultures that treat non-family members differently than family members. For these reasons, family businesses frequently suffer from a human capital deficit. Therefore, a pressing question is how can family businesses attract quality non-family employees?...

What makes a company culture great? To explore this question, my colleague, Bill Baker and I spent the last three years researching the best places to work in the United States. As a part of our work, we selected 21 organizations known for their lustrous cultures, including Patagonia, The Motley Fool, and Edmunds.com....