Tsedal Neeley

The Digital Mindset: What It Really Takes to Thrive in the Age of Data, Algorithms, and AI
The pressure to “be digital” has never been greater.

The digital revolution is here. It’s changing how work gets done, how industries are structured, and how people from all walks of life work, behave, and relate to each other. To thrive in a world driven by data and powered by algorithms, we must learn to see, think, and act in new ways. We need to develop a digital mindset.

But what does that mean? Some fear it means that in the near future we will all need to become technologists who master the intricacies of coding, algorithms, AI, machine learning, robotics, and who-knows-what’s-next.

This book introduces three approaches—Collaboration, Computation, and Change—that you need for a digital mindset and the perspectives and actions within each approach that will enable you to develop the digital skills you need. With a digital mindset, you can ask the right questions, make smart decisions, and appreciate new possibilities for a digital future. Leaders who adopt these approaches will be able to develop their organization’s talent to prepare their company for successful and continued digital transformation.

Award-winning researchers and professors Paul Leonardi and Tsedal Neeley will show you how, and let you in on a surprising and welcome secret: developing a digital mindset isn’t as hard as we think. Most people can become digitally savvy if they follow the “30% rule”—the minimum threshold that gives us just enough digital literacy to understand and take advantage of the digital threads woven into the fabric of our world.

Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding from Anywhere
The rapid and unprecedented changes brought on by Covid-19 have accelerated the transition to remote working, requiring the wholesale migration of nearly entire companies to virtual work in just weeks, leaving managers and employees scrambling to adjust. This massive transition has forced companies to rapidly advance their digital footprint, using cloud, storage, cybersecurity, and device tools to accommodate their new remote workforce.

Experiencing the benefits of remote working—including nonexistent commute times, lower operational costs, and a larger pool of global job applicants—many companies, including Twitter and Google, plan to permanently incorporate remote days or give employees the option to work from home full-time. But virtual work has it challenges. Employees feel lost, isolated, out of sync, and out of sight. They want to know how to build trust, maintain connections without in-person interactions, and a proper work/life balance. Managers want to know how to lead virtually, how to keep their teams motivated, what digital tools they’ll need, and how to keep employees productive.

Providing compelling, evidence-based answers to these and other pressing issues, Remote Work Revolution is essential for navigating the enduring challenges teams and managers face. Filled with specific actionable steps and interactive tools, this timely book will help team members deliver results previously out of reach. Following Neeley’s advice, employees will be able to break through routine norms to successfully use remote work to benefit themselves, their groups, and ultimately their organizations.

The Language of Global Success: How a Common Tongue Transforms Multinational Organizations
For nearly three decades, English has been the lingua franca of cross-border organizations, yet studies on corporate language strategies and their importance for globalization have been scarce. In The Language of Global Success, Tsedal Neeley provides an in-depth look at a single organization―the high-tech giant Rakuten―in the five years following its English lingua franca mandate. Neeley’s behind-the-scenes account explores how language shapes the ways in which employees who work in global organizations communicate and negotiate linguistic and cultural differences.

Drawing on 650 interviews conducted across Rakuten’s locations in Brazil, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States, Neeley argues that an organization’s lingua franca is the catalyst by which all employees become some kind of “expat”―someone detached from their mother tongue or home culture. Through her unfettered access to the inner workings of Rakuten, she reveals three distinct social groups: “linguistic expats,” who live in their home country yet have to give up their native language in the workplace; “cultural expats,” or native speakers of the lingua franca, who struggle with organizational values that are more easily transmitted after language barriers are removed; and finally “linguistic-cultural expats,” who, while native to neither the lingua franca nor the organization’s home culture, surprisingly have the easiest time adjusting to language changes. Neeley demonstrates that language can serve as the conduit for an unfamiliar culture, often in unexpected ways, and that there are lessons to be learned for all global companies as they confront language and culture challenges.

Examining the strategic use of language by one international corporation, The Language of Global Success uncovers how all organizations might integrate language effectively to tap into the promise of globalization.