Two Apple TV Shows, Two Leadership Lessons on Culture Change
Apple TV’s Severance takes workplace control to an unsettling extreme. On Lumon Industries’ “severed floor,” employees have no memory of their lives outside work. Information is tightly controlled, questions are discouraged, and compliance matters more than curiosity. The premise is fictional, but the warning is familiar: when leaders value obedience over honest feedback, they undermine the trust, learning, and purpose that culture change requires. Watch the official Severance trailer . Ted Lasso offers the opposite picture. Ted inherits a demoralized team and wins it over through curiosity, not control—asking questions, owning his mistakes, and treating everyone from the kit man to the star player as worth hearing. His motto, “Be curious, not judgmental,” is a good standard for any leader. Watch the official Ted Lasso trailer. Throughout my career, I have learned that changing a policy can be straightforward. Changing culture—how people think, communicate, and work together—is much ...