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July is here, Happy Canada Day! and with it comes fresh opportunities to grow, connect, and innovate! In this edition of ARC Reads, we're diving into the latest technology trends and strategic insights that are shaping the summer landscape. From emerging tools to transformative ideas, discover what’s driving momentum this season.

What We're Reading This Month

‍The Conflict Intelligent Leader - Coleman highlights seven strategies that conflict intelligent leaders use to manage volatile situations: laying the groundwork for better communication and trust, fostering collaborative relationships through meaningful joint ventures, balancing firmness with creative solutions, using adaptive approaches, leveraging the broader context, investing in the long term, and being opportunistic. Leaders who use these tactics do more than tamp down disagreements, Coleman notes. They also create company cultures where employees feel more safe, satisfied, and creative and can handle uncertainty and stress better.

Create a Company Culture That Takes Cybersecurity Seriously - In the U.S. alone, the annual damage from cybercrime has increased by 33%, rising to $16 billion in 2024. The vast majority of these breaches are down to human failure, such as misconfiguration of systems and appliances, mishandling of information or storage devices, and manipulation by bad actors. But if the human factor is the weakest link in information security, it’s also the area where the right solution can have the biggest impact. Human-centered security approaches offer significant potential for sustainable information security within organizations. It can encourage, for instance, every employee being concerned about secure passwords, suspicious and attentive about possible email threats, sure not to leave their computers unlocked, and careful not to talk about sensitive business issues in public. More on Cybersecurity here.

Growth Isn’t the Only Way for Companies to Create Value  - It’s a basic goal of most companies: to grow revenue each year. But as globalization recedes, populations in many nations grow older(and buy less), and sustainability concerns lead more people to scrutinize the necessity of every purchase, companies are facing headwinds to growth. And while growth can be a particularly powerful differentiator in such a challenging context, it is also particularly risky. Pushing for growth at all costs can end up destroying value rather than creating it, through wasteful investments and diverting resources from the core strengths of the firm. Find out more.

Why climbing the stairs can be good for your body and brain - Climbing stairs has been found to improve balance and reduce the risk of falling for older people and improve their lower body strength. Other studies also find that climbing a couple of flights of stairs can positively affect our cognitive abilities such as problem-solving, memory, and potentially creative thinking.

What does being Canadian mean to you? 40 famous Canadians sound off -We end each interview by asking our guests, “What does being Canadian mean to you?” and, although the responses are personal, specific and different, they reflect themes and ideas of Canada that are very thoughtful and useful — especially at this critical time for the country.