Barnes & Noble reopened in Carrollwood as part of its national comeback
Barnes & Noble opened a new store in Carrollwood Wednesday, part of an unexpected push to launch dozens of new locations this year.
Why it matters: Reading and brick-and-mortar bookshops are experiencing a revival, thanks in large part to TikTok.
State of play: The new bookstore in the Palms of Carrollwood Shopping Center marks Barnes & Noble's return to the enclave, around eight months after its 28-year-old location closed.
Barnes & Noble started opening stores in a big way last year to meet the growing demand for them, the bookseller told Fast Company.
Yacob's thought bubble: The new location is spacious, with a sleek layout that finally gives nonfiction the space it deserves.
Zoom in: The company credits #BookTok, the thriving community of book-lovers sharing recommendations on TikTok, with the renewed interest in reading, "especially among young people."
BookTok has also helped fuel the surge in interest in the Romantasy (romance fantasy) sub-genre, propelling titles like "Onyx Storm" and "A Court of Thorns and Roses" to bestsellers lists.
But the social sharing has also driven renewed interest in reading the classics, like "1984," "The Great Gatsby" and "To Kill a Mockingbird."
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Fast Company
27 minutes ago
- Fast Company
17 ways global team leaders can balance consistency and regional autonomy
For managers overseeing teams across multiple countries, striking the right balance between global consistency and local autonomy can determine whether your team feels aligned or alienated. It requires clarity on what must remain uniform—brand values, strategy, success metrics—as well as the flexibility to adapt delivery, communication, and leadership styles to local norms. Leaders who master this balance can minimize friction while creating environments where innovation, trust, and performance thrive across borders. To that end, 17 members of Fast Company Executive Board share their top strategies for navigating this complex but critical dynamic. 1. IMPLEMENT AGILE METHODOLOGIES. To balance global consistency with local autonomy, implement agile methodologies like Scrum. Shared cadences (sprints), rituals (standups, retros), and artifacts (backlogs, demos) provide a scalable structure across regions. Agile isn't just for software—it drives cross-functional alignment, transparency, and adaptability while respecting cultural and market-specific needs. – Jack Borie, Ubix Labs 2. INCLUDE REGIONAL AND LOCAL EXPERTS IN BRAND MESSAGING. Global companies' brand messaging and positioning must include regional and local market experts. Yes, this may complicate and lengthen the process, but you must capture market nuances. In the end, you will have invested in your key regions, and the authenticity will be appreciated and should put you a step ahead of your competitors. – Mack McKelvey, SalientMG 3. STAY TRUE TO YOUR IDENTITY. When you create your identity and corresponding persona, never lose sight of who you are as an organization, regardless of the regionality issues. Your mission, vision, and organization credo should remain consistently applied. – Hudson Garrett Jr, Community Health Associates 4. USE SHARED VALUES IN DAILY DECISION-MAKING. Identify the shared values that transcend countries and cultures, and use these in daily decision-making. These will enable you to rise above implementation disagreements to the common ground of the team, no matter how dispersed or how varied their backgrounds. – Amy Radin Pragmatic Innovation Partners LLC 5. LEVERAGE THE STRENGTHS OF EACH REGION. We balance global consistency with local autonomy by letting regional strengths shine: France's stellar engineering, the U.S.'s marketing and sales expertise, and India's outstanding customer support. Our product platform and values remain constant, while we empower local teams to adapt as needed. This approach creates a unified company while maximizing the distinctive advantages each culture brings. – Dan Amzallag, Ivalua 6. ESTABLISH SHARED SUCCESS MEASURES. Set shared measures of success. That keeps everyone aligned while giving local teams the space to execute in ways that work for their market. Have clear goals, flexible paths. – Cliff Jurkiewicz, Phenom 7. ALLOW LOCAL LEADERS FLEXIBILITY WITHIN GLOBAL FRAMEWORKS. Empower local leaders while maintaining clear global frameworks. This strategy ensures alignment with the company's vision while allowing flexibility to meet specific market needs. It's about balance—guidance with freedom to innovate. – Katrina (Katya) Rosseini, KRR Ventures 8. ASK AND LISTEN TO LOCAL TEAMS. Start by ditching the one-size-fits-all mindset. What works in New York might flop in Singapore. The key? Set clear global principles, then flex locally. Ask, listen, and be willing to adapt—doing so is sometimes harder than your old office chair. Consistency builds trust, but autonomy drives relevance. You need both to lead across borders. – Stephanie Harris, PartnerCentric 9. LEAN INTO SOFT SKILLS. The power of 'soft skills' can shine when localizing across regions while maintaining global consistency. Whether it's active listening to those working in other parts of the world, or paying attention to the small details that matter to specific cultures and locales, these are just a few of the ways that global leaders can be better managers, striking a balance between global and local. – Irina Soriano, Seismic 10. KEEP YOUR OFFERINGS CONSISTENT, BUT ADD LOCAL FLAIR. The overall product or service must be consistent, and that means it should always revolve around the company's mission. However, it can and should include local flair, which can be taste, packaging, and other aspects, as it sells in different places. It should include local workers at that plant abroad who can contribute to decisions on how the local plant operates. – Baruch Labunski, Rank Secure 11. IDENTIFY WHAT MATTERS MOST IN EACH COUNTRY. As they teach in the Stanford MBA program, 'Different countries are different.' Identify the five to seven things that matter, and let it rip on the rest. The customer value stays constant, but the path to delivering value to the customer can vary. – Shayne Fitz-Coy, Sabot Family Companies 12. DETERMINE WHAT CAN FLEX AND WHAT IS NON-NEGOTIABLE. In sustainability, we created a global framework of principles, objectives, and reporting, while allowing local teams to adapt based on regional priorities, guidelines, and cultural nuances. We also set non-negotiables for messaging, ethics, and performance, with guardrails to establish consistency and empower autonomy. Remembering the gap between 'corporate' and 'local' is key to finding balance. – Jeffrey Whitford MilliporeSigma 13. ADOPT THE HUB AND SPOKE MODEL. The hub and spoke model works the best. The global team defines the key priorities and goals based on what the leadership wants. The power to execute on those priorities and goals should be with the regional teams, and they are in the best situation to understand the complexities on the ground. – Ruchir Nath, Dell Technologies 14. ATTEND REGULAR CROSS-CULTURAL DIALOGUE SESSIONS. Implement a framework of 'core and flex' where core values and strategic goals are standardized globally, while empowering local teams to customize implementation methods. Regular cross-cultural dialogue sessions help leaders understand regional nuances while maintaining organizational alignment, ensuring both global consistency and cultural adaptability. – Chongwei Chen, DataNumen Inc. 15. MANAGE COMPLEXITY BY STRENGTHENING LOCAL PROFIT DESIGN. The issue here is not just primarily balancing global consistency with local autonomy. It's managing complexity. The suggested strategy here is to strengthen profit design at local levels. Focusing on this approach has two direct benefits. First, it improves cash flow. Second, it prevents distraction that restrains profitable growth. – Jay Steven Levin, WinThinking 16. BUILD BUSINESS PLANS FROM THE BOTTOM UP. Build your business plans bottom-up, not top-down, then find the connective tissue between markets, cultures, and priorities. Carve your brand values in stone so you can offer a consistent customer experience globally, but tailor your messaging and delivery to the customs and customers of each country. – Tim Maleeny, Quad
WIRED
41 minutes ago
- WIRED
A Google Shareholder is Suing the Company Over the TikTok Ban
Jun 10, 2025 1:34 PM Silicon Valley software engineer Tony Tan says his battle against Google and the Trump administration is about upholding the rule of law. The TikTok app page in the Google Play Store. Photograph:The Trump administration is still refusing to enforce a federal ban on TikTok, and Silicon Valley software engineer Tony Tan is fed up. Last month, Tan sued the US Department of Justice for allegedly failing to turn over records about why it has not taken action against Google and Apple, which Tan believes are violating the law by continuing to host TikTok on their respective app stores. Tan is now stepping up his fight against what he sees as a worrying and potentially costly trend away from respecting the American legal system. On Tuesday, he filed a shareholder lawsuit in Delaware state court against Google's parent organization Alphabet. Tan alleges the company wrongfully denied a request he made for internal documents about Google's decision to risk billions of dollars in fines by not complying with the TikTok ban. 'The biggest thing that motivates me here is I've been frustrated by the volume of recent attacks on our legal system,' says Tan, who is in his late 20s and owns a small number of Alphabet shares directly and through investment funds. 'If Google is outright breaking the law, and they don't have to acknowledge it, they very much are above the law, and that doesn't seem right to me.' Google declined to comment on the lawsuit. But in a letter to Tan's attorneys seen by WIRED, a lawyer representing Google questioned whether the tech giant was really violating the TikTok ban, calling the idea an 'unsupported legal conclusion.' Tan's records request 'appears simply to be wondering if Alphabet is complying with applicable laws,' Doru Gavril, a partner at the firm Freshfields, wrote in March. 'Curiosity alone is not a basis for a books and records inspection demand.' TikTok's future in the United States has been under threat for years. President Donald Trump tried banning the app during his first term in 2020, arguing it posed a risk to national security because it was run by ByteDance, a Chinese tech company. After years of congressional debate and a legal battle that made it up to the Supreme Court, a law banning companies such as Apple and Google from helping to distribute TikTok and other Chinese apps in the US went into effect this past January. TikTok then disappeared from app stores for about half a day, until Trump issued an executive order pausing enforcement of the law and giving ByteDance time to reach a deal to reduce its ownership stake in TikTok's US operation. In the months since, Trump has used the popular video platform as a bargaining chip in high-stakes trade negotiations with China. Legal experts and some lawmakers have questioned the legality of Trump's order, which expires next Thursday. But there haven't been any known legal challenges to it, and the president has indicated that he will extend the pause again as discussions with Beijing continue. Tan, who declined to say whether he personally supports the TikTok ban, believes the central issue is enforcement. 'There is a federal law that says the TikTok app should not be on your store, and I can see TikTok is on the app store,' he says of Google. 'Congress passed the law, and the Supreme Court upheld it. It's not debatable.' In his view, Google is openly ignoring the law, and he wants to understand the legal basis for that decision, as well as the extent to which shareholders should be worried about Google's potential liability. 'I felt I should join the someones who are doing something,' Tan says. Books and Records Tan has a history of using records requests and litigation to investigate and combat what he views as injustices. In 2019, he sued a New Hampshire hotel for allegedly violating anti-discrimination laws by barring bookings from adults under 21 years old. Tan says he dropped the case after the hotel amended its policy. This February, Tan filed a public records request with the US Department of Justice seeking copies of letters that Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly sent to companies such as Google and Apple advising them that they would not be held liable for continuing to distribute TikTok. After the attorney general's office claimed it did not have records matching Tan's request, he took the Department of Justice to court. (The New York Times has filed a similar lawsuit.) In a court filing, the Justice Department denied any wrongdoing. In March, Tan requested minutes and materials from meetings of Alphabet's board of directors related to the TikTok ban, including the same reported letter from the attorney general. Tan made his request under a law in Delaware, where Alphabet is incorporated, that allows shareholders acting in 'good faith' to inspect 'books and records' when investigating suspected mismanagement. Through a series of exchanges between Alphabet's attorneys and his, Tan learned that the company possessed about half a dozen relevant documents, but that it wouldn't turn them over unless ordered to do so by a court. 'The board minutes will show whether or not the board discussed the risks associated with making the TikTok application available through Google Play and, if so, whether and how they assessed the risk of liability,' Tan's lawsuit filed on Tuesday states. 'The board minutes will also show whether the board considered whether making TikTok available through Google Play constituted a positive violation of federal law.' Companies that violate the TikTok ban by continuing to distribute the app can face penalties of up to $5,000 per user. Tan's lawsuit alleges that Google should not be relying on Trump's executive order and Bondi's letter alone to shield them from legal risks, and that the tech giant could be held liable by a future president—or even by Trump, who is known to frequently change his mind. Gavril, the attorney representing Google, contended in one exchange with the attorneys representing Tan that 'a lot of planets would have to align for that hypothetical harm to become reality. Some would argue that a concerned shareholder should wait for there to be an actual harm before progressing to investigate how it came to be.' Alphabet and Apple have yet to specifically mention the TikTok law in shareholder disclosures listing risks to their businesses. Akamai, which provides content hosting services to TikTok, wrote in a February disclosure that the attorney general determined the company could continue serving the app 'without incurring any legal liability,' but added 'there is no assurance that we will not be exposed to liability' in the future. Tan says that many incidents under Trump 2.0 this year have left him concerned about the rule of law, the foundational democratic principle that everyone should be treated the same way by the government. But the TikTok situation was one he felt capable of investigating, and as a shareholder of tech companies such as Alphabet, he felt a duty to try to protect his own bottom line. 'If these companies are openly willing to break the law, will others be pressured into breaking the law because it's politically convenient?' he says. 'Will shareholders be left holding the bag when the legal liability comes due?' Tan says his work in tech has nothing to do with TikTok or Google, but in general, he doesn't want the industry he is part of a trend toward what he considers flagrant lawbreaking. He claims no one—not even friends and family—has encouraged him to pursue his lawsuits over the TikTok ban. His attorneys at Berger McDermott have represented Meta in the past, but the social media company has no hand in his cases, he says. Tan adds he is paying standard rates for his legal representation. 'It's been expensive,' he says, 'and it's going to be more expensive.' Tan explains that he prioritized challenging Google over other companies, including California-incorporated Apple, partly because of the Delaware law allowing him to seek internal records. In recent years, shareholders have filed an increasing number of these kinds of requests, with the hope of using the obtained records as the basis for shareholder resolutions or lawsuits against executives and board members. Most requests are resolved informally, but some end up in court. In March, Delaware enacted a law aimed at limiting the records companies must turn over, which could hamper Tan's request. Lawmakers in the state acknowledged they were under pressure to stop the flight of companies like Tesla to jurisdictions with more business-friendly statutes. Roy Shapira, a professor of law at Reichman University who studies corporate governance in Delaware, says that shareholders trying to hold a company accountable for intentionally violating the law may now find it even more difficult 'to show what directors knew and when they knew it.'
Business Insider
42 minutes ago
- Business Insider
A leaked TikTok document reveals the guidelines it gives managers for scoring employee performance
A leaked TikTok document reveals the company's guidance to managers on conducting performance reviews — and what they shouldn't tell their teams. The company and its owner, ByteDance, conduct reviews twice a year, and executives set targets for the distribution of team scores based on business priorities. But if you're a TikTok manager, you shouldn't talk about the rating curve with employees or call it a "forced distribution," according to the document. "The messaging to management or to the employee is that we do not have forced distribution," one staffer said, but "every cycle we do get 'guidance" on scoring. The document, shared with managers of TikTok's e-commerce division around the time of its last review cycle, provides a framework for its employee scoring system. It instructs those managers to assign the three highest scores to no more than 5% of team members in total and limit the top four ratings to 10% or fewer employees. TikTok did not respond to requests for comment. TikTok's next performance reviews are expected to kick off next month, and some employees tell Business Insider they're worried that low scores could lead to a new wave of performance-improvement plans (PIPs) or exit offers. The last cycle in March led to a stream of low ratings and cuts to teams like e-commerce. The company's leadership was disappointed with TikTok Shop's US results last year, and staffers previously told BI that they felt the reviews were used to trim head count. Performance reviews have become dreaded by many across the tech industry, as companies like Meta and Microsoft have recently overhauled their processes to weed out low performers. TikTok and ByteDance adjusted their review process last year to call out more low and high performers, blending self-evaluations, coworker feedback, and ultimately manager discretion to assess team members and meet top-down performance distribution goals. How TikTok scores workers TikTok managers score employees based on a mix of their work output, their alignment with core cultural tenets, internally called ByteStyle, and their leadership principles if they are a manager. BI earlier published a version of the company's scoring rubric, which ranges from "F" for failed to "O" for outstanding. A score of "M-," reserved for employees who sometimes fall below expectations, or "I," for staffers who often do, can lead to a PIP or an offer to leave via a mutual separation agreement. Staffers receive an overall score that considers each factor, including peer reviews. Ultimately, there's no standard calculation that decides the overall score, according to the manager guide. How managers should avoid bias The guidelines document said that while managers are expected to weigh different performance factors in reviews, they ultimately should make their own call about each overall score. "There is no specific formula to calculate the Overall Rating, which means leaders need to make comprehensive management discretion," the company said in the document. Because managers have a large degree of discretion in setting individual scores, the company's guidelines focus on what to avoid when making decisions. For example, one slide in the document lists various biases to watch out for. Those included: Recency bias: Overvaluing recent events instead of considering the full performance cycle. Choosing a single positive or negative workplace trait for a worker and scoring based on just that. The "central tendency," or rating everyone near the mid-point to avoid conflict with workers. Showing preference to workers who act similarly to a manager, or share some of their workplace habits (e.g., a team member is high performing because they also look at their email outside work hours). The "contrast effect," where reviewing one candidate who is very strong or weak makes another candidate seem comparatively better or worse. The "assimilation effect," when team members are reviewed back-to-back and appear too similar to differentiate.
