Rachel Cooke
Rachel Cooke is the founder of Lead Above Noise , whose mission is to empower leaders to catalyze outstanding team performance. Through consulting, workshops, and talks, Rachel ignites the activation of small "microchanges" that deliver business results while minimizing disruption, and enhancing the employee experience. Leveraging both her academic background in both Organizational Psychology and her corporate experience in Fortune 100 Human Resources, Rachel has worked with such organizations as American Express, Cisco, Scholastic Books, and Audible. Based just outside of Manhattan, Rachel publishes a bi-weekly newsletter called Making Work Work Better . Learn more here .
Articles by Rachel Cooke
- Opinion
Pressure Creates Diamonds—or Learned Helplessness
Pressure has the power to create both. Diamonds and mortal wounds.
- Opinion
Standing Still Is Breaking More Teams Than Change Ever Will
Do you see the metaphor coming a mile away? Yep the workplace. It feels like that jungle right now. Lonely. Death-defying. Full of unconquerable traps
- Opinion
When Leaders Admit Uncertainty, Teams Respond With Stronger Engagement and Trust
Where catastrophe is imminent. And the president reads the speech he's been handed. Designed to inspire confidence and calm in the American people.
- Opinion
Real Change Starts Small: Leadership Actions That Fix Overload and Inaction
Work is hurting these days. We see it. We feel it. We know at least some of what needs to change. So… why isn't sh*t changing?
- Opinion
Too Many Priorities? Nest Them Like Russian Dolls and Watch Clarity Appear
I raise the too-many-priorities issue and get vigorous head nods all around. But when I ask the team to generate a list of these too-many priorities?
- Opinion
Stepping Outside To Untangle Dysfunction in Teams
And I tell them we can only untangle the mess from the outside in. And here are some ways to approach this.
- Opinion
“Who’s Accountable?” Is the Wrong Question—and That’s the Problem
And most essentially, they infuse the psychological safety that lets their team actually live in the yellow.
- Opinion
Speed Without Structure Is Just Chaos
Pure speed and agility. But really, it’s structure moving fast. Speed without structure isn't agility. It's just panic with better marketing.
- Opinion
Stop Leading Like a Tour Guide: Why Today’s Teams Need Expedition Leaders
Yet too many leaders today are striving to embody the same certainty and authority Linda carried with her.
- Opinion
The Permission You’re Waiting for Isn’t Coming
Leaders exhausting themselves trying to fix everything. Teams waiting for solutions from above. And nobody asking the question that could change everything
- Opinion
Work Isn’t Working: How We Lost the Second Place — And How To Build It Back
There was always the coffee. But it was never about the coffee. It was about the place. Their place. With their people.
- Opinion
Why Great Leaders Don’t Wait for the Right Decision—They Commit To Making It Right
So how am I working with teams here? Well, beyond playing dinner-table games, here's how I’m approaching this
- Opinion
Counting Macros, Missing the Point: A Leadership Lesson in Disguise
Ironically, I find myself leaning more toward packaged foods and away from whole ones because the former are easier to measure.
- Opinion
Why Breaking the Container Is Holding You Back
We've been treating these as trade-offs - priorities to juggle. Push for results, people burn out. Focus on engagement, results suffer.
- Opinion
Wellness Isn’t a Benefit—It’s a Way of Working
It's about how the work is organized. And when you fix the organization, both wellness and performance improve.
- Opinion
Stop Slowing Down Your Team: How Context-First Collaboration Changes Everything
Happens when people can surface what they see, test it against what others are seeing, and build a shared view that’s strong enough to guide the work
- Opinion
The Power of a Team Reset: Reignite Focus, Energy, and Results
At the end of my first college semester, just after my last final, I spiked a fever.
- Opinion
Doing More With Less: The Sustainable Strategy That Actually Works
Expectations are expanding, budgets are shrinking, and headcount is frozen. And do more with less is thing we’re all being asked to do
- Opinion
What the Chicken (and Your Burnout) Might Really Be Chasing
For some, maybe adventure. Another may want the cardio. Still another saw the ice cream truck. #burnout
- Opinion
Break the Loop: A 5-Minute Reset That Gets Teams Unstuck
Asking clients to step out of the container with me is one of those instances. It’s a little bit of mind trickery. But it creates a shift. #advisors
- Opinion
Time To Burn Down What We Know About Burnout
Into assumptions that it’s a volume problem. And the solution, therefore, is to dial back the work. Lighter loads, more PTO, fewer meetings. #burnout
- Future of Advice
How to Untangle Team Dysfunction & Necklaces
And I tell them we can only untangle the mess from the outside in. And here are some ways to approach this. #inclusion
- Future of Advice
How To Keep Engagement High When Priorities Shift
So… anyone else feeling beaten over the head by dire stats on employee engagement? Like, we get it—it’s tanked. Badly. #inclusion
- Future of Advice
Storytelling: The Secret Weapon of Effective Leadership
When we open things up and invite them into the story? We co-create an ending that is so much better. #inclusion
- Future of Advice
From the Start: How Co-Creation Fosters Robust Innovations
We talk a lot about collaboration today. Which is largely about decision rights or handoffs or consensus-management that really just slows us down.
- Opinion
How Leaders Can Revitalize and Reactivate the Workplace
The workplace, and our collective experience of it, could surely use a tune-up. We know it. But we’re doing it wrong. We need a fresh approach. #work
- Opinion
Decision Rights: The Challenge Without the Real Problem
Become conversations about thoughtfully designed organizations. And these conversations get us further faster.
- Business Growth
5 Levers to Pull When Change Must be Embedded QUICKLY
How to Embed Change Quickly. A recent conversation with a client revealed that while they were about 75% finished with the redesign of their organization...
- Business Growth
How Do You Achieve Flawless Execution?
Or Why That's a Flawed Question...Four years down my own path of facilitating and speaking on topics laddering up to #Activating talent, I still