The 2020s have emerged as a decade of profound challenges. Leaders face complex, multifaceted issues as they respond to disruption and work to transform their companies and industries for future readiness. Navigating these dilemmas requires wisdom, agility, and the courage to look for opportunities and ask: “What if the best is yet to come?” And, most importantly: “How can we create that future?”

During our Future Quest in Copenhagen during June, I had the privilege of learning from exceptional business leaders committed to transforming their companies and industries for a sustainable and more just future.

What emerged from the programme was the idea of a new model of leadership: the ‘Visionary Deliverer’. This is a leader who can hold sight of a purposeful vision in the face of competing demands, while executing with excellence, and delivering commercial growth along the way.

Here are the leadership qualities we observed in those ‘Visionary Deliverers’:

1. Conviction to unlock new growth opportunities by solving big problems

The most compelling business leaders we met are dedicated to solving humanity’s big problems by creating new markets with sustainable and ethical sources of supply at the right price point. Often, this process begins with a return to first principles: What is the need? Where are the gaps, and what opportunities do they present? What are the solutions, and how do we create demand for these?

For example, Carl-Erik Lagercrantz, CEO of Vargas Holdings and a long-term, active investor in green energy technology, described how Vargas has raised $6 billion to bring green steel to market through H2 Green Steel. Starting with a ‘blank piece of paper’, they created customer appetite for greener steel and secured the finance for an entirely new industry.

2. Humility to build unorthodox partnership models and collaborate to compete

A frequently voiced idea was, “We can’t do this alone.” In a landscape of rapid disruption, the leaders we met are forming unconventional partnership models to stay ahead, build resilience, and share the risks of new ventures.

Urban Partners, for instance, is collaborating with C40 (a network of the world’s 100 biggest cities) on the Green and Thriving Neighbourhoods programme, aimed at supporting 22 pilot projects to turn the 15-minute city concept into reality in locations from Austin, Texas, to Guadalajara, Mexico. Their Copenhagen project Jernbanebyen exemplifies this by bringing together investors, architects, and community actors to create an inclusive, vibrant neighbourhood (the ‘social infrastructure’) before they even begin building the ‘physical infrastructure’. 

3. Flexibility to lead across time horizons and inspire followership on a long journey

Ensuring sustained success requires the ability to maintain focus on the big vision while delivering with excellence at every step. This strategic approach harmonises quick wins with long-term investments, ensuring an organisation remains agile and adaptable in the face of change.

At Copenhagen Atomics, the CEO, Thomas Jam Pedersen, shared his vision of harnessing the power of thorium to generate cleaner, safer, and cheaper nuclear energy. The company’s incremental development, driven by extensive and iterative testing, continues to give rise to new innovations. A decade in, they are onto the second prototype with a goal of launching to market in 2030. Their high-performing team of engineers stays motivated by a flat hierarchy that allows the best and most creative ideas to surface through robust debate and challenge.

The Visionary Deliverer: a new archetype for leadership

As we ended our Future Quest, our group reflected on a new archetype for leadership: ‘Visionary Deliverers’ who can hold true to an ambitious vision for a better future, while executing with courage through global disruptions. I’m excited to see how this idea, coined by Jamie Page, will evolve with thinking from David Astorino and others.

I left Copenhagen buoyed by a sense of ‘rigorous optimism’, grounded in data and experiences that illustrate the best may yet be ahead. It’s another reminder of the power of Questing to understand the forces shaping the future and learn how to transform our organisations to survive and thrive.

We’re already planning the next Future Quest. Please get in touch if you’re a CEO or C-suite leader looking to expand your perspective and build new leadership skills for the future.

Written by Melanie Jameson

Co-CEO Leaders’ Quest

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A ‘Jugaad’ Quest in Mumbai: bold leadership strategies to navigate a changing world

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A ‘Jugaad’ Quest in Mumbai: bold leadership strategies to navigate a changing world

Change Happens – it isn’t Pushed

Leadership

Change Happens – it isn’t Pushed

By Carolina Moeller

When we really want something, we push for it. We invest energy into driving that change forward with grit and determination. However, when the change that we seek needs other people on board, sometimes pushing hard will gets us nowhere. In fact, holding lightly what we most cherish could deliver better results. 

How is that possible? 

In a previous role as Head of Business Education at WWF International, I had the opportunity to join a Leaders’ Quest program. It took place in China at a time  when global environmental and social disruption was already rampant; geological disasters, flash flooding, environmental protests, a debate on shale gas drilling, and even a proposal to ban shark fin from menus had made the Chinese news that year.

I was excited to spend a week with an awesome mix of people (business, investors, activists, artists, and conservationists) and most of all to explore what was playing out in China and the parallels with our own contexts. 

But quickly I grew frustrated. 

I felt we were in the right place but having the wrong conversations. 

I voiced my concerns to the LQ team and they suggested I speak up after dinner to try and shift the narrative. My legs were shaking as I stood up to make my points in front of the group. Afterwards, the activists and artists thanked me (‘’finally someone said it!’’) but the business people still turned their backs on me, and nothing changed. 

Fast-forward to the end of the week when we  shared our final reflections. A wealthy investor spoke. He said that he had screened the group at the start of the week, spotted the ‘tree huggers’ and the business people, and made a conscious decision to spend his week with those most like him. But then he said: 

“As I sit here at the end of the week, I realise that the most inspiring heart and mind opening conversations I’ve had have been with the tree huggers. I’ve come to know the tree hugger in me.”

My jaw dropped. I realised my whole approach to change was flawed, filled with resentment and judgment.

Pushing data, statistics and arguing doesn’t inspire deep change. 

What makes change possible is the experience of seeing the world from different perspectives.

The magic of a Quest

This was my starting point for loving the approach we practice at Leaders’ Quest. Change happens through experience, not telling others what to think by providing information, but providing the conditions for change. It happens by suspending judgment, by allowing people to change their mind with grace. This is the magic of a Quest and it allows ourselves and others the freedom to evolve.. 

When it was my turn to speak in the circle, I said:

“I’ve come to see that I’ll strangle the ideas that I most care about if I hold them so hard, push on them so relentlessly.” 

Like the investor on that Quest, I’m still learning to hold lightly that which I most cherish. Another way I’ve heard it put is “strong opinions, loosely held”, a concept attributed to Jeff Bezos of Amazon. This refers to the importance of being able to think openly and flexibly about a problem instead of being stuck intellectually on any one particular path. 

Letting go of strongly held beliefs is a real struggle when we care so deeply about the change we want to see in the world, but I experienced the radical change it can bring about first hand, and I encourage you to try it with an idea that you really care about. Is there a time you can reflect on where you pushed so hard for something it stopped you from realizing what you most longed for? Hold that idea loosely and you may see a new way forward.

To learn more about Quests from Leaders’ Quest, visit our Quests page

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A ‘Jugaad’ Quest in Mumbai: bold leadership strategies to navigate a changing world

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A ‘Jugaad’ Quest in Mumbai: bold leadership strategies to navigate a changing world

Lessons from the Future: What Leadership Means in the 2020s

Leadership

Lessons from the Future: What Leadership Means in the 2020s

Strengthening Leadership Cohesion: A Leaders’ Quest Offsite

Leaders’ Quest recently ran an offsite event for a global manufacturing company, bringing together its executive team and new CEO for the first time. Over three days in the company’s home city, we helped 17 leaders strengthen cohesion, connectivity, and trust. The work focused on aligning the team around the new CEO’s strategy, exploring untapped commercial opportunities, and mapping a fresh path to industry leadership in sustainability.

Highlights

1. Generative Conversations

We led sessions to enhance empathy, practice deep listening, and transform conflict into productive momentum. A major goal was to improve team communication, with exercises centered on confronting biases and assumptions. Participants examined live cases from their own experience, and practiced shifting these challenges into courageous conversations.

2. Quests

Immersive experiences with changemakers, tailored to the client’s ambitions, enabling the group to gain insights and inspiration.

Highlights included:

• Purposeful Vision: Visiting a mission-driven organization disrupting the food packaging industry with fully compostable solutions, we explored how zeal and motivation can bring a vision to life. We discussed how to similarly inspire the company’s sustainability goals.
  
• Leading Through Times of Conflict: At a Presidential Library, we talked about how political leaders evolved organizations, tackled global conflict, and advanced democracy, while staying true to founding values. We brought this back to the role of the company’s own founding values.
  
• Resilience and Courage: At a nonprofit supporting those who have been sexually exploited, leaders met with the CEO and residents to discuss resilience, courage, and trust during adversity.
  
• Radical Collaboration: Meeting with a local organization’s leadership team, we learned about the power of steadfast commitment and collaboration across diverse communities to improve equity and health outcomes.

3. Active Workshops

• Photography: An exercise in sharing personal stories and getting to know colleagues better. Participants captured team members’ essence through a new lens.
  
• Energy assessment: The group learned to be more aware of their personal energy, manage wellbeing, achieve peak performance, and support their teams in doing the same.
  
• New York Ballet: A discussion with a professional ballet dancer highlighted the parallels between peak performance in dance and in leadership, exploring the importance of physical and mental endurance, strength, and flexibility.

Outcomes

• Building alignment around the new CEO’s strategic vision.
• Fostering trust within the executive leadership team.
• Helping leaders discover their edge, sharpen skills, and embed new behaviors.
• Creating a high-performing team in tune with organizational values and ambitions.

Discover More About Quests

At Leaders’ Quest, we believe in the power of experiential learning to build skills, shift perspectives, and create the conditions for change. For over 20 years, we’ve delivered Quests around the world to some of the world’s most successful and purposeful companies.

Talk to us about how a Quest could help your leadership team.

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A ‘Jugaad’ Quest in Mumbai: bold leadership strategies to navigate a changing world

Leadership

A ‘Jugaad’ Quest in Mumbai: bold leadership strategies to navigate a changing world

Lessons from the Future: What Leadership Means in the 2020s

Leadership

Lessons from the Future: What Leadership Means in the 2020s

Meet members of the LQ community who are inspiring inclusion

To mark International Women’s Day and embrace its theme of ‘Inspiring Inclusion’ we’re sharing the stories of five amazing women from the Leaders’ Quest community.

Renewable energy systems and community empowerment

Empowering marginalized leaders

Artivism and immigration

Transformational thinking in prisons

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A ‘Jugaad’ Quest in Mumbai: bold leadership strategies to navigate a changing world

Leadership

A ‘Jugaad’ Quest in Mumbai: bold leadership strategies to navigate a changing world

Lessons from the Future: What Leadership Means in the 2020s

Leadership

Lessons from the Future: What Leadership Means in the 2020s

I’ve noticed that when things in the world feel particularly fragile, we tend to look for ways of avoiding conflict. There are so many painful and complicated issues that seem to be demanding we take a stance or form an opinion. Yet, there is more evidence that the risk of getting it wrong far outweighs any benefits of engaging at all.  

One thing that feels clear, however, is that the pressure on leaders across sectors to respond to these societal tensions and geo-political conflicts is only going to grow. So, as I’ve learned over my years facilitating across contested spaces, conflict is unavoidable.

I’ve been working with companies following the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7 and subsequent War in Gaza to help leaders navigate the intense emotions and deep challenges showing up across the workplace.

More often than that, I’m partnering with DEI teams to deliver this delicate, nuanced work. But leading through conflicts and crises is the responsibility of all leaders. Not because of any moral imperative – that’s not what this article is about. Rather, the quality of inclusion and generative conflict across organizations ties directly to the health and resilience of your business.

Conflict avoidance vs generative discomfort 

My biggest takeaway in doing this work is that the default corporate culture of niceness and acting like a ‘workplace family,’ where conflict avoidance is a stronger skill than working through generative discomfort, is inhibiting the true power of inclusion and is one of the biggest risks to business success. 

Of course being nice is a prerequisite for inclusion, but true inclusion requires much more from us. It requires us to go through difficult things together. Instead of looking for safe spaces as the hallmark of inclusion, we should be creating challenging spaces, where there is psychological safety for real conversations about the things that matter in the world and in business.   

I’d like to share some learnings from our work at Leaders’ Quest, and some of the ways we help people acquire the tools and language to better foster inclusion.

Why now?

The intensity of the current geo-political situation has brought our attention to which voices get heard when there are multiple powerful, and seemingly conflicting, perspectives. The same principles apply within businesses, and skills which used to be considered ‘soft’ such as deep listening, empathy, and seeking out different perspectives, are now top leadership competencies.

Inclusion is about making sure people feel like they belong in a system; providing access to the tools and information they need to act from a place of belonging and shared value. I think of it as a design principle for resilient systems. When the force of inclusion is released, it’s powerful: catalyzing radical collaboration, and transformative innovation.  

Meaningful inclusion (as opposed to performative inclusion) enables organizations to be more efficient, decisive, courageous and healthy. Organizations are more connected and in flow – and inclusion becomes a renewable resource inside the organization, rather than something that takes energy from it. 

But while inclusion is a non-negotiable in terms of future-fitting culture and weathering disruption, there is sometimes an aversion to conflict within organizations that erodes the potency of what it could really foster. 

To move beyond this, we need to build our collective capacity and courage. Our work is focused on equipping people with the language and tools to engage and the space to build a deliberate leadership practice fit for the future.

Releasing the power of inclusion

I’d like to share my three takeaways from this work:

• Engagement is crucial and shouldn’t be taken for granted. Even if you don’t get it right, have the difficult conversations. There is a transformative power in listening to someone without judgment and there are simple, effective tools like Marshall Rosenberg’s structure for nonviolent communication that help people to create these important spaces. We’ve been working with teams and companies to facilitate sessions that allow people to connect, question and engage with deeply challenging issues ranging from Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia to the future of Democracy.

• We need to go to the edges of our comfort zone and create generative conflict to move towards inclusion. This is an individual and organizational muscle that must be exercised consistently. We’ve partnered with incredible leaders from across our global community whose lived experiences grant them wisdom about how we go through contested space. They include CORO based in India and Chance for Life based in Detroit (at the end of the article I’ve included a link to learn more about their work). 

• Ownership across teams and leaders is fueled by inclusive cultures, where people have permission to lead and where empowerment is woven into the incentives and processes, not just the lexicon. Organizations have an opportunity to accelerate inclusion by looking at where there are structural and procedural barriers. It shifts the ‘burden’ of inclusion away from the individual and signals to your workforce that an inclusive culture, where people have access to what they need, is a business priority.  

The head, heart and hands of inclusive leadership

Inclusive leadership requires a mix of awareness, skill and courage. Sometimes I describe the capacity building work we do as falling across head, heart, and hands. We give people access to information so that they can build their knowledge in spaces that are non-judgmental and allow for curiosity to match convictions. We connect people to their shared humanity and activate their compassion, even when facing issues or perspectives that they deeply disagree with. And we have a duty of care to provide leaders with the tools to show up skilfully in situations of heightened tension and conflict. 

At Leaders’ Quest, the experiences and wisdom of our community play a huge role in the journey towards inclusion. If you’re interested in hearing from some of them, visit Celebrating Female Leadership on International Women’s Day.

It can sometimes be hard to describe what we do at Leaders’ Quest. One of the things that we do with deep skill and care is help leaders have better conflicts about the things that deeply matter – as individuals who want to be good ancestors for our children to business leaders looking to do good and do well. The skill of inclusive leadership and value of generative conflict will only appreciate in our challenging, yet beautiful world. 

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A ‘Jugaad’ Quest in Mumbai: bold leadership strategies to navigate a changing world

Leadership

A ‘Jugaad’ Quest in Mumbai: bold leadership strategies to navigate a changing world

Lessons from the Future: What Leadership Means in the 2020s

Leadership

Lessons from the Future: What Leadership Means in the 2020s

As each new year rolls in, Jayma is known to choose a word to serve as her North Star for the journey ahead. This year, we are both also drawn to a phrase that our colleague and mentor, Bill Sharpe, has shared with us: deep realism and active hope.

Looking out at the start of 2024, it can be easy to slip into the despair of our daily news feeds. Yet beyond the disheartening headlines, there is also evidence of incredible progress — both globally, and within the communities and organizations around us.

At the global level, we’ve seen significant reductions in the past year in child mortality and the number of those living in extreme poverty. We’ve made big leaps towards eradicating diseases like polio, and we’re seeing exponential change in renewables and electric vehicles at rates faster than predicted.

At the regional and local levels, we see inspiring leaders who are innovating courageously to make progress, often under the radar and in the face of great odds. This includes people in the Leaders’ Quest community with whom we are privileged to spend time, learn from and call our friends:

• In the face of unimaginable loss and trauma, the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP) is a coalition of over 160 organizations — including tens of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians — that is working to build cooperation and mutual understanding. ALLMEP’s community of leaders is meeting this moment with deep empathy and the conviction that peace is possible. Experience some of their stories from the field.
  
  
• Akshaya Patra is an organization based in Bangalore that prepares and delivers two million meals to children in 20,000 schools across India every day. The team applies a sense of mission to build the world’s largest school lunch program, showcasing purposeful ambition and innovation at scale to combat food insecurity and malnutrition.
  
  
• Sweden-based Northvolt is a global leader in battery technology that is using its capacity for innovation to transform supply chains and transportation. Emma Nehrenheim, Northvolt’s Chief Environmental Officer, is working on delivering the world’s greenest battery. Her TED Countdown Talk in Detroit last July is an inspiring summary of what’s possible through clean energy, and how we can vastly reduce environmental impact while powering the future.

These stories demonstrate how facing the truth of our circumstances does not negate hope, but fuels it. We highlight these not to detract from the conflict and crises we face collectively, but to remind ourselves that human beings can accomplish extraordinary things when we choose agency over despair. Drawing from the insights of author Joanna Macy, Bill Sharpe defines hope as ‘the belief that in acting from our own sense of human integrity we are creating the possibility of a wider pattern of human renewal around us’.

Our intention for 2024 is to use deep realism and active hope to guide our choices at LQ. We see it as a leadership muscle to build daily – to stay awake to the challenges in the world, while seeking out examples that demonstrate extraordinary change is possible and is happening around us every day.

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A ‘Jugaad’ Quest in Mumbai: bold leadership strategies to navigate a changing world

Leadership

A ‘Jugaad’ Quest in Mumbai: bold leadership strategies to navigate a changing world

Lessons from the Future: What Leadership Means in the 2020s

Leadership

Lessons from the Future: What Leadership Means in the 2020s

With so many leadership development programs on offer, ranging from business schools to the big consultancies, how can you decide which is the right choice for your senior leaders or high potentials? In this article we’ll be exploring what makes a leadership development program succeed.

Types of leadership development and how they work

Leadership development programs come in various forms, each designed to enhance different aspects of leadership. Different types may be needed depending on the ambition of the individual leader, and their organization. Types of leadership development include:

• 1.    Formal leadership development programs such as MBA programs and executive education are offered by universities and business schools. These are educational and usually include a blend of in-person and online courses.
• 2.    Workshops and seminars provide shorter-term, more intensive sessions with a specific focus such as communication, change management or strategic thinking.
• 3.    Coaching and mentoring, often seen in high potential development solutions, offers one-to-one guidance by experienced leaders or professional coaches to address individual development needs, career goals and leadership skills.
• 4.    On-the-job training includes organization-based programmes, again often for high potential development, and provides practical experience through job rotations, project leadership roles, and stretch assignments to develop leadership skills.
• 5.    Immersive programs such as leadership retreats and offsites are immersive programs that take participants out of their usual environment to focus intensively on their personal leadership and to reflect on their role as leaders.

What is experiential learning and why is it relevant to senior leaders?

At Leaders’ Quest (LQ), we believe in the power of experiential learning for successful leadership development. Experiential learning is the use of hands-on, real-world experiences that build skills, shift perspectives, and create the conditions that enable change.

This ethos has been with LQ since our inception and it’s reflected in our Quests: effective leadership development programs that we design and deliver throughout the world, that immerse leaders in the forces shaping business and society.

Quests offer a dynamic and immersive approach to the learning process that propels leadership development and enables positive change. We dial up creativity and edge to maximize engagement and cultivate learning that sticks and can be applied in a real world leadership role.

How do experiential learning programs improve leadership style?

A Quest is animated by the environment on the ground and the people we meet — not only the changemakers who inspire participants to see their roles and the challenges they’re facing in a new light, but also fellow leaders and peers who are on their own journeys alongside our clients.

To maximize impact, we embed the objectives and themes that matter most to each organization into the design of each Quest. This approach enables participants to experience the real-life application of the skills, values, and solutions they seek to emulate in their leadership style.

Factors that make Quests so effective at leadership development include: 

•  Active engagement: Quests catalyze learning in real-time, with hands-on experiences centered on achieving personal leadership and organizational goals.
•  Real-world relevance: Quests provide a front row view to the change and results that leaders and potential leaders seek, with participants gaining immediate applicability as they learn.
•  Emotional connection: Participants come away moved and inspired, with memorable insights that support their growth for years to come and enable them to become a more effective leader.
•  Diverse perspectives: On a Quest, senior leaders have the opportunity to learn from members of our global network of change-makers, ranging from business leaders to community leaders, on every continent.
•  Multi-sensory learning: Quest visits contain visceral activities and experiences that engage multiple senses and reinforce learning for participants, boosting their leadership skills.

Why Quests provide impactful learning experiences for senior leaders

On a Quest, clients don’t just see change, they also feel something different. Unexpected connections and exposure to new behaviors inspire in ways that last for years beyond.

Participants might meet a company that struggled and then succeeded at a technology transition, or scientists inventing low-carbon building materials. We might spend time with ex-offenders now working in a bakery that produces sweets for a beloved ice-cream manufacturer and learn about potential, inclusivity, and empowerment. In parallel, we could speak to the CEO of a multinational corporation on leading with purpose and fostering trust.

We build in space for reflection and sense-making, enabling participants to surface insights and share perspectives. We then discuss how to apply what they’ve learned that can be applied to their personal leadership.

What makes a successful leadership development program?

A successful leadership development program should:

• Set clear objectives with well-defined goals aligned to organizational needs or ambition
• Be highly personalized to address the needs and aspirations of individuals, and group dynamics.
• Include highly experienced facilitators who can enable participants to get the most out of the program by providing direction, or by holding space for reflection and learning.
•  Have practical application by incorporating hands-on experiences to reinforce learning and development of leadership skills.

At LQ, we deliver programs that offer this, and more. 

About Leaders’ Quest leadership development

At Leaders’ Quest, our programs provide learning, growth, and connection that set participants up to be effective leaders capable of motivating teams and helping their organization thrive.

For over 20 years, we’ve delivered Quests to clients across industries and sectors and have helped them achieve:

1. Sustained confidence around navigating complex challenges, and finding the opportunities of the future.
2.  New leadership skills that support individual and collective resilience, agility, and creativity.
3. Establishing future-focused, strategic thinking practices that leverage your strengths and create alignment across all levels of teams from high potential development to senior leaders.
4. Stronger collaboration, trust, and cohesion — underlined by renewed excitement to work together on something big.
5. A shared sense of purpose and following through on values to better serve all stakeholders.

At Leaders’ Quest we support our clients with leadership development and ambitious, purposeful culture transformation to achieve their strategic aims. We do this by immersing leaders on a journey to deepen their wisdom and capability through unforgettable programs that are aligned to strategic goals, achieve long-lasting results and prime organizations for a sustainable future. 

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A ‘Jugaad’ Quest in Mumbai: bold leadership strategies to navigate a changing world

Leadership

A ‘Jugaad’ Quest in Mumbai: bold leadership strategies to navigate a changing world

Lessons from the Future: What Leadership Means in the 2020s

Leadership

Lessons from the Future: What Leadership Means in the 2020s

It’s estimated that 800,000 manufacturing jobs are unfilled in the US alone, and experts say that the gap could rise to 2.1M by 2030. The manufacturing industry is also grappling with its emissions and waste footprint – and the irreversible effects of climate change we are already seeing as a result.

The imperative to change how we make things has never been greater. 

Last week, as part of #tedcountdown I had the privilege of leading a Quest to see firsthand the future of manufacturing in Detroit with LIFT and Siemens. It was an immersive masterclass in change management and leadership at the intersection of people and technology.

Here’s what I learned:

A stronger workforce starts with inclusive skills development

Walking through Detroit’s oldest surviving neighborhood, a juxtaposition of trendy new developments and long abandoned properties, you might be surprised to stumble upon $50 million of leading edge manufacturing research and development equipment. 

In Corktown, Detroit public-private partnership LIFT operates a 100,000 square foot facility where they are shaping new ways to accelerate technology, develop talent and convene collaborators in service of smarter manufacturing. 

Our Quest began with a visit to LIFT’s Learning Lab, a place for local high school students to gain immersive training and certification in high-demand manufacturing skills, such as robotics. They let us try out virtual welding (much harder than it looks!) — which uses VR to teach and practice welding skills and is one of many tracks offered to gain career credentials. LIFT also hosts Operation Next, a program supporting military personnel to transition into manufacturing careers. One veteran spoke candidly with us about the challenge of building a civilian career after 20 years of active duty, emphasizing the importance not just of building skills but also being given chances to apply them. 

LIFT creates career opportunities but it’s up to industry to give chances to a new, highly trained workforce by expanding hiring practices. 

The Industrial Metaverse and Digital Twins are the tech you didn’t know you need to know about

We then moved to a vast production floor to see how Siemens, a leading global technology company focused on industry, infrastructure, transport, and healthcare and one of LIFT’s industry partners, is applying emerging technologies to develop and commercialize products more sustainably, and faster. Drew Whitney showed us how the Industrial Metaverse (or IMV for those in the know) and Digital Twins allow engineers to build and test in the virtual world before any production begins. Imagine testing a car in all kinds of weather conditions but without…the car. They do that here. The reduction of waste — in materials, byproducts, and time — opens up a world of possibilities for the entire manufacturing sector, and offers a path to drastically reduce emissions from manufacturing.  

The Industrial Metaverse is critical to building a more sustainable future – and we need more passionate people who know how to work in it.

Software and robots are not replacing us (just one example)

While technology can do more and more (including teaching itself), people are driving tech’s use. Drew and his team, including mentors who have decades of experience in industry, showed us how expertise is being passed down not just through word of mouth but meticulous documentation in tech systems, supplemented by AI which updates learnings at scale. 

Highly skilled work requires mentorship and apprenticeship. New tech is enhancing, not replacing these activities. 

This work takes a whole lotta love

We rounded out the day in conversation with Christine Longroy, Senior Director of Ecosystem at LIFT and Barbara Humpton, CEO of Siemens USA… which brings me back to my title: what’s that smell? 

The smell of the production floor is almost an absence of smell — fresh, not sterile, and too subtle to be familiar. Only half jokingly, a participant asked what gave the floor its ‘I can’t put my finger on it’ scent. Likely, it’s simply the result of a clean space and clean production processes. But some of our participants observed the beauty of the production floor, describing what they saw as processes that mimicked nature — so maybe new American industry looks and smells a lot more like the natural world than we’d expect. 

Of course, the questions for Christine and Barbara went much deeper. We discussed the complexity of managing a vast global value chain, the importance of glocalization and frameworks for decision making, and how investment in communities accelerates innovation. Knowing stakeholders where they live and work, knowing what you value as an organization, and learning from experience are essential. 

We need more leaders like Barbara and Christine, who despite the challenges of the world see possibility and hope, who believe in people and innovation, who create opportunities and inspire others to do the same. 

(On that note, I highly recommend listening to Barbara’s podcast, The Optimistic Outlook.)

Conclusion

On the surface, this Quest visit was about infrastructure and technology – but it ended up really being about love, abundance, and optimism. A fun example: At one point, Cathe Reams, Siemens’ Communications Director, generously shared the shoes off her feet so a participant could explore the production floor (talk about walking the talk!).

To anyone serious about change, I leave you with this: You have to see it to understand it. You have to meet the people driving it and ask good questions to adapt yourself. And you have to put people in the center to solve the challenges we collectively face — in industry and beyond.

I’m grateful to LIFT and Siemens for inviting us to step into their world, the future. I hope their work inspires you too. 

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A ‘Jugaad’ Quest in Mumbai: bold leadership strategies to navigate a changing world

Leadership

A ‘Jugaad’ Quest in Mumbai: bold leadership strategies to navigate a changing world

Lessons from the Future: What Leadership Means in the 2020s

Leadership

Lessons from the Future: What Leadership Means in the 2020s

When I invite friends and colleagues to join me at the TED Countdown summit, I always tell them the same thing: That I find it an invaluable use of time because the three days are highly energizing and I leave optimistic that we actually have the tools to decarbonize our economies. 

This year was no exception. More than 800 people from across the globe came to talk about challenges that are alarmingly real, but where the palpable energy around solutions is also real.

What struck me the most this year was the seriousness with which people are trying to move outside their own individual lanes to understand how entire systems fit together. As we all know, one of gordion knots of tackling climate change is the need to impact all parts of systems simultaneously. My specific lane or lens in this knot is investment and climate finance.

This year at the summit we offered three breakthrough sessions— small group interactive dialogues — on finance. And to our surprise – the finance sessions filled first. A session called “Climate Finance 101” was so in demand that we ran it again. The demand came not from finance folks — but from everyone else: business leaders, NGOs, climate scientists.

Some folks confessed to finding climate finance like a black box — something they know is important but where the jargon and acronyms make it hard to access.

So we talked about finance as tools: What net zero means for the finance sector; how carbon markets fit in; what green bonds are and whether they work. What exactly is transition finance?

We talked about the successes being seen — the number of clean industries that are now profitable and at scale where money is moving easily. And we talked about the challenges — the harder to abate sectors, and in particular the urgent need to shift financing to the global south — why that’s hard and why we must do better.

That so many people showed up looking for better understanding on how money fits into the need for systems change says to me that we are all trying hard to understand parts of the system that aren’t our lane. The we increasingly collectively get that that all sorts of levers need to be pulled at the same time — and that as a part of each of our individual strategy to effect change, we all need to get more comfortable with more levers. That we need to demystify any black boxes out there so business leaders, policy makers, civil society leaders can draw on as many tools as possible as they try and drive us towards a less carbon intensive future.

So, as I promised the folks I invited, the summit was hugely energizing. And I personally left with evidence that we are getting better and better at amassing the technologies and tools that we need — and that we are looking systemically to pull multiple levers at the same time which is key. The tougher, lingering question is whether we collectively will take the tough decisions and use those tools now.

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