What happens on a Quest?
“You’ve changed my life,” he said.
He then proceeded to share the kind of radical shifts that happened in the months and years following his experience on a “Quest” led by Leaders’ Quest.
I’ve heard this same personal transformation story at least 10 times from LQ alumni these past six months since joining this company, each story with its own twists, personal epiphanies, and subsequent life changes.
Some individuals found the courage to radically change the direction of their companies.
Some quit their jobs and changed careers.
Some shifted their gaze and work to figure out how they can make a difference in the world.
I’ve heard it from global multinational CEOs, climate change agents, everyday citizens, nomadic adventurers, and everything in between.
When I decided to join LQ in 2022, I’d been drawn into LQ’s orbit by the brilliance they lent to the co-founding of TED Countdown. I got to know LQ a bit and its luminous founder, Lindsay Levin, leading up to TED Countdown’s launch in 2020. The genius, passion, and commitment of the people behind that launch – including both TED and LQ – were evident and stunning in every aspect of the event.
And I committed to finding ways to collaborate with them again in the future. Little did I know that I’d be joining LQ full-time as a Partner in 2022!
When I joined LQ, my knowledge of their work was colored primarily by TED Countdown. I didn’t really have a sense yet of what LQ is most known for: its signature Quests.
What is a Quest?
Quests are powerful learning experiences designed to inspire and equip leaders to tackle complex global challenges by taking them into unfamiliar environments to be immersed in the forces shaping our future.
I had my first real taste of Questing when I led visits for a group of rising Partners at a major global consultancy in London this past November.
During one Quest, we visited Shashi Verma, the Chief Technology Officer at Transport for London who was also the creative genius behind the Oyster card, the largest smartcard-based ticketing system in the world.
The conversation between Shashi and the Partner was dynamic and inspiring. The Partners were wide-eyed and fully immersed in the experience. It was a delight to witness and be a part of. My love affair with LQ-style Questing was born that day.
A Quest can change your life via:
Active engagement: It emphasizes hands-on experiences and active participation, allowing you to engage directly with the learning material, enhancing retention and understanding as compared to passive learning methods.
Real-world application: It provides you with opportunities to apply both theoretical concepts and practical skills learned in real-world contexts, such as leadership, decision-making, adaptability, and problem-solving, which are transferable to different settings, including educational, professional, and personal contexts.
Emotional connection: It often involves emotionally engaging activities that elicit strong responses. By experiencing a wide range of emotions, you are more likely to remember the associated lessons and develop a personal connection to the learning process.
Reflection & sense-making: It emphasizes reflection where you analyze your experiences, draw insights, and connect them to broader concepts or principles. This reflection process deepens understanding and helps you extract valuable lessons from their experiences.
Collaboration & communication: It involves group activities that require collaboration and effective communication among participants. These experiences promote teamwork, problem-solving, and interpersonal skills, which are valuable in many aspects of your life.
Personal growth: They challenge you to step out of your comfort zone, confront fears, and push your limits, building self-confidence and developing resilience as you realize your capabilities and learn to overcome obstacles.
Long-lasting impact: It creates memorable and transformative experiences. The immersive nature of these programs can have a lasting impact on your attitudes, behaviors, and perspectives, leading to continued growth and development even after the program ends. When experienced at an organizational level involving multiple participants, it can drive culture change at scale. Many of the LQ “alumni” I’ve met these past months talk about their transformational LQ Quest experience as if it happened yesterday.
Who is Leaders’ Quest?
I’ve never shied away from ambitious, world-changing organizations, and Leaders’ Quest is no exception. LQ’s mission is “to develop wise leaders to build a regenerative future.”
One of the key ways LQ achieves this is through Quests. They’ve been leading Quests for over 20 years, delivering 500+ transformative learning programs around the world. And they’re not just good at it, they’re GREAT at it, by which I mean they deliver a world-class level of facilitative genius applied to humans and organizations in ways I’ve never seen before.
This is no ordinary c-suite advisory and consulting firm. Given my short time at LQ, I can brazenly say and with zero concern about it coming across as a sales pitch:
Leaders’ Quest changes lives. And it’s changing the future.
As a result of LQ’s genius, we’re been hired by some of the smartest, most successful and purposeful leaders and companies in the world, including Google, PwC, Bain & Co., Lord Abbett, PepsiCo, S&P, Daimler, Vodafone, CEMEX, HSBC, P&G, and many others.
Coming full circle in my career
I’ve recently realized how my professional life has come “full circle” in joining LQ. I spent several pivotal years early in my career in senior leadership roles at organizations that drove personal growth through experiential learning.
I was drawn to those roles because my most powerful personal learnings in life have come through real-world experiences – especially travel and outdoor adventure. I believed so much in this style of learning that I even became an Outward Bound instructor in my spare time because I wanted others to have the kind of life-changing wilderness journeys I’d had the privilege of experiencing.
Now and then, I tell my husband that I’ve got “itchy feet,” and he knows he’d better start packing for another crazy boundary-pushing expedition into the unknown. Every odyssey deepens me, changes me in fundamental ways. To realize that I’m once again having the privilege of supporting individuals on similar transformational journeys is almost too good to be true.
Every day I discover more and more powerful ways that this small-but-mighty consultancy is forging leaders who have the courage and perspective to tackle today’s most complex global social and environmental challenges.
Every leader I know deserves an LQ Quest experience.
To learn more about why I believe that every company I know NEEDS this experience for their team to help them meet the challenges of our day, take a look at a more in-depth piece on Medium here.
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