Reflections, 5th December.

On my mind this week.

In the midst of all the fragmentation, blaming, recriminations and other symptoms of the uncertainty we are experiencing, new ideas and opportunities are emerging if we can only see them. Ways of working, collaborating, and changing the way we live, travel and consume, all of which we need to entertain.

Many of them challenge accepted practice and vested interests. That does not mean they can be easily dismissed. Turning people and ideas into enemies is a lazy and counterproductive way of dealing with them. The challenge of leadership today is to find ways of engaging with those people and ideas we do not understand, like or trust. That in turn means we have to try new things, often without the comfort blanket of data, trusting our intuition and senses, and be prepared to learn through serial small failures. All of this, of course, we know – it’s been the stuff of thought leadership for well over a decade, although, of course whilst nice in theory requires courage …