Boden, a small military town in northern Sweden is set to become Europe’s centre for green steel, with a new steel plant, 900 km north of Stockholm.

Steel is usually made in a process that starts with blast furnaces. Fed with coking coal and iron ore, they emit large quantities of carbon dioxide and contribute to global warming.

The production of steel is responsible for around 7% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. But in Boden, the new plant will use hydrogen technology, designed to cut emissions by as much as 95%.

Although the first buildings have yet to go up on the remote site, the company behind the project, H2 Green Steel, believes it’s on course to roll out the first commercial batches of its steel by 2025.

If it succeeds, it will be the first large-scale green steel plant in Europe, with its products used in the same way as traditional steel, to construct everything from cars and cargo ships to buildings and bridges.

Although much of Europe’s steelmaking industry dates back centuries, H2 Green Steel is a start-up that didn’t even exist before the pandemic.

When Northvolt opened Sweden’s first giant electric battery factory two hours south of Boden, it wanted to find a greener way of producing the steel needed to make the batteries, and H2 Green Steel emerged as a spin-off with funding from two of Northvolt’s founders.

The centrepiece of the new steel plant will be a tall structure called a DRI tower (DRI means a direct reduction of iron). Inside this, hydrogen will react with iron ore to create a type of iron that can be used to make steel. Unlike coking coal, which results in carbon emissions, the by-product of the reaction in the DRI tower is water vapour.

All the hydrogen used at the new green steel plant will be made by H2Green Steel.

Water from a nearby river is passed through an electrolyser – a process which splits off the hydrogen from water molecules.

The electricity used to make the hydrogen and power the plant comes from local fossil-free energy sources, including hydropower from the nearby Lule river, as well as wind parks in the region.

“This a unique spot to start with. You have to have the space, and you have to have the green electricity,” says Ida-Linn Näzelius, vice president of environment and society at H2 Green Steel.

H2 Green Steel has already signed a deal with Spanish energy company Iberdrola to build a green steel plant powered by solar energy in the Iberian peninsula, and says it’s exploring other opportunities in Brazil.

On home soil it’s got friendly competition from another Swedish steel company, Hybrit, which is planning to open a similar fossil-free steel plant in northern Sweden by 2026. This firm is a joint venture for Nordic steel company SSAB, mining firm LKAB and energy company Vattenfall, boosted by state funding from the Swedish Energy Agency and the EU’s Innovation fund.

While Sweden is leading the way when it comes to carbon-cutting steel production in Europe, it is important to put its potential impact in context, says Katinka Lund Waagsaether, a senior policy advisor at the Brussels-based climate think tank E3G.

H2 Green Steel hopes to produce five million tonnes of green steel a year by 2030. Global annual production is currently around 2,000 million tonnes, according to figures from the World Steel Association.

“The production capacity in Sweden will be a drop in the sea,” says Ms Lund Waagsaether.

Other ventures should help increase the proportion of green steel available in Europe.

These include, GravitHy, which plans to open a hydrogen-based plant in France, in 2027. German steel giant Thyssenkrupp recently announced it aims to introduce carbon-neutral production at all its plants by 2045. Europe’s largest steelmaker ArcelorMittal and the Spanish government are also investing in green steel projects in northern Spain.

Meanwhile, the EU is in the process of finalising a new strategy called the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, designed to make it more expensive for European companies to import cheaper, non-green steel from other parts of the world.

“I think it is important in that it’ll give industry the confidence to invest, because they can see that, at least in the European context, their steel will be competitive,” says Ms Lund Waagsaether.

She also points to a “a crucial window of action” between now and 2030, with around 70% of steelworks around the world in need of repair and reinvestment during this period.

Blast furnaces could be replaced or relined to extend their lifetimes, but a smarter long-term strategy, argues Ms Lund Waagsaether, would be to invest in switching to carbon-cutting production processes instead.

“The next eight years are crucial for making sure that companies and investors globally make decisions towards green steel production… which is going to ‘lock us in’ for another few decades.”

But whether the majority of big steel producers will follow this path is difficult to predict, says Lundberg. “I would say I’m hopeful, but we need to keep the pressure up.”

In Boden, the arrival of H2 Green Steel is being viewed as a major opportunity for job creation in an area that’s been crying out for new industries for decades.

The small military town shrunk after army budget cuts and closure of a large hospital in the region in the 1990s, resulting in thousands of people moving elsewhere to find work.

“This is our biggest opportunity in more than 100 years,” says the town’s Social Democrat mayor Claes Nordmark. “This will mean jobs, it will mean more restaurants, it will bring more sponsorship to our football and ice hockey and handball team and so on. It means everything for us.”

Neuzeller Klosterbräu, a German brewery, is revolutionising the future of beer.

The Brandenburg company has created a powdered lager that mimics the look and taste of beer on tap, just by adding water. Simply add two spoons of powder into a glass, adding water and giving it a stir, then sit back and enjoy an authentic German beer.

Helmut Fritsche purchased the Neuzeller brewery in 1992, which has been producing beer commercially for over 400 years, and is situated on the grounds of a 12th-century Catholic monastery, Neuzelle Abbey..

His son Stefan Fritsche, the brewery’s general manager, is idriven by the need to reduce the heavy carbon footprint beer exports generate, with one 355ml bottle equivalent to the emissions from driving a car one mile. By removing the extra weight created by glass and water, he believes he can reduce transport weight by 90 per cent.

Fritsche says that the possibilities of creating new beers doesn’t end there, and his team are currently exploring 40 other beverages from powder, adding to its current cherry beer, anti-ageing beer, and ginger beer inventions.

The “Anti-Aging-Bier”, which, in addition to the four cardinal ingredients of beer, adds spirulina and flavonoids in order to, supposedly, increase health and longevity, was launched in 2004, and claims to have double the anti-oxidant effect of other beers.

“We’ve also created bath beer, so you can even take a bath in the beer,” he said.

He says that the inspiration for new ideas come from a simple mantra, which he asks himself every day “How can I destroy my own company?” saying that if he doesn’t think actively about it, somebody else will.

Airbus is today the world’s largest manufacturer of airport – and seeks to shape the future, as a global pioneer in the aerospace – operating in the commercial aircraft, helicopters, defence and space sectors.

The Toulouse-based organisation has always been at the forefront of innovating new technologies, with a pioneering spirit that has redefined the aerospace industry. Airbus has a purpose defined as to “pioneer sustainable aerospace for a safe and united world.”

It’s a great aspiration, not just a responsibility, but inspiring too. It’s about “bringing people closer together, helping them unite and progress”. It’s about striving to “continually push the boundaries on what is possible to safeguard our world for future generations.”

Airbus is a leader in designing, manufacturing and delivering aerospace products, services and solutions to customers on a worldwide scale. With around 130,000 employees and as the largest aeronautics and space company in Europe and a worldwide leader, Airbus is at the forefront of the aviation industry.

It builds the most innovative commercial aircraft and consistently capture about half of all commercial airliner orders. This is built on a deep understanding of changing market needs, customer focus and technological innovation, to offer products that connect people and places via air and space.

Zero emission hydrogen-fuelled aircraft by 2035.

Cut to the chase. Air travel is one of the world’s largest contributors to carbon emissions. Every flight we add to our guilt, but continue to seek to stay physically connected in a changing world. Like driving our cars, not doing it feels unrealistic, let alone commercially disastrous to the leading commercial players. Instead every traveller, every airline company, every government, seeks a rapid reinvention of the industry.

We now see the rapid shift to electric cars, initially incentivised by government incentives, but now by a whole new generation of sexy EVs, plus the improving battery range and charging networks to support them. Similarly we see the shift in fashion, every store now packed with clothing from responsible or recycling materials. Or in food, the shift to organic, plant-based or eco-packaged products.

Not just to reduce our negative impacts, but to find new positive impacts too – to boost our wellbeing, to feel and look good, to be cool. Airbus, and indeed the entire air travel industry has a similar challenge. Yes to decarbonise, to find guilt free ways in which we can travel, but also to live better, to connect, to protect, and commercially to thrive in a world of change.

Creating a roadmap to a better future.

Spending some time with the strategy teams of Airbus in Toulouse this week, I started to appreciate the broad range of investments and initiatives not just to survive as an industry, but to create a better future too. While decarbonisation is essential, exploring and connecting the world is our choice. While purpose articulates a well-meaning intent, a roadmap of practical innovations makes it real, believable, and also exciting.

Wings are a great source of innovation. One recent prototype “bird of prey” design is a hybrid-electric, turbo-propeller aircraft for regional air transportation. It mimics the eagle’s wing and tail structure, and features individually controlled feathers that provide active flight control. In another project vertical wing-tip extensions resemble a shark’s dorsal fin significantly reduce the size of the wingtip vortex, thus reducing induced drag. Today, all members of the A320neo Family are fitted with sharklets as a standard.

Glenn Llewellyn is one of Airbus’ many hidden pioneers, creating the future of air travel. As vice president of the manufacturer’s ZEROe flight project – which Airbus says will get zero-emission hybrid-hydrogen aircraft to the market by 2035 – there’s a lot riding on his success. The aviation industry’s decarbonization roadmap reckons that more efficient, low- and zero-emission planes could account for 37 percent of the sector’s carbon emission reductions by 2050.  He’s an inspiring, laid back guy, but with a passion to create a better future, for Airbus and all of us.

New strategies for new futures

We live in a time of great promise but also great uncertainty.

Markets are more crowded, competition is intense, customer aspirations are constantly fuelled by new innovations and dreams. Technology disrupts every industry, from banking to construction, entertainment to healthcare. It drives new possibilities and solutions, but also speed and complexity, uncertainty and fear.

As digital and physical worlds fuse to augment how we live and work, AI and robotics enhance but also challenge our capabilities, whilst ubiquitous supercomputing, genetic editing and self-driving cars take us further.

Technologies with the power to help us leap forwards in unimaginable ways. To transform business, to solve our big problems, to drive radical innovation, to accelerate growth and achieve progress socially and environmentally too.

We are likely to see more change in the next 10 years than the last 250 years.

  • Markets accelerate, 4 times faster than 20 years ago, based on the accelerating speed of innovation and diminishing lifecycles of products.
  • People are more capable, 825 times more connected than 20 years ago, with access to education, unlimited knowledge, tools to create anything.
  • Consumer attitudes change, 78% of young people choose brands that do good, they reject corporate jobs, and see the world with the lens of gamers.

However, change goes far beyond the technology.

Markets will transform, converge and evolve faster. From old town Ann Arbor to the rejuvenated Bilbao, today’s megacities like Chennai and the future Saudi tech city of Neom, economic power will continue to shift. China has risen to the top of the new global business order, whilst India and eventually Africa will follow.

Industrialisation challenges the natural equilibrium of our planet’s resources. Today’s climate crisis is the result of our progress, and our problem to solve. Globalisation challenges our old notions of nationhood and locality. Migration changes where we call home. Religious values compete with social values, economic priorities conflict with social priorities. Living standards improve but inequality grows.

Our current economic system is stretched to its limit. Global shocks, such as the global pandemic of 2020, exposes its fragility. We open our eyes to realise that we weren’t prepared for different futures, and that our drive for efficiency has left us unable to cope. Such crises will become more frequent, as change and disruption accelerate.

However, these shocks are more likely to accelerate change in business, rather than stifle it, to wake us up to the real impacts of our changing world – to the urgency of action, to the need to think and act more dramatically.

The old codes don’t work

Business is not fit for the future. Most organisations were designed for stable and predictable worlds, where the future evolves as planned, markets are definitive, and choices are clear.

The future isn’t like it used to be.

Dynamic markets are, by definition, turbulent. Whilst economic cycles have typically followed a pattern of peaks and troughs every 10-15 years, these will likely become more frequent.  Change is fast and exponential, uncertain and unpredictable, complex and ambiguous demanding new interpretation and imagination.

Yet too many business leaders hope that the strategies that made them successful in the past will continue to work in the future. They seek to keep stretching the old models in the hope that they will continue to see them through. Old business plans are tweaked each year, infrastructures are tested to breaking point, and people are asked to work harder.

In a way of dramatic, unpredictable change, this is not enough to survive, let alone thrive.

  • Growth is harder. Global GDP growth has declined by more than a third in the past decade. As the west stagnates, Asia grows, albeit more slowly.
  • Companies struggle, their average lifespan falling from 75 years in 1950 to 15 years today, 52% of the Fortune 500 in 2000 no longer exist in 2020.
  • Leaders are under pressure. 44% of today’s business leaders have held their position for at least 5 years, compared to 77% half a century ago.

Profit is no longer enough; people expect business to achieve more. Business cannot exist in isolation from the world around them, pursuing customers without care for the consequence. The old single-minded obsession with profits is too limiting. Business depends more than ever on its resources – people, communities, nature, partners – and will need to find a better way to embrace them.

Technology is no longer enough; innovation needs to be more human. Technology will automate and interpret reality, but it won’t empathise and imagine new futures. Ubiquitous technology-driven innovation quickly becomes commoditised, available from anywhere in the world, so we need to add value in new ways. The future is human, creative, and intuitive. People will matter more to business, not less.

Sustaining the environment is not enough. 200 years of industrialisation has stripped the planet of its ability to renew itself, and ultimately to sustain life. Business therefore needs to give back more than it takes. As inequality and distrust have grown in every society, traditional jobs are threatened by automation and stagnation, meaning that social issues will matter even more, both globally and locally.

The new DNA of business

As business leaders, our opportunity is to create a better business, one that is fit for the future, that can act in more innovative and responsible ways.

How can we harness the potential of this relentless and disruptive change, harness the talents of people and the possibilities of technology? How can business, with all its power and resources, be a platform for change, and a force for good?

We need to find new codes to succeed. We need to find new ways to work, to recognise business as a system that be virtuous, where less can be more, and growth can go beyond the old limits. This demands that we make new connections:

  • Profit + Purpose … to achieve more enlightened progress
  • Technology + Humanity … to achieve more human ingenuity
  • Innovation + Sustainability … to achieve more positive impact

We need to create a new framework for business, a better business – to reimagine why and redesign how we work, as well as reinvent what and refocus where we do business.

Imagine a future business that looks forwards not back, that rises up to shape the future on its own terms, making sense of change to find new possibilities, inspiring people with vision and optimism. Imagine a future that inspires progress, seeks new sources of growth, embraces networks and partners to go further, and enables people to achieve more.

Imagine too, a future business that creates new opportunity spaces, by connecting novel ideas and untapped needs, creatively responding to new customer agendas. Imagine a future business that disrupts the disruptors, where large companies have the vision and courage to reimagine themselves and compete as equals to fast and entrepreneurial start-ups.

Imagine a future business that embraces humanity, searches for better ideas, that fuse technology and people in more enlightened ways, to solve the big problems of society, and improve everyone’s lives. Imagine a future business that works collectively, self-organises to thrive without hierarchy, connects with partners in rich ecosystems, designs jobs around people, to do inspiring work.

Imagine also, a future business which is continually transforming, that thrives by learning better and faster, develops a rich portfolio of business ideas and innovations to sustain growth and progress. Imagine a future business that creates positive impact on the world, benefits all stakeholders with a circular model of value creation, that addresses negatives, and creates a net positive impact for society.

Creating a better business is an opportunity for every person who works inside or alongside it. It is not just a noble calling, to do something better for the world, but also a practical calling, a way to overcome the many limits of today, and attain future success for you and your business.You could call it the dawn of a new capitalism.

More from Peter Fisk

Massive information overload is the defining feature of our age.

The incessant deluge threatens to drown us, yet within its excess lies almost everything of value today. The capacity to thrive on limitless information is now the single most important capability for success, yielding not just powerful insight, world-leading expertise, and better decisions, but also improved wellbeing.

In search of an escape from an everyday overload of messages, news, knowledge – and sometimes even an overload of new ideas – I turned to my good friend Ross Dawson, the Australian future thinker who I have done many events with. In his new book Thriving on Overload he offers a prescription for how to flourish in an accelerating world, showing you how to achieve superior outcomes in your career, ventures, investments, and life.

His thesis is all about choosing to thrive on overload―rather than being overwhelmed by it. He draws on his work as a leading futurist and 25 years of research into the practices that transform a surplus of information into compelling value. Develop the five intertwined powers that, together, enable extraordinary performance:

  • Purpose: understanding why you engage with information enables a healthier relationship that generates success and balance in your life
  • Framing: creating frameworks that connect information into meaningful patterns builds deep knowledge, insight, and world-class expertise
  • Filtering: discerning what information serves us, using an intelligent portfolio of information sources, helps surface valuable signals above the pervasive noise
  • Attention: allocating your awareness with intent, including laser-like focus and serendipitous discovery, maximizes productivity and outcomes
  • Synthesis: expanding our unique capacity to integrate a universe of ideas yields powerful insight, the ability to see opportunities first, and better decisions

Scenario planning for information filtering

Scenario planning is one of the most effective of the arsenal of foresight methodologies, helping open the minds of participants as they discover for themselves alternative possibilities. One of the most useful outcomes is that it sensitises people to far better discern emerging trends, the “weak signals” that point to potential major shifts in the landscape.

The book explores some examples of using scenario planning for information filtering, noting that: A richly developed set of scenarios is far more valuable than a simple prediction. Useful scenarios provide not just an evocative picture of each future, but also a plausible and detailed narrative of the sequence of events that led there. Our minds grasp stories and mental pictures far better than abstract ideas or concepts. Having a small set of future worlds helps interpret almost any new information by seeing where it fits among the scenarios’ narratives. If it doesn’t fit anywhere, then it can be even more useful by prompting revision of the underlying thinking.

Of course scenario planning is most valuable in the practice itself, exploring possibilities and pathways that are relevant to the decisions that you are your organizations must make. Despite the massive strategic value of scenario planning, unfortunately only a minority of companies have the appetite for the in-depth process of exploring the possible futures of their industry.

However in your own information filtering and sense-making of our intensely complex world, you can draw on generic scenarios that are published by a variety of major organizations. Spending time with these can make it far easier to see the implications and import of emerging trends and news.

Here are a few scenarios that you may find useful to digest and apply to your sense-making.

World Economic Forum

World Economic Forum has a long history of deep scenario planning, formerly led by Ged Davis who came from leading Shell’s pioneering scenario planning group.

Their recent Four Futures for Economic Globalization shares perspectives on the global economy later this decade, providing a useful frame for unpicking directions in the macroeconomy and geopolitics.

Source: World Economic Forum – Four Futures for Economic Globalization

U.S. National Intelligence Council

Various U.S. intelligence bodies, notably the CIA, have published global scenarios over the last decades.

While they clearly are U.S.-centric and focused on security issues, they do a good job of delving into underlying structural forces such as demographics, environment, technology, and societal tensions. Their most recent report Global Trends 2040 explores the landscape, dynamics, and provides a set of scenarios 20 years forward.

Source: National Intelligence Council: Global Trends 2040

Shell

Shell originated modern scenario planning in the 1970s and it remains central to their strategic decision-making processes. They continue to share scenarios for energy and the environment. Their most recent report The Energy Transformation Scenarios examines in depth the scenarios and pathways for three different paths to the inevitable massive transition in energy.

Source: Shell: The Global Energy Transformation Scenarios

Other scenarios

This is of course a very small sampling of the public scenarios available that you can use for your own sense-making.

In particular the major consulting firms all publish scenarios for the future of a wide variety of industries, which can be extremely useful for leaders in those sectors.

You will get the most value in identifying the most relevant information by creating your own sets of scenarios, but using publicly available ones can also be very helpful with minimal effort.

Cycling is a sport of connoisseurs. They love their coffee, in France they love their pastis, and they love their bikes and gear.

Riding at the heart of a Sunday morning peloton is as much social as physical, and so Rapha designed to create premium cycling gear, and coffee shops – or Cycle Clubs – where enthusiasts can meet.

Walk into a Rapha Cycle Clubs – in London or New York, Sydney or Osaka – and you can see, smell and touch a love of cycling. Rapha, founded in London’s Covent Garden by Simon Mottram in 2004, has grown rapidly, building a direct relationship with consumers, through events and online community, as well as its coffee-shop stores. There are also line extensions into luggage, skincare, books and travel, plus a co-branded range with designer and cycling enthusiast Paul Smith.

Rapha is a brand that polarises opinion. For some it has created the ultimate in high performance equipment, dedicated to a sport that breeds passion and perspiration. For others, it is over-priced and over-designed vanity wear for middle-aged men who squeeze into their posh lycra for a weekend ride. Whichever your view, it gets talked about. Especially items such as the $450 pair of yak-leather cycling shoes, or the $150 pro-glide coffee tamper, to flatten your coffee like the best baristas after your run.

Enabling more

 Microsoft seeks to “empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more”, or as Satya Nadella says, “to make other people cool, not ourselves”.

I worked with Microsoft to help them achieve this with business customers. Traditionally sales and technology experts had gone out to clients seeking to sell products, or in today’s model, subscriptions. It was largely product push, with diminishing returns. We stepped back and asked how can we help clients to achieve more?

The transformation was to help them do what they want to do – to reach new markets, innovate new solutions, transform their own businesses. Instead of a relationship starting with a list of product options, we started by listening, and then together using the combined expertise and ideas of what is possible, to develop a new plan for growth.

If a brand is about what it enables people to do, rather than what it does, then it follows that a great brand enables people to achieve even more than they could imagine, or to do so in a better way, with greater success.

Enablement has become a key word in branding. Brands do more for their customers in three primary ways

  • Educating people: helping customers to learn how to use and apply their products and services in better ways, to get the best out of them.
  • Enabling people: collaborating with customers to achieve more, using products better, changing how they work, to do more.
  • Enhancing people: adding to the solution of customers, adding new ideas from other places, and transforming their own performance levels.

 Apple stores are busier with education workshops – how to create better sales presentation, build a better website for your business, do your tax return correctly – than people seeking to buy or repair their devices. Lululemon yoga wear stores are transformed into yoga studios at regular intervals during the day, a place to do what you love, not just to prepare for it. M&C Saatchi ad agency has rooms for each of its clients, dedicated to their brands and campaigns, where they can work together as joint teams.

Building a brand community

A brand community is a group of consumers who invest in a brand beyond what is being sold.

Think about some of the great examples of brand communities through which people engage with brands and businesses today, influencing what they buy, who they trust, and how they achieve more. From Lego Ideas to TED Talks, Xbox Ambassadors to Nike’s Run Club, Disney’s D23 Fans to Bayern Munich’s supporter’s club.

Here are some of the most famous:

  • Harley Owners Group: recognised that owners loved much more than the bike, it was the freedom to ride the roads, the thrill to ride together, to hang out at Ace Cafes, to share their passion for life.
  • Glossier: became the world’s fastest growing beauty business, emerging out of a Vogue editor’s blog followers, to become a community where consumers share ideas and advice, but also co-create their products.
  • Lego Ideas: about more than colourful plastic blocks, Lego is derived from the Danish for “creative play”. It is about creative development and expression, which is why its online community is a vibrant space for contests, photos and new ideas.
  • Behance: Adobe’s platform for showcasing and discovering great creative work now has over 10 million participants, both professional designers and amateurs, including exclusive tools and project collaboration spaces.
  • Spotify Rockstars: bringing together people who love music, encouraging discussion and recommendations, rewarding and ranking the most active, and also a platform for discovering new talent.

Communities built on passions

From meaningful consumer retention to new sources of revenue, unfiltered consumer insight and predictable cashflows, branded communities offer many opportunities for a business to drive growth:

  • Enhance consumer experiences – how people achieve more, collaborate and recommend, and create new content together.
  • Ongoing engagement – how people engage with brands continuously, not just at moments of promotion or purchase.
  • Know consumers better – 67% of businesses use communities to gain deeper insights to drive better focus and innovation.
  • Increase brand exposure and credibility, making it easier to sell without selling – typically 35% increase in brand awareness.
  • Reduce consumer support costs – 49% of businesses with online communities report cost savings of around 25% annually.
  • Improve retention and advocacy – improving retention by 42%, tripling cross-selling, and people pay more too.

Building a great brand community has three foundations:

  • Consumer: starting with your target audience, with a captivating reason for members to join the “tribe”, be it a shared cause or interest, from hip-hop music, to a love of science fiction novels, or a desire to get fit.
  • Collaboration: engaging with other people, facilitated by the brand and its community platform, which might take the form of discussions, co-creation and recommendations. 
  • Content: the glue that makes the community work beyond products. These might take the form of newsletters, events, videos, other products, discussion boards, merchandise, exclusive offers, and much more.

Underpinning this is a business model that ensures that the community adds real value to its members, but also commercially works for the organisation. For members, this means it adds value beyond the brand’s conventional products and services, typically enabling them to use them better, and get more from them. For business, this means having a business model that drives incremental revenue growth. This might be in the form of consumer retention, selling more or different products, but also other types of content, and potentially a subscription to belong.

Communities are one of the most powerful ways a brand can grow, often exponentially.

© Peter Fisk 2023.

Excerpt from “Business Recoded” by Peter Fisk

I work with many organisations – typically their boards and executive teams – to help them explore, define and shape their futures.

A typical project might start with “we need a new strategy” but that would quickly become more complex, as we realise that the organisation lacks a fundamental direction – purpose, vision. This gives us context and direction, a framework in which to develop a strategy. A strategic framework with purpose, vision, strategy and goals is a useful start.

Strategy is ultimately about making choices. What we will do and not. This is where is can getter harder, but also clearer. Many organisations lack a framework to make these choices – not just in terms of financial, but the broader value set, and stakeholder engagement, which determines which financials matter most.

However the most interesting discussion often becomes about culture, of the business holistically, and therefore of its leaders too. What’s their distinctive role? How will they behave, add value, and lead? The answers usually link to the strategic choices too.

A number of recent clients said their vision was “To be the pioneer in ….”. If that’s the case, how will the be a “pioneer”?

Airbus, for example, defines its purpose as “pioneering sustainable aerospace for a safe and united world”, or in the Middle East, Al Ghurair, who started out as pearl divers in Dubai Creek, seek once again to be “pioneers, in search of better”.

I’m not sure why pioneer has become such a popular phrase. I get that markets are complex and dynamic, that disruption is everywhere, but itself not the answer. I get  that most organisations need to transform themselves, to be fit for the future. But this word pioneer keeps coming up.

Look to the definition of pioneer, and you will find “a person who is among the first to explore”, or as a verb “to develop or be the first to use or apply (a new method, area of knowledge, or activity).”

Business Chemistry

So what does a pioneer look like in business, and particularly in the C suite of larger, mature companies?

“Business Chemistry” is a framework that describes distinct patterns of behavior that can be harnessed to improve individual interactions and influence strategy. Developed by Deloitte in conjunction with scientists from the fields of neuro-anthropology and genetics, The framework identifies four dominant personality patterns: Drivers, who value challenge and generate momentum; Guardians, who value stability and bring order and rigor; Integrators, who value connection and draw teams together; and Pioneers, who value possibilities and spark creativity.

Each of us is a composite of the four work styles, though most people’s behavior and thinking are closely aligned with one or two. All the styles bring useful perspectives and distinctive approaches to generating ideas, making decisions, and solving problems. Generally speaking:

  • Pioneers value possibilities, and they spark energy and imagination on their teams. They believe risks are worth taking and that it’s fine to go with your gut. Their focus is big-picture. They’re drawn to bold new ideas and creative approaches.
  • Guardians value stability, and they bring order and rigor. They’re pragmatic, and they hesitate to embrace risk. Data and facts are baseline requirements for them, and details matter. Guardians think it makes sense to learn from the past.
  • Drivers value challenge and generate momentum. Getting results and winning count most. Drivers tend to view issues as black-and-white and tackle problems head on, armed with logic and data.
  • Integrators value connection and draw teams together. Relationships and responsibility to the group are paramount. Integrators tend to believe that most things are relative. They’re diplomatic and focused on gaining consensus.

The Deloitte study found that two of the four personality types account for almost two-thirds of the sample: Pioneers (36%) and Drivers (29%), with Guardians (18%) and Integrators (17%) accounting for the rest.

Those results varied, however, across C-suite roles, as well as by company size, industry and gender. While Pioneers were more prevalent in the C-suite overall, for example, CFOs were more likely to be Drivers (37%) and Guardians (26%). In the largest organizations in the sample (those with more than 100,000 employees) the proportion of C-suite executives who were Drivers (38%) outpaced the proportion of Pioneers (29%). In organizations with more than $10 billion in revenues, Drivers and Pioneers each represented 34% of the C-suite.

A commentary in the WSJ suggests that while C-suite executives are similar in many ways to a typical professional in terms of practicality, duty, discipline, imagination, relationship orientation, openness to experimentation and expression, they differ in particular ways related to their perspectives on approaching problems and interacting with others. As compared with the general business population, C-suite executives in this sample are significantly more likely to:

  • Be big picture thinkers who are competitive and willing to tolerate conflict
  • Make decisions more quickly without worrying about the popularity of those decisions
  • Be quantitative and comfortable with ambiguity

When 13,885 professionals in a separate study were asked what they most aspire to be when it comes to their careers, the overwhelming majority of Drivers (68%) and Pioneers (67%) chose “Leader.” Integrators and Guardians were more evenly split across a range of aspirations.

HP is one example of a large corporation seeing to rekindle its pioneering spirit.

They use Bill Hewlett and David Packard’s original garage, where they founded the business, as a symbol of what it takes to be a pioneer. Here with their “Rules of the Garage”:

Pioneering leaders

Pioneering leaders are adventurous — driven to keep seeking bigger and better roles, products, and experiences. They inspire a team to venture into uncharted territory. We get caught up in their passion to grow, expand, and explore.

Be aggressive about exploring opportunities

This is a great dimension to draw upon if you’re an entrepreneur in the first stages of building a business or brand. It’s also good to develop these behaviors during times when things seem to be just coasting along. . The pioneering leader reminds us that innovation doesn’t happen without active exploration. In other words, the next big thing isn’t hiding under your desk.

“Leaders are pioneers—people who are willing to step out into the unknown. They search for opportunities to innovate, grow, and improve.” say James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, The Leadership Challenge

Leaders lead change and stretch the boundaries

Pioneering leaders aren’t afraid to do what’s never been done before. They encourage growth for the organization and for the people around them. They stay current with best practices and opportunities to stretch beyond the status quo. You might be working hard to create a stable environment for your employees, but you need to be sure you aren’t also quashing the creativity of the entrepreneurial spirit around you.

“Let people know that innovative thinking is a part of everyone‘s job, regardless of their function or level of responsibility” says  Susan Gebelein et al, Successful Executive’s Handbook

Learn to take leaps of faith

Careful planning has its place and its rewards, but sometimes bold action is necessary. The first to market often has the advantage. The faith you show in your ideas inspires others. Not taking a chance can present its own dangers. If you’re risk adverse, allow yourself time for a reasonable amount of analysis and then act. Don’t let the research, risk assessments and worry stop you from taking the leap.

“The truth is that challenge is the crucible for greatness. … And the truth is also that you either lead by example or you don’t lead at all. You have to go first as a leaders” say  James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, The Truth About Leadership

 

Thomas Edison said “I have not failed 10,000 times, I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”

In writing my latest book, Business Recoded, I’ve explored many fascinating stories of our changing business world, discovered some incredible organisations, and interviewed some truly inspiring leaders.

I’ve also come across quite a few quirks of the system – effects and paradoxes – which, whether they are true or not, make you think. Here are a few.

Consider these little examples from social behaviour:

  • Abilene Paradox: A group decides to do something that no one in the group wants to do because everyone mistakenly assumes they’re the only ones who object to the idea and they don’t want to rock the boat by speaking up.
  • Luxury Paradox: The more expensive something is the less likely you are to use it, so the relationship between price and utility is an inverted U. Ferraris sit in garages; Toyotas get driven.
  • Friendship Paradox: On average, people have fewer friends than their friends have, because people with an abnormally high number of friends are more likely to be one of your friends.

I love a good paradox.

Particularly for finding new ideas for innovation. I remember former P&G CEO AG Lafley searching for paradoxes in his markets – apparent contradictions in consumer behaviour, two aspirations much seemed impossible together, and then seizing on it as the opportunity to innovate.

But paradoxes equally occur in the process of innovation. However hard you try to design the perfect innovation machine, it will always be the outlier ideas, people or solutions which have the greatest impact. They add abnormality to routine normality. They inject creative divergence. They break the rules.

A recent Forbes article described 12 paradoxes of the innovation process:

1. Innovative organisations have strong innovation machines but recognize that some of the best ideas come from outside the machine … think of 3M’s Post-it Notes that emerged from an insight watching page markers fall out of church hymn books.

2. Big, disruptive ideas are alluring, but small, incremental ideas often pay the bills … think of Apple’s profitable evolution rather than revolution under Tim Cook, after the blockbuster years of Steve Jobs. Air Pods were probably the biggest innovation.

3. Small, incremental ideas often pay the bills, but big, disruptive ideas may be necessary to secure an organisation’s place in the long-term … think of Google’s moonshot program, seeking to find the big ideas to change paradigms and leap forwards.

4. Siloes can be anathema to innovative thinking, but are often necessary for depth and execution … at BDS, the Singapore-based bank, the customer service teams were able to go much deeper in understanding service issues, and innovating new solutions.

5. Process creates discipline, but also can suffocate good ideas … so many good ideas are killed during a process that has checks and metrics designed to deliver convention not innovation, the best ideas rarely survive a core business treatment.

6. Psychological safety breeds better cultivation of ideas, but innovation is measured by results … but which results? If you seek short term sales glory, you are rarely going to have the time to create the future, or engage the outlier audiences.

7. Communication around innovation is key internally, but confidentiality is necessary to keep ideas from external competitors … the secret becomes so secretive that it never spreads, staff are some of your best ambassadors.

8. Failing fast and learning fast reduce wasted time, energy, and money, but artifacts allow for future reconstitution and re-use … every failure is partly a success, a small step forwards even if it doesn’t feel like it.

9. Timing of ideas is essential, but an idea that fails one year can succeed in another under different circumstances or with the right tweaks … hence the importance of having a portfolio of innovations, a cupboard full to unlock at the right time.

10. Cannibalizing existing business represents a threat to orthodoxy, but also prevents competitors from doing so … Coca Cola thought long and hard about entering water and juice categories, but then realised opportunities beats threat.

11. Successful innovation teams include deep content expertise and experience, but also generalists and process experts who look through a different lens and ask new questions.

12. Innovators often feel like imposters, but don’t realise that feeling is part of a growth mindset … look at the way in which Satya Nadella has taken Carol Dweck’s mindset model to reinvent Microsoft … growth mindset is about continues discovery.

 

 

 

The noseride is one of surfing’s peak moments: part fluid dynamics, part magic.

But how does noseriding actually work? What makes this suspension between sea and sky even possible?

Patagonia’s short movie “The Physics of Noseriding” explores the question through the eyes of Namaala, a young surfer whose people were flying on the water before the world even knew what surfing was.

Her curiosity invites us to examine the sensation of levitation that unfolds as wave, surfboard and surfer come together for surfing’s fluid dance.

Noseriding is when the surfboard interacts with the wave.

The most common thing you’ll hear is that water on the tail creates downward pressure which creates lift in the nose allowing it to hold your weight. Essentially your board is acting like a lever and as long as there’s enough pressure on the tail, you’ll be able to stand on the nose. One thing to keep in mind is that this will only work when you’re in the *pocket* of the wave.

I love this. Because it’s all about passion.

The passion of the surfer in search of perfection. And the passion of Patagonia, the brand, for what people seek to do.

We all know Patagonia as the protest brand – fighting against climate change, fighting for social rights. And in particular how founder Yvon Chouinard recently chose to “give away” his multi-billion dollar business to a charitable foundation, which will ensure that every dollar of profit (typically $100 million every year) goes to fighting climate change.

We also know the story of how Patagonia started – about Chouinard, his passion for the outdoors, from climbing to fishing.

So it’s refreshing to see the passion, as well as the protest – seeking to create a better world – so that we can enjoy the beauty of the natural environment, the thrill of outdoor sport, and the obsession for perfection.

ChatGPT has dominated the tech headlines of recent months. The OpenAI interface has become a symbol of progress for the ways in which knowledge is evolving, and challenging human minds.

Of course AI is all around us. Wake up to check your health on your Apple Watch. Click on the weather forecast. Or just ask Siri. Jump in your car, and Google Maps becomes your intelligent navigator, using realtime traffic data to find the best route.

At very least, ChatGPT, which was only ever meant to be a prototype to test human engagement, has alerted to the way in which AI is challenging the human brain. Yes of course, it can source and synthesise huge amounts of information, and quantum computing will accelerate that millions of times faster.

But it still struggles to think, to imagine, to create. That, so far, is still a human quality, isn’t it?

Humans and technology

Digital anthropology focuses on the relationship between humans and today’s broad range of technologies – from computing and robotics, mobile phones and gaming, data and AI, crypto and NFTs.

How do people engage with these technologies? What are the ethics? Who is in control?

One of my expert faculty at IE Business School is Verónica Reyero, a social anthropologist and founder Anthropologia 2.0. She has spent many years exploring the field, and helping business leaders to make sense of this changing world.

In a recent discussion, we started by reflecting on society’s obsession today with social media. “Why do people post?”. What drives people to share every moment of their lives with the world. The millions of photos posted, popularity measured in likes. The influence of people on each other, the shift in trust from institution to community, the rise of tribes across traditional boundaries.

A great insight into this topic comes from UCL Why we post research project

Three factors dominated our discussion

  • Identity – how we build our identity in a digital world – how we present ourselves, and how others perceive us.
  • Relationships – how we connect with each other – our chosen communities, and equally as societies, nations and tribes.
  • Value – how we decide the worth of products and services – of time, of connections, of possessions.

As examples, why pay $6000 for a pair of Nike RTFKT CrytoKick virtual sneakers, to wear on your Fortnite avatar, but which you will never wear in the real world?

Digital anthropologists

Most anthropologists who use the phrase “digital anthropology” are specifically referring to online technology. The study of humans’ relationship to a broader range of technology may fall under other subfields of anthropological study, such as cyborg anthropology.

The Digital Anthropology Group (DANG) is classified as an interest group in the American Anthropological Association. DANG’s mission includes promoting the use of digital technology as a tool of anthropological research, encouraging anthropologists to share research using digital platforms, and outlining ways for anthropologists to study digital communities.

Cyberspace itself can serve as a “field” site for anthropologists, allowing the observation, analysis, and interpretation of the sociocultural phenomena springing up and taking place in any interactive space.

National and transnational communities, enabled by digital technology, establish a set of social norms, practices, traditions, storied history and associated collective memory, migration periods, internal and external conflicts, potentially subconscious language features and memetic dialects comparable to those of traditional, geographically confined communities. This includes the various communities built around free and open-source software, online platforms such as 4chan and Reddit and their respective sub-sites, and politically motivated groups like Anonymous, WikiLeaks, or the Occupy movement.

A number of academic anthropologists have conducted traditional ethnographies of virtual worlds, such as Bonnie Nardi’s study of World of Warcraft or Tom Boellstorff’s study of Second Life.

Anthropological research can help designers adapt and improve technology. Australian anthropologist Genevieve Bell did extensive user experience research at Intel that informed the company’s approach to its technology, users, and market.

Human algorithms

“A Human Algorithm: How Artificial Intelligence Is Redefining Who We Are” is a 2019 non-fiction book by American international human rights attorney Flynn Coleman. It argues that, in order to manage the power shift from humans to increasingly advanced artificial intelligence, it will be necessary to instil human values into AI, and to proactively develop oversight mechanisms.

Coleman argues that the algorithms underlying AI could greatly improve the human condition, if the algorithms are carefully based on ethical human values. An ideal AI would be “not a replicated model of our own brains, but an expansion of our lens and our vantage point as to what intelligence, life, meaning, and humanity are and can be.” Failure in this regard might leave us “a species without a purpose”, lacking “any sense of happiness, meaning, or satisfaction”. She states that despite stirrings of an “algorithmic accountability movement”, humanity is “alarmingly unready” for the arrival of more powerful forms of AI.

To realize AI’s transcendent potential, Coleman advocates for inviting a diverse group of voices to participate in designing our intelligent machines and using our moral imagination to ensure that human rights, empathy, and equity are core principles of emerging technologies.

Accelerating change

One thing is certain. Tech will only increase in its pace of disruption, adoption and impact.

We will see the evolution of space exploration, from NASA’s Artemis mission, humans landing on Mars, and the interplanetary internet system going online. To the launch of the Starshot Alpha Centauri program, and quantum computers designing plants that can survive on Mars. On Earth, tech evolves with quantum computers and Neaulink chips.

People will begin living with bio-printed organs. Humans record every part of lives from birth. And inner speech recording becomes possible. And what about predictions further out into the future, when humans become level 2 and level 3 civilizations.

When NASA’s warp drive goes live, and Mars declares independence from Earth. Will there be Dyson structures built around stars to capture their energy. Will they help power computers that can take human consciousness and download it into a quantum computer core. Allowing humanity to travel further out into space.

Imagine that you are an Olympic athlete in the midst of competition. As you prepare for the greatest race of your life, you imagine the moments ahead, anticipate what might happen, consider alternative strategies. And maybe just dare to dream.

In reality, you need to be ready for anything. It’s no use overthinking. You are in the best condition of your life, and you have run many races before. In reality you are simply consumed by the moment, at one with your body, focused on the race.

When you are at your “peak”, your body and mind flow in unison, you know what to do.

Finding your future flow

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi believes that peak performance comes from inside, and that people have the unique ability to create environments that facilitate the development of a state of mind which he calls “flow”, or what some might call “in the zone”.

Flow is the experience I get when I’m working intensely on a project, the challenge is significant, the team around me are great people, the timeframes are tight, and the ambition is very high. Once I am into the project, I find I can work at great pace, there is a stream of consciousness, ideas emerge rapidly.

Under the stress and stretch of high octane situations, we can often do our best work.  Csikszentmihalyi  says “the best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something we make happen”

It is a feeling of immersion, focus and concentration, removed from the repetition and distractions of everyday, you feel like you have more purpose, with heightened awareness of the situation and possibilities. Complexity seems less intimidating, and uncertainty less daunting. You are energised, you are empowered, you can achieve so much more.

Flow is achieved through an intensity of concentration and effort as you apply yourself to the task. You are energised by possibility, and released from the fear of failure. You rise above yourself, above the distractions of today. The experience of this flow is as good as the outcomes.

5 ways for business leaders to find their “flow” state every day are:

  • Select tasks that are stimulating and engaging, they challenge you to the point of excitement. They are problems you would love to solve.
  • Assemble a great team, people you love and trust, who you know that together you can do great things (or you, on occasions, you can also do this alone).
  • Define audacious goals, that go beyond the accepted norms, 10x not 10% targets, and also a sense of what the rewards could be, personal or organisational.
  • Focus your mind, a stream of consciousness towards the goal, eliminating the daily trivia, the distractions of the normal workspace
  • Immerse yourself in the moment, active not passive, thinking ideas, doing tasks, making progress, building momentum, going for the goal.

The “flow” state of mind becomes the everyday state of business leaders. It becomes normal. Every day, working towards the future, whilst also delivering today. Your mind working overtime, connecting ideas, searching for progress, focused on the actions which will create a better tomorrow. Indeed, you can only ever do things today, even it is focused on a better future.

Playing to your strengths

 We have grown used to exploring the “strengths and weaknesses” of human character, or in this case of leadership behaviour. The problem is that this kind of diagnostic encourages us to focus on our weaknesses, to make them better, to be “good enough” at everything.

An alternative is focus on your strengths and how to make them better.

Yet few business leaders say they get to use their strengths in most of their work. The challenge in any team is to bring a diverse group of people together, where their combined strengths are irresistible. This means that as long as all the important attributes are covered, then the team will be strong in all areas, and amplify its impact far beyond that of  any individual.

Psychologist Martin Seligman studied cultures around the world to understand what they regarded as “strengths” in leaders. The research explored major religions and philosophical traditions and found that the same six virtues were shared in almost all cultures. Gallup’s StrengthFinder assessment model is one of the most useful tool for exploring the practical component of these virtues as 24 character strengths:

  • Virtue of Wisdom: the more curious and creative we become, the more we gain perspective, knowledge and wisdom. Component strengths are creativity, curiosity, open-mindedness, love of learning, and perspective.
  • Virtue of Courage: the braver and more persistent we become, the more confident we feel, and more courageous we act. Component strengths are bravery, perseverance, honesty and vitality.
  • Virtue of Humanity: the more we approach people with respect, appreciation, and interest, the more engaged they become. Component strengths are love, kindness and social intelligence.
  • Virtue of Justice: the more responsible we are, embracing fairness and justice, the more stable community we can build for mutual benefit. Component strengths are teamwork, fairness and leadership.
  • Virtue of Temperance: being forgiving, humble, prudent, and in control of our behaviours, helps us to avoid being arrogant, selfish, and unbalanced. Component strengths are forgiveness, humility, prudence and self-control.
  • Virtue of Transcendence: never losing hope in humanity’s potential, appreciating nature and people, enables us to connect with a higher purpose. Component strengths are appreciation of beauty, gratitude, hope, humour and spirituality.

Additional studies have shown that women typically score higher in interpersonal strengths, such as love and kindness, honesty and gratitude. Men tend to score higher on cognitive strengths, creativity and curiosity, hope and humour, but also highly on honesty. Whilst these differences are interesting, and largely conform to stereotypes suggesting that they might be shaped by culture, there are also many shared strengths.

Playing to your strengths not only enables you to perform better, and contribute more to a team, it can also result in feeling more engaged and confident, and enable you to progress faster.

The leader’s plastic brain

We used to assume that we each have our established ways of thinking and behaving, and as we get older the capability of our brain to learn and adapt declines.  Yet our brain can grow new neurons at any age. Each neuron can transmit up to 1,000 nerve signals a second and make as many as 10,000 connections with other neurons. Our thoughts come from the chemical signals that pass across the synaptic gaps between neurons: the more connections we make, the more powerful and adaptive our brain can be.

Tara Swart is a neuroscientist, practising medical doctor, and executive coach, with a background in psychiatry. I first met her on stage in Bratislava, where we both were delivering our “Big Idea” for Europe. Her first book, “Neuroscience for Leadership” was more of an academic text, while her new book is “The Source” is more populist, and claims most of the things we want from life – health, happiness, wealth, love – are governed by our ability to think, feel and act. In other words, by our brain.

Keeping the brain fit through exercise, continual learning and rich experiences, enhances your mental agility. In the past leaders relied more upon experience and procedure, in today’s world we need leaders who can make sense of new patterns, imagine new possibilities, thrive on diversity of thought and complexity of action. Leaders need to have a mind that is always ahead, seeing and anticipating what next.

“Think of the brain as the hardware of a computer” says Swart. “Your mind is the software. You’re the coder who upgrades the software to transform the data (your thoughts). You also control the power supply that fuels the computer — the food and drink you consume, when and how to exercise and meditate, who to interact with… You have the power to maintain or destroy your neural connections.”

Mindful activities such as yoga or meditation reduce levels of cortisol and increase the fold of the outer cortex of the brain, allowing the pre-frontal cortex to better regulate our emotional responses. Swart says just 12 minutes a day, most days of the week, will make a noticeable difference. New experiences such as travel, learning a skill, such as a foreign language, and meeting new people can stimulate the growth of new neurons.

There are some obvious ways to improve your brain function, such as drink more water, get more exercise, and don’t read from electronic screens in the last hour before bed. Sleeping less than seven to eight hours a night isn’t sustainable for most people, because that’s how long it takes to clear out toxins. Sleeping on your left side helps the brain to flush out toxins more efficiently, and downing a spoonful of coconut oil before a big meeting boosts brain power for about 20 minutes.

The journey ahead will have high and lows. Endurance demands physical fitness and emotional agility, but also taking moments to pause, and celebrate progress.

James Dyson took 15 years and 5127 attempts to perfect his bagless vacuum. When he succeeded, he created a revolution, but it required incredible persistence to get there. Not only is the future difficult to create, but everything keeps changing on the journey towards it.

The mental toughness, the grit to persist, is not just about keeping going, but the resilience to overcome challenges and obstacles. Sometimes, just the sheer volume of information – emails, analysis, reports, ideas, articles, books, meetings – will become overbearing. As a leader it’s easy to feel overloaded.

It’s also easy to feel you need to know everything, which you don’t, although you do need to prioritise what matters most. The biggest challenge for any visionary leader is not how to make ideas happen, but how to overcome all the people who say that they won’t. Critics and pessimists can be frustrating, and a motivational drain.

There will also be moments of great success, people might even call you a hero. It will feel good, even to the humblest, and you will inevitably remind everyone that it was a team effort. Yet the euphoria can quickly disappear, with the next challenge.

Leaders need endurance, resilience, and gratitude, to cope with relentless change; to be able to change your own mind, to stay on the rollercoaster of progress, to keep teams engaged, and to thrive at both work and in your life.

The endurance of leaders

Endurance is as much about mind as muscle power.

Like an athlete – runner, cyclist, rower – there are many physiological elements at play, from core body temperature to oxygen intake, plus psychological factors, such as perceived effort and pain tolerance. Each of these factors is significant in the level of athletic performance humans which any person is capable of, especially when testing the perceived limits of performance, such as setting new world records.

Almost every athlete will attest to faster recovery if they jump into an ice bath after a competition. Yet studies show that this practice doesn’t actually decrease inflammation levels, the thing the baths are intended to reduce. However most physiologists will still say that if there’s a method that helps you recover, even if it’s purely psychological, then it is useful because sometimes belief is just as influential as science.

In “Endure” Alex Hutchinson starts by retelling the race to break 4 minutes for one mile. For years, men across the globe had raced to within a second or two of the barrier, but never quite breaking the iconic time. When Britain’s Roger Bannister finally ran 3.59.4 in 1954, Australian John Landy who had been trying to run the time for years, went on to improve  Banister’s time by another second, only weeks later.

A number of important factors can help people, including business leaders, to endure more:

  • We always have a little more to give. Watch how athletes pace themselves so that they always have one final effort at the end of a long distance event. And somehow an Olympic champion, despite a punishing race, can always rise to celebrate victory
  • We can endure more than we think. Athletes have a higher than normal pain tolerance enabling them to push harder. They learn to cope with this by training at a “threshold” pace, learning to sustain oxygen debt, despite its searing pain.
  • Fitness enables us to perform better. Athletic performance greatly relies on oxygen intake, which is enhanced through heightened fitness. Business leaders also need oxygen, and the physical fitness to sustain leadership performance.
  • Fatigue reduces our performance.Having a tired brain can affect how much we can endure physically. A tired brain is one that doesn’t have a break, isn’t refuelled, doesn’t have variety, doesn’t keep learning, doesn’t get enough sleep.
  • Stress stops us performing. Of the many factors, stress can be the killer. However stress comes in two forms – stress from outside, eg timescales, and stress we put on ourselves. External stress can stimulate us, internal stress we can control.

Hutchinson’s research led him to South Africa to work with Tim Noakes, the controversial sports scientist who first proposed the “central governor theory,” which argues that the brain limits performance well before the body has reached its maximum output. He also explores the research of another pioneering scientist, Samuele Marcora, who has developed a series of brain-training exercises to push that governor.

He also recalls talking to Eliud Kipchoge just before he ran the world’s first sub-2 hour marathon, when the Kenyan said he hadn’t really changed anything in his training. What then, he asked, would make the difference? “My mind will be different” replied the runner.  People he says, have a curiously elastic limit to what they can achieve, driven mainly be their mental toughness.

The resilience of leaders

Resilience is our ability to bounce back from adversity. It’s what allows us to recover quickly from change or setbacks, trauma or failure, whether at work or in life. It is the ability to maintain a sense if purpose, a positive attitude,  a belief in better, throughout times of challenge. Resilience sustains progress, whilst others might give up.

Angela Duckworth calls it grit. “Grit is passion and perseverance for long-term goals” she says. She compares it not to a marathon, but to a series of sprints combined with a boxing match. In business you are not just running but also getting hit along the way. As you seek to deliver on your strategy, to make new ideas happen, to transform the business, it’s not just about coping with the time and effort. It’s also about overcoming many challenges.

Grit keeps you moving forward through the sting of rejection, pain of failure, and struggle with adversity. “When things knock you down, you may want to stay down and give up, but grit won’t let you quit” says Duckworth.

Most entrepreneurs have tremendous resilience, because they’ve had to fight for the business through some of the most difficult times. The search for seed funding when every VC dismissed them with a laugh or smile, the long days in a bedroom or garage trying to make the first prototype or win the first contract, the growing pains of scale-up as they have to adapt to survive and thrive. Letting go of control as investors take over, making you wealthy but taking away your baby. Most entrepreneurs know about grit.

But then so do corporate leaders. If not from starting up, then from surviving the challenges of internal politics, of learning how to engage and influence people in a positive way, of progressing as a star individual whilst keeping colleagues and teams on side. Of balancing personal ambition with collective progress. Resilience demands that we:

  • Have ambition:Knowing what you truly want, and are prepared to work hard and persevere in order to achieve it. Vision isn’t just a milestone, it becomes a pursuit. Whilst not everybody will know  your ambition, you will, and it will keep you striving.
  • Have purpose: This is why you want to achieve more, it’s about what will be better when you achieve your ambition, not just for you, but your business, your family, your world. Purpose is how you contribute, what you fight for, why you get up in the morning.
  • Have passion: You need to love it, to be great at it. Otherwise it’s not worth the sacrifices, the long hours, and the pain. Aligning your purpose and ambition allows you to find love, for your work, your team, your business, and the world you seek to impact.
  • Have persistence: You will sometimes fail. Few things change without challenges. Failure doesn’t define you, it refines you. If you didn’t fail, you wouldn’t learn. There is always another way. Stay confident and stay strong.

Nelson Mandela was a great example of resilience. He was sent to prison as a young firebrand who believed in taking up violent resistance when the justice system failed him in apartheid South Africa. 27 years later, he walked out of Robben Island prison advocating peace and reconciliation. During his long confinement, Mandela mastered what he later called self-leadership. He took great inspiration in the poem “Invictus,” written by William Ernest Henley, which ends with the lines “I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.”