Peter Fisk

Helsinki in October is not the time for ideas. It’s getting cold, dark and wet. Summer is long forgotten and time for hibernation is nigh. It seems only a few days since I was here, working with the fantastic Valio food business on their strategy, when the sun still had some warmth.

However October is also the month of great ideas each year at the Nordic Business Forum. 7500 participants flock to meet the inevitable rockstar line-up of speakers. Will Smith, Barack Obama and this year, George Clooney, are not your average business gurus. But they certainly sell the tickets.

Founded in 2008 by two young entrepreneurial Finns, Hans-Peter Siefen and Jyri Lindén,  they told me that most of their audience are young and more interested in the rockstars than the real gurus. The 17% of CEOs in the huge audience take off their ties and hope to catch some words of wisdom in between the pop acts.

This year’s NBF event followed close on the heels of the Thinkers50 European Business Forum – held each year in Odense, Denmark’s city of storytelling – which is much more of a thought-provoking, leadership-focused event for Europe’s top business people and the world’s top business thinkers.

This year in Odense we focused on growth with inspiration from Asia, and surprisingly so did our Helsinki friends. But just so you don’t feel you missed anything, here are some of the most useful messages from NBF19:

 

Parag Khanna explored the rise the Asian economy …

He analysed why the growth of the Asian market is significant for businesses in Europe and the U.S, arguing that if “you want to do business in the twenty-first century you have to go there, they’re not coming here.”

Dan Pink talked about the scientific secret of perfect timing …

Brené Brown got passionate about courageous leaders …

“We are in desperate need of braver leaders and more courageous cultures. We cannot address the problems we are facing today without more courage.”

If you have a shame based culture in your company, innovation and creativity die right away, she said.

When interviewing creative leaders from all over the world Brown was asking what is the future of leadership. The striking result was that every single leader gave the same answer regardless of business or country: the future of leadership is courage. – We are in desperate need of braver leaders and more courageous cultures since we simply cannot address the problems we´re facing today without more courage.

When getting into the subject Brown asked what are the skills that overpin the courage. Most of the leaders were of the opinion that it doesn´t require any specific skills, you either have it or you don´t. For Brown it meant they couldn´t identify what courage looks like.

So, she turned the question upside down and asked what does the absence of courage look like and what are the leaders facing every day when there is not enough bravery? This is what came out from the responses:

1. The lack of ability to have honest tough conversations
2. The lack of attending to the feelings and fears that are driving bad behaviour in the organisation
3. Being stuck in setbacks
4. No courage to stay in the problem (to learn) since we are so eager to solve the problems quickly
5. Organisations that are not built on inclusivity, diversity and equity
6. Shame and blame

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frcL1bhF4qg

Do you armour up when in fear?

Brown then asked the audience what is the biggest barrier from being courageous leader at work? – The answer is armour, she said. – It´s not that we´re afraid but how we respond to fear. We´re all afraid. The question is when you´re in fear do you armour up? The armour is getting in the way of courage, not our fear. We put our armour up because we don´t want to get our heart hurt.

According to Brown armour has a lot of different forms: perfectionism, scarcity, cynicism, hustling for our worth. Armoured leaders put more importance of being right, courageous leaders put more importance on getting it right. – There´s a big difference in need to be right compared to the need of getting it right, she reminded.

Brown said she came to the conclusion that courage is not inherent but teachable and introduced four skill sets you need to build in order to grow your courage:

1. Rumbling with vulnerability
2. Living into our values
3. Trust
4. Learning to rise

What do these skill sets mean? Here are a couple of examples:

Rumbling with vulnerability. There is no courage without vulnerability but the most vulnerably feeling is joy. We tend to be so afraid of joy that we rather choose disappointment. Replace the armour with grounded confidence and curiosity. The best transformational leaders don´t have the best answers but instead the best questions.

Live into your values. It is better not to have values if they are not translated into real behaviours. Otherwise they mean nothing.

Vulnerability is the new normal. We cannot get where we want without being brave and we cannot be brave without being vulnerable. Vulnerability is the ability to show up and to be seen and stay engaged when you´re in fear and uncertainty. The number one reason we feel ashamed at work is the fear of being irrelevant. When we are afraid of being irrelevant we armour up. But remember that the armour you wear during change will guarantee your irrelevance. Vulnerability is scary but not as scary as having to ask yourself what if I hadn´t taken the chance or haven´t started the business. Change is the time to take the armour off, get curious and grow!

 

Next year, NBF20, it’s that ultimate business guru, yes Arnold Schwarzenegger.

• The Soft Power 30 2019 Report
• Monocle IFG Soft Power 2019
• Global Trends in Soft Power
• China v USA on Soft Power
• Singapore strengths and weakness
• Soft Power: The Art of Attraction
• Soft Power Origins and Progress

I recently worked with Irene Sun, a young Chinese author who studied in America and then went to work in Africa. She wrote a book called The Next Factory of the World which focused on the future rise of Africa as a global manufacturing power, largely enabled by Chinese investment. In Kenya, China is everywhere. And with Mandarin schools and massive infrastructure projects, China is trying to grow its “soft power” throughout Africa. But can China convince Africans to love it

Erin Meyer, INSEAD professor and author of The Culture Map, has a fabulous approach to understanding how different cultures work with each other – How American’s get on with Chinese, Russians with Germans, Canadians with Australians. Whilst we are all different, there are some defining characteristics of our different cultures which create a platform for how we engage with each other around the world, or not. Erin joined me recently at the Thinkers50 European Business Forum to explain more:

Another leading mind on soft power, which we at Thinkers50 ranked as a thought leader, is Richard Florida. He is one of the world’s leading experts on economic competitiveness, demographic trends and cultural and technological innovation shows how developing the full human and creative capabilities of each individual, combined with institutional supports such as commercial innovation and new industry, will put us back on the path to economic and social prosperity.

And a few more interesting perspectives:

“I don’t know where the limits are, but I would like to go there” said Eliud Kipchoge as dawn broke over the Danube river in Vienna early this morning.

Two hours later he stood in the middle of  the tree-lined Hauptallee, having just sprinted to the finish of the Ineos 1:59 Challenge, the first human to break 2 hours for the marathon.

“That was the best moment of my life” said Eliud Kipchoge as he stood exhausted but still smiling at the finish line. The clock above him was stopped at 1:59.40.

Around him, some of the world’s greatest athletes, from Olympic 1500m Champion Matt Centrowitz to rising star Jacob Ingebrigtsen and veteran Bernard Lagat, cheered and took selfies with the record breaker, pacemakers to the great man, happy to be part of history.

“Today we went to the Moon and came back to Earth” said Kipchoge.

Having followed the Kenyan runner for the last 15 years, I watched every second of his record attempt in awe. The philosopher marathon king, who lives a humble life, but with the greatest confidence and clarity of purpose.

He talked selflessly about how he hoped his moment would inspire others, not just to also beat the 2 hour barrier, but also for people to believe in the spirit of humanity, to rise above conflict and doubt. “We can make this world a beautiful world … a peaceful world … a running world”.

Currently writing my new book, I had already chosen to start the first chapter with Eliud’s story, describing what it takes to be “extra ordinary”.  Coincidentally my final chapter is about that Viking word “awe”, a combination of great fear and great courage.

Around his wrist, Kipchoge wears a band saying “no human is limited”.  Today he showed the world, that he and they have no limits.

 

Starting above the Danube on the Reichsbrücke before passing through the Hauptallee that runs through the Prater park in the centre of the Austrian capital, the organisers spent close to $20 million on the infrastructure and road improvements. Jim Radcliffe, the British billionaire owner of Ineos, funded the whole event.

Not only did it result in a stunning time of 1:59:40, but it looked beautiful with the lead car shining a green laser on the ground in front of a group who were working in synchrony to form an aerodynamically efficient V-shape ahead of the zen-like Kipchoge. Forget the controversies of drugs and Doha, this was athletics at its aesthetic best as they glided at metronomic pace through an avenue of trees glistening with autumn leaves.

Even the weather was good, with temperatures of 9 Celsius at the start rising to 11C mid-race and barely any wind. Indeed, as Kipchoge rose at just before 5am to tuck into his oatmeal breakfast, the park was covered in mist with a crisp chill in the air, although by the time the race started at 8.15am this cleared to reveal grey leaden skies.

The first kilometre was slightly inside the necessary 2:50 pace needed for a sub-two-hour marathon. But this was due to the slightly downhill section of the bridge before the runners approached the large roundabout by the Praterstern railway station and the entrance to the park itself.

Kipchoge did not look troubled either during his run and post-event speculation has included the question of just how much faster can he go? About one hour after Kipchoge finished Jos Hermens, the Kenyan’s manager, said that the target was to break two hours, though. Attempting to run any quicker, he explained, would have been risky.

A former world record-holder himself in the 1970s, Hermens says a sub-two-hour marathon would have been considered impossible when he was an athlete. “No, not ever, not at all. It would have even been unimaginable 20 years ago,” he added.

Hermens says the impossible dream began to become a reality in 2008, however, when Haile Gebrselassie took the official record down to 2:03:59 in Berlin. “Then in 2014 we launched the Sub-2hr Project with Yannis Pitsiladis in Newcastle,” Hermens remembers.

With bigger funds, Nike took over the race for the sub-two-hour marathon and staged the Breaking2 attempt in Monza in 2017. There, Kipchoge ran 2:00:25 – a performance that gave him the belief he could break the barrier at a future date. Naturally, improving the official world record to 2:01:39 in Berlin last year did not hurt his confidence either.

In April this year Sir Dave Brailsford was taken on board to help coordinate the sports science and environmental factors surrounding Kipchoge’s run in Vienna. The man who has made a name for himself by creating world-beating cyclists by using a ‘marginal gains’ theory, has been employed by Ineos to help bring Kipchoge’s sub-two bid over the line.

Much has been said about Kipchoge’s shoes. The Nike Vaporfly models appear to have revolutionised marathon running performances and the Kenyan was wearing a new version in Vienna which does not go on sale until next year. Not much is yet known about them but they are believed to contain several carbon plates which help propel a runner down the road and aid their efficiency.

The the main reason Kipchoge’s run will not count as an official record, however, is due to the phalanx of pacemakers who dropped in and out of the action to help him reach his goal. From the police cars that sped through to make sure the road was clear seconds before Kipchoge and his pacers appeared, right through to the rotating pacemakers, this marathon at times resembled the Tour de France in its style and execution.

One of the best-known pacemakers, Bernard Lagat, said that “it could not have happened to a nicer and more hard working guy”. The former world 1500m and 5000m champion added that he grew up in a nearby village to Kipchoge in Kenya, attended the same church and was taught by the marathoner’s mother at school before he moved to study in the United States. “We were not so much his pacemakers today as his friends,” he explained. “So this is an extra special moment for us.”

Patrick Sang, Kipchoge’s long-time coach, added: “He has inspired all of us to stretch out limits and to do more than we think we can do. I said to him, ‘Congrats, you have done it, you have made history’.”

Just as proud was Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the Ineos founder, who must have had sleepless nights given all the expense and preparation with worries over whether Kipchoge would succumb to illness or injury close to the event. Yet not only did he turn up healthy, but in what Ratcliffe called “superhuman” form.

“Yes I’m quite happy,” Ratcliffe smiled with deliberate understatement. “I could see that Eliud believed that he could do it. I’m an amateur runner and sometimes I have a good run and sometimes I have a bad one and you don’t really know why it is. There are no guarantees in sport. He could have had a bad day but he just happened to have a good day!”

Ratcliffe added: “I will never forget that last 30 seconds. He broke free from the group and the car and then accelerated and didn’t look like his feet were touching the ground and his face was so calm and tranquil but my face would have been tortured.”

Not everyone was enamoured by Kipchoge’s exploits. Critics have described it as a ‘pantomime’ and ‘not real athletics’. They have poured scorn on the use of rotating pacemakers, the solo time trial element and shoes that offer a distinct advantage. Some have suggested they would rather have seen him slugging it out in the heat of Doha for a world title this month instead, or racing in a big city marathon in Berlin, Chicago or New York City.

It is a contentious issue and boils down to personal taste and matters of opinion. One thing that should be remembered, though, is that the use of pacemakers was equally controversial when Sir Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile 65 years ago. He was famously helped by Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher at Oxford’s Iffley Road on May 6 in 1954 – a strategy that was very much frowned upon at the time.

Shoes and pacers aside, Kipchoge still had to run 26.2 miles considerably faster than any man who has ever lived. Just as Bannister still had to clock inside 4:00 for the mile – a feat that was considered ‘impossible’ at the time.

A remarkable athlete, Kipchoge has only lost one of his 12 marathons – in Berlin in 2013 when he was beaten by Wilson Kipsang in a world record time – and his victories include the Olympic marathon title in 2016 and the Virgin Money London Marathon four times in the last five years. A rare talent, in 2003 he won the world cross-country junior men’s race before out-sprinting world mile record-holder Hicham El Guerrouj and world 5000m and 10,000m record-holder Kenenisa Bekele to the world 5000m gold in Paris in the same year while still aged only 19.

As he reaches the twilight of his brilliant career, Kipchoge says nothing tops breaking two hours, though. “It was the best moment in my life with 500m to go and it was the time to break history,” he said after his Viennese whirl through the city on Saturday morning. “I had a lot of pressure before the event. I had calls from people like the president of Kenya. When you get a lot of calls from high-profile people like that, it’s a lot of pressure!”

Kipchoge added: “I was really calm and followed the instructions and what the pacemakers were doing. All throughout my mind I was thinking of running under two hours. It was not 50/50. It was 90%.

“Everyone was glued to the TV today, to YouTube, Facebook pages and Twitter. Sport is the way we can unify people and sell a positive message to the world.”

Now the two-hour barrier has been breached, will others follow? “For sure, I believe so,” Kipchoge smiled.

 

Target, one of the US’s largest retailers has bucked the downwards sales trend afflicting almost every other physical retailer across the planet by focusing on high quality, great value private labels.

The retailer currently has over 40 private labels — in its parlance “owned brands” — and has been leveraging them in a unique way compared to competitors. The retailer’s in-house brands carry more attractive margins than those it retails from third-parties, but Target has not used them as a a bargain range like many other retailers, instead positioning them as much more desirable alternatives.

Over recent years, Target has focused on building new and distinct brands that gain recognition with consumers. That, coupled with the fact that private labels are cheaper than third-party products, have helped the company grow profits while trying to differentiate itself from other players like Amazon and Walmart.

 

Clothing sales, for example, increased by over 10%, the company said. Much of the retailer’s offerings are its own brands — with lines like A New Day and Goodfellow & Co. With these, Target tried to offer affordable clothing lines. “Our teams have done a fabulous job of curating our own brand assortment, really having the right assortment in front of the guests,” said CEO Brian Cornell during the earnings call when asked about the apparel boost. “We’ve delivered exceptional quality and value in those categories.” These sales represent both Target’s brands and others — Cornell pointed out that the company added Levi’s to its roster recently. But the higher margins of in-house lines certainly padded its earnings.

Analysts agree. “The one thing that really stood out on the call was the sheer apparel growth,” said Edward Jones analyst Brian Yarbrough. Acceleration north of 10%, he said, is “a huge number.” What’s clear is that its apparel strategy is paying off. “They are obviously taking a lot of market share,” Yarbrough said. “We believe a combination of improved value and messaging and compelling private brand innovation are resonating with shoppers and driving physical store traffic,” wrote Cowen analyst Oliver Chen in his most recent research report.

Clothing isn’t the only private label strategy Target is promoting. Earlier this year, the retailer launched its new grocery line Good & Gather, which aimed to offer more affordable healthy food. The company said that, so far, this launch has been successful. Currently, there are 650 items available under this private brand, but Target plans to launch a total of 2,000 by the end of next year. “We expect Good & Gather will become our largest owned brand,” said Cornell.

This is clearly the next battleground Target wants to tackle. “Despite our strength in owned brands overall, we’re under-penetrated from a food and beverage standpoint,” said Cornell.

This week I’m in Kuwait.

First stop is my favourite coffee shop, % Arabica. A minimalist temple of glass shimmers between the towering blocks of dust and construction. Inside the cool vibe is an antidote to the 38 degrees bustle outside. The coffee is amazing too.

“% Arabica is about my love for coffee, design, and seeing the world” says Ken Shoji, founder and CEO of % Arabica.

Ken’s story began in Tokyo, although I found him in Kuwait on my last visit. He told me “My father was the owner of a manufacturing and trading company, and together with his frequent business trips, they would take me overseas whenever possible – ultimately helping to inspire my love of multiculturalism, design, and architecture.”

Since my last visit, working with government-funded KFAS to deliver my “Fast Track Growth” program, I have travelled around the world using Ken’s story as a great example of how the smallest companies can rapidly grow by sharing their distinctive passions using experiential brand design concepts and partnership-based business models.

Design Thinking

This week I’m here primarily to lead a two day program of “Design Thinking” for the management high-fliers of NBK, the National Bank of Kuwait. I have a love/hate relationship with the subject.

I love how it has evolved over time from the “design science” principles of Buckminster Fuller in the 1960s to a process for smarter problem-solving, and particularly the “wicked ideas” described by Horst Rittel in the 1970s.  It wasn’t until the early 1990s that IDEO co-founders Bill Moggridge and David Kelley packaged it all together as a business process, initially called “human-centred design” and then design thinking.

IDEO embraced the process in all their work, which was memorably captured in a ABC Nightline documentary when seeking to create a better shopping experience for Whole Food Stores. Today the phrase is massively overused, which is what I hate, particularly by the many teachers and users who miss the real point, and just see it as a fast way to create a few ideas.

• Design thinking is obvious isn’t it?
• Design a better business
• Business Innovation: Design thinking to new business models
• 35 examples of design thinking in action

At its heart it has to be about people, and really understanding their problems, and how to solve them in a better way. It creates a bigger, richer and more human context in which to innovate. Like any design it’s about function and form, and therefore it’s about creating things that work, but also things that people love.

It’s too easy to jump to a solution, to forget about what the real problem is. It’s also easy to jump to the function, without thinking about the emotion too.  And it’s then too easy to wallow in the great ideas, without seeing whether it actually works. Together design thinking has the ability to do all of this way. Turning deeper insight into smarter action.

Leading the Future

Later I headed to NBK’s head office, to their brand new Digital Factory. This turns out to be a fabulous creative space for project teams to work together, and also be inspired by the fabulous interiors, and the fantastic views of the fast-changing city outside.

I had two hours with the bank’s top 100 managers on “Leading the Future“, exploring what it means to lead the future of their bank.

Leadership is of course a term which can mean everything and nothing. To me its about a role – bringing people together (often, surrounding yourself with people better than you), energising and inspiring them, amplifying their potential – but also a responsibility – to make sense of a changing world, to shape the future in your own vision, and to make it happen faster.

Sensemaking has become a real leadership skill in today’s complex and crazy world. What matters most in a world of so many changes and disruptions? Where are the best opportunities for growth?  That then leads to choices. The need to make better choices. What to do, and more importantly what not? Where and what, but more significantly, why and how?

Kuwait sits at the heart of a changing world. Look at the map of China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”. Kuwait is a strategic nexus in that global trade route, in both directions. And whilst it has a heritage in oil, its future could be as a smart intersection of trade. Add the rapid growth of Africa which we will see in coming years, and the geopolitical positioning becomes even more profound.

Banking then becomes so much more. Like utilities and telecoms, I am often scathing of the low-value added role of banks. They have thrived by exploiting the frictions of imperfect processes. In today’s hyper connected world, they need to find ways to add more positive value to consumers and society. To be creators and enablers, rather than just charging tolls.

We look across the world at today’s incredible disruptive innovators – or “Gamechangers“ as I call them – and we see new ideas, new propositions, new business models, new ecosystems, in every sector. Each one of them inspirations to rethink your industry, to do better.

Companies, particular those who have dominated markets, have become incredibly lazy at just stretching their old models of success, seeking to keep doing the same thing slightly better, cheaper or faster. Time to think different.

In the world of banking, we particularly looked at DBS in Singapore who have profoundly transformed their bank with the mantra “bank less, live more” to create an “invisible” bank embedded in the everyday lives of people. Rather than a separate entity to manage your money, DBS is there to help shop easier, travel faster, work smarter, and live better.

Entrepreneurs everywhere

Kuwait is a relatively young country. After the Gulf wars it has to rebuild from scratch, and with a modern minded government it has been creating a city, an infrastructure, and a culture for the modern Arab world. It attracts many of the smartest minds from across the region seeking a fresh start. Indeed migrants outnumber natives by around 5 to 1.

After a rather surreal early morning event at the Kuwait National Petroleum Company, I arrive at Zain’s Innovation Center.

Zain is one of the region’s leading telecoms businesses, and have realised that success is not about what they do, but how they enable others to thrive. Zain is all about “Great Ideas”, helping individuals and businesses to do more. It’s innovation space is full of start-ups, seeing to disrupt the traditional businesses of the region and beyond.

Which is why my early morning KNPC visit was so surreal. Driving south 45 minutes from the city to their largest oil refinery near the Saudi border, I was struck by the triple barbed wire fortifications. Tensions are not far away in the Middle East of course. Inside the complex, the labyrinth of pipes and towers was replaced by an auditorium full of golden furnishings and high tech. In worked the business leaders for our session, all decked in the uniform-styled uniforms.

We talked about the changing world. We talked about the shifting nature of business, the increasing scarcity of natural resources, the impact of carbon fuels on our fragile planet, and how oil producers need to part of finding a better way. Many of their peers already have, like Shell’s official shift to become an “energy” business with a majority of their revenues from sustainable sources within a decade. “But how can we convince our leaders to change” was the most common question at the end.

Back at Zain, change is the mantra for progress and prosperity, for Kuwait as a nation, and for its many individual entrepreneurs.

“Man and Machine” was my theme this afternoon. Exploring the symbiotic evolution of both technology and humanity. We explored the latest IFTF research looking at the drivers and dilemmas of change, its impact on society, and the opportunities to find better ways. From Jason Silva’s “Technology Skin” to Tan Li’s “Evoke” brainwave business, future innovations are all about how man and machine weave together into hybrid or transhuman, ethical and practical, solutions.

On the final evening, it was great to meet so many more entrepreneurs, at an event hosted by Brilliant Lab which I called “Business Recoded“. Particularly inspiring for me was that at least half the audience were alumni of IE Business School. We talked about the platform which their “exponential learning” experiences had given them in their start-up business, and how to take them further faster.

We explored some of my new research on Asian businesses, and how they have thrived in recent years – from Alibaba to Tencent, Haier to Huawei, Kikkoman to Softbank, Grab to Meituan Dianping. They have different starting points, a more intuitive and ambitious mind, less formality and baggage. They are driven and drive fast growing, curious and expectant, consumer marketplaces.

We concluded with the new thinking which I am currently shaping for my next book. “The 7 Codes” for business leaders to step up in today’s incredible world. From the Greek dawn “aurora” to the Japanese light play of “komorebi”, the Zulu power of togetherness in “ubuntu’ and the Viking fear and passion of “awe”, we explored some of today’s most inspiring leaders, and how they are conquering the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adidas and Nike are not only in a competitive race to create the fastest running shoes, but the most sustainable too.

Adidas launched its Parley shoes a couple of years ago, whilst Nike’s Considered journey to sustainability led to its Free shoes, Flyknit process, and Circularity model. Adidas have also developed new technology processes with its SpeedFactory concepts, although they have come under cost pressure compared to Asian alternatives. Nike meanwhile have been stealing most of the headlines with its carbon-plated Vaporfly promising 4% faster times, which Adidas seeks to emulate.

The German brand has now launched Futurecraft.Loop – a 100% recyclable performance running shoe.

Together with “Parley for the Oceans”, the Nurnberg-based brand introduced in 2015 the first performance footwear concept with an upper made entirely of yarns and filaments reclaimed and recycled from marine plastic waste and illegal deep-sea gillnets. In 2019 adidas will produce 11 million pairs of shoes containing recycled ocean plastic through intercepting plastic waste on beaches, remote islands and in coastal communities. adidas is committed to using only recycled polyester in every product and on every application where a solution exists by 2024. Creating products with premium materials by Parley, made from up-cycled marine plastic waste, is the first pillar of adidas’ sustainability strategy.

“Taking plastic waste out of the system is the first step, but we can’t stop there,” says Eric Liedtke, Executive Board Member at Adidas, responsible for Global Brands. “What happens to your shoes after you’ve worn them out? You throw them away – except there is no away. There are only landfills and incinerators and ultimately an atmosphere choked with excess carbon, or oceans filled with plastic waste. The next step is to end the concept of “waste” entirely. Our dream is that you can keep wearing the same shoes over and over again.”

“Futurecraft.Loop is our first running shoe that is made to be remade. It is a statement of our intent to take responsibility for the entire life of our product; proof that we can build high-performance running shoes that you don’t have to throw away.”

The project is aimed at tackling the problem of plastic waste, enabling a “closed loop” or circular manufacturing model , where the raw materials can be repurposed again and again. But not just repurposed into a water bottle or a tote, but into another pair of high-performance running shoes.

How it works

Sports footwear typically include complex material mixes and component gluing – resulting in a shoe which can only be downcycled. After close to a decade of research and development alongside leading material development, manufacturing and recycling partners across Asia, Europe and North America, adidas has found a way to change the process.

Futurecraft.Loop is a transformative approach to designing performance shoes that are made to be remade from the outset, by using one material type and no glue. Each component is made from 100% reusable TPU – it’s spun to yarn, knitted, moulded and clean-fused to a Boost midsole using adidas SpeedFactory technology.

Once the shoes come to the end of their first life and are returned to adidas – they are washed, ground to pellets and melted into material for components for a new pair of shoes, with zero waste and nothing thrown away. Each generation is designed to meet the adidas sports performance standard, without compromise.

Tanyaradzwa Sahanga, Manager, Technology Innovation says: “We set out to create a new type of product that we can take back, grind up and reapply into new adidas product. We knew this was a far-reaching vision in every way; technically and even behaviourally! There were times when it didn’t seem like we could get over some of the technical hurdles – now we’ve made the first leap, the playing field has changed. We cannot create a circular future on our own, we are going to need each other. We’re excited to see this first step come to life as part of the beta launch.”

“Futurecraft is our design and innovation ethos,” said Paul Gaudio, SVP Creative Direction & Future. It is about the intersection of art, science, technology, humanity, engineering and craft. It’s applying creativity to reimagine the world we wish to see.”

“It seeks to break new ground, bringing new materials and processes to bear against the many challenges and opportunities we face in helping athletes make a difference in their game, in their life and of course, in the world they live in – the world we all live in.”

The first step

The first-gen Futurecraft.Loop shoe is rolling out as part of a global beta program with 200 leading Creators from across the world’s major cities. adidas will challenge them to run, return the shoes and share feedback on their experience, ahead of the second-gen drop.

The insights will be used to shape the roadmap for the wider release targeted for Spring Summer 2021 .

For more information visit adidas.com/futurecraft.

Irene Sun was born in China, raised in America, found herself in Africa, later worked with McKinsey, and is author of The Next Factory of the World: How Chinese Investment Is Reshaping Africa.

Her book highlights how China has become Africa’s largest trade partner, the largest infrastructure financier, and the fastest-growing source of foreign direct investment. Chinese entrepreneurs are flooding into the continent, investing in long-term assets such as factories and heavy equipment.

Irene tells a story about resilient Chinese entrepreneurs now building in Africa what they so recently learned to build in China – a global manufacturing powerhouse.

She joined me this week on stage in Odense Denmark at the Thinkers50 European Business Forum, to tell her story of growing up in China, moving to America, and then working in Africa where she gained her insights into a changing world.

Having tried life as a McKinsey consultant, she is now moving to Switzerland to work with the UN High Commission for Refugees. Somehow I get the feeling that her story is still beginning.

You can download her presentation from the European Business Forum here.

Here is an extract from Asian Book Reviews of a review of her book:

Africa is, as far as development is concerned, the next frontier. China is leading the charge in setting up factories and businesses across the continent. McKinsey’s Irene Yuan Sun writes in The Next Factory of the World that this will help Africa become a “global manufacturing powerhouse” as it follows China’s path to industrialization. However optimistic this may sound, Sun argues that not only did China do this itself during the 1990s and 2000s, but that it is already working in Africa.

Sun looks at Chinese businesses in four countries: Nigeria, Lesotho, Kenya, and Ethiopia. The result is a compelling, if not altogether convincing, book that focuses on the stories of several successful Chinese entrepreneurs rather than rely on overwhelming amounts of data and statistics. There are interesting accounts of Chinese textile giants in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, and gritty factory owners in Lesotho, a small mountainous country nestled inside South Africa.

This Chinese industrial presence has not been without complaint, ranging from labor abuses to corruption about which even Africans are shocked. “The Chinese? They taught us Nigerians something about corruption!,” exclaims a Nigerian businessman, whose country Sun points out is one of the most corrupt in the world. But the author takes a positive view, arguing that corrupt Chinese businessmen are amoral, not immoral, and that industrial accidents and abuses were common in the UK and US in the 19th century.

It is not only Chinese that dominate local manufacturing sectors: in Kenya, African-Indians dominate manufacturing while Lebanese do the same in some West African countries. The book also features a few successful African businessmen, such as Lesotho factory owners and an Ethiopian gel capsule maker. However, these local entrepreneur success stories seem to be rare: the Ethiopian capsule maker accounts for “almost all” of her country’s pharmaceutical exports.

Sun does a good job in detailing the problems of doing business in Africa, including bad governance, corruption and the sometimes adverse results of Western development plans. For example, Western focus on cheap medication to tackle diseases in Africa like malaria had the huge drawback of creating dependency on foreign medicine and preventing local pharmaceutical industries from developing. Often what works in the West cannot in Africa because conditions are vastly different. As such, sometimes good outcomes in Africa don’t depend on consistently good systems, because of things like bootstrapping development—when institutions and actors adapt to changes in conditions rapidly. This is one advantage Chinese firms and businessmen may have in Africa as they are more willing to bear with setbacks and chaos.

Today Irene joined me at the Thinkers50 European Business Forum to tell her story:

Whilst many Westerners can be casual about things such as riding a car, in my childhood and for children in Namibia, it is a special thing.

The interesting question is: How come that when cars are now common in China, why are they still a rarity in Namibia? The answer is that while Namibia has grown a lot, China has grown even more.

If  half of the 750 million people who has been lifted out of poverty in China, would be so in Africa, that would eliminate extreme poverty.

Factories matter, and while China is still the factory of the world, Africa has actually de-creased their industrialization.

Although there are downsides to them, factories lead to dramatic improvements in life quality.

Today there are finally signs that factories are coming to Africa. Chinese leaders are opening many of these. Chinese factories in Africa is important for European business leaders, because of five things:

1. Africa is open for business.
2. Old industries are not dead – China is the largest investor in Africa right now within manufacturing
3. Localization can go further than you think
4. Innovation with a small “i”
5. Bias towards action

“I have learned so much from people who are so different from me”.

Having grown up in China, studied in America, taught in Africa, worked for McKinsey, she is now heading to Switzerland, to join the UN High Commission for Refugees.

Somehow I feel her story is still just beginning.

What can we learn from those fascinating markets of Asia and beyond?

Jack Ma was rejected in the west, but thrived in the east, building Alibaba with the power of imagination and intuition. Indeed, a recent WEF study found that 90% of Asian business leaders believe that creativity is important, compared to 57% in Europe. And whilst Asia was seen as a land of imitation, it is now the leader of innovation, leaping ahead without the legacy of heritage, to seize the opportunities of changing locally and globally.

Agree, or not? And if so. what can a European business learn?

To help drive some new insights, I created a session at this year’s Thinkers50 European Business Forum 2019 where we brought 4 very different thinkers, with deep experience of Asia, but from different perspectives (click on their names to download their presentations):

Linda Yueh… the economic perspective

Frequent viewers of British television will recognize the face and voice of Linda Yueh, an economist, broadcaster, and writer, who was previously Chief Business Correspondent for BBC News and host of several TV shows about the economy, business, and finance. In her latest book, The Great Economists: How their ideas can help up today, Linda explains the key thoughts of history’s greatest economists, how their lives and times affected their ideas, how our lives have been influenced by their work, and how they could help with the policy changes that we face today.

Here are some of her quotes:

The world-economy is going to be re-shaped by Asia in the next 10 years.

A new global middle class

• Over 1 billion people have come out of extreme poverty since 1990. The global poverty rate has dropped from 1/3 to 10%.
• The indicator of whether you are middle class is a refrigerator. Then you can afford buying things. In 2030 4,9 billion people will be middle class. The bulk of them will be in Asia.
• A SkyTrax service shows that half of the 10 best airports are in Asia.

There is a global dis-content on globalization. Creating a new global middle class and a base of prosperity is essential for political stability etc.

In many respects, poverty reduction has very little to do with political interventions but is fueled by economic growth.

The ways in which growth is happening in Asia is reflective on issues of the 21. Century. Globalization has been managed in a great way in Asia. Asia is moving up the wage ladder, and they are positive towards globalization.

Growth and globalization are welcomed in emerging economies.

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. (Mark Twain).

We need to rebuild a new consensus about growth and globalization, to ensure an economic system that works.

Also, we should work to ensure that emerging markets don’t go down the same road as western countries when it comes to gender inequality, climate impact etc.

Milo Jones … the cultural perspective

Milo Jones is an American based in Poland, working at IE Business School, who focuses on the impact of digital technologies on geopolitics, society and business using his experience working with Accenture, Morgan Stanley, and even CIA. Milo focuses on themes from intelligence to finance, geopolitics and cultures. In 2016, Milo also spoke at a special event organized by Harvard Business Review Korea/DBR on his application of intelligence methodologies to business situations.

Here are some of his quotes:

How does an organization like CIA with smart minds and unlimited budgets make mistakes that lead to events such an 9/11? How do they miss out and make such grand mistakes, and what can businesses learn from that?

Wohlstetter discovered that the problem is the “failure of imagination”.

But sometimes warnings are ignored. In both intel and business, especially in new markets, identity and culture define who are being listened to.

We need a new intelligence and new markets cycle, where you are aware of your own hypotheses and assumptions.

A guy in CIA originally warned everybody about Al Qaida, but he wasn’t listened to. He jumped the chain of command and told CIA leaders to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden, but he was removed from the task and not invited back in until September 12.th 2001. So why didn’t anyone listen? I think it has to with identity and culture.

In Islamic culture, the cave is a holy place. Sitting in front of a cave made Osama seem less threatening in the Western world, while at the same time appealing to followers in the Muslim world.

• Knowledge about new markets is a social construction.
• Assumptions are more important than data.
• Cultural and identity eat conventional research for breakfast
• Acknowledge that diversity is a practical issue, not an afterthought.

Christina Boutrup … the technology perspective

Christina Boutrup is a Danish author, and an expert on the Chinese world of technology, hosting radio- and TV-shows about China. She interviewed Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma and closely followed the global expansion of Chinese companies authoring several books about business in China. In her most recent book The Great Tech-revolution – How China Shapes our Future, she underscores why all decision-makers should pay attention to the Chinese tech-revolution and what companies in the West can learn from China.

Here are some of her quotes:

Chinese companies are world leaders in many of the new technologies shaping our future, including AI.

We shouldn’t underestimate Asia. Chinese companies are #1 in drones, fintech, electronic cars, solar, high speed trains and AI.

China can be world-leading in terms of digital business models.

The competition is hard in Asia. In order to catch the attention of Chinese consumers, you need to come up with something good.

We Chat is owned by Tencent, and it’s an ecosystem centered around the consumer with an emphasis on gamification.

Coffee Box is an example of a company which disrupted Starbucks’ business model by listening to the consumer and using gamification elements to catch the attention of the user.

If a business model works in China, it is very likely to be successful in the rest of the world.

Right now, China is a data cowboy land. This makes it easy for companies to use data to launch new services and products.

Asian technologies and algorithms are used in European Banks.

In terms of health and the elderly, both Europe and China are challenged. Digital healthcare solutions are developed rapidly in Asia because of a lack of doctors and relatives. They have vending machines, where you can speak to a robot doctor and receive your medicine right away.

Education is very important in Asia. Anything that can enhance a student’s learning is applauded. A lack of teachers has led to an AI teacher assistant, that can correct English or Math tests for a teacher.

It is time to copy China in terms of fast trial & error, copying the master, listening to the consumer, business models, gamification, and speed.

Tendayi Viki… the innovation perspective

Tendayi Viki, a Harvard and Stanford psychologist, and part of the Strategyzer group, explores how big corporates can act like start-ups, to innovate and grow. He helps large organisations develop their ecosystems so that they can innovate for the future while managing their core business. He was shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Innovation Award and named on the Thinkers50 Radar.

Here are some of his quotes:

Success is a lousy teacher – Steve Jobs said it, and it’s true. Success cause leaders to relax and count their coins instead of continuing to innovate.

74 % of all CEOs are afraid are afraid of new entrants disputing their business models.

Success is a lousy teacher, because it affects the lens with which the view the world. We never realize how much context shapes our perception.

We have an anchoring bias, where our current knowledge shapes how we process new information.

This affects our view on disruption as well. We talk about Uber, Apple, Amazon and sometimes Whats App.

Then we compare Didi directly to Uber, Alibaba to Amazon and We Chat to What’s App, because we are anchored in our own knowledge. This leads to wrong learnings.

You can’t walk a mile in my shoes, until you take your shoes off. We need to realize that context matters.

We tend to view innovation as a side thing. But it should be the core business.

We should ask ourselves: What is really the business model of this particular company I’m about to study? What values are the costumers getting? How are that value being created? Where do the revenue come from? How is this business adaptive to the environment?

We need to anchor our thinking to the right perspective and the right lens.

Take off your own shoes, uncouple yourself from your own perspective and open your eyes anew.

Discussion: What are the key insights driving Chinese business success?

Linda: We underestimate how good China is at picking what works. They are good at micro-innovation. For Alibaba for instance, logistics is outstanding.

Christina: Gamification makes things fun. You can talk about it, send messages etc. This should inspire us in the West.

Milo: I’m not a gamer. Intelligence is a game without rules. The trick in business is to learn new games while holding on to the best elements of the old game.

Linda: Family-owned business, once they get to a certain scale, perform worse than companies with a different organization. In the west, we’ve moved away from industrial policies, but every policy is still about structuring companies and individuals, so why not have a stronger and more visible industrial policy? You can’t compete against somebody’s state.

Christina: If you want to learn from successful digital businesses, you need to really be willing to learn. Frontrunners are used to being frontrunners and masters, always innovating by finding new ways, new paths. But Mark Zuckerberg now says openly that he should have copied features from WeChat earlier. We need to learn who the master is and learn from that company. It could be your Chinese copycat. China learn from looking at masters, the best performing companies, and they keep learning from them and fine tuning their own company and products.

Tendayi: There is a leadership culture in Europe around planning and execution. There is this idea that a good leader can pick a winner, whereas we need to create an environment in which good ideas can bubble up.

Christina: Chinese innovators are pragmatic, they want to create real solutions to real problems.

Summary: What should Europe’s business leaders learn from Asia?

Christina: Listen to the customer and make it fun

Milo: Asia is a western construct, it is a very diverse place going from Pakistan to Japan, they didn’t name themselves ‘Asia’, so don’t call them that, and remember they’re separate countries.

Linda: Incorporate technology into your business practice.

Tendayi: Pragmetism

This year’s European Business Forum ended in style. The lights went out.

The City of Odense, our host for the last three years, has been transformed in that short time. When we sat down in the City Hall, back in 2016, I worked with the city’s innovative mayor Anker Boye to develop a new “home” in Europe for the best ideas in business.

Thinkers50 had for many years been an interesting ranking of business academics, largely celebrated amongst themselves. It struggled to connect with real business audiences, lacking the platforms and process to turn ideas into action.

We changed that by creating a series of partnerships around the world. In China, for example, the leading electronics business formed a partnership to create a platform to spread the best new ideas across the nation, Thinkers50 China. And similarly elsewhere.

Europe’s Hub of Business Thinking

In Odense, the city named after that Viking god Odin, we agreed to build Thinkers50 Europe, a hub of business thinking, with an annual event, the European Business Forum. “The Davos of Business Thinking”, if you like.

For business, it would bring together the world’s best thought leaders, and the Europe’s top business leaders, to network, to share ideas, to shape a new agenda for European business.

For the City of Odense, in the heartland of Denmark, struggling after the decline of its shipbuilding industry, but now rising again Europe’s leading hub for robotics, it was an icon of progress.

This would not just be another event, but an active program to build the image of the city in the business world. It is a year round initiative, building a virtual community of business leaders who regularly learn about Odense, as well as the broader ideas in business.

For local businesses, with the help of sponsors like Nordea, it has become a source of education and acceleration for start-ups and entrepreneurs. For students it has given them free access to the world’s top thinkers, to inspire them in their studies and future careers.

Odense , with the support of Thinkers50 partnership, has become a place of progress, new ideas and innovations, and a great place to meet – on the minds and schedules of the world’s business people, with benefits to local investment and prosperity. As Hans Christian Andersen might have said, a great place to write the future story of business.

Odense, City of Gods

Three years later, we have made incredible progress. After 3 annual forums, we have brought most of the world’s top business thinkers to the small Danish town, created three highly inspiring and memorable events, with many of Europe’s leaders attending.

For the city, the objective was to establish Odense on the business map, a place leaders would recognise as innovative, and have a reason to come. Ultimately to bring their offices and investment too. We set a target of creating 10,000 jobs. Mission accomplished.

Indeed the new Facebook Datacenter, one of the largest in the world, has just been completed in the Danish town. The robotics sector has grown rapidly, with companies like Universal Robots, a leader in collaborative robotics, receiving new investment for growth. Adjacent sectors, such as cannabis innovation has also emerged.

The nearby SDU university is thriving academically, with specialist facilities including the world’s most innovative (and unusual) running track to test exoskeletons. And the town itself, the Main Street a building site throughout our time there is almost transformed into a smart city with new transport systems, a new hospital, and a leading hub of gaming and entertainment too.

The Best New Ideas for Business 

Over the last three years 65 of the world’s top business thinkers have visited Europe, including the world’s top guru, twice. Almost 1000 business leaders have also come to connect and be inspired.

In 2017 the European Business Forum focused on New Growth, rethinking the drivers of business progress, and measures of business success.  Michael Porter, the world’s top business guru was a star turn with his European Business Lecture on the new concept of “shared value”. Other great moments included New York’s Rita McGrath rethinking strategy, Canada’s Don Tapscott rethinking innovation, and INSEAD’s Erin Meyer rethinking culture. And Lars Rebien Sorensen, the world’s top ranked CEO, received a huge ovation, in a remarkable session with Marshall Goldsmith.

In 2018 the European Business Forum focused on sustainability, and the need for business to make better choices, that were good economically and for society. Canada’s Roger Martin, the newly ranked top thinker talked about new ways for business to win, Google’s European MD Matt Brittin raved about business as a force for good, and Maersk and Siemens chairman Jim Snabe launched his new concept of Dreams and Details. Whitney Johnson explored how to disrupt yourself, Chris Zook reimagined growth, and Martin Lindstrom made a welcome return to Denmark.

In 2019 the European Business Forum took its inspiration from Asia, learning from the radical growth of Asian businesses and how they think and act fundamentally differently. Alex Osterwalder, the world’s bestselling business author, of Business Model Canvas was back with a fabulous session on creating the Invincible Company, Anna Rosling channeled her father-in-law reminding us that the world is much better than we think, and Anil Gupta and Haiyan Wang brought fascinating new insights from India and China. It was a daring agenda, but also perhaps the most insightful, showing Europe’s business what the future could look like.

As a finale we had a quite incredible boxing match between  two of the world’s leading innovation gurus, Scott Anthony, the American from Singapore, and Howard Yu, the Chinese professor in Switzerland. They explored the future of innovation, how businesses could grow in new ways, and what it would take to lead. Both actually used Odense as a great example, of a city with purpose, rising for the future and letting go of its past, recognising that being a great place is more than a location, and about people and ideas.

At the end of their match, as the winner’s belt was being awarded, the lights went out. One of the building contractors building the smart transport system outside had got too excited.

Looking to the Future

Peter Rahbæk Juel is today’s mayor of the city. At the end of the 2019 forum we raised a glass to a job well done. He talked about his vision for the city, how great ideas can inspire people to do what they never thought possible. “It is phenomenal how Odense in such a short time has become famous across the business world, as a place to think about the future and also to create the future” he reflected.

The world keep moving at pace, with new ideas and priorities. We recognise that the forum needs to spread its wings further, to innovate again, to reach more people with more impact. Whilst the early founders of Thinkers50 have decided to retire to a quiet life of writing and ranking, the network and forum moves forwards. As does the city.

In 2020 we will be launching an exciting new program, including the European Business Forum 2020, building on its foundations and harnessing the power of ideas and networks.  As we thanked our hosts in this wonderful, beautiful city, we look to a bright future for Odense, and to the future of European business.

To lead effectively — really, to live effectively — you must be confident in yourself, connected to others, committed to purpose, and emotionally courageous. Most of us are great at only one of the four. Maybe two. But to be a powerful presence — to inspire action — you need to excel at all four simultaneously.

If you’re confident in yourself but disconnected from others, everything will be about you and you’ll alienate the people around you. If you’re connected to others but lack confidence in yourself, you will betray your own needs and perspectives in order to please everyone else.

If you’re not committed to a purpose, something bigger than yourself and others, you’ll flounder, losing the respect of those around you as you act aimlessly, failing to make an impact on what matters most. And if you fail to act powerfully, decisively, and boldly — with emotional courage — your ideas will remain idle thoughts and your goals will remain unfulfilled fantasies.

Now, in the depths of crisis and uncertainty around the world – now is the time for leaders to be courageous. To keep looking forwards, to stay strong and reassuring, and also to imagine a better future, and start working towards it.

The 3 buckets of courage

A courageous leader guides their staff without stamping out creativity, they lead by example, and they stand at the helm of the company, giving everyone behind them confidence to do their jobs to the best of their ability.

There are three main types of courage when it comes to courageous leadership in the workplace:

• Try Courage: Try courage is the courage required to take the first step in something. If you are doing something for the first time, that takes courage. You might fail, you might get it wrong, or you might do something completely incredible.
• Trust Courage: This is the type of courage required to relinquish control. As a leader, you will need this courage in order to delegate to your employees, to give over control to staff, and to show your team that you trust them. This type of trust not only shows your staff that you trust them, but also that they can trust you not to micromanage their work.
• Tell Courage: Tell courage is the courage you need to speak openly and with conviction about your beliefs and ideas. Often, doing this can be very scary, especially in a business setting. Courageous leadership means providing your team with positive and constructive feedback on a regular basis, even if what you have to say is going to make someone feel uncomfortable.

The Brave Ones

CNBC recently broadcast a series of documentaries about courageous leaders, people who dared to go further, rise higher, to challenge and change the future.

Here are some of them:

Bernard Arnault is France’s richest man and the mastermind behind the world’s biggest luxury group, LVMH. But even he had his doubters early on.

Hugh Evans wants to end extreme poverty. So he brought together the world’s biggest music artists for the Global Citizen Festival – and in just a few years, it’s spurred actions that will improve the lives of a billion people by 2030.

Despite some people initially telling him they will “never use LinkedIn,” co-founder Reid Hoffman forged ahead with the creation of the company and turned those doubters around.

Tan Le is merging the human brain with technology and blurring the line between science fiction and reality. But before changing other people’s lives, she had to change her own.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere is taking the tech world by storm. But he doesn’t just want to change the rules, he wants a whole new game.

Jack Ma may be one of China’s biggest success stories now – but he started from humble beginnings.

Taking a trip to Argentina inspired TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie to start a business that would help others as well as make money. Now he wants to give other entrepreneurs the same opportunity.

Here’s why Chandrika Tandon went on a hunger strike in her teens.

Sebastian Thrun. A true innovator, this tech wizard used to head up Google X and hold a tenured teaching position at Stanford University. However, he walked away from it all and is now on a mission to change the way the world learns.

Zhang Xin is a self-made property magnate. Born during China’s repressive Cultural Revolution, Xin has become China’s architect of change by reinventing the skylines of Beijing and Shanghai, building by building. Now she wants to inspire others to think big and get creative.