Peter Fisk

“Have you the courage to create a better future?

How will you step up to lead your organisation forwards, to reimagine future markets and new business models, to drive disruptive innovation and business transformation, and to unlock your personal potential as a global business leader?”

The Global Advanced Management Program (Global AMP) is IE Business School’s flagship program for executives stepping up to lead the future of business.

It’s for leaders who are stepping up to become the next CEO, or maybe to join the C-suite, to run a business unit, or getting ready to do so. It’s for leaders who seek to be re-inspired, re-energised ready for an incredible future – to drive business-wide transformation, to reimagine their industry, to change the way their entire business and market works.

It’s for ambitious leaders, game changers, future makers.

If you can see yourself leading your business into the future … if you can start to imagine a business of the future, beyond that currently imagined by your leaders and peers. … then this is for you.

If you are intensely curious, positively dissatisfied, and highly ambitious … and have the courage to take on the next step, not just for you, but for your business too … then this is for you.

Our goal is to create the world’s best program for leaders like you … making sense of today’s incredible, complex and fast-changing world … and how you can have the brains and boldness to create, shape and deliver the future in your own vision.

Each year we take on a small group of 20-30 leaders and work together to help you transform your future. In the last two years, we have brought together some fantastic participants from all over the world, and many different sectors, ready to step up and shape their business, to lead their futures. They have gone on to thrive in their own worlds, and are still part of the Global AMP  community. You can join them.

Step up to lead the post-pandemic future

The Global AMP  is more relevant than ever, as the global Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted every market and business, demanding that leaders step up to think and act in new ways. As people around the world have shifted to digital technologies at home and work, we are likely to see an acceleration in new ways of working, new types of business, and new leaders.

The pandemic has acting as a catalyst for innovation, not just to survive through crisis and uncertainty, but to adapt to a rapidly changing world. Indeed it is no surprise that 57% of companies are founded in a downturn, and most innovations are born out of crisis too. Now, more than ever is the time when business needs leaders with new mindsets, new skills, and who can combine advanced learning with simultaneous business transformation.

Liquid format

To make the Global AMP  even more accessible, practical, and applied to the changing needs of you and your business, we have enhanced the format. It will now take on a much more “liquid” learning structure, so that you can continue to work, and accelerate your leadership development, during these uncertain yet important times. The program will combine online and physical formats over a longer period, enabling you to learn more, apply more, and get more practical value from the experience.

Topical, practical content

The content is entirely updated, anticipating the changing needs of business and its people as we emerge from the recent Covid-19 crisis, and through the next decade – from the megatrends that drive global markets and intelligent technologies, to the convergence of markets and emergence of new business models, new ways of working and the challenges of leading for today, and tomorrow.

We look to the companies who are shaping the world right now – from Alibaba and Aerofarms, to Babylon and Bytedance. We will learn from many different sectors – from the rapidly changing world of healthcare and finance, fashion and retail, manufacturing and technology. How are they being shaped by AI and digital platforms, by 3D printing and ecosystems, emerging markets and new consumer agendas?

Transforming your business, transforming yourself

The program takes on a more dynamic learning style, helping your to explore how to transform yourself and your business, for a world of rapid and continuous change.

We’ve structured the four weeks into a practical yet exciting journey through the world of business –  starting from the future megatrends to today’s growth drivers, exploring a world of disruptive innovations and energising organisations. In the mornings we zig, we explore all the best new ideas business, what matters for business. In the afternoon we zag. We shift venue – to a more relaxed venue – to reflect on the personal leadership challenges. What does it mean for me, my business and our future?

Deep dives, visiting some of the world’s leading businesses

Markets change so fast, that the ideas and insights of the text books rarely keep pace with reality. For that reason, we get real – taking you on a deep dive into four of the world’s most interesting businesses, one day each week.

We take you to the future of fashion, at Inditex’s innovative fast factory, to the future of banking, at BBVA’s innovation lab, to the future of manufacturing, with Airbus Industries, and the future of consumer goods, to an amazingly good vineyard!

Gamechanger project

In addition to exploring the very latest business ideas and theories, the program is highly personalised in two ways – coaching and project work. The “gamechanger” project is your opportunity to develop your own blueprint for transforming the future of your business, or a new business of your own.

You work one to one with the Academic Director in exploring and defining a new vision which you can take back, share with your business colleagues, and implement over time. It is supported by a Gamechanger Toolkit, and works alongside all modules, applying the learning to your own business, and future potential.

Personal coaching

The one to one leadership coaching program helps you to make sense of your own strengths and style, and coaches work with you to develop this, to respond to the new needs, and to prepare to step up to business leadership. It starts with an in-depth diagnostic of your leadership attitudes and behaviours, and then your coach works with you over time, independent from the rest of the program, as this is specifically about you.

Detailed structure

Modules 1 and 3 will be online, built around a 4 hour session each Friday for 10 weeks. During these sessions we will bring together the best ideas from around the business world, with expert faculty, and also take you on “deep dives” into what is happening right now in some of the world’s leading businesses.

Modules 2 and 4 will be residential, one week in Segovia, a world heritage site in Spain, and one week in the capital, Madrid. These weeks will also feature leading faculty brought together from around the world, and also enable more time for group networking and collaboration with colleagues who typically come from many different industries and every part of the world. Week 4 concludes with your graduation at IE Business School.

Start dates

There are two alternative start dates – September 2020 or January 2021 (for the online module 1), and both groups will then merge together in March 2021 (for the residential module 2, and all subsequent modules). This gives you the option of starting at a more gradual pace this year, or waiting until the new year, when we all hope to return to less unusual times).

We are really excited by this new format, and also by all the enhanced content for the program. There never has been a more urgent or important time for leaders to step up, to make sense of a changing world, and prepare to create a better future.

Delivered by some of the world’s top business leaders and thinkers

We bring together the world’s most inspiring and thoughtful faculty. This year it additionally includes

• Jim Hagemann Snabe, chairman of Siemens and Maersk, author of Dreams and Details, one of the world’s top leaders.
• Tendayi Viki, a psychologist-based innovator, author of Pirates in the Navy, and partner of Strategyzer
• Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez , GSK’s top project manager, and author of The Project Revolution
• Mark Fritz, expert in leading change, author of Lead and Influence, having worked on four continents for Kodak
• Verónica Reyero, human anthropologist exploring a more human future, and founder of Anthropologia 2.0
• Mark Thomas, social economist, founder of 99% Organisation, fighting for social equality.
• Rob-Jan de Jong, author of Anticipate, professor at Wharton Business School, and expert on leading the future
• Mikael Trolle, former national coach of Denmark’s Volleyball team, and coach to many business leaders

They add to the existing IE Business School team that includes

• Peter Fisk, academic director of the Global AMP, bestselling author of Gamechangers, and the new book Business Recoded, Thinkers50 Global Director
• Mark Esposito, technology futurist and AI pioneer, founder of Nexus FrontierTech, and faculty at Harvard Business School
• Terence Tse, co-author of the AI Republic, expert on the future of finance and healthcare, and co-chair of the Start-Up Lab
• Mia de Kuijper, Senior VP Strategic Advisor at Saleforce, and Executive in Residence at Harvard Innovation Labs
• Juan Carlos Pastor, professor of leadership at IE Business School, leading on authentic leadership
• Marcos Cajina, founder of Renewal, a specialist leadership company that focuses on the neuroscience of emotional engagement
• Steven MacGregor, author of Chief Wellbeing Officer, founder of the Leadership Academy of Barcelona, expert on executive performance.

Global participants

Importantly, the Global AMP brings together a great mix of participants from across sectors and around the world, enhancing your personal network, and learning experience for everyone.

Examples of recent participants include:

• Finance, Head of Investment Banking, Portugal
• Technology, Regional Marketing Leader, Egypt
• Healthcare, Head of Clinical Development, Japan
• Drinks, Supply Chain Director, Mexico
• Airlines, Head of Network Development, UAE
• Technology, Customer Service Director, Mexico
• Energy, Corporate Strategy Director, Spain
• Mining, Innovation Director, South Africa
• Real Estate, Founder and CEO, Portugal
• Sustainable Investment Fund, CEO, France
• Healthcare, Senior Medical Advisor, USA
• Technology, Entrepreneur, Saudi Arabia
• Manufacturing, CEO and Chairman, Turkey
• NGO, Founder and Director, Kenya

All participants then join the exclusive Global AMP alumni network, including regular networking and ongoing resources.

Idea Starters

Here are a few tasters of the expert faculty and their big ideas …

Jim Hagemann Snabe … one of the world’s top business leaders, on Dreams and Details:

Module 1: Future Lab

Making sense of change, exploring megatrends and their implications for business, today and tomorrow, and making better choices for your future direction, are all essential to successful leadership. The rise of emerging markets, new technologies and next-generation audiences is accompanied by the increasing scarcity of resources, social fragmentation and climate change. The Fourth Industrial Revolution heralds a new era for business and society, from digitalization and automation to 3D printing, machine learning, artificial intelligence and robotics.

• Rocket ships: How will you lead the future, shape it in your own vision, and take your business on an uncertain journey towards a better tomorrow?
• Exponential technologies: Harnessing the potential of new capabilities, from digital and big data to biotech and nanotech as well as AI and robotics.
• Resource scarcity: Changing sources of energy, the peak of rare metals, high-tech components, patented technologies, talent and creativity.
• Human impacts: Rethinking work, education and employment, aging and healthcare, urbanization and belonging, wealth and happiness.
• Future shaping: Making sense of change and making better choices. Harnessing the value drivers and using scenario planning to shape the future you want.

Mark Esposito … the Canadian futurist explores the future as it unfolds:

 

Module 2: Growth Lab

Markets are complex, competitive and dynamic. New markets emerge, and old markets decline, as new audiences, new aspirations and new possibilities drive new growth. Focusing on the best opportunities for growth becomes key to your future, and reimagining how your business can embrace them profitably. Digital markets have no limits, and allow even the smallest businesses to have a huge impact, while accelerating the convergence of sectors and businesses.– so what is your purpose, that will guide you through the future horizons of growth?

• Growth markets: Exploring the changing the nature of markets. Creating new spaces based on new customers and solutions, driving your growth horizons.
• Inspiring purpose: Finding your north star, why your business exists, and how putting purpose beyond profit, can transform your activities and success.
• Customer futures: Understanding the changing aspirations and behaviours of customers, with deeper insight to understand and engage them better.
• Platform markets: Harnessing the power of digital networks to create new market models that bring buyers and sellers together in new ways, creating new value.
• Growth accelerators: Consumer data, digital network, and new business models enable you to accelerate every aspect of business, and your future growth.

Tendayi Viki … the psychologist innovator creates the invincible company:

Module 3: Creative Lab

Disruption is everywhere, whether it’s a start-up challenging established giants, new technologies replacing inefficient processes, simplicity outperforming complexity or customers challenging businesses to do better. The impact can be dramatic. Reputations can be made and destroyed in a matter of days, while veteran companies are wiped off the map. How can you turn the tables and become the disrupter by developing insights, ideas, innovative strategies and business models that can be delivered quickly and efficiently?

• Faster innovation: Transforming ideas into new solutions, strategies into action, embracing disruptive change, to reimagine your future business.
• Creative designs: Harnessing the power of creativity, fused with deep insight, to design better solutions – products and services, experiences and business.
• Sustainable innovation: Innovating to solve the biggest social and environmental challenges, in a way that is good for the world, and more profitable too.
• Business Models: Rethinking how organisations work to deliver innovative propositions, leveraging assets and partners to create new ways of working.
• Invincible companies: Bringing together your innovation portfolio as a source of relentless progress and profitable growth for your business.

Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez  … the world’s top project manager on leading transformation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3peGiQvnxw

Module 4: Action Lab

Organisations thrive on an inspiring purpose, aligned business model, innovation inside and outside, driving change and high performance. They constantly drive change and transformation, working through projects to create seize new opportunities. People are energised by a positive culture, harnessing the best talents of man and machine, with the agility to continually adapt and respond to changing markets, develop new capabilities and partnerships, and reach new heights. How can you transform, mobilise and energise your organization with a strategy to deliver the best performance today, and create an even better future?

• Winning strategies: Defining the right direction and priorities, guided by an inspiring purpose, and harnessing the drivers of value.
• Driving change: Making better, more strategic decisions every day, turning strategy into implementation, while using the right metrics and rewards, to drive transformation and performance.
• Fast and agile: Shaping organisations and processes to be agile and efficient, leveraging strengths and addressing weaknesses both internally and externally.
• Energising people: Mobilising employees to think and deliver strategy innovatively and profitably, unlocking the power of teams and humanity in a positive culture.
• Sustaining impact: Ensuring that the organisation has the capacity to renew and adapt to deliver shared value in the short and long term.

Verónica Reyero … the modern anthropologist, exploring better human futures:

Module 5: Amplified Leadership

The best leaders amplify the potential of their teams and their business. By developing an effective leadership style, they can inspire, engage, connect and support to drive long-term direction and meet short-term goals. Leaders of the future will drive change in a way that unlocks talent and performance, constantly reinventing organisations. How will you lead yourself, your team and your business towards a better future, one that combines purpose with passion, profit and progress? This module is interspersed across the whole program, in order to connect with the many different business topics.

• Great leaders: Business are obsessed with leadership, but how do leaders really add value, engage people effectively and deliver better results?
• Authentic organizations: From corporate to personal reputations, how do you build trust and authenticity inside and outside the business?
• Talent beacons: How to attract, engage and retain the best people in an ideas-driven world – to nurture, motivate, and inspire them to create the future.
• High performance: Improving your personal and business wellbeing to drive high performance, physically and mentally, agile and resilient, with a winning mindset.
• Leadership style: Why should you be the leader? What do you have that will take your company further? And why will anyone want to be led by you?

Terence Tse … AI driving the future of business:

Mia de Kuijper … Leading the Change … Explore the power nodes:

Steven MacGregor … why you need a Chief Wellbeing Officer:

Download the new Global AMP Brochure

or Contact Agnietzka on +34 915 689 783

The Global Advanced Management Program (Global AMP) is IE Business School’s flagship program for executives stepping up to lead the future of business.

It’s time for leaders to step up, to create a better future

It’s for leaders who are stepping up to become the next CEO, or maybe to join the C-suite, to run a business unit, or getting ready to do so. It’s for leaders who seek to be re-inspired, re-energised ready for an incredible future – to drive business-wide transformation, to reimagine their industry, to change the way their entire business and market works.

If you can see yourself leading your business into the future … if you can start to imagine a business of the future, beyond that currently imagined by your leaders and peers. … then this is for you.

New ideas for leaders to accelerate business recovery

The Global AMP is more relevant than ever, as the global Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted every market and business, demanding that leaders step up to think and act in new ways. As people around the world have shifted to digital technologies at home and work, we are likely to see an acceleration in new business models, new ways of working, and new lifestyles.

The pandemic has acting as a catalyst for innovation, not just to survive through crisis and uncertainty, but to adapt to a rapidly changing world. Indeed it is no surprise that 57% of companies are founded in a downturn, and most innovations are born out of crisis too. Now, more than ever is the time when business needs leaders with new mindsets, new skills, and who can combine advanced learning with simultaneous business transformation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu_5Vxufidg&feature=emb_logo

With a more liquid learning style, more accessible and convenient

To make the Global AMP program even more accessible, practical, and applied to the changing needs of you and your business, we have enhanced the format. It will now take on a much more liquid learning structure, so that you can continue to work, and accelerate your leadership development, during these uncertain yet important times. The program will combine online and physical formats over a longer period, enabling you to learn more, apply more, and get more practical value from the experience.

The content is entirely updated, anticipating the changing needs of business and its people as we emerge from crisis, and through the next decade – from the megatrends that drive global markets and intelligent technologies, to the convergence of markets and emergence of new business models, new ways of working and the challenges of leading for today, and tomorrow. The program takes on a more dynamic learning style, helping your to explore how to transform yourself and your business, for a world of rapid and continuous change.

Delivered by top business leaders, thinkers and experts

I will be joined by some of the world’s most inspiring and thoughtful faculty. This year it includes

• Jim Snabe, chairman of Siemens and Maersk, former CEO of SAP, one of the world’s top leaders
• Tendayi Viki, a psychologist-based innovator, partner of Strategyzer
• Antonio Rodriguez Nieto, the world’s top project manager, and senior leader in GSK
• Christian Rangen, energy expert and expert in business transformation
• Terence Mauri, leading thinker on 3D leadership, bold and brave
• Verónica Reyero, anthropologist of a more human future.

They add to the existing IE team that includes

• Mark Esposito, leading futurist and AI pioneer
• Terence Tse, expert on the future of finance and healthcare
• Juan Carlos Pastor, leading on authentic leadership; media expert
• Lola Martinez, media expert, on storytelling and presenting
• Marcos Cajina, on the neuroscience of emotional engagement
• Steven MacGregor, on executive fitness, and many more

In addition to exploring the very latest business ideas and theories, the program is highly personalised in two ways – a personal leadership coaching program helps you to make sense of your own strengths and style, and coaches work with you to develop this, to respond to the new needs, and to prepare to step up to business leadership – and a personal “Gamechanger” project in which we work with you over the entire duration of the program to help you develop your own blueprint for transforming the future of your business, or industry.

Starting in April 2021

Modules 1 and 3 will be online, built around a 4 hour session each Friday for 10 weeks. During these sessions we will bring together the best ideas from around the business world, with expert faculty, and also take you on “deep dives” into what is happening right now in some of the world’s leading businesses.

Modules 2 and 4 will be residential, one week in Segovia, a world heritage site in Spain, and one week in the capital, Madrid. These weeks will also feature leading faculty brought together from around the world, and also enable more time for group networking and collaboration with colleagues who typically come from many different industries and every part of the world. Module 4 concludes with your graduation at IE Business School.

Module 1 (Online, half-day Fridays): April-May 2021
Module 2 (Residential- Segovia Campus): June-July 2021
Module 3 (Online, half-day Fridays): Sep-Oct 2021
Module 4 (Residential- Madrid Campus): Oct-Nov 2021

We are really excited by this new format, and also by all the enhanced content for the program. There never has been a more urgent or important time for leaders to step up, to make sense of a changing world, and prepare to create a better future.

Download a summary of the masterclass and program launch

Find out more about the Global AMP at IE Business School

The  program has been designed specifically to prepare current and future leaders, and their businesses, for the challenges which they face now and in the coming years. Focusing on leadership in a world of disruptive change, the Global AMP will help you understand the underlying trends driving the future which are already shaking up your industry, explore the threats and opportunities these bring, and respond accordingly.

Divided into 5 core academic modules, each designed and orchestrated by expert faculty, the program will lead you through the challenge of understanding mega-trends such as technological change, our role in a world where AI and robotics make many traditional jobs irrelevant, scarce physical resources and changing demographics.

How will you shape the new markets formed by these trends to the advantage of your business? Where will you focus, and how will you compete? How will you engage with the future customers – Asian, millennial, female – and those in markets that do not even exist today? What are your new business models to drive speed, agility and profitable growth?

Be the disrupter, not the disrupted.

The program focuses on devising new solutions, delivered by the right organisations and strategies, to succeed in such a brave new world. Energising and aligning the business to the strategic needs of the future will require that it becomes faster and more agile and we will learn how to use areas such as finance and operations, partnerships and networks, as levers for growth.

Most significantly, we will help you develop yourself as a leader of this dynamic world – to build a leadership platform, and exploit it skilfully to implement change that builds organisations that are themselves a source of competitive strength.

Alongside these academic modules, the program also includes practical application, with each participant developing a Gamechanger Project from they will create a blueprint for the future of their industry, a plan for how their business can reinvent itself, and define their own role in leading their company or division towards this future successfully.

Finally, the Leadership Development Plan helps each participant, along with an individual advisor, focus on their own specific strengths and weaknesses and actions that they can take to become an effective leader, and to sustain high personal and business performance.

World Changing: Making sense of change, exploring megatrends and their medium and longer-term implications, and choosing your future direction. The rise of emerging markets, new technologies and next generation audiences, is matched by the increasing scarcity of resources, social fragmentation and climate impact. The “fourth industrial revolution” heralds a new era for business and society, from digitalisation and automation, to 3D printing and machine learning, artificial intelligence and robotics. Philosophically, we will also look back to the age of genius, and the lessons for the future.

• Power shifts: Economic, political and economic power shifts across continents, generations and businesses.
• Technology futures: Harnessing the potential of new capabilities, from digital and big data, biotech and nanotech, to AI and robotics.
• Resource scarcity: Changing sources of energy, the peak of rare metals, talent and creativity, high-tech components and patented technologies.
• Human impacts: Rethinking work, education and employment, ageing and healthcare, urbanization and belonging, wealth and happiness.
• Future shaping: Making sense of change, and making better choices. Harnessing value drivers and scenario planning to shape the future that you want.

Market Shaping:  Competitive landscapes have become increasingly complex, competition can now appear from seemingly unrelated industries, new markets emerge and old ones disappear. Digital markets have no boundaries, allowing the smallest business to have huge impact, and accelerating the convergence of sectors and businesses. In this context, the market-shaping module will guide you in engaging with future customers, shaping markets to your advantage and ultimately developing a market map that can help focus your business to win in future markets.

• Market spaces: How well do you really know your market? Framing markets and how they work, value drivers and emerging practices, challenges and opportunities.
• Future markets: Finding and creating new market spaces, based on new customers, new geographies and new solutions.
• Customer thinking: Understanding new and existing customers based on aspirations and behaviours, finding new insights and ideas, new needs and niches.
• Engaging propositions: Rethinking value, how it created and captured, and then delivered in terms of engagement and experiences.
• Markets as movements: Rethinking how to build brands and loyalty where customers trust each other, and seek personalisation, collaboration and community

Disruptive Innovation: Disruption comes from all angles – entrepreneurial start-ups challenging established giants, new technologies replacing inefficient processes, simplicity outperforming complexity, and customers challenging businesses to do better. The impact can be dramatic, reputations can be made and destroyed in days, whilst long admired companies are wiped off the map. The aim of this module is to learn how to turn the tables and become the disrupter by quickly developing insights and ideas, driving innovative strategies and business models, that can be delivered in fast and efficient ways.

• Market Disruption: Transforming value equations by rethinking the way markets work, the sources of advantage, pain points and profit pools.
• Design thinking: Gaining deeper insights into what really drives customers, to find the real problem, and solutions that are more relevant and valuable.
• Fast Innovation: Turning ideas into impact faster through fast and lean innovation, from incremental to breakthough, managing portfolios to create the future
• Business models: Rethinking how organisations work to deliver innovative propositions, from licensing to subscription, low cost to luxury.
• Accelerating impact: Harnessing the power of multipliers, the network effect of social media to business ecosystems, spreading innovation faster, accelerating growth.

Energizing Organizations: Business thrives on an inspiring purpose, an alignment for action, and priorities and incentives that engage people to high performance. Organisations also need the agility to continually adapt and respond to changing markets, to develop new capabilities and partnerships, and reach new markets. The objective of this module is to help you energize your organization, develop a strategy, along with the metrics to constantly measure its implementation, and align financial and operational resources to deliver results effectively.

• Winning strategy: Defining the right direction and priorities, guided by an inspiring purpose, and harnessing the drivers of value.
• Smarter choices: Making better decisions, strategically and every day, matched by the right metrics and rewards that ensure performance.
• Aligning organisations: Shaping organisations and processes to be agile and efficient, leveraging strengths and addressing weakness, inside and outside.
• Energising people: Mobilising your employees to think and deliver the strategy in innovative and profitable ways, harnessing the power of teams and humanity.
• Sustaining impact: Ensuring that the organization has the ongoing renewal and adaptability to deliver share value, short term and into the future.

Amplified Leadership: The best leaders amplify the impact of their people and their business. Developing a leadership that is relevant to them and their people, they inspire and engage, connect and support the business to deliver against long-term directions and short-term priorities. Leaders of the future, will need to be adept at leading and managing change in a way that unlocks talent and performance. The outcome of this module will be to a help participants lead themselves, their teams and their business. For this reason, the module works through all the other modules to connect ideas and future action.

• Leadership matters: Business is obsessed with leadership, but how do leaders really add value, engage people effectively, and deliver better results?
• Knowledge economy: Organisational hierarchies are a legacy of old economies. In today’s ideas-based organisations, leaders add value in different ways.
• Authentic organisations: From corporate to personal reputations, how do you build trust and authenticity inside and outside the business?
• Talent beacons: In an ideas-driven world, the best companies have the best people. So how do you ensure that you attract, motivate and retain the best talent?
• Why should anyone be led by you? Fundamentally, why should you be the leader of the business. What do you have, and what will you give, to be successful?

Leaders are, of course, much more than functional managers. They see a bigger picture, work across the organization, and connect activities for more impact. The 5 Global AMP modules, rather than addressed in isolation will be carefully knitted together throughout the duration of the program, to demonstrate the opportunities and implications of every decision and action across the business.

Gamechanger Projects: Participants will work on an individual, evaluated project throughout the program. This “Gamechanger Project” is designed to draw on all of the materials covered in each module and will be applied directly to the challenges and opportunities of the participants’ business. It will deliver five specific outcomes, in the form of maps, that will be of value to you and to your company. Together they form a blueprint for the future.

• Future Map: Developing a vision of the future of your industry. Define how you will shape it to your business’ advantage, to seize the best opportunities for growth.
• Market Map: Shaping your markets, how you work, and your customer propositions to engage current and future customers.
• Innovation Map: Reinventing your business model to deliver the future propositions in practical, efficient and profitable ways.
• Organisation Map: Aligning your direction and strategy, your processes and people, metrics and performance to deliver results.
• Impact Map: Defining your role in leading your company or division towards a bright, inspiring and successful future.

Progress on the project will be checked in peer to peer presentations and participants will have access to tutors to guide their work. This will be underpinned by the Leadership Development Plan which supports the individual in how they will develop themselves to deliver this effectively.

Download a summary of the masterclass and program launch

Find out more about the Global AMP at IE Business School

Which are the world’s most innovative organisations, and what exactly makes them innovative?

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.

Agenda

Part 1: Innovation.Inc

• Entrepreneurs and Gamechangers: Who are the world’s most innovative companies?
• Inspired by Apple and Bytedance, Cemex and DBS, Google and Lucky Iron Fish, Netflix and Tesla
• What do we think they do? (Discussion)
• Case 1: Microsoft … the purpose, mindset and collaboration to reinvent the trillion-dollar business
• Case 2: Haier … using the power of Rendanheyi to reimagine the future of home appliances
• Case 3: Amazon … creating a relentless drive for better, and how every day is day one
• What can we learn from each of these companies?

Part 2: Innovation.Gov

• Governments and Services: Who are the world’s most innovative governments?
• Inspired by Dutch Doughnut, Belgian Badges, Canadian Carrots, Korean Encore, UAE Futures
• How different is public versus private sector innovation?
• Case 4: Singapore … the innovative approach to deliver a Smart Nation
• Case 5: Estonia … creating a digital nation of integrated services and citizens beyond borders
• Case 6: UK … how NHS Horizons facilitates innovation and transformation in healthcare
• What can we learn from each of these companies?

Part 3: Innovation.You

• Having the courage to create a better future: How do leaders create innovative organisations?
• Inspired by Tan Le and Devi Shetty, Elon Musk and Pat Brown, Ilkka Paananen and Jessica Tan
• Creating a “smorgasbord” of innovation practices
• Innovation Culture: Purpose Centric, Growth Mindset, Extreme Teams, Open Systems, Gamechanger Ambitions
• Innovation Process: Future Back, Outside In, Integrated Innovation, Agile Strategies, Impact Portfolio
• Which would work in your organisation and how? (Discussion 15 mins)
• What are the essentials, the differentiators, and the accelerators?

Facebook is planning to start its return to in-person work in May, after over a year of working remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Bloomberg. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced remote work plans near the start of the pandemic that promised around half of his employees could work remotely in the next five to 10 years, but until then, in-person work, at least in a limited capacity, is in the company’s immediate future.

Uber is hoping to get back to in-person work even sooner. The ride-sharing company announced that it’ll reopen its Mission Bay, San Francisco headquarters on March 29th, with a limited 20 percent capacity, according to Reuters. Uber plans to follow similar COVID-19 restrictions as Facebook, requiring face coverings, regular cleanings, and asking employees with sick family members to stay home. Prior to this reopening plan, Uber was letting its office employees work from home until mid-September 2021.

Twitter took a big step and made working from home indefinitely an option for all employees at the start of the pandemic. The company doesn’t have a set date for when it will reopen its offices, however, but “it will be gradual, office-by-office, and at a 20 percent capacity to start,” a Twitter spokesperson tells The Verge.

Amazon issued a statement to employees  saying: “Our plan is to return to an office-centric culture as our baseline. We believe it enables us to invent, collaborate, and learn together most effectively.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the new work-from-home age, then. Part of the hesitancy is that although many employees want more flexibility, it’s still not at all clear what kind of model works for the companies.

As the world slowly emerges from the pandemic, we focus on what it takes to compete in today’s changing world, and look forwards to how business can shape a better future, for itself and society. This year’s theme is about competing in a world of accelerating change.

• How can you win in this changing world?
• Why do we need to reimagine capitalism now?
• Have you the courage to step up, to lead a better future?

Over the last three years, the European Business Forum has brought together some of the world’s best thinkers – Michael Porter to Alex Osterwalder, Erin Meyer and Roger Martin, Rita McGrath and Marshall Goldsmith – helping business leaders to explore and shape a better future together.

Tickets are available here, and students can register free. All paid attendees will receive two free books

• Reimagining Capitalism, How Business Can Save the World by Rebecca Henderson
• Business Recoded: Have the Courage to Create a Better Future by Peter Fisk

Agenda

0900 – 1000 : Business Recoded: Have you the courage to create a better future?

Peter Fisk is professor at IE Business School, and founder of the European Business Forum. He hosts the event again this year, online. In a time of unprecedented disruption and uncertainty, how can business find a new way forwards? He introduces the big themes from his new book, “Business Recoded” (free to participants), including an interview with Jens Haugaard, CEO of Hydac A/S.

1000 – 1040 : Tech for Life: The role of technology, business and society

Lars Thinggaard is a technology entrepreneur and former CEO of Milestone Systems (part of the Canon Group). Lars is co-author of the book “Tech for Life” with Jim Hagemann Snabe, and a firm believer in the Scandinavian approach to management, where all employees are encouraged to participate in the company’s success by freely contributing their input, ideas, and opinions.

1040 – 1100 : Break

1100 – 1200 : World Competitiveness Index, and the Rise of Denmark

Arturo Bris leads the IMD World Competitiveness Center, and is author of the annual World Competitiveness Index. He explores competitiveness in a pandemic, and focuses on how Denmark has risen to become Europe’s leading nation, and #2 in the world, and what this means for the nations, business and people.

1200 – 1230 : Competing with Innovation Hubs, unlocking the power of entrepreneurs

Lone Ryg Olsen is EVP of business and innovation at Aarhus University, focused on creating more value for society through entrepreneurship. She has a background in HR and communications, was previously CEO of the Danish Food Cluster, and is now a member of various company boards. She will focus on the power of collaboration to enable small business to succeed in a changing world.

1230 – 1330 : Lunch

1330 – 1400 : Competing with Talent and Knowledge, unlocking the potential of technology

Rasmus Larsen is the Provost of the Danish Technical University. DTU was recently ranked as #2 technology university in the world for research by WURR. Rasmus will talk about the role of talent and knowledge, and how DTU became an international world-leading technical university including DTU´s established strategy of collaboration with businesses, through initiatives like DTU Skylab.

1400 – 1500 : Reimagining Capitalism, How Business Can Save the World 

Rebecca Henderson is professor at Harvard University. Her new book “Reimagining Capitalism” (free to participants) is shortlisted for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year. It explores what it will take to build a just and sustainable capitalism.  She will present a wake-up call for saving capitalism from itself, saying business can change the world and you can be part of that.

1500 – 1520 : Break

1520 – 1620 : How can your business seize the new opportunities of a changing world?

Leadership panel includes Ida Bratting Kongsted, CEO of Danish Management Society (VL) and board member in healthcare and technology; Jens Haugaard, an engineer and CEO of the technology business Hydac A/S; Mikael Trolle, former CEO of the Danish Volleyball Federation, and now CEO of the Dreams and Details Academy. 

 1620 – 1630 : How the European Business Forum can help you?

Bjarke Wolmar, CEO of the European Business Forum, gives a quick update on the new services being launched with the goal to inspire European business leaders to create a better future, with more positive impact on the world. New services include a range of education programs, bringing together faculty from the world’s leading business schools.

1630 – 1645 : Look forwards, not back

 Peter Fisk reviews the day, and summaries the key messages and concepts to apply to your business, as you work through crisis, and build for a better future. This includes “the survive and thrive” matrix, a practical tool to move forwards, to have the courage and confidence to reimagine your future, that delivers more positive impact, starting right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdCLUbml9q8&t=2s

Tickets are available here, and students can register free. All paid attendees will receive two free books

• Reimagining Capitalism, How Business Can Save the World by Rebecca Henderson
• Business Recoded: Have the Courage to Create a Better Future by Peter Fisk

This year’s European Business Forum is made possible with the generous support of

• IDA … the Danish association of engineers, and a thought leader in technology for business
• Hydac … the German-based technology company are specialists in hydraulic machinery
• Nordea … the Finland-based financial services company serving business and individuals
• IMD … the Swiss-based business school that focuses on world leading executive education

Topics of previous European Business Forums have included

• Smarter Innovation and Faster Growth … watch the review
• Making Better Choices for a Better World … watch the review
• How Europe can learn from Asian business … watch the review

World class speakers at European Business Forum have included

• Michael Porter, Marshall Goldsmith and Lars Rebien Sorensen … watch the interview
• Erin Meyer, on the Culture Map … watch the interview
• Alex Osterwalder, on the Invincible Company … watch the interview and watch the keynote
• Rita McGrath, on Seeing Around Corners … watch the interview
• Roger Martin, on Making Better Choices … watch the interview and watch the keynote
• Martin Lindstrom, on Small Data … watch the keynote
• Don Tapscott, on Power of Networks … watch the keynote

Download Peter Fisk’s keynote on the power of collaboration to drive more purposeful, innovative and profitable growth: Achieving More Together   

Change is dramatic, pervasive and relentless. The challenges are numerous. The opportunities are greater.

Incredible technologies and geopolitical shifts, complex markets and stagnating growth, demanding customers and disruptive entrepreneurs, environmental crisis and social distrust, unexpected shocks and uncertain futures.

The old codes that got us here don’t work anymore. Moving forwards needs a new mindset.

“Business Recoded” is for business leaders who seek to progress in today’s rapidly changing world, and to create the organisations that will thrive in tomorrow’s world.

Peter Fisk helps you to explore how the future will emerge from pandemic and downturn, jumping forwards to understand the megatrends and what your future could look like, then working back to today, to start making it happen.

He explores how to lead a better future, to reimagine your business, to reinvent markets, to energise your people. He describes how to combine profit with more purpose, intelligent technologies with creative people, radical innovation with sustainable impact.

Inspired by innovators

We dive deep into the minds of some of today’s most inspiring business leaders – people like Anne Wojcicki and Jeff Bezos, Emily Weiss and Devi Shetty, Daniel Ek and Tan Le, Mary Barra and Masayoshi Son, Satya Nadella and Zhang Ruimin.

And learn from the innovative strategies of incredible companies – Alibaba and Amazon, Babylon and BlackRock, Meituan Dianping and Microsoft, Narayana Health and Netflix, Patagonia and PingAn, Spotify and Supercell, and many more.

Recoding your future

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.

7 Shifts and 49 Codes

How do we create a better business, and a better future?

Creating this better future requires change in how we think and behave, the way in which you design, manage and lead your business. The mindset shifts are profound, requiring leaders to let go of old behaviours and beliefs, and to embrace new paradigms and possibilities.

The book is organised around these 7 shifts:

• From profit machine to enlightened progress
• From uncertain survival to futuristic growth
• From marginal competition to market creating
• From technology obsession to human ingenuity
• From passive hierarchies to dynamic ecosystems
• From incremental change to sustained transformation
• From good managers to extraordinary leaders

Underpinning these shifts are specific actions required for leaders. These are the 49 codes for you to embrace, adapt and apply in the right way for your organisation.

Coding is most often associated with technology.

A computer code is set of instructions built of words and symbols that together form a program that is then executed by the computer. Codes become standardised as a language, mechanised as a system, and enable huge amounts of processing in fractions of a second. The revolutionary consequences are all around us.

Similarly, a genetic code is a set of rules used by living materials to translate information encoded within DNA into proteins, and into life. The development by Sir Francis Crick and others transformed the world of medicine, leading to breakthroughs such as personalised medicines, and phenomenal businesses like 23andMe.

More generally we have codes, like codes of conduct, as guidelines for the way we work and live. They are principles for doing better, non-prescriptive or definitive they are broad and flexible, suggest approaches which we can adopt in our own personal ways.

The 49 codes create a new framework on which to move forwards.

Business Recoded, the new book from Peter Fisk, is published on 1 December 2020.

© Peter Fisk 2020

Thanks to a small but incredibly contagious RNA we have all become unwitting participants in a seismic experiment. Over 4 billion people in 131 countries have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in over $3 trillion direct economic loss, and 2-3 years of significant disruption and uncertainty in every sector.

Crisis is a catalyst for change. As markets are shaken up, customers shift priorities, and companies adapt to survive. A downturn is typically a peak time of innovation. In fact 57% of the Fortune 500 were founded in a downturn. Inefficiencies are rejected as business priorities quickly change, and new customer behaviours emerge offering new opportunities. We are all familiar with the rapid shifts in the ways we work, travel, shop, learn and much more. Some will stick.

Many companies have struggled in recent months, whilst others have thrived. Amazon to Bytedance, Starship to Zoom,  Tesla’s rise is one of the most remarkable, a 5 times increase in market value in 12 months, propelling it to the world’s most valuable automobile. This is not simply because of a cool car, it is much more about a future portfolio, technology selection, business model, and global ecosystem.

The real legacy of Covid-19 for most industries will be a rapid acceleration in digitalisation, and in many other associated trends. There are 5 significant mega trends worth considering, and how they will shape your future. In some case we will see the next 20 years in the next 2 years. By looking at some of the adjacent industries to your own, we quickly get a sense of where change is likely to be most significant and rapid.

The 4th industrial revolution was already upon us – a blueprint for a more automated and networked, intelligent and personalised future – but the broader impacts on society and the environment will also be amplified as a result of this crisis. Consider the transformation in industries like energy, finance, healthcare – and the transformational journeys of companies like Orsted, DBS and PingAn.

Now is the time for business leaders to step up. So many great leaders are forged in a crisis – how they overcome adversity, how they bring care and empathy, but also hope and inspiration.

Now is the time to reimagine your business, to jump to the future and then work backwards to redefine priorities, but also to seize this moment to shape a new path in your own vision. This takes courage, to think and act in new ways. However if you can translate new ideas into courageous action, you have the opportunity to emerge from these difficult times fitter and stronger, and with a business, a team of people, and an industry creating a better future, today.

The most innovative businesses see the world differently.

They don’t just seek to imitate the success of others, to compete in the markets of today, to frame themselves by their relative differences to competitors. Instead they play their own game.

So what’s the “game”? Well, in simple terms, it’s the market.

These companies go beyond innovating their products and services, their customer experienes and business models. They seek to innovate how their markets work.

Think of it like a sports game. How could you change the game? It could be anything from the pitch dimensions to rules of play, the team composition to the measures of success, the role of the referee to the participation of fans. Even the name of the game.

Now look at today’s most disruptive innovators reframe, reimagine and redefine the market on their terms – who is it for, why people buy, what they pay and get, and how they work.

I’ve met and profiled over 250 “gamechanger” companies on my travels, in almost every sector, and in every part of the world. Corporate giants and start-ups, from Dubai to Berlin, Colombo to Qingdao.

There is no one way to change the game, but there are definitely some common traits:

• Audacious – Gamechangers are visionary and innovative, but also daring and original; they seek to shape the future to their advantage.
• Purposeful – They seek to make life better, in some relevant and inspiring way; they have a higher motive than just making money.
• Networked – Gamechangers harness the power of networks, digital and physical, both business and customer networks, to exponentially reach further faster.
• Intelligent – They use big data analytics and algorithms, machine learning and AI, to be smart and efficient, personal and predictive.
• Collaborative – Gamechangers work with others, from ecosystems to platforms, social networks and co-creation, to achieve more together.
• Enabling – They focus not on what they do, but what they enable people to do; and thereby redefine their marketspace, find new opportunities and redefine value.
• Commercial – Gamechangers take a longer-term perspective, adopting new business models, and recalibrating the measures of progress and success.

Do you have a future mindset?

Today’s business leaders need a future mindset. That sounds obvious, but isn’t.

Most leaders have a “fixed mindset”. They keep stretching the old models of success. They stay loyal to the model that made them great, seeking to squeeze and tweak it for as long as possible. They seek perfection – to optimise what they currently do – which leads to efficiency and incremental gains.

Instead a “future mindset” is prepared to let go of the past. To explore the future, to experiment with new ways of working and winning. Failure is a way to learn, and innovation becomes the norm. Change is relentless inside, as it is outside. Innovation is their lifeblood. Like Jeff Bezos loves to say “it is always day one”.

With a future mindset, the CEO needs new attributes:

• Sense maker – to interpret a fast and confusing world, to see new patterns and opportunities, what is relevant and not, to shape your own vision.
• Radical optimist – to inspire people with a stretching ambition, positive and distinctive, to be audacious, to see the possibilities when others only see risk.
• Future hacker – they start from the “future back”, with clarity of purpose and intent, encouraging ideas and experiments, leveraging resource and scale.
• Ideas connector – da Vinci said innovation is about making unusual connections;  connecting new people, new partners, new capabilities and new ideas.
• Emotionally agile – whilst organisational agility is essential, emotional agility matters even more; to cope with change, to be intuitive in making sense, and making choices.
• Entrepreneur at large – keeping the founders mentality alive, hands-on working with project teams to infuse the mindset, to be the catalyst and coach.
• Having grit – “gamechanger” leaders need to go against the grain, to persist but know when to move on, to have self belief and confidence, guts and resilience.

The future is a better place to start

Start from the “future back”.

Trying to evolve in today’s complex and confused world is unlikely to lead you towards a bright and distinctive future. It will extend your life a little longer, but it will be tough and uninspiring, with diminishing returns.

Instead jump to the future. I tend to start with five years ahead, although it may differ by company. 5 years is long enough to change the world, but close enough to be real. Start by creating a positive, collective and inspiring vision of the future market. What will it be like? What will people want? Why? How? Where? Then consider how to win in this new world.

This is where “moonshot thinking” can be really useful. “Why be 10% better, when you could be 10 times better?” 10 times more profits, more customers, more quality, reduced cost, reduced time. Whatever. By giving yourself a “How could we do it 10x better” challenge you take a new perspective, solve problems in different ways.

Be inspired by ideas from other places.

Explore how ARM or GE, Inditex or Netflix, Glossier or Novo Nordisk have changed their markets. Choose any of my 100+ “gamechanger” companies! How did they do it? How did customers respond? (Remember, they often serve the same customers as you!). You can’t learn much from competitors, but you can learn a lot from relevant parallels.

Copy. Adapt. Paste.

Customer insight also matters. Deep dives and design thinking, exploring the emerging trends and deviant behaviours. This can enhance and validate your ideas, but the problem with most customer insight is that it is filtered by our current world. You need something to disrupt your thinking.

I have a great box of disruptive techniques. Some are really simple – like break then remake the rules, like imagine its free then find a way to make money, like reverse polarities and many more. The point is to disrupt your conventional thinking.

From this, ideas rapidly emerge. You need lots of ideas about the future. But these are fragments of the real answer. The real creativity comes in fusing together into bigger “concepts”. These could be customer solutions, or new ways of working, new revenue streams, or new business models, and new market scenarios.

Once you have a clear and collective ambition for the future, it’s time to work backwards.  “If this is how we want to be in 5 years, where do we need to get to in 3 years, and then in 1 year?  Therefore what do we need to start doing now?” You develop a “horizon plan” for your business; a strategy roadmap if you like, but developed backwards.

The important thing is that by working backwards, you have jumped out of the morass of today. You’ve avoided the assumptions, limitations, problems and priorities of today’s thinking. You have a more inspiring “gamechanging” future, and have started to map out the steps to get there. Most likely with different priorities in the short-term too.

Of course the steps on this journey might change, but it’s going to be an exciting adventure.

Change the way we think, resolve the conflicts

In today’s busineses, we have created artificial divides in how we think and operate. Digital and physical seem like two different worlds, global and local seem like alternative strategies that cannot combine, many still struggle to align value to customers and shareholders in a mutually reinforcing way, and short and long-termism continues to confuse our priorities.

Our thinking within business, has created separate and apparently conflicting approaches. The opportunity is to make the combination of both approaches world – “fusions” if you like – to be innovative in the way you combine apparent opposites.

Digital and physical are two sides of the same coin.

There is only one world, unless you believe Ray Kurzweil, and it is the real one. It’s human and physical. Digital technologies are incredibly powerful, enabling people to connect, to work, to learn, to play in new ways. From mobile phones to blockchains, 3D printing and augmented reality, digital allows us to do more, do it faster, do things we could never do before. But it’s still about humanity.

Start with people. How can you enable them to achieve more? To live better, to have more fun, to do better for the world. Whatever matters. I work closely with Richard Branson and his Virgin teams. Their mindset is to “start from the outside, and then work in”. Design a better customer experience. Built on your ambition and insight, and then explore how you could deliver it with new and existing capabilities.

Global and local are opportunities for every business.

I love Amazon’s “Treasure Truck” … Most of us have never connected with Amazon beyond the website and the delivery guy. Amazon is huge, global and anonymous. But the Treasure Truck is real. It travels around the country, bringing its pop-up store to local neighbourhoods, fun and games, bargains and demos. For Amazon, it’s a chance to make real connections, listen to people, and to be local.

We can all see a backlash in society against relentless globalisation, huge corporations, and social inequality. We see a lack of trust in brands, and know that authenticity matters. Etsy shows us that even the smallest and most local artisan businesses can also be global. For every business, local and global markets are within reach, however it’s also about combining scale and standardisation, with relevance and individuality.

Ideas and networks should be the core of your business.

Gamechanger businesses need a compelling idea, a core purpose, an inspiring proposition, that can spread fast and contagiously. In a digitally-fuelled world, the most innovative businesses embrace “ideas and networks” to drive exponential impact – like WhatsApp creating $19bn in three years, Airbnb $40bn in 9 years, Alibaba $476bn in 18 years, Amazon $740bn in 23 years.

Think about that concept of “exponential” … The power of networks – be it franchisees, or distributors, or customers and users – lies not in the number of members, but in the connections between them. Networks have a multiplying effect. Exponential. Consider, for example, Rapha, the sportwear brand that brings together people with a passion for cycling, who conveniently meet at their “Cycle Club” stores, and buy their premium gear. A fantastic “ideas and networks” business.

Finally this idea of short-term and long-term being in conflict with each other.

Jeff Bezos never has this problem, nor Elon Musk, nor Richard Branson. They focus on the long-term, recognising it will require some years of investment to get there. They all of course lead privately-owned companies. But every public company has the same ambition to innovate and grow. And so do most of their investors, actually.

The reality is that any company’s stock market performance is based on its future earnings potential, not its past. The better you can engage with equity analysts, journalists and investors themselves to explain why you will deliver a better future worth waiting for, then you get their support. If you don’t engage them in your future vision, plans and innovations, then they will default to looking for short-term evidence. It’s really in our hands, to work together to create a future we want to invest in. And to share the greater risk and rewards.

Time to embrace your future mindset

We live in an incredible time … More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years … remember? I know that sounds a little crazy, but think about Hyperloop in 3 years, a tipping point to electric cars in 5 years, Mars missions in 8 years. They are all real, and possible.

Digital platforms connecting buyers and sellers in new ways, blockchain having the potential to transform relationships and trust, 3d printing having the potential to transform value chains to deliver anything personalised and on-demand, AI and robotics giving us the capabilities to be superhuman in our minds and bodies.

These are just some of the fantastic new capabilities that enable us to innovate beyond what we can even imagine today. The future isn’t like the future used to be. We cannot just evolve or extrapolate the past. Today’s future is discontinuous, disruptive, different.

It is imagination that will move us forwards … unlocking the technological possibilities, applying them to real problems and opportunities, to drive innovation and growth in every industry, in every part of our lives.

Imagine a world where you press “print” to get the dress of your dreams, the food of your fantasies, or the spare parts for your car. Instantly, personalised and on demand. Think then what does that mean if we don’t need the huge scale of manufacturing plants, warehousing and transportation. Maybe we will even subscribe to the IP catalogues of brands, rather than buy standard products, in the ways we currently subscribe to Netflix.

Time to embrace your growth mindset … Unlock your Einstein dreams and Picasso passion … Embrace your Mandela courage and Ghandi spirit. Be more curious, be more intuitive, be more human. Ask more questions. Don’t be afraid to have audacious ideas, to challenge the old models of success, and turn future ambitions into practical profitable reality.

How else did Zespri reinvent the Chinese gooseberry as the kiwi fruit? How else will SpaceX reach Mars by 2025? How else did Netflix came to be, or NuTonomy, or Nespresso, or Nyx?

This is why 23andMe’s Anne Wojicki wont give up in her quest to make DNA analysis available to everyone, and to ultimately find a cure for cancer. And it’s why Jack Ma didn’t give up as he rose from $1000-per year English teacher to technological royalty.

The secret is the future mindset.

To realise that the future is malleable. So we need to grab hold of it, and shape it in our own vision. To our advantage.

This is what “gamechangers” do.

• Find out more: Global Advanced Management Program at IE Business School

More ideas from Peter Fisk …

• Article: Leading the future: The 10x Leader
• Article: Leading the future: Amplifying Potential
• Article: Leading the future: Are you the Einstein or Picasso of Business?
• Article: Leading the future: How to innovate like Leonardo da Vinci
• Blog: Leaders and Loonshots: What are the best new ideas in business?
• Blog: The Age of AI: Smart robots, conscious computers and the future of humanity
• Blog: 17 Lessons from Asian Business: Learning from China, India, Singapore and beyond
• Blog: Do you believe in unicorns? The $1 billion starts have become giants across the world
• Book: “Gamechangers: Are you ready to change the world?“
• Book: “Customer Genius: Becoming a customer centric business“
• Book: “Business Genius: A more inspired approach to strategy and leadership”
• Book: “People Planet Profit: How to embrace sustainability for innovation and growth“
• Keynote: Business Recoded
• Keynote: Leading Change in a Disruptive World 
• Keynote: Man and Machine
• Keynote: Business Lessons from Asian Innovators
• Masterclass: Strategic Innovation
• Masterclass: Game Changing Strategies
• Masterclass: Disrupt or be Disrupted
• Masterclass: Hacking Exponential Growth
• Executive Program: Global Advanced Management Program at IE Business School
• Executive Program: Business Recoded: The Future Accelerator

Now is a time of unprecedented shake-up in every market. Every business faces a maelstrom of challenges – global pandemic and economic recession, climate crisis and social inequality, intense competition and vociferous customers.

Moving forwards demands a new mindset, new perspectives and new solutions. It requires everyone to challenge the old ways of working and winning, embrace speed and complexity. Now is the time to be disruptive, now is the time for innovation.

• Leading business in a times of crisis and change … 57% of the best companies are born in a downturn, and it’s the moment of most innovation too.
• Winners and losers during Covid-19 … Amazon and Attabotics, BlackRock and Bytedance, Icon and Impossible, Peloton and Ping An.
• Disruption and disruptors … from new technologies to new business models, entrepreneurs and deviant thinkers … and how to “disrupt the disruptors”
• Practical tools to start innovating … Jump to the future, find more purpose, change the market, solve bigger problems, make unusual connections.
• Creating a better future, starts now … time for leaders to step up, to reimagine business, build extreme teams, and to look forwards not back.

Download Peter Fisk’s presentation: Disruptive Innovation

This is an extract from the Global Advanced Management Program from IE Business School, a 20 day program for business leaders stepping up to lead their business, to transform themselves and their organisations in the context of today and tomorrow’s world, bringing together the best new ideas and faculty from around the world. Peter Fisk is the program’s academic director, and will give a taste of some of the content, in an energising, inspiring but also practical 90 minutes.

Time to recode your business

Thanks to a small but incredibly contagious RNA we have all become unwitting participants in a seismic experiment. Over 4 billion people in 131 countries have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in over $3 trillion direct economic loss, and 2-3 years of significant disruption and uncertainty in every sector.

Crisis is a catalyst for change. As markets are shaken up, customers shift priorities, and companies adapt to survive. A downturn is typically a peak time of innovation. In fact 57% of the Fortune 500 were founded in a downturn. Inefficiencies are rejected as business priorities quickly change, and new customer behaviours emerge offering new opportunities. We are all familiar with the rapid shifts in the ways we work, travel, shop, learn and much more. Some will stick.

Many companies have struggled in recent months, whilst others have thrived. Amazon to Bytedance, Starship to Zoom,  Tesla’s rise is one of the most remarkable, a 5 times increase in market value in 12 months, propelling it to the world’s most valuable automobile. This is not simply because of a cool car, it is much more about a future portfolio, technology selection, business model, and global ecosystem.

The real legacy of Covid-19 for most industries will be a rapid acceleration in digitalisation, and in many other associated trends. There are 5 significant mega trends worth considering, and how they will shape your future. In some case we will see the next 20 years in the next 2 years. By looking at some of the adjacent industries to your own, we quickly get a sense of where change is likely to be most significant and rapid.

The 4th industrial revolution was already upon us – a blueprint for a more automated and networked, intelligent and personalised future – but the broader impacts on society and the environment will also be amplified as a result of this crisis. Consider the transformation in industries like energy, finance, healthcare – and the transformational journeys of companies like Orsted, DBS and PingAn.

Now is the time for business leaders to step up. So many great leaders are forged in a crisis – how they overcome adversity, how they bring care and empathy, but also hope and inspiration.

Now is the time to reimagine your business, to jump to the future and then work backwards to redefine priorities, but also to seize this moment to shape a new path in your own vision. This takes courage, to think and act in new ways. However if you can translate new ideas into courageous action, you have the opportunity to emerge from these difficult times fitter and stronger, and with a business, a team of people, and an industry creating a better future, today.

The most innovative businesses see the world differently.

They don’t just seek to imitate the success of others, to compete in the markets of today, to frame themselves by their relative differences to competitors. Instead they play their own game.

So what’s the “game”? Well, in simple terms, it’s the market.

These companies go beyond innovating their products and services, their customer experienes and business models. They seek to innovate how their markets work.

Think of it like a sports game. How could you change the game? It could be anything from the pitch dimensions to rules of play, the team composition to the measures of success, the role of the referee to the participation of fans. Even the name of the game.

Now look at today’s most disruptive innovators reframe, reimagine and redefine the market on their terms – who is it for, why people buy, what they pay and get, and how they work.

I’ve met and profiled over 250 “gamechanger” companies on my travels, in almost every sector, and in every part of the world. Corporate giants and start-ups, from Dubai to Berlin, Colombo to Qingdao.

There is no one way to change the game, but there are definitely some common traits:

• Audacious – Gamechangers are visionary and innovative, but also daring and original; they seek to shape the future to their advantage.
• Purposeful – They seek to make life better, in some relevant and inspiring way; they have a higher motive than just making money.
• Networked – Gamechangers harness the power of networks, digital and physical, both business and customer networks, to exponentially reach further faster.
• Intelligent – They use big data analytics and algorithms, machine learning and AI, to be smart and efficient, personal and predictive.
• Collaborative – Gamechangers work with others, from ecosystems to platforms, social networks and co-creation, to achieve more together.
• Enabling – They focus not on what they do, but what they enable people to do; and thereby redefine their marketspace, find new opportunities and redefine value.
• Commercial – Gamechangers take a longer-term perspective, adopting new business models, and recalibrating the measures of progress and success.

Do you have a future mindset?

Today’s business leaders need a future mindset. That sounds obvious, but isn’t.

Most leaders have a “fixed mindset”. They keep stretching the old models of success. They stay loyal to the model that made them great, seeking to squeeze and tweak it for as long as possible. They seek perfection – to optimise what they currently do – which leads to efficiency and incremental gains.

Instead a “future mindset” is prepared to let go of the past. To explore the future, to experiment with new ways of working and winning. Failure is a way to learn, and innovation becomes the norm. Change is relentless inside, as it is outside. Innovation is their lifeblood. Like Jeff Bezos loves to say “it is always day one”.

With a future mindset, the CEO needs new attributes:

• Sense maker – to interpret a fast and confusing world, to see new patterns and opportunities, what is relevant and not, to shape your own vision.
• Radical optimist – to inspire people with a stretching ambition, positive and distinctive, to be audacious, to see the possibilities when others only see risk.
• Future hacker – they start from the “future back”, with clarity of purpose and intent, encouraging ideas and experiments, leveraging resource and scale.
• Ideas connector – da Vinci said innovation is about making unusual connections;  connecting new people, new partners, new capabilities and new ideas.
• Emotionally agile – whilst organisational agility is essential, emotional agility matters even more; to cope with change, to be intuitive in making sense, and making choices.
• Entrepreneur at large – keeping the founders mentality alive, hands-on working with project teams to infuse the mindset, to be the catalyst and coach.
• Having grit – “gamechanger” leaders need to go against the grain, to persist but know when to move on, to have self belief and confidence, guts and resilience.

The future is a better place to start

Start from the “future back”.

Trying to evolve in today’s complex and confused world is unlikely to lead you towards a bright and distinctive future. It will extend your life a little longer, but it will be tough and uninspiring, with diminishing returns.

Instead jump to the future. I tend to start with five years ahead, although it may differ by company. 5 years is long enough to change the world, but close enough to be real. Start by creating a positive, collective and inspiring vision of the future market. What will it be like? What will people want? Why? How? Where? Then consider how to win in this new world.

This is where “moonshot thinking” can be really useful. “Why be 10% better, when you could be 10 times better?” 10 times more profits, more customers, more quality, reduced cost, reduced time. Whatever. By giving yourself a “How could we do it 10x better” challenge you take a new perspective, solve problems in different ways.

Be inspired by ideas from other places.

Explore how ARM or GE, Inditex or Netflix, Glossier or Novo Nordisk have changed their markets. Choose any of my 100+ “gamechanger” companies! How did they do it? How did customers respond? (Remember, they often serve the same customers as you!). You can’t learn much from competitors, but you can learn a lot from relevant parallels.

Copy. Adapt. Paste.

Customer insight also matters. Deep dives and design thinking, exploring the emerging trends and deviant behaviours. This can enhance and validate your ideas, but the problem with most customer insight is that it is filtered by our current world. You need something to disrupt your thinking.

I have a great box of disruptive techniques. Some are really simple – like break then remake the rules, like imagine its free then find a way to make money, like reverse polarities and many more. The point is to disrupt your conventional thinking.

From this, ideas rapidly emerge. You need lots of ideas about the future. But these are fragments of the real answer. The real creativity comes in fusing together into bigger “concepts”. These could be customer solutions, or new ways of working, new revenue streams, or new business models, and new market scenarios.

Once you have a clear and collective ambition for the future, it’s time to work backwards.  “If this is how we want to be in 5 years, where do we need to get to in 3 years, and then in 1 year?  Therefore what do we need to start doing now?” You develop a “horizon plan” for your business; a strategy roadmap if you like, but developed backwards.

The important thing is that by working backwards, you have jumped out of the morass of today. You’ve avoided the assumptions, limitations, problems and priorities of today’s thinking. You have a more inspiring “gamechanging” future, and have started to map out the steps to get there. Most likely with different priorities in the short-term too.

Of course the steps on this journey might change, but it’s going to be an exciting adventure.

Change the way we think, resolve the conflicts

In today’s busineses, we have created artificial divides in how we think and operate. Digital and physical seem like two different worlds, global and local seem like alternative strategies that cannot combine, many still struggle to align value to customers and shareholders in a mutually reinforcing way, and short and long-termism continues to confuse our priorities.

Our thinking within business, has created separate and apparently conflicting approaches. The opportunity is to make the combination of both approaches world – “fusions” if you like – to be innovative in the way you combine apparent opposites.

Digital and physical are two sides of the same coin.

There is only one world, unless you believe Ray Kurzweil, and it is the real one. It’s human and physical. Digital technologies are incredibly powerful, enabling people to connect, to work, to learn, to play in new ways. From mobile phones to blockchains, 3D printing and augmented reality, digital allows us to do more, do it faster, do things we could never do before. But it’s still about humanity.

Start with people. How can you enable them to achieve more? To live better, to have more fun, to do better for the world. Whatever matters. I work closely with Richard Branson and his Virgin teams. Their mindset is to “start from the outside, and then work in”. Design a better customer experience. Built on your ambition and insight, and then explore how you could deliver it with new and existing capabilities.

Global and local are opportunities for every business.

I love Amazon’s “Treasure Truck” … Most of us have never connected with Amazon beyond the website and the delivery guy. Amazon is huge, global and anonymous. But the Treasure Truck is real. It travels around the country, bringing its pop-up store to local neighbourhoods, fun and games, bargains and demos. For Amazon, it’s a chance to make real connections, listen to people, and to be local.

We can all see a backlash in society against relentless globalisation, huge corporations, and social inequality. We see a lack of trust in brands, and know that authenticity matters. Etsy shows us that even the smallest and most local artisan businesses can also be global. For every business, local and global markets are within reach, however it’s also about combining scale and standardisation, with relevance and individuality.

Ideas and networks should be the core of your business.

Gamechanger businesses need a compelling idea, a core purpose, an inspiring proposition, that can spread fast and contagiously. In a digitally-fuelled world, the most innovative businesses embrace “ideas and networks” to drive exponential impact – like WhatsApp creating $19bn in three years, Airbnb $40bn in 9 years, Alibaba $476bn in 18 years, Amazon $740bn in 23 years.

Think about that concept of “exponential” … The power of networks – be it franchisees, or distributors, or customers and users – lies not in the number of members, but in the connections between them. Networks have a multiplying effect. Exponential. Consider, for example, Rapha, the sportwear brand that brings together people with a passion for cycling, who conveniently meet at their “Cycle Club” stores, and buy their premium gear. A fantastic “ideas and networks” business.

Finally this idea of short-term and long-term being in conflict with each other.

Jeff Bezos never has this problem, nor Elon Musk, nor Richard Branson. They focus on the long-term, recognising it will require some years of investment to get there. They all of course lead privately-owned companies. But every public company has the same ambition to innovate and grow. And so do most of their investors, actually.

The reality is that any company’s stock market performance is based on its future earnings potential, not its past. The better you can engage with equity analysts, journalists and investors themselves to explain why you will deliver a better future worth waiting for, then you get their support. If you don’t engage them in your future vision, plans and innovations, then they will default to looking for short-term evidence. It’s really in our hands, to work together to create a future we want to invest in. And to share the greater risk and rewards.

Time to embrace your future mindset

We live in an incredible time … More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years … remember? I know that sounds a little crazy, but think about Hyperloop in 3 years, a tipping point to electric cars in 5 years, Mars missions in 8 years. They are all real, and possible.

Digital platforms connecting buyers and sellers in new ways, blockchain having the potential to transform relationships and trust, 3d printing having the potential to transform value chains to deliver anything personalised and on-demand, AI and robotics giving us the capabilities to be superhuman in our minds and bodies.

These are just some of the fantastic new capabilities that enable us to innovate beyond what we can even imagine today. The future isn’t like the future used to be. We cannot just evolve or extrapolate the past. Today’s future is discontinuous, disruptive, different.

It is imagination that will move us forwards … unlocking the technological possibilities, applying them to real problems and opportunities, to drive innovation and growth in every industry, in every part of our lives.

Imagine a world where you press “print” to get the dress of your dreams, the food of your fantasies, or the spare parts for your car. Instantly, personalised and on demand. Think then what does that mean if we don’t need the huge scale of manufacturing plants, warehousing and transportation. Maybe we will even subscribe to the IP catalogues of brands, rather than buy standard products, in the ways we currently subscribe to Netflix.

Time to embrace your growth mindset … Unlock your Einstein dreams and Picasso passion … Embrace your Mandela courage and Ghandi spirit. Be more curious, be more intuitive, be more human. Ask more questions. Don’t be afraid to have audacious ideas, to challenge the old models of success, and turn future ambitions into practical profitable reality.

How else did Zespri reinvent the Chinese gooseberry as the kiwi fruit? How else will SpaceX reach Mars by 2025? How else did Netflix came to be, or NuTonomy, or Nespresso, or Nyx?

This is why 23andMe’s Anne Wojicki wont give up in her quest to make DNA analysis available to everyone, and to ultimately find a cure for cancer. And it’s why Jack Ma didn’t give up as he rose from $1000-per year English teacher to technological royalty.

The secret is the future mindset.

To realise that the future is malleable. So we need to grab hold of it, and shape it in our own vision. To our advantage.

This is what “gamechangers” do.

More ideas from Peter Fisk …

• Article: Leading the future: The 10x Leader
• Article: Leading the future: Amplifying Potential
• Article: Leading the future: Are you the Einstein or Picasso of Business?
• Article: Leading the future: How to innovate like Leonardo da Vinci
• Blog: Leaders and Loonshots: What are the best new ideas in business?
• Blog: The Age of AI: Smart robots, conscious computers and the future of humanity
• Blog: 17 Lessons from Asian Business: Learning from China, India, Singapore and beyond
• Blog: Do you believe in unicorns? The $1 billion starts have become giants across the world
• Book: “Gamechangers: Are you ready to change the world?“
• Book: “Customer Genius: Becoming a customer centric business“
• Book: “Business Genius: A more inspired approach to strategy and leadership”
• Book: “People Planet Profit: How to embrace sustainability for innovation and growth“
• Keynote: Business Recoded
• Keynote: Leading Change in a Disruptive World 
• Keynote: Man and Machine
• Keynote: Business Lessons from Asian Innovators
• Masterclass: Strategic Innovation
• Masterclass: Game Changing Strategies
• Masterclass: Disrupt or be Disrupted
• Masterclass: Hacking Exponential Growth

The logistics business might not seem a natural place for disruption – its physical, process-driven and regulated (ships, rail, trucks, air). Yet there is a huge reluctance amongst big companies to change  – most live in the past, both in terms of technology and mindset, protecting the margins made through the frictions and inadequences of the existing ways of working.

Think about the potential of new technology platforms (like Uber), new smart systems (like Amazon), new technology capabilities (mobile, cloud, big data, AI, drones, robotics, and more), and new business models (like crowd-based funding).

In short, it’s a perfect industry for disruption.

Here are 10 of the most innovative companies in logistics including Attabotics who are able to save 85% in warehouse space using vertical 3D robotic systems, launched by Canadian Scott Gravelle in 2016, inspired by how leaf-cutter ants build colonies vertically underground:

The program is delivered in partnership with Headspring over 4 modules including:

Week 1: The Customer Agenda

Explore more about business models here.

The most innovative businesses see the world differently.

They don’t just seek to imitate the success of others, to compete in the markets of today, to frame themselves by their relative differences to competitors. Instead they play their own game.

I call them “gamechangers”, and here in Dubai, I will be taking inspiration from the World Expo 2020, and also from companies all around the world who are shaking up markets, embracing radical new ideas, and changing the game.

So what’s the “game”? Well, in simple terms, it’s the market.

These companies go beyond innovating their products and services, their customer experienes and business models. They seek to innovate how their markets work.

Think of it like a sports game. How could you change the game? It could be anything from the pitch dimensions to rules of play, the team composition to the measures of success, the role of the referee to the participation of fans. Even the name of the game.

Now look at today’s most disruptive innovators – 23andMe to Alibaba, Zespri to Zidisha – they reframe, reimagine and redefine the market on their terms – who is it for, why people buy, what they pay and get, and how they work.

I’ve met and profiled over 250 “gamechanger” companies on my travels, in almost every sector, and in every part of the world. Corporate giants and start-ups, from Dubai to Berlin, Colombo to Qingdao.

There is no one way to change the game, but there are definitely some common traits:

• Audacious – Gamechangers are visionary and innovative, but also daring and original; they seek to shape the future to their advantage.
• Purposeful – They seek to make life better, in some relevant and inspiring way; they have a higher motive than just making money.
• Networked – Gamechangers harness the power of networks, digital and physical, both business and customer networks, to exponentially reach further faster.
• Intelligent – They use big data analytics and algorithms, machine learning and AI, to be smart and efficient, personal and predictive.
• Collaborative – Gamechangers work with others, from ecosystems to platforms, social networks and co-creation, to achieve more together.
• Enabling – They focus not on what they do, but what they enable people to do; and thereby redefine their marketspace, find new opportunities and redefine value.
• Commercial – Gamechangers take a longer-term perspective, adopting new business models, and recalibrating the measures of progress and success.

Do you have a future mindset?

Today’s business leaders need a future mindset. That sounds obvious, but isn’t.

Most leaders have a “fixed mindset”. They keep stretching the old models of success. They stay loyal to the model that made them great, seeking to squeeze and tweak it for as long as possible. They seek perfection – to optimise what they currently do – which leads to efficiency and incremental gains.

Instead a “future mindset” is prepared to let go of the past. To explore the future, to experiment with new ways of working and winning. Failure is a way to learn, and innovation becomes the norm. Change is relentless inside, as it is outside. Innovation is their lifeblood. Like Jeff Bezos loves to say “it is always day one”.

With a future mindset, the CEO needs new attributes:

• Sense maker – to interpret a fast and confusing world, to see new patterns and opportunities, what is relevant and not, to shape your own vision.
• Radical optimist – to inspire people with a stretching ambition, positive and distinctive, to be audacious, to see the possibilities when others only see risk.
• Future hacker – they start from the “future back”, with clarity of purpose and intent, encouraging ideas and experiments, leveraging resource and scale.
• Ideas connector – da Vinci said innovation is about making unusual connections;  connecting new people, new partners, new capabilities and new ideas.
• Emotionally agile – whilst organisational agility is essential, emotional agility matters even more; to cope with change, to be intuitive in making sense, and making choices.
• Entrepreneur at large – keeping the founders mentality alive, hands-on working with project teams to infuse the mindset, to be the catalyst and coach.
• Having grit – “gamechanger” leaders need to go against the grain, to persist but know when to move on, to have self belief and confidence, guts and resilience.

The future is a better place to start

Start from the “future back”.

Trying to evolve in today’s complex and confused world is unlikely to lead you towards a bright and distinctive future. It will extend your life a little longer, but it will be tough and uninspiring, with diminishing returns.

Instead jump to the future. I tend to start with five years ahead, although it may differ by company. 5 years is long enough to change the world, but close enough to be real. Start by creating a positive, collective and inspiring vision of the future market. What will it be like? What will people want? Why? How? Where? Then consider how to win in this new world.

This is where “moonshot thinking” can be really useful. “Why be 10% better, when you could be 10 times better?” 10 times more profits, more customers, more quality, reduced cost, reduced time. Whatever. By giving yourself a “How could we do it 10x better” challenge you take a new perspective, solve problems in different ways.

Be inspired by ideas from other places.

Explore how ARM or GE, Inditex or Netflix, Glossier or Novo Nordisk have changed their markets. Choose any of my 100+ “gamechanger” companies! How did they do it? How did customers respond? (Remember, they often serve the same customers as you!). You can’t learn much from competitors, but you can learn a lot from relevant parallels.

Copy. Adapt. Paste.

Customer insight also matters. Deep dives and design thinking, exploring the emerging trends and deviant behaviours. This can enhance and validate your ideas, but the problem with most customer insight is that it is filtered by our current world. You need something to disrupt your thinking.

I have a great box of disruptive techniques. Some are really simple – like break then remake the rules, like imagine its free then find a way to make money, like reverse polarities and many more. The point is to disrupt your conventional thinking.

From this, ideas rapidly emerge. You need lots of ideas about the future. But these are fragments of the real answer. The real creativity comes in fusing together into bigger “concepts”. These could be customer solutions, or new ways of working, new revenue streams, or new business models, and new market scenarios.

Once you have a clear and collective ambition for the future, it’s time to work backwards.  “If this is how we want to be in 5 years, where do we need to get to in 3 years, and then in 1 year?  Therefore what do we need to start doing now?” You develop a “horizon plan” for your business; a strategy roadmap if you like, but developed backwards.

The important thing is that by working backwards, you have jumped out of the morass of today. You’ve avoided the assumptions, limitations, problems and priorities of today’s thinking. You have a more inspiring “gamechanging” future, and have started to map out the steps to get there. Most likely with different priorities in the short-term too.

Of course the steps on this journey might change, but it’s going to be an exciting adventure.

Change the way we think, resolve the conflicts

In today’s busineses, we have created artificial divides in how we think and operate. Digital and physical seem like two different worlds, global and local seem like alternative strategies that cannot combine, many still struggle to align value to customers and shareholders in a mutually reinforcing way, and short and long-termism continues to confuse our priorities.

Our thinking within business, has created separate and apparently conflicting approaches. The opportunity is to make the combination of both approaches world – “fusions” if you like – to be innovative in the way you combine apparent opposites.

Digital and physical are two sides of the same coin.

There is only one world, unless you believe Ray Kurzweil, and it is the real one. It’s human and physical. Digital technologies are incredibly powerful, enabling people to connect, to work, to learn, to play in new ways. From mobile phones to blockchains, 3D printing and augmented reality, digital allows us to do more, do it faster, do things we could never do before. But it’s still about humanity.

Start with people. How can you enable them to achieve more? To live better, to have more fun, to do better for the world. Whatever matters. I work closely with Richard Branson and his Virgin teams. Their mindset is to “start from the outside, and then work in”. Design a better customer experience. Built on your ambition and insight, and then explore how you could deliver it with new and existing capabilities.

Global and local are opportunities for every business.

I love Amazon’s “Treasure Truck” … Most of us have never connected with Amazon beyond the website and the delivery guy. Amazon is huge, global and anonymous. But the Treasure Truck is real. It travels around the country, bringing its pop-up store to local neighbourhoods, fun and games, bargains and demos. For Amazon, it’s a chance to make real connections, listen to people, and to be local.

We can all see a backlash in society against relentless globalisation, huge corporations, and social inequality. We see a lack of trust in brands, and know that authenticity matters. Etsy shows us that even the smallest and most local artisan businesses can also be global. For every business, local and global markets are within reach, however it’s also about combining scale and standardisation, with relevance and individuality.

Ideas and networks should be the core of your business.

Gamechanger businesses need a compelling idea, a core purpose, an inspiring proposition, that can spread fast and contagiously. In a digitally-fuelled world, the most innovative businesses embrace “ideas and networks” to drive exponential impact – like WhatsApp creating $19bn in three years, Airbnb $40bn in 9 years, Alibaba $476bn in 18 years, Amazon $740bn in 23 years.

Think about that concept of “exponential” … The power of networks – be it franchisees, or distributors, or customers and users – lies not in the number of members, but in the connections between them. Networks have a multiplying effect. Exponential. Consider, for example, Rapha, the sportwear brand that brings together people with a passion for cycling, who conveniently meet at their “Cycle Club” stores, and buy their premium gear. A fantastic “ideas and networks” business.

Finally this idea of short-term and long-term being in conflict with each other.

Jeff Bezos never has this problem, nor Elon Musk, nor Richard Branson. They focus on the long-term, recognising it will require some years of investment to get there. They all of course lead privately-owned companies. But every public company has the same ambition to innovate and grow. And so do most of their investors, actually.

The reality is that any company’s stock market performance is based on its future earnings potential, not its past. The better you can engage with equity analysts, journalists and investors themselves to explain why you will deliver a better future worth waiting for, then you get their support. If you don’t engage them in your future vision, plans and innovations, then they will default to looking for short-term evidence. It’s really in our hands, to work together to create a future we want to invest in. And to share the greater risk and rewards.

Time to embrace your future mindset

We live in an incredible time … More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years … remember? I know that sounds a little crazy, but think about Hyperloop in 3 years, a tipping point to electric cars in 5 years, Mars missions in 8 years. They are all real, and possible.

Digital platforms connecting buyers and sellers in new ways, blockchain having the potential to transform relationships and trust, 3d printing having the potential to transform value chains to deliver anything personalised and on-demand, AI and robotics giving us the capabilities to be superhuman in our minds and bodies.

These are just some of the fantastic new capabilities that enable us to innovate beyond what we can even imagine today. The future isn’t like the future used to be. We cannot just evolve or extrapolate the past. Today’s future is discontinuous, disruptive, different.

It is imagination that will move us forwards … unlocking the technological possibilities, applying them to real problems and opportunities, to drive innovation and growth in every industry, in every part of our lives.

Imagine a world where you press “print” to get the dress of your dreams, the food of your fantasies, or the spare parts for your car. Instantly, personalised and on demand. Think then what does that mean if we don’t need the huge scale of manufacturing plants, warehousing and transportation. Maybe we will even subscribe to the IP catalogues of brands, rather than buy standard products, in the ways we currently subscribe to Netflix.

Time to embrace your growth mindset … Unlock your Einstein dreams and Picasso passion … Embrace your Mandela courage and Ghandi spirit. Be more curious, be more intuitive, be more human. Ask more questions. Don’t be afraid to have audacious ideas, to challenge the old models of success, and turn future ambitions into practical profitable reality.

How else did Zespri reinvent the Chinese gooseberry as the kiwi fruit? How else will SpaceX reach Mars by 2025? How else did Netflix came to be, or NuTonomy, or Nespresso, or Nyx?

This is why 23andMe’s Anne Wojicki wont give up in her quest to make DNA analysis available to everyone, and to ultimately find a cure for cancer. And it’s why Jack Ma didn’t give up as he rose from $1000-per year English teacher to technological royalty.

The secret is the future mindset.

To realise that the future is malleable. So we need to grab hold of it, and shape it in our own vision. To our advantage.

This is what “gamechangers” do.

 

Peter Fisk delivers the opening keynote at this year’s Conrad Convention 2020:

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.

7 Shifts and 49 Codes

How do we create a better business, and a better future?

Creating this better future requires change in how we think and behave, the way in which you design, manage and lead your business. The mindset shifts are profound, requiring leaders to let go of old behaviours and beliefs, and to embrace new paradigms and possibilities.

The book is organised around these 7 shifts:

• From profit machine to enlightened progress
• From uncertain survival to futuristic growth
• From marginal competition to market creating
• From technology obsession to human ingenuity
• From passive hierarchies to dynamic ecosystems
• From incremental change to sustained transformation
• From good managers to extraordinary leaders

Underpinning these shifts are specific actions required for leaders. These are the 49 codes for you to embrace, adapt and apply in the right way for your organisation.

Coding is most often associated with technology.

A computer code is set of instructions built of words and symbols that together form a program that is then executed by the computer. Codes become standardised as a language, mechanised as a system, and enable huge amounts of processing in fractions of a second. The revolutionary consequences are all around us.

Similarly, a genetic code is a set of rules used by living materials to translate information encoded within DNA into proteins, and into life. The development by Sir Francis Crick and others transformed the world of medicine, leading to breakthroughs such as personalised medicines, and phenomenal businesses like 23andMe.

More generally we have codes, like codes of conduct, as guidelines for the way we work and live. They are principles for doing better, non-prescriptive or definitive they are broad and flexible, suggest approaches which we can adopt in our own personal ways.

The 49 codes create a new framework on which to move forwards.

Business Recoded, the new book from Peter Fisk, is published on 1 December 2020.

© Peter Fisk 2020