We live in a hyper-connected world.

Never in our history have people, products, and data been more connected on a global scale than today – allowing access to new markets, ideas, and collaboration partners. However, we’re also experiencing the negative side of ‘hyper-connectedness’– empty shelves, deserted ports, worker shortages, information overload, and rising prices.

Today’s global interconnectivity provides a unique opportunity for Open Committed Brave Leaders from around the world to work together – co-creating solutions to these challenges. By turning the situation into Crisitunity (opportunity through crisis), leaders can define new ecosystems, ways of using technology and data to anticipate disruptions, address customer needs and build more flexible and sustainable value chains.

How can leaders become future-ready?

  • Building an innovation culture “real-time” – Managing long planning cycles and investing time and resources into an ‘innovation strategy’ are a thing of the past. Strive to demonstrate innovation ‘real-time’ – trying new things, failing, learning, and adopting new behaviors
  • Collaborating to address global disruptions – Identify your ‘innovation ecosystem’ – startups, students, investors, public sector, and service providers committed to the same goal. Partner to create new solutions or products that eliminate shortcomings in the industry.
  • Proactively addressing rapidly changing customer needs – Don’t wait until customers leave you for a competitor. Proactively ask yourself – what do my customers need right now? Take a cue from what customers do, not what they say – for that you need data.
  • Gaining team commitment to new models – Be inclusive when you are embarking on a change journey and bring people along for the right. Create buy-in, excitement, champions, and take listen when employees share their concerns.
  • Building sustainability into supply chains – Designing for sustainability is a big opportunity for brands to break new ground. However, for sustainable behaviors to stick, leaders will have to think differently about how to create new value for customers through extending a product’s life, rather than selling a new product.

The hyperconnected world is here to stay, providing business leaders with new challenges but also new opportunities. You don’t have to go it alone. A great way to get inspiration and insights is to participate in an Executive Growth Circle with other global, future-ready leaders.