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Resilience is no longer just about grit or recovering from setbacks. Its about anticipating change, staying agile in uncertainty, and continuously evolving. The most future-ready organizations build resilience not just at the leadership level, but across their entire workforceequipping employees with the skills, mindsets, and support systems they need to turn disruption into momentum. People today expect morelearning, development, well-being, and strong leadershipto help them navigate the future of work. Companies that invest in these areas dont just retain top talent; they build workforces that are unstoppable. Here are four powerful strategies to embed resilience into your workforce and future-proof your business. 1. Build a Culture of Continuous Learning The workplace is more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) than ever. In this environment, adopting a growth mindset at scale isnt just valuableits essential. Organizations that foster continuous learning help employees build confidence, adapt to change, and contribute in new and meaningful ways. Our latest research study found that 90% of knowledge workers, people managers, HR, and business executives see learning and career development as personally importantan increase of 13 percentage points since 2021. Yet, many employees still operate with a “know-it-all” mindset, resisting new information or perspectives. Contrast this with a “learn-it-all” mentality, a concept rooted in the pioneering work of psychologist Carol Dweck and championed by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. A learn-it-all workforce thrives in uncertaintyembracing curiosity, experimentation, and adaptability. Strategy: Make Learning a Daily Habit Shift learning from an event to an ongoing process, integrating microlearning, peer coaching, and real-time feedback into daily work. Equip leaders to facilitate career development conversations that reinforce employees value and potential. Encourage cross-functional projects, upskilling, and mentorship to prepare employees for evolving roles. Bottom line: Resilient teams dont fear changethey see it as an opportunity to grow. 2. Prepare Your People for AI AI is already transforming work, yet only about a third of knowledge workers use it at least occasionally. While AI can significantly boost efficiency and productivity, many employees are hesitantunsure of its ethical implications and job impact. Employees who learn to use AI effectively will be better positioned for the future than those who resist it. Our research shows that frequent AI users are nearly twice as optimistic about its benefits than those with less exposure, and they are also more likely to recognize that they need to develop soft skills like critical thinking, communication, and creativity to be successful. Strategy: Build AI Confidence and Readiness First, its essential to lay the groundworkdefining your AI strategy, investing in the right technologies, ensuring ethical implementation, and preparing your people so they understand how it fits into their roles. Invest in AI literacy training and skills development to demystify the technology and encourage adoption. With the necessary guardrails in place, empower teams to experiment with AI in workflows where it adds valueimproving decision-making, efficiency, and innovation. Bottom line: AI is reshaping the workplace, and employees who integrate it into their skill set will have a significant advantage over those who dont. Organizations that empower their people to use AI will develop a workforce that is skilled, adaptable, and future-ready. 3. Prioritize Holistic Well-Being and Belonging Well-being is much more than a perkits the foundation of engagement, productivity, and retention. Our research shows that employees rank health and well-being as the most important factor for their companys long-term success. Employees dont just want surface-level wellness programs; they expect real, meaningful support that addresses their holistic well-beingincluding mental, physical, emotional, financial, and social well-being. A truly resilient workforce thrives when employees feel secure in their ability to manage stress, maintain financial stability, cultivate strong relationships, and find purpose in their work. Strategy: Make Well-Being a Business Imperative Normalize mental health conversations and create an environment where employees feel psychologically safe. Provide flexibility and autonomy so employees can manage workloads in ways that prevent burnout. Invest in well-being initiatives that address financial wellness, social connectedness, and emotional resilience. Foster a culture of belonging where employees feel valued and aligned with a shared purpose. Bottom line: Companies that embed well-being into their culture dont just retain employeesthey unlock higher performance, stronger engagement, and long-term resilience. 4. Equip and Empower Managers to Lead Through Change Managers are the No. 1 driver of employee engagement, yet only 27% of workers feel that their managers are equipped to lead effectively through change. Thats a roblem. When managers have the right tools and skills, they dont just managethey motivate, guide, and inspire teams to navigate uncertainty. Resilient organizations prioritize leadership development, ensuring that managers have the confidence and capability to lead through transformation. Strategy: Strengthen Manager Readiness Provide clear messaging, training, and tools to help managers communicate change with transparency and empathy. Create a “Manager Central” huba one-stop resource for guidance, best practices, and real-time coaching. Encourage managers to foster psychological safety, normalizing uncertainty and modeling a problem-solving mindset. Bottom line: Resilient managers build resilient teams. Organizations that invest in equipping and empowering their managers will create a workforce that thrives, no matter what the future holds.
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E-Commerce
Curiosity isnt just a valuable personality traitits a leadership superpower. In a business environment where innovation dictates success, curiosity serves as the catalyst for breakthroughs and industry reinvention. Yet, despite its transformative potential, curiosity remains one of the most undervalued tools in leadership today. According to a Harvard Business Review study, curiosity fosters openness and collaboration while reducing decision-making errors. Yet only 24% of organizations actively encourage it, leaving a wealth of untapped potential on the table. The best leaders dont just seek answers; they reframe problems. Instead of asking, How do we fix this? they ask, What if we reimagine this entirely? Leaders who embrace this mindset uncover opportunities for reinvention that others overlook because they only focus on immediate challenges. Curiosity Begins with Observation In the world of art and design, curiosity begins with observation. Georgia OKeeffe once remarked, Nobody sees a flower, really. It is so small we havent time, and to see takes time. Her words offer a lesson for leaders: True insight comes from taking the time to observe and understand what others overlook. The design thinking process mirrors this ethos, emphasizing empathy, iteration, and a willingness to embrace failure. Leaders who adopt these principles uncover unmet needs and rethink stagnant paradigms. For instance, I once worked with a biotech executive who revitalized their R&D team with a single question: What are we missing in the data that could change the trajectory of our discovery? This curiosity-fueled inquiry led to a cross-disciplinary exploration, resulting in a groundbreaking treatment that shifted the companys competitive position. Curiosity in Action A CTO in the high-tech sector found their team stuck in a cycle of diminishing returns during a critical product launch. Instead of defaulting to conventional troubleshooting, they asked a provocative question: What would this look like if we started from scratch? Initially, the team hesitated, but once framed as a thought experiment, it sparked a creative dialogue that dismantled assumptions. The result? A novel approach that solved the immediate challenge and laid a foundation for long-term innovation. In another instance, a CEO at a multinational organization embarked on a listening tour to understand their global workforce. They asked a simple yet profound question: What inspires you to do your best work? This inquiry revealed a blend of universal motivators and culturally specific insights, enabling the CEO to craft a new, inclusive company mission. The initiative boosted engagement, fostered a sense of belonging, and unified the workforce across continents. A Framework for Leaders to Cultivate Curiosity To harness curiosity as a leadership tool, leaders must commit to intentional practices that foster curiosity-driven innovation: Ask Bigger Questions. Shift from tactical fixes to expansive, open-ended questions. Replace How can we cut costs? with How can we create more value with fewer resources? These questions inspire fresh perspectives and out-of-the-box thinking. Practice Empathetic Observation. Adopt an artists lenstaking the time to truly see your team, customers, and market dynamics. Listen deeply and observe without preconceived notions. Empathy is the foundation for uncovering unmet needs and fostering trust. Prototype Curiosity. Treat curiosity like a skill to be honed. Run curiosity workshops where no idea is too wild. Encourage iterative brainstorming and test small ideas before scaling them, creating a low-risk environment for experimentation. Embrace Failure as Discovery. Curiosity-driven leadership requires psychological safety. When teams see failure as a learning opportunity rather than a liability, they are more willing to take risks and innovate. Leaders must model this openness. Stay Open to Being Wrong. Curiosity isnt about confirming what you already knowits about exploring the unknown. The best leaders I have worked with are those willing to challenge their own assumptions and learn from unexpected perspectives. Curiosity doesnt just spark innovationit strengthens connections. By demonstrating a genuine interest in your team, their challenges, and their aspirations, you build a culture of trust and collaboration. Leaders who guide with curiosity create workplaces where people feel valued, heard, and inspired to contribute their best. Curiosity allows leaders to navigate complexity with agility and vision in a fast-paced environment. It enables them to ask the questions others avoid, see patterns others miss, and find solutions others never imagine. In doing so, they transform their organizations and the lives of those they lead. One thing is clear: The leaders who thrive will be those who lead with curiosity. The future belongs to those who dare to be curious.
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E-Commerce
This week, genomics and biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences unveiled genetically engineered caninesnamed Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesithat it calls dire wolves, a species of wolf that went extinct 13,000 years ago. The company, which has raised $437 million from investors and is valued at $10.2 billion, created the animals by editing the DNA of existing gray wolf cells to include traits from long-extinct dire wolves (like fluffy white fur and big size). It then developed embryos using cloning technology and implanted them into a female dog. Critics immediately disagreed with Colossals de-extinction claim, saying that the creatures, which were incubated and birthed by a large female dog, are closer to genetically modified designer dogs. Colossals cofounder and CEO Ben Lamm is now pushing back. It’s a stupid argument, Lamm said in an interview with the Most Innovative Companies podcast this week when asked about the criticism. We’ve said from day one that we are going to do a lot of computational analysis and then identify the core genes that make a mammoth or a dire wolf or a dodo and engineer them back into its closest living relatives.” At the heart of the issue is the question of how to define de-extinction. There are about 11 different ways to classify a species, Lamm said. Our definition of de-extinction is on our website. It explains that there’s a thing called functional de-extinction. The IUCN, which is like the Species Council for the world, five years ago, put out a statement saying that de-extinction means developing proxies. Proxies, he explains, are not exact replicas of an extinct species, but come very close genetically. On Thursday, Colossal submitted a study that it sponsored for peer review. The research claims that new information about genomics supports Colossals argument about the wolves classification. The paper builds on that previous study, published in Nature, and presents further evidence that dire wolves are considered to have a distinct evolutionary lineage from wolves. It lays out the defining characteristics that resulted in the dire wolf being considered a separate species. Because Colossals canines exhibit nearly all of those characteristics, the company argues that the animals should be classified as such. [Photo: Colossal Biosciences] In the interview with Fast Company, Lamm also explained that the companys dire wolves will be raised with top-notch veterinary care on a 2,000-acre reserve. The dog that mothered them has been made available to adopt through an anonymous program. As the company pushes forward on its larger project of bringing back extinct species, Lamm hopes to rewild all of its creations in their natural habitats. (He does not plan on making money from Colossals clones.) [Photo: Colossal Biosciences] Some conservationists have argued that the de-extinction of animals may make people lose interest in preserving species that are near extinction. Lamm hit back at that critique, pointing out that the company makes some of its technologies available free to conservation groups and academic partners. To make money, the company has spun out an AI-based software platform, Form Bio, which helps scientists manage complicated data sets. Colossal plans to spin out more companies to license the research tools it develops. [Photo: Colossal Biosciences] Lamm pointed out that the company is using its technology for conservation. At the same time as the dire wolves were announced, Colossal revealed that it had cloned four red wolves that will be able to join the 15 left on earth. The red wolf project, to me, is as magical as the dire wolf, Lamm said. [Photo: Colossal Biosciences] Though some critics have argued that the company is more focused on attentin-grabbing stunts than actual research, Lamm said those goals are not incompatible, and that the company is merely trying to showcase its work. Right now, if we do nothing, we’re gonna lose up to 50% of all biodiversity between now and 2050, he said. We need to do things that are more important and more radical. You can build thoughtful yet disruptive technologies at the same time.
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E-Commerce
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