From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
I haven't remained still since I started in business, I am always moving forward, always looking ahead. I have always said 'the sky is the limit' and have lived by that motto every day.
highly motivated teams, who are motivated by the 'end' (the cause) rather than the 'method' (the task)
This decade, their GDP will increase by about $12 trillion, i.e. they will create another one of themselves! More importantly, the share of consumption in this decade's growth will be bigger and this is where the big opportunity lies. I am especially optimistic about the Chinese consumer.
Design is the great 're-configurer' of problems for business…for example design takes an engineering solution for transmitting signals called a phone and reconfigures it into a hyper complex problem of glass and metal shapes, etc.
Excellence is almost a tactile feeling – and it starts with a vision… sometimes a vision that shows you a path that's so good that it cannot not succeed.
Our system has never defined what it means to be 'good' – what is the ideal human being in capitalism? Is it Jeff Bezos? Is it Steve Jobs? They thrived, they profited, are they 'moral'? Even though they exploit the labour of millions of people?
When your business becomes a unicorn and heads for the stratosphere, there's a temptation to slide into the primary activity of the business being turning capital, and so customer focus can get lost. Once you stop putting customer first, the competition will destroy you.
You don't have to choose a business that's going to drown you, be a treadmill, or suck you underneath. You can start slow, make a bit of money and then double down. You don't have to risk it all at the beginning.
The number one thing is misread intentions. You assume someone has ill intent toward you—maybe to hurt you, harm you, or make you feel uncomfortable—and you don't check in on those intentions. Then a narrative forms in your head, and that's when you start spiralling. You can apply this to your children, to relationships, and it happens constantly at work.
Early stage investing is very difficult and financially risky meaning that a lot of what we invest in won't work. A lot of what we do is, in effect, pilots to see if individual projects or funds can generate some positive return.
You have to get under the skin of every employee, becoming a chief meaning officer, giving your team purpose, getting everyone on the same page. You have to make sure your entire team knows where they're going, how they're going to get there, and what's in it for them.
A pervasive sentiment among high-performing organisations is the fear of failure. I sought the opinions of numerous high performers on who they admired or found interesting and surprisingly, none mentioned a business.