I get to work with organizations across different countries, sectors, and stages of maturity. And no matter where I go, I see the same three mistakes being made—over and over again. These challenges show up everywhere, and they’ve become the foundation of my research, my writing, and the keynotes I deliver around the world.
They come down to three things: Simplify, Elevate, and Restructure.
Simplify
Simplify is underpinned by a quote that I always come back to:
“Complexity is the enemy of execution.”
When information is too complex, most executives delete, distort, or generalize it—without even realizing they’re doing this.
When something doesn’t fit into your existing way of thinking, based on the business model you’re currently working with, you ignore it. You block it out.
Zara is a great example. They were at the pinnacle of economies of scale. And then Shein arrived, operating on a completely different principle: economies of learning.
Zara is sitting at $11 billion, while Shein is rocketing towards $90 billion.
This is what happens when we stay stuck in old models. Complexity becomes overwhelming. And the result? No action.
So we come back to that quote again—complexity really is the enemy of execution.
Elevate
The second challenge is about elevating your workforce.
How do you elevate their awareness? How do you elevate the creativity that lives inside your teams?
Because if you’re not doing that—if you’re not raising their awareness and giving them space to think—what starts to happen is this:
Under pressure and anxiety, people just solve yesterday’s problems.
They never lift their heads to see what’s ahead of them. Because the world they’re in—the world of efficiency, scale, and profitability at all costs—doesn’t allow for a change in awareness.
It only focuses on making the current system run better. It doesn’t ask if it’s the right system to begin with.
Restructure
The third one is Restructure.
How do you go about restructuring your organization in a way that allows for two things at once?
You need dual teams.
A today team is focused on bringing more efficiency to your existing system. That team helps fund the second team—the tomorrow team.
The tomorrow team experiments. They use lateral creativity. They solve problems that are three, maybe four years ahead.
And if you don’t do that—if you ask the same people to think about both today and tomorrow—you’re playing a fool’s game.
It’s like asking Serena Williams to become a golfer. She’s not good at golf. She’s a supreme tennis player.
We’ve realized that new capabilities are required. New levels of awareness are needed.
And we need to simplify what the future looks like—by categorizing it, contextualizing it, and engaging with it as often as possible.
If we’re not simplifying the future, decision-making becomes poor.
If we’re not elevating creativity, we can’t solve tomorrow’s problems.
And if we’re not restructuring our organizations, we’re not built for what’s coming.
But when we follow these three steps—Simplify, Elevate, and Restructure—we future-proof ourselves.
We become adaptable. We become excited about what’s next.
The future stops being something to fear—and starts being something to look forward to.
Note: This blog post is an adaptation of the transcript from the video below.
