by Joy Maitland | Aug 5, 2026 | Board Members, Board Trustees, CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, General Managers, Heads of Divisions, Human Resources (HR), Leadership Development, Managing Directors, Middle Managers, Non-Executive Board Members, Senior Managers, Women Leaders
The organisations most likely to succeed tomorrow may not be those with the best answers. They may be those willing to question today’s success.
Leadership curiosity has become one of the most important competitive advantages an organisation can develop.
In the early 1980s, Intel faced one of the most important decisions in its history.
Competition in the memory chip market had intensified, and the company’s future was becoming increasingly uncertain.
During a discussion with Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, then CEO Andy Grove asked a deceptively simple question.
“If we got fired and the Board brought in a new CEO, what do you think they would do?”
Moore paused before replying.
“They’d probably get us out of the memory business.”
Grove looked at him and said,
“Then why don’t we walk out the door, come back in and do it ourselves?”
That single question changed Intel’s future.
More importantly, it revealed something profound about leadership.
Sometimes the greatest threat to future success is not what we don’t know.
It is what we have stopped questioning.
Success Can Become a Blind Spot
Experience is one of leadership’s greatest strengths.
It helps us recognise patterns, make informed decisions and avoid repeating past mistakes.
However, experience also carries an often-overlooked risk.
Success reinforces confidence.
Confidence reinforces assumptions.
Over time, assumptions can quietly become certainty.
Processes that once created competitive advantage become untouchable.
Practices that once challenged conventional thinking become the convention itself.
Without noticing, organisations stop asking the questions that made them successful in the first place.
Microsoft Chose to Become a Learning Organisation
More than three decades later, Satya Nadella faced a different challenge at Microsoft.
The company remained hugely successful, yet many believed its culture had become inward-looking and overly certain of its own expertise.
Nadella’s response was remarkably simple.
Microsoft would become a company of “learn-it-alls” rather than “know-it-alls.”
It was far more than a slogan.
It represented a cultural commitment to curiosity over certainty.
Listening over defending.
Learning over proving.
People were encouraged to ask better questions, challenge assumptions and remain open to new ideas, regardless of seniority.
That shift helped transform not only Microsoft’s culture but also its ability to innovate in an industry changing at extraordinary speed.
Curiosity Is Becoming a Strategic Advantage
Artificial intelligence has made knowledge more accessible than at any point in history.
Information is no longer the scarce resource it once was.
Curiosity is.
The organisations that will thrive are unlikely to be those with the most information.
They will be those that continue asking difficult questions after everyone else believes the answers are obvious.
Curiosity has become a strategic capability.
Not because leaders lack confidence.
But because they recognise that confidence should never replace learning.
The Leadership Challenge
Every organisation develops habits.
Every leadership team develops beliefs.
Every successful strategy creates assumptions.
The important question is not whether those assumptions exist.
It is whether they are still true.
Leaders who remain curious create organisations that continue adapting.
Leaders who become certain often create organisations that slowly stop learning.
Insight: The organisations most at risk are rarely those that know too little. They are often those that believe they already know enough.
In an environment where technology, markets and customer expectations continue to evolve, curiosity has become far more than a personal characteristic.
It is a competitive advantage.
Because the future will not belong to organisations that defend yesterday’s answers.
It will belong to those that continue asking tomorrow’s questions.
Leadership curiosity is not simply about asking more questions. It is about creating a culture where long-held assumptions can be challenged before competitors challenge them for you.
Leadership Question
If an entirely new leadership team took over your organisation tomorrow, what long-held assumption would they challenge first.
The Right Conversation Can Change Everything. Let’s Talk.
by Atiya Sheikh | Aug 5, 2026 | Board Members, Board Trustees, CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, Emerging Leaders, General Managers, Heads of Divisions, Human Resources (HR), Junior Managers, Leadership Development, Managing Directors, Middle Managers, Non-Executive Board Members, Senior Managers, Women Leaders
As artificial intelligence becomes better at producing answers, the capabilities that distinguish exceptional people are changing.
For most of history, intelligence was limited by access to information. Today, it is increasingly limited by the quality of the questions we ask.
For generations, expertise was often measured by what people knew.
The person with the most knowledge frequently became the expert in the room.
Artificial intelligence is quietly changing that.
Today, information is available almost instantly. AI can draft reports, summarise meetings, analyse data, generate presentations and answer increasingly complex questions within seconds. Tasks that once required specialist knowledge can now be completed by almost anyone with access to the right technology.
This is one of the most significant shifts in the modern workplace.
Not because knowledge no longer matters.
But because knowledge alone is no longer enough.
AI Is Making Answers Cheaper
Throughout history, access to information created advantage.
Today, information has become abundant.
Increasingly, the competitive advantage lies elsewhere.
As AI makes producing acceptable answers faster, cheaper and more accessible, the value of simply having information inevitably declines.
What becomes more valuable is something AI cannot easily replicate.
- Judgement.
- Discernment.
- Curiosity.
- The ability to ask the question nobody else thought to ask.
- The confidence to challenge an answer that appears convincing.
- The wisdom to recognise when context changes everything.
Research reflects this shift. The World Economic Forum continues to rank analytical thinking among the most important skills for the future, alongside resilience, curiosity and lifelong learning. At the same time, organisations are investing heavily in AI while recognising that technology alone does not create competitive advantage. It is how people apply it that matters.
The New Definition of Expertise
Perhaps the most important change is not what AI can do.
It is what people now need to do differently.
For decades, expertise often meant providing answers.
Increasingly, expertise means framing the problem.
The quality of an AI-generated response depends almost entirely on the quality of the thinking that guides it.
A poorly framed question often produces a perfectly convincing—but fundamentally unhelpful—answer.
The opposite is also true.
A thoughtful question can unlock insights that would otherwise remain hidden.
In many organisations, this changes the nature of leadership.
The best leaders will not necessarily be those who know the most.
They will be those who help others ask better questions, challenge assumptions and think more deeply before acting.
The Hidden Risk
There is another consequence that receives far less attention.
Many professionals developed their judgement by completing the routine tasks that AI increasingly performs.
- Drafting papers.
- Analysing spreadsheets.
- Preparing presentations.
- Reviewing contracts.
Those activities were never simply about producing work.
They were how people learned to think.
If organisations automate those experiences without deliberately creating new opportunities for learning, they risk accelerating efficiency while quietly slowing the development of judgement.
The question is no longer whether AI will replace certain tasks.
The question is how future generations will develop the wisdom those tasks once created.
The Leadership Challenge
Leaders therefore face a different challenge from the one many expected.
The goal is not simply to encourage people to use AI.
Nor is it to compete with it.
The goal is to develop capabilities that become more valuable because AI exists.
- Critical thinking.
- Judgement.
- Creativity.
- Influence.
- Ethical decision-making.
- Systems thinking.
- The ability to connect ideas that appear unrelated.
These have always mattered.
Today, they matter even more.
Because as answers become increasingly accessible, the ability to recognise the right question becomes a defining competitive advantage.
Insight: Artificial intelligence is reducing the value of producing acceptable answers. It is increasing the value of recognising which questions deserve to be asked.
The organisations that succeed over the next decade will not simply adopt AI more quickly.
They will develop people who know when to trust it, when to challenge it and, perhaps most importantly, when to ask an entirely different question.
Because the future will not belong to those who can produce the fastest answer.
It will belong to those who can ask the question no machine thought to ask.
Leadership Question
As AI becomes better at providing answers, are you developing people who know how to ask better questions?
The Right Conversation Can Change Everything. Let’s Talk.
Microsoft Work Trend Index
by Joy Maitland | Aug 5, 2026 | Board Members, Board Trustees, CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, General Managers, Heads of Divisions, Human Resources (HR), Leadership Development, Managing Directors, Middle Managers, News & Articles, Non-Executive Board Members, Senior Managers, Women Leaders
Artificial intelligence isn’t making universities less relevant. It is forcing us to rediscover what higher education was always supposed to achieve.
Several years ago, inemmo was commissioned by a UK university to investigate a growing concern.
An increasing number of students were leaving during, or shortly after, their first year.
The university wanted to understand why.
What began as a study into student retention became something much more significant.
As we listened to students describe their experiences, it became clear that they weren’t simply questioning university.
They were questioning value.
Then one student said something that has stayed with me ever since.
“I’m only staying because I need the piece of paper.”
At the time, it sounded unsettling.
Today, it sounds remarkably prophetic.
They Weren’t Rejecting Education
As the interviews progressed, a clear picture began to emerge.
Long before ChatGPT entered everyday conversation, students were already asking questions that feel strikingly relevant today.
“Why am I paying to sit in lectures when I can learn much of this online?”
Some described watching YouTube tutorials that explained concepts more clearly than the lectures they had attended earlier that day.
Others spoke about reading research papers directly or completing specialist online courses.
Several questioned whether they would be better off gaining practical experience while avoiding years of student debt.
It would have been easy to conclude that students no longer valued learning.
The opposite was true.
They valued learning enormously.
What they questioned was where learning created its greatest value.
Perhaps the most surprising finding was not what they wanted to learn.
It was who they wanted to learn from.
Students repeatedly asked for greater exposure to people who had actually done the work.
People who had built businesses.
Led organisations.
Designed products.
Negotiated difficult decisions.
Made mistakes.
Recovered.
Started again.
They respected academic expertise.
However, what they were really asking for wasn’t more information.
It was interpretation.
Not another theory.
But what happened when that theory collided with reality.
Not simply what worked.
But why it worked.
When it failed.
What nobody anticipated.
And what they would do differently today.
One student captured it perfectly.
“Teach me what happened when the theory met reality.”
Perhaps, without realising it, they were asking for something that cannot simply be downloaded.
Judgement.
The Faculty Saw It Too
Interestingly, many faculty members recognised similar challenges.
Several spoke openly about becoming frustrated with traditional lecture-based teaching.
They wanted to spend less time delivering information and more time helping students think critically, solve problems, challenge assumptions and prepare for professional life.
Looking back, perhaps both students and academics had recognised something the rest of us had not.
The real value of higher education was never simply information.
It was transformation.
Information changes what people know.
Education changes how people think.
Those are not the same thing.
Then AI Changed the Conversation
When artificial intelligence entered everyday life, many predicted it would transform education.
Perhaps it has done something even more significant.
It has exposed a question we should have been asking all along.
If universities are no longer competing on access to information…
…where does their greatest value now lie?
Knowledge has become increasingly accessible.
The scarce resource is something altogether different.
Judgement.
Discernment.
Curiosity.
Perspective.
The ability to recognise nuance.
The wisdom to know when artificial intelligence is wrong.
The confidence to make decisions when there is no obvious answer.
These qualities cannot simply be downloaded.
They have to be developed.
Perhaps We’ve Been Measuring Different Things
To be fair, many employers recognised this long before artificial intelligence arrived.
Academic qualifications may open the door, but they have rarely secured the job on their own.
For many years, organisations have increasingly relied on competency-based interviews, assessment centres, case studies and psychometric assessments to understand how candidates think, solve problems and work with others.
Employers have long understood that knowledge alone is not enough.
Capability matters.
What artificial intelligence changes is not the importance of capability.
It changes the relative value of knowledge.
As information becomes easier to access, the ability to interpret it, question it and apply it wisely becomes even more valuable.
Perhaps that is where higher education and employment are beginning to converge.
Universities have traditionally excelled at developing knowledge.
Employers increasingly seek judgement, adaptability, collaboration and the ability to apply that knowledge in unfamiliar situations.
The challenge for the future may not be choosing one over the other.
It may be integrating both more effectively.
The University of the Future
Universities have survived wars.
Economic crises.
Political upheaval.
Industrial revolutions.
They will adapt to artificial intelligence too.
If anything, they may become more important than ever.
But perhaps their purpose will become clearer.
The institutions that thrive may not be those with the biggest libraries or the longest reading lists.
They may be those that become the world’s greatest developers of judgement.
Places where academic rigour is strengthened by practical experience.
Where researchers work alongside entrepreneurs.
Engineers alongside psychologists.
Clinicians alongside business leaders.
Military officers alongside behavioural scientists.
Not because theory has become less valuable.
But because theory gains meaning when it meets reality.
Perhaps universities have never simply been in the knowledge business.
Knowledge has always been the starting point.
Transformation has always been the destination.
Helping people think more clearly.
Question more deeply.
Judge more wisely.
Act more responsibly.
Artificial intelligence has not diminished the importance of higher education.
If anything, it has reminded us why it matters.
Because information can now be found almost anywhere.
Judgement cannot.
Insight: Artificial intelligence has not diminished the importance of education. It has reminded us what education has always been about. In a world where information is abundant, the institutions that create the greatest value will be those that develop judgement, curiosity, adaptability and the confidence to navigate problems that have no textbook answer.
Leadership Question
If information has become abundant, what is the one capability every graduate should possess before entering the workplace?
The Right Conversation Can Change Everything. Let’s Talk.
The future of jobs: World Economic Forum
by Atiya Sheikh | Aug 5, 2026 | Board Members, Board Trustees, CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, General Managers, Heads of Divisions, Human Resources (HR), Leadership Development, Managing Directors, Middle Managers, News & Articles, Senior Managers, Women Leaders
What one business leader’s refusal to make an easy profit teaches us about culture, trust and long-term success.
Imagine increasing the price of every product in your business by just 3%.
Most customers probably wouldn’t notice.
Your profits would rise almost overnight.
When the idea was suggested to Costco founder Jim Sinegal, he refused. He famously described it as “the business equivalent of taking heroin.”
At first glance, it seems an extraordinary comparison. However, what followed revealed a much bigger leadership principle.
After all, what harm could a modest price increase really do?
The answer had very little to do with pricing.
It had everything to do with culture.
The Decision Was Bigger Than the Numbers
On paper, the decision seemed straightforward.
A small increase in prices would have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in additional profit. Consequently, many businesses would have viewed it as sound commercial judgement.
Instead, Sinegal saw something very different.
He understood that Costco’s success had never been built solely on low prices. It had been built on something far more valuable: trust.
Customers believed Costco would always act in their long-term interest.
The moment that principle became negotiable, Costco itself would begin to change.
Not overnight.
Not dramatically.
But gradually.
That gradual drift is perhaps the greatest danger.
Organisations Rarely Drift Overnight
Most organisations do not lose their culture because of one catastrophic decision.
They lose it through a series of small compromises that slowly become normal.
“We’ll make an exception this time.”
“No one will notice.”
“It’s only temporary.”
“We’ll put it right next quarter.”
Individually, these decisions seem insignificant. Collectively, however, they redefine what the organisation is prepared to accept.
Over time, the exception becomes the expectation.
The compromise becomes the culture.
Leadership Is Often Tested in the Small Decisions
Leaders rarely wake up intending to weaken their culture.
More often, they face pressure.
Commercial pressure.
Operational pressure.
Time pressure.
As a result, the temptation is understandable.
A small shortcut.
A slightly lower standard.
A decision that delivers today’s result while quietly borrowing against tomorrow’s reputation.
The difficulty is that culture does not change through mission statements.
It changes through repeated decisions.
People pay far less attention to what leaders say than to what leaders consistently tolerate.
The Hidden Cost of Leadership Compromises
Insight: One of the most remarkable aspects of the Costco story is that the decision was not driven by what the company could do. It was driven by what it believed it should do.
That distinction matters.
Many leadership decisions are not constrained by capability.
They are constrained by values.
The strongest leaders recognise that protecting trust sometimes requires turning down opportunities that appear attractive in the short term.
Because trust, once compromised, is rarely restored through a single decision.
It is rebuilt one decision at a time.
Insight: Organisations rarely lose their way through one major decision. They lose it through a series of small compromises that gradually become acceptable.
Costco’s decision reminds us that sustainable success is rarely built by extracting the maximum value from every opportunity.
Instead, organisations build sustainable success by protecting the principles that caused people to trust them in the first place.
Because culture is not defined by the decisions leaders celebrate.
It is defined by the compromises they refuse to make.
The most damaging leadership compromises are rarely dramatic. They become visible only after small decisions accumulate over time.
Leadership Question
What is your organisation normalising today that would once have been unacceptable?
The Right Conversation Can Change Everything. Let’s Talk.
Business equivalent of taking heroin’: Why Costco refuses to raise prices even if no one will notice
by Joy Maitland | Mar 29, 2026 | Board Members, Board Trustees, CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, General Managers, Heads of Divisions, Leadership Development, Managing Directors, Middle Managers
Leadership team alignment is often presented as a clear virtue. It creates clarity, cohesion and, importantly, speed.
When leadership teams are aligned, decisions move efficiently, communication becomes simpler and the organisation presents a unified direction.
However, there is a point at which alignment begins to constrain rather than enable.
As alignment increases, discussions become more efficient. Leaders reach agreement quickly and move decisions forward with confidence.
Yet this efficiency can come at a cost.
Teams explore fewer alternative perspectives. They leave assumptions untested. In addition, they tend to refine ideas rather than challenge them.
Consequently, the team appears cohesive, but the range of thinking begins to narrow.
This rarely happens intentionally.
Instead, strong relationships, shared experience and a desire to maintain momentum drive it. Leaders understand each other well, anticipate perspectives and converge quickly.
Over time, however, constructive challenge reduces.
Decisions feel well considered, but leaders do not always examine them rigorously.
Insight: Leadership teams rarely fail because they lack alignment. They fail when alignment reduces the depth of their thinking.
In stable conditions, this may go unnoticed. However, in more volatile environments, it becomes costly.
The underlying dynamic is often social rather than structural.
Cohesion is valued. Relationships are strong. Leaders work hard to maintain momentum and avoid unnecessary friction.
As a result, challenge can begin to feel unnecessary. Silence is interpreted as agreement, while divergent views are softened rather than fully explored.
Over time, alignment reinforces itself. Leaders begin to challenge less not because they agree, but because they anticipate agreement.
The team continues to function well. However, thinking narrows.
The strongest leadership teams recognise this risk early. They maintain alignment without sacrificing challenge.
Instead of relying on agreement alone, they create deliberate space for dissent. They test assumptions and ensure that speed does not replace scrutiny.
Importantly, this does not weaken alignment. On the contrary, it strengthens it.
When teams fully explore ideas, their decisions carry greater conviction and resilience.
Alignment does not emerge from agreement alone. It strengthens through honest engagement.
Leadership Question: Where might alignment in your leadership team be limiting challenge?
by Joy Maitland | Mar 4, 2026 | Board Members, Board Trustees, CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, Emerging Leaders, General Managers, Heads of Divisions, Human Resources (HR), Leadership Development, Managing Directors, Middle Managers, News & Articles, Non-Executive Board Members, Senior Managers, Women Leaders
Why execution falters not because of ambition, but because friction quietly accumulates inside the organisation.
Many organisations today do not struggle with strategy. Instead, they struggle with the quiet friction that slows progress once strategy moves from the page into the organisation. Understanding that friction is often the difference between ambition and real progress.
Across many organisations today, strategic ambitions are clear. Leaders articulate direction carefully, priorities are defined, and transformation programmes are launched with energy and intent.
Yet progress still stalls.
Targets slip. Initiatives slow down. Leaders feel that the organisation is working hard, but somehow not moving as far or as fast as expected.
The instinctive response is often to revisit the strategy. Perhaps it needs refinement. Perhaps the priorities need adjusting. Perhaps the vision needs to be communicated again.
But the problem is rarely the strategy itself.
Insight: Strategy rarely fails because it is unclear. It fails because the organisation’s structure quietly resists it.
The resistance is rarely dramatic. Instead, it appears in small forms of organisational friction that accumulate over time.
Departments pursue different priorities even though they share the same strategic objectives. Decision pathways require multiple approvals before action can begin. Incentives reward individual performance rather than collective progress.
None of these issues appears serious on its own. Yet together they create invisible resistance.
Energy is spent navigating the organisation rather than advancing the strategy.
This is why some organisations with elegant strategy documents struggle to generate momentum. Their operating systems were designed for stability, not speed.
Leadership therefore has a less visible responsibility: not simply to design strategy, but to remove friction from execution.
- Where do decisions stall?
- Where is ownership unclear?
- And why do teams often feel they are working hard yet pushing against resistance?
The leaders who generate real progress are rarely those who communicate strategy most eloquently. They are the ones who simplify the path between intention and action.
Strategy points the way.
Execution determines whether the organisation ever gets there.
Leadership Question: Where in your organisation does friction quietly slow progress between strategy and execution?
The Right Conversation Can Change Everything. Let’s Talk.
