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 Joy Maitland | Jun 2, 2026 | Board Members, Board Trustees, CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, General Managers, Heads of Divisions
Most opportunities are won long before they appear.
Opportunity readiness is rarely discussed with the same discipline as risk management. Organisations spend significant time preparing for risk.
They develop contingency plans, manage uncertainty and work hard to anticipate potential threats.
Far fewer invest the same energy preparing for opportunity.
This is understandable.
Risks feel immediate. Opportunities feel hypothetical.
As a result, many organisations become highly effective at responding to problems while dedicating relatively little time to preparing for possibilities.
However, opportunities rarely arrive with enough time to prepare for them.
By the time a major client opportunity emerges, a strategic partnership becomes available or a new market opens, the organisations best positioned to benefit have often been preparing for months or years.
The capability already exists.
The relationships already exist.
The credibility already exists.
In many cases, the opportunity was won long before it appeared.
The Cost of Constant Delivery
One of the greatest challenges facing leaders is that operational demands consume attention.
Meetings fill calendars. Targets drive behaviour. Immediate priorities compete for focus.
Consequently, leadership energy becomes concentrated on delivery.
The future receives whatever time remains.
Over time, this creates a subtle risk.
Organisations become highly effective at executing today’s priorities while gradually reducing their readiness for tomorrow’s opportunities.
The issue is rarely a lack of ambition.
More often, it is a lack of space.
Capacity Creates Readiness
This challenge exists at both an organisational and individual level.
Many leaders spend the majority of their time solving operational problems, attending meetings and managing immediate priorities.
The work is important. It creates value. However, it can also create a subtle trap.
Over time, leaders become increasingly occupied with maintaining performance rather than preparing for what comes next.
In coaching conversations with senior executives, a recurring theme often emerges.
Many describe calendars filled with activity yet surprisingly little space for strategic thinking.
The assumption is often that visible contribution comes through involvement. If leaders are not actively solving problems, attending meetings or making decisions, they can begin to question whether they are adding sufficient value.
Yet some of the most valuable leadership work is invisible.
Building relationships before they are needed. Developing future capability. Exploring emerging trends. Preparing successors. Creating the capacity to respond when circumstances change.
These activities rarely deliver immediate results. However, they frequently determine who is ready when opportunity appears.
The same principle applies to organisations.
Those best positioned for future opportunities often recruit for potential, not simply current capability. They create room for learning, encourage broader thinking and develop leadership capacity long before growth requires it.
Building Opportunity Readiness
Many organisations assume they need more opportunities.
Often, they need more capacity.
Not operational capacity.
Strategic capacity.
The capacity to think, anticipate, prepare, adapt and act before circumstances demand it.
This is ultimately what opportunity readiness looks like in practice.
Insight: Organisations do not miss opportunities because they fail to recognise them. They miss them because they lack the capacity to pursue them.
The strongest organisations understand that readiness is not an event.
It is a discipline.
They create capacity before they need it. They invest in capability before demand requires it. They prepare leaders before opportunities emerge.
As a result, they are able to move when others are still trying to prepare.
Because opportunities rarely create readiness.
They reveal it.
Leadership Question: If a significant opportunity emerged tomorrow, what would your organisation wish it had started preparing for a year ago?
The Right Conversation Can Change Everything. Let’s Talk.
by Joy Maitland | Jun 2, 2026 | Board Members, Board Trustees, CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, General Managers, Heads of Divisions
The challenge is not whether technology changes how we work. It is whether we adapt our capabilities alongside it.
The recent debate about allowing spell checkers in solicitor examinations has generated strong opinions.
Some view it as a sensible reflection of modern practice. Others believe modern working methods are gradually diluting professional standards.
Yet this is hardly a new argument.
Similar concerns emerged when calculators entered examination halls. Others followed when spreadsheets replaced manual calculations and accounting software automated tasks that once required significant technical expertise.
In each case, the prediction was broadly the same. The tool would weaken the capability.
History suggests something different happened.
The capability did not disappear. It evolved.
More importantly, the real question was never whether people should use the tool. It was whether they developed the new capabilities required to use it effectively.
Artificial intelligence presents a similar challenge.
The Capability Question
Most organisations are understandably focused on how AI can improve productivity, increase efficiency and reduce effort. However, a more important leadership question sits beneath this.
What is this technology asking us to become better at?
The answer is unlikely to be less thinking. If anything, it may require more.
As technology becomes increasingly capable of generating content, summarising information and performing analysis, the value of human judgement becomes more important, not less.
Leaders must question assumptions. They must evaluate evidence independently. They must distinguish between a convincing answer and a correct one.
These capabilities have always mattered. Today, they may matter even more.
Insight: The greatest risk is not that technology changes how we work. It is that we fail to adapt the capabilities needed to work alongside it.
Adaptation Rather Than Acceptance
Charles Darwin is often credited with observing that survival belongs neither to the strongest nor the most intelligent, but to those most adaptable to change.
Adaptability, however, is frequently misunderstood.
It is not blind acceptance. It is the ability to assess, evaluate and respond intelligently to changing conditions.
The strongest organisations do not simply adopt new tools. They continually ask what new skills, perspectives and capabilities those tools require.
As a result, they remain focused on developing critical thinking, judgement and learning agility, even as technology continues to evolve.
Because the competitive advantage rarely comes from access to the tool itself.
It comes from the quality of thinking behind its use.
Leadership Question: As technology changes the way work gets done, what capabilities will become more valuable rather than less?
The Right Conversation Can Change Everything. Let’s Talk.
by Joy Maitland | Oct 24, 2025 | CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, Emerging Leaders, General Managers, Heads of Divisions, Human Resources (HR), Leadership Development, Managing Directors, Middle Managers
Work has changed, and so have people. Let’s explore how leaders can inspire commitment, prevent burnout, and create workplaces where purpose, performance, and well-being align.
The question leaders are asking quietly but urgently
Have we reached the point where working hard has stopped working?
Across organisations, teams are busy but drained. Engagement surveys speak of fatigue rather than fulfilment. Something deeper is shifting in how people experience work. The old equation — more effort equals more results — no longer adds up. We are being invited to rewrite it.
The end of the old contract
For years, the unwritten deal was clear: show up, perform, progress. Now people are asking different questions. Does this work still have meaning? Do I feel trusted? Is my contribution seen? Purpose, flexibility, and well-being have become expectations, not extras.
The reality of burnout: when purpose disappears
Burnout is not just about workload; it is about disconnection. It happens when effort feels endless but impact feels invisible. When people cannot see how their work connects to something meaningful, exhaustion follows. Leaders often treat burnout as an individual issue, but it is an organisational signal. The cure is not a mindfulness app. It is meaningful work.
The leadership reset: from control to connection
Modern leadership is less about managing activity and more about understanding energy.
The best leaders now ask,
- How do I help my team feel connected, not just informed?
- How do I balance empathy with accountability?
- How do I create space for rest without losing drive?
Connection builds trust, and trust sustains performance.
What people need from leaders now
- Clarity, so they can focus on what matters.
- Recognition, so their effort feels valued.
- Flexibility, so they can balance work and life.
- Purpose, so they can see meaning in what they do.
These are not soft ideas. They are strategic essentials for engagement and retention.
Building purpose-driven performance
Purpose and performance are partners, not opposites. Start meetings by reconnecting to purpose: “What impact are we creating this week?” End them by celebrating progress: “Where did we make a difference?” It is simple, and it changes the tone of work.
Leading through energy, not exhaustion
Energy management is now a leadership skill. Leaders who pace themselves create permission for others to do the same. Those who never rest send the message that exhaustion equals excellence. Sustainable performance depends on rhythm, not relentlessness. If your team’s calendar is full but their energy is low, it is time to pause, not push harder.
The new human equation
Work is no longer a transaction; it is a relationship. People give their best when they feel seen, valued, and purposeful. Leaders who understand this are redefining success. They create environments where ambition coexists with well-being, and where performance feels fulfilling, not draining.
Ask yourself,
“Are my people thriving because of our culture, or surviving in spite of it?”
Your answer will reveal how human your leadership really is.
The Right Conversation Can Change Everything. Let’s Talk.
