Developing leaders with an Explorer’s Mindset for a fast changing world

My story

First a confession - my personal experience and credentials as an explorer are weak.

Unusually in this arena I cannot claim to have traversed an icy ridge, walked alone nor in a group to either pole, discovered a jungle species nor ascended even the smallest or most local of the Seven Summits. I haven’t been to space nor dived an ocean trench. I do not recount tales of extraordinary nor exhilarating adventures.

I am much more practical than that. I have instead conducted a thorough study of explorers of many kinds.

My goal was to absorb transferable learning from their astonishing expeditions and experiences to prompt leadership development for value creation.

My aim is to help leaders build and sustain the drive, focus, resilience and commitment necessary to do what explorers do, that is, push boundaries, make connections and discover new value.

I have researched how an Explorer’s Mindset helps individuals and organisations successfully navigate an uncertain and fast changing operating environment and identified how it can be developed by:

• Harnessing bold curiosity to increase your effectiveness and purpose

• Developing scenarios to evaluate potential opportunity and risk

• Optimising outcomes through the applying the Pyramid of Experience

• Evaluating how leading technologies create opportunities to explore

• Adapting leadership styles in fast changing environments

• Choosing the right team for voyages of discovery, or settlement

• Crafting the story to inspire and motivate others

Explorers have shaped our world in the most extraordinary ways.

You now have the opportunity to do similarly in yours.

BACKGROUND

Leading a highly ranked MBA and many Executive Education programmes at a global leading business school, as well as 10 years of running my own consulting firm, taught me a lot about identifying talented leaders who conceive and deliver new value and game changing results.

What began as a professional interest in how an Explorer’s Mindset can add value for global employers has now become a personal obsession, from analysing the lessons of incredible dramas of famous expeditions, gathering insights from leading explorers in many fields, to how NASA is using the history of exploration to select the best crews for Mars, applying an Explorer’s Mindset is a new frontier of leadership development for organisations.