Informed i’s Weekly Business Insights

Iran has long vied with Gulf states for influence over the Middle East, despite being under American sanctions. Its financiers and traders have outfoxed Western officials with a labyrinthine economic system, built primarily across friendly countries, which funded proxies, traded arms with Russia and took oil payments from India and China. That was, at least, until October 7th 2023, when Hamas’s attack on Israel plunged the region into chaos and started to blow holes in Iran’s networks. A year on, the Islamic Republic looks like the war’s big economic loser. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Turkey, all jostling to pick up lost trade and influence, are its likely winners.

To dodge sanctions, many of the supply chains Iran relies on to move capital and goods abroad criss-cross through allies (legitimately) as well as less friendly countries (often disguised). A weapons shipment destined for northern Russia, for instance, may pass through Syria and then be smuggled into Turkey before travelling by sea around Europe. Other big Middle Eastern economies, such as those in the Gulf and Turkey, which trade more in the open, can take simpler routes and have more options when war makes transport tricky. But Iran’s trade, banking and aid, the backbone of its regional outreach, are more furtive by necessity, and therefore more vulnerable. 

Such losses could be disastrous for Iran’s remaining supporters in the Middle East. With Hamas and Hizbullah greatly weakened, and Mr Assad in exile, only the Houthis, the proxy over which Iran has the least influence, fighting for control over Yemen, are not in disarray.

Iran is now struggling to get weapons or cash to Beirut and the Palestinian territories to replenish forces, as much materiel arrived through Syria. The alternative is moving supplies covertly, but that limits the size of shipments to what can be hidden and takes longer. Extra cash is desperately needed. Al-Qard Al-Hassan, the financial institution at the centre of Hizbullah’s banking network, was targeted during Israeli air strikes in October. Though Hamas’s finances, run out of Istanbul, are stable, it is difficult to get any cash into Gaza, according to one official in Turkey.

It does not help that Iran’s finances have also been hit by debts that must now be written off. Its government has lost billions of dollars in loans to Mr Assad, which propped him up while Syria was shut out of global markets. Officials suggest a combination of personal loans to Mr Assad and credit lines for oil came to $5bn a year.

Meanwhile, the Gulf and Turkey are hoping to scoop up lost influence. As America has grown less willing to spend in the Middle East, Gulf states have become the biggest external financiers to its poorer countries. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE lent $34bn across the Middle East and North Africa in 2021-22, compared to $17bn in 2019-20. Their loans are also lubricating economies that Iran previously helped finance, including Kuwait. Long friendly with Iran, even as it enjoyed good relations with the West, Kuwait has recently become less willing to trade with the Islamic Republic, Iranian officials complain.

The geometry of global trade is changing. MGI analysis of the geopolitical distance of trade found wide variation. From 2017 to 2023, China, Germany, and the United States reduced the geopolitical distance of their trade by 4 to 10 percent each. Over the same period, Brazil and India have traded more broadly across the geopolitical spectrum. However, the decline in the geopolitical distance of trade among major economies does not eliminate the possibility of a fragmentation scenario, in which trade between geopolitically distant economies collapses.

Creating a low-emissions energy system while expanding energy access globally requires solving “the hard stuff.” Today, about 10 percent of the technologies needed to meet global commitments to reduce emissions by 2050 have been deployed. For the remaining 90 percent, we identified 25 physical challenges, “the hard stuff,” linked to the development and deployment of low-emissions technologies and the infrastructure and supply chains they need to operate and accelerate deployment.

Investing in productivity growth can spur the economic growth that supports higher living standards. Productivity in the median economy has jumped sixfold in the past quarter century, but there is variation. Thirty emerging economies, home to 3.6 billion people, are in the “fast lane” of improvement. If they maintained their pace, they would converge to advanced-economy productivity levels within roughly the next quarter century. “Middle lane” economies would take more than a hundred years, while “slow lane” ones would never converge. At the same time, advanced-economy productivity has slowed by about one percentage point since the global financial crisis. Directed investment in areas such as digitization, automation, and artificial intelligence could fuel new waves of productivity growth in advanced and emerging economies, which is the best way to continue improving well-being and prosperity around the globe.

Micro, small and medium-size enterprises, or MSMEs productivity lags behind that of larger firms across the countries with wider gap in emerging economies.

Shoring up the Europe’s competitiveness across seven arenas ranging from energy to technology and supply chains could increase value added by €500 billion to €1 trillion by 2030, which is three to six times the incremental annual investment needed to achieve net zero. Closing this gap will enable Europe to grow and thrive while preserving its unrivaled model for sustainability and inclusion.

Achieving economic empowerment would allow a quarter billion people around the world to live better lives. In wealthier countries, higher costs and inequality prevent about 20 percent of the population on average from crossing the “empowerment line,” the threshold above the international poverty line at which people can afford a standard basket of essential goods and services and begin to save.

Insufficient investment compromises Europe’s competitiveness, way of life, and standing in the world. US investment in intellectual property and equipment is double that of Europe per capita, and Europe’s pool of venture capital assets is just one-quarter of the US total. Today, returns on invested capital are four percentage points higher in the United States than in Europe. Reducing barriers to investment, such as energy costs, talent shortages, business and labor market regulation, and geo- and macroeconomic uncertainty, can give Europe a pulse on its competitiveness and help attract capital.

Labor markets in advanced economies today are among the tightest in two decades, a long-term trend that may continue as workforces age. MGI estimates that GDP in 2023 could have been 0.5 to 1.5 percent higher across the world’s eight largest economies if employers had been able to fill their excess job vacancies. Companies and economies need to find new ways to expand the workforce if productivity is to continue to grow, with steps like more flexible work, tailored migration programs, and initiatives to keep seniors at work longer and attract more women into the workforce.

AI can address changes in employment demand linked to efforts to achieve net-zero emissions, an aging workforce, and growth in e-commerce, but it also will require new skills.  Surveyed executives expressed a need for skills they report are in short supply, such as advanced IT and data analytics, as well as for critical thinking, creativity, and teaching and training.

Eight arenas, unique categories of industries distinguished by high growth and dynamism, could reshape the global economy, generating $29 trillion to $48 trillion in revenues by 2040. These arenas, which include AI software and services, cybersecurity, air mobility, obesity drugs, and industrial and consumer biotechnology, could increase as a share of global GDP from 4 percent today to 10 to 16 percent by 2040.

Donald Trump won a second term in the White House by promising a bonfire of the verities—the truths that wonks in economic and foreign policy circles hold sacred. Free trade is out, protectionism is in. Worrying about the debt is out, tax cuts are in. The US security guarantee is out, do-it-yourself defense is in.

The established order Trump wants to overturn hasn’t covered itself in glory. Under President Joe Biden, inflation in the US soared close to 10%, partly as a result of overdone fiscal stimulus. Decades of free-trade orthodoxy have frayed the blue collars of US factory workers. Wars in Ukraine and Gaza have called into question Washington’s continued leadership in world affairs.

The blaze will take a while to get going, for the simple reason that any administration—even one with a working knowledge of Washington—can only move so quickly to implement its to-do list. For the year ahead, Bloomberg Economics forecasts global growth at an unremarkable 3.1%, unchanged from 2024. Inflation is set to slow to 3.4% from 6%, with readings in the US and other advanced economies drifting back to the 2% central banks have long targeted.  Still, the global economy—along with the financial markets—is going to feel some heat.

There aren’t a lot of things economists agree on. One is that trade is good.  Dashing to the free-trade barricades (now made in China), economists—including those at Bloomberg Economics—have fired their modeling artillery at Trump’s pledges of 60% tariffs on China and 20% on the rest of the world. Tariffs at those levels would be historically elevated, and so, unsurprisingly, Bloomberg Businessweek’s models predict a major blow to US gross domestic product and jump in inflation.  

In reality, and drawing on the experience of Trump’s first term, tariffs are likely to stop short of his campaign-trail pledges. They’ll likely be targeted, not across-the-board, and delivered in stages instead of all at once. For 2025 that means a modest impact on the US and China, building to a more significant hit to growth—spilling over to Mexico, Canada and other key trade partners—in 2026.

Nevertheless, something important has changed. Even in the best-case scenario, the swing from free trade to protectionism is bad news for the global economy. If Trump goes full throttle on tariffs, everything from Apple Inc.’s Asia supply chain to General Motors Co.’s made-in-Mexico autos are at risk.

Another idea most economists agree on: Big deficits are bad news.  Trump is promising to play faster and looser. He and his advisers are touting a classic supply-side recipe, with a dash of protectionism thrown in. First, cut taxes—stoking animal spirits. Second, raise tariffs—offsetting some of the lost tax revenue. Finally, slash public spending—closing the remainder of the gap.

The trouble is, tax cuts are easy to deliver; raising tariff revenue and cutting public spending are much harder. Hiking duties enough to raise significant sums risks a bigger blow to growth and hike to inflation—as well as discouraging imports and so actually reducing revenue. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been charged with finding $2 trillion in savings in the federal budget. It’s a tall order: The lion’s share of spending goes to defense, Social Security and Medicare, sacred cows that even Trump won’t turn into a red-meat sacrifice.

US public debt is already rising fast, climbing from 79% of GDP in 2019 to close to 100% in 2024. With Trump promising to extend tax cuts from his first term—currently set to expire in 2025—there’s a real risk it continues to race higher.

On security, allies in Europe and Asia count on the US as a guarantor of peace and stability. Trump’s “America First” instincts mean it can no longer be taken for granted.

There is, to be sure, an internal logic and an intuitive appeal to Trump’s proposals. Considered as a package aimed at reshoring the benefits of US economic dynamism (and ignoring for a moment the costs), raising tariffs, cutting taxes and forcing other countries to pay for their own defense makes sense.  There’s also the hope that voices of reason in the administration and the daily reality check from the markets will prevent policy going too far off the rails.

Still, most people in economics and diplomacy would agree that free trade, fiscal responsibility and the US security guarantee have delivered significant benefits for America and the world. Trump disagrees and promises to forge a new path. In the year ahead, we’ll find out who’s right.

For decades, robots have found success on assembly lines and in other somewhat predictable environments. Then, in the last couple of years, robots started being able to learn tasks more quickly thanks to AI, and that has broadened their applications to tasks in more chaotic settings, like picking orders in warehouses. But a growing number of well-funded companies are pushing for an even more monumental shift.

Prosper and others are betting that they don’t have to build a perfect robot that can do everything on its own. Instead, they can build one that’s pretty good, but receives help from remote operators anywhere in the world. If that works well enough, they’re hoping to bring robots into jobs that most of us would have guessed couldn’t be automated: the work of hotel housekeepers, care providers in hospitals, or domestic help. “Almost any indoor physical labor” is on the table, Prosper’s founder and CEO, Shariq Hashme. 

Until now, we’ve mostly thought about automation and outsourcing as two separate forces that can affect the labor market. Jobs might be outsourced overseas or lost to automation, but not both. A job that couldn’t be sent offshore and could not yet be fully automated by machines, like cleaning a hotel room, wasn’t going anywhere. Now, advancements in robotics are promising that employers can outsource such a job to low-wage countries without needing the technology to fully automate it.

It’s a tall order, to be clear. Robots, as advanced as they’ve gotten, may find it difficult to move around complex environments like hotels and hospitals, even with assistance. That will take years to change. However, robots will only get more nimble, as will the systems that enable them to be controlled from halfway around the world. Eventually, the bets made by these companies may pay off.

What would that mean? One, the labor movement’s battle with AI—which this year has focused its attention on automation at ports and generative AI’s theft of artists’ work—will have a whole new battle to fight. It won’t just be dock workers, delivery drivers, and actors seeking contracts to protect their jobs from automation—it will be hospitality and domestic workers too, along with many others.

Second, our expectations of privacy would radically shift. People buying those hypothetical household robots would have to be comfortable with the idea that someone that they have never met is seeing their dirty laundry—literally and figuratively.

Some of those changes might happen sooner rather than later. For robots to learn how to navigate places effectively, they need training data, and this year has already seen a race to collect new data sets to help them learn. To achieve their ambitions for teleoperated robots, companies will expand their search for training data to hospitals, workplaces, hotels, and more.

The author combed through MIT SMR’s columns from the past year and culled five tips for leaders who want to recharge their organizations. These insights home in on how to inspire the best from employees and managers and help people embrace the challenges around artificial intelligence, disruption, and burnout — challenges that all flared hot in 2024. This isn’t a definitive list but it would be reasonable to think you’ll find at least one strategy that can help you tackle your leadership challenges. Here’s to finding new routes to success in 2025.

1. Figure out why people are giving the cold shoulder to good data.  This is not unusual. The graveyard of data science initiatives is filled with solutions that are advanced, accurate, and well-meaning yet unused.  To build a culture that can truly be data driven, leaders can do three things. First, they can identify the true pain point — a team’s real burning challenge — and identify someone to lead an initiative to determine how to fix it and influence user involvement. Second, leaders can drive adoption with executive storytelling and gamification. And third, they can identify success metrics early and work to rally teams around them.
2. Encourage people to experiment with reshaping their job roles.  There are three elements: task crafting, where employees are given opportunities to take on additional responsibilities, alter the way current tasks are performed, or drop tasks that don’t play to their strengths or interests; relational crafting, where employees enhance their job effectiveness by increasing collaboration with specific colleagues; and cognitive crafting, where employees focus on the aspects of their jobs that best align with their passions.  
3. Ask people what skills they want to master, and help them do it.  Mastery is the capacity to create a deep body of knowledge, and its foundation is rooted in micro skills — those proficiencies each of us builds up over the course of a working life. Together, they add up to a capability in a combination that is valuable and unique.  Skills are mastered through observation, repetition, and feedback.  Workers are hungry for organizational support in skill development, and they need clearer ways to demonstrate new mastery.
4. Get people back in practice with playing at work.  In good old-fashioned play, the goal isn’t to win or lose. It isn’t to achieve against an objective standard. It’s to have fun.  Contrast the intentions behind performing, practicing, and playing. When you’re performing, you’re trying to achieve excellence against a given standard. Your goal is to do as well as you possibly can. When you are practicing, you’re trying to improve your skills so that you can deliver against a given standard in the future. Your goal is to get better. But when you’re playing, there’s no judge or coach. You can engage in low-risk experimentation, capability development, and innovation. It can be awkward, but it can also be the scenario in which we learn the most.
5. Talk about whatever’s undiscussable at your organization.  Take a deep breath, because this is a hard leadership truth: Most people know that there are certain things that can’t be said at their company.  Because they violate the deep rules operating in most organizations — the unwritten understanding of what can’t be said, even in places that have surface-level psychological safety.  However, there are tools to break through the unwritten rules that make people self-censor. Leaders can convene a group of people within the organization with whom they have an established relationship, or they can develop an anonymous survey. They can ask, “What undiscussables would we discuss if we decided to discuss our undiscussables?” They can ask what the organization’s biggest follies are — things the organization says it wants or values, only to do or reward the opposite. 

And finally mind the weight you carry in your own vehicle. 

According to the author as a business coach who has worked with numerous founders and CEOs, he has seen firsthand the challenges that come with scaling a business. Many founders can get their companies to $1 million in revenue, but very few successfully push through to $10 million.

The reason? They often rely on the same strategies that got them to $1 million without realizing that what worked in the early days can hold them back in the next growth phase. Here are five common mistakes founders make that keep them from scaling to $10 million—and how to overcome them.

1. They won’t stop selling.  One of the most significant barriers to scaling is the founder’s inability to step back from the sales process. Early on, the founder is often the best salesperson, intimately familiar with the product and passionate about its value. However, this approach needs to scale. To move from $1 million to $10 million, founders must shift from being the primary salesperson to building a scalable, repeatable sales system.  This means hiring a sales team, developing a robust sales process, and investing in tools that allow the team to operate efficiently. A well-designed sales system can generate revenue predictably and consistently, enabling the business to grow beyond the founder’s capacity.
2. They want to be the smartest person in the room.  Founders who want to scale their businesses need to hire people who are smarter and more experienced than they are in key areas. Unfortunately, many founders surround themselves with “yes” people—team members who are more concerned with pleasing the founder than challenging them or bringing new ideas to the table.  To reach $10 million, founders must build a leadership team of seasoned executives who can drive the company forward. This requires letting go of the need to be the smartest person in the room and embracing the collective intelligence of a robust and diverse team.
3. They are too internally focused.  Another common mistake is spending too much time tweaking internal operations and systems instead of focusing on the external market. While efficient operations are crucial, they won’t drive growth independently. Founders need to get out of the office, engage with customers, understand competitors, and build strategic relationships to propel the business forward.  By shifting focus from internal processes to external opportunities, companies can unlock new markets, forge valuable partnerships, and tap into additional revenue streams that are crucial for scaling.
4. They micromanage people.  Founders often micromanage their teams, focusing on tasks and processes rather than outcomes. While this hands-on approach might work in the early stages, it becomes a bottleneck as the company grows. To scale effectively, founders need to develop leaders within the organization who can set goals, create strategies, and execute them without constant oversight.  By empowering team members to make their own decisions and take full ownership of their projects, founders can significantly free up their own schedules. This approach not only lightens the leadership’s workload but also cultivates a culture of accountability and innovation within the organization.  Such empowerment leads to a more engaged and motivated team, as individuals feel valued and trusted to drive results.
5. They don’t leverage external resources.  Finally, many founders fall into the trap of thinking they must do everything themselves. This “I can do it better” mindset limits their ability to scale. Successful founders understand the value of leveraging external resources, such as investors, advisors, consultants, and coaches. These resources can provide the capital, expertise, and strategic guidance needed to scale more quickly and profitably.

There are countless articles on how to use generative AI (gen AI) to improve work, automate repetitive tasks, summarize meetings and customer engagements, and synthesize information. There are also scores of virtual libraries brimming with prompting guides to help us achieve more effective and even fantastical output using gen AI tools. Many common digital tools already feature integrated AI co-pilots to automagically enhance and complete writing, coding, designing, creating, and whatever it is you’re working on. But there is so much more to generative AI beyond enhancing or accelerating what we already do. With the right mindset shift, or mindshift, we can train our brains to creatively rethink how we use these tools to unlock entirely new value and achieve exponential outcomes in what’s becoming an AI-first world.

When most people prompt, they do so within the paradigm of how they think about what could or should come next. That approach is often carried into prompting. The results build on a linear path of thinking, research, and decision-making based upon the world as we know it. This is perfectly normal and effective. In fact, it’s how today’s generative AI models largely work.

Generative AI relies on natural language processing (NLP) to understand the request and generate relevant results. It’s basically pattern recognition and pattern assembly based on instructions to deliver output that completes the task at hand. This approach aligns with our brains’ default mode: pattern recognition and efficiency-seeking, which favors short, straightforward prompts to get immediate, predictable results.

If most people use gen AI in this way, then no matter how powerful the tools, we inadvertently create a new status quo in how we work and create. Training our brains to challenge our thinking, our assumptions of AI capabilities, and our expectations for predictable results starts with a mindshift, to recognize AI not as just a tool, but as a partner in innovation and exploring the unfamiliar.

AI Enhances Today’s Work While Also Unlocking Tomorrow’s Opportunities, Today.  According to the author his friend Dharmesh Shah, co-founder and chief technology officer of HubSpot, once shared online that “you’re competing with A.I.”  “That’s right,” people agreed. They went on to share other reactions including, “AI is going to take jobs,” with some harboring more dystopian outlooks, such as: “AI is going to destroy us.”  However, that wasn’t Shah’s intended meaning. He challenged people to read the statement from a different angle: “You’re competing with A.I.” His point was that you can enhance, amplify, and even augment your potential by doing so. In other words, AI can make you more competitive.

There’s a saying that you’ve probably heard many times and will probably hear many times more, “AI won’t likely take your job, but people who use AI will.”  AI empowers you to take what you do today and make it more efficient, more scalable, less expensive, and more automated. More so, AI supercharges your capabilities to do what you couldn’t do yesterday to augment your performance. It’s this part that requires imagination, creative and repetitive training, and a willingness to step beyond your comfort zone and explore the unknown (and have fun while you’re at it).

Break Free from Linear Transactions to More Creative Outcomes.  Where AI starts to “come alive” is when you create something unique, something that wouldn’t have been achieved without that human and machine collaboration.  For example, you may have an idea for a specific pasta dish to cook for dinner, but you don’t have all the ingredients at home and don’t feel motivated to visit the grocery store for everything else you need. A creative human/AI collaboration could look at new outcomes that would not have been considered otherwise.  One idea is to share the ingredients you do have with gen AI: “I have two red tomatoes, chicken breast, olive oil, salt, and white onion. What are some recipes I can consider for making dinner for two tonight?”  The alternatives sound appetizing.  Not only did alternative ideas come up in the moment, but easy-to-follow recipes were also included.

You don’t have to stop there. If you’re not 100% satisfied with the results, you could ask it to regenerate ideas or guide it with more specific details or nuances, i.e., provide recipes under X number of calories, only recipes for baking or air frying, etc.

You can also experiment in fun ways by adding your personality into the mix and exploring unconventional, radical, or previously impossible requests. This makes the output more creative, surprising, and mind-blowing. For example, add details like country or region, style, cooking time, or lifestyle preferences. Or take it to the next level by asking for recipes to help you cook in the style of your favorite celebrity chef, from any century (just as long as they’re in the LLM!). Then, ask it to provide a personal note from the chef to motivate and guide you, and voilà, the chef’s kiss. Suddenly gen AI becomes your personal cooking coach.

The idea here is to think about your interactions creatively, to practice by challenging your own conventions around how you think gen AI should work, and also the outcomes you think are expected or possible.

Rethinking Collaboration with AI for More Creative, Innovative Outcomes.  Changing your mindset to more creatively and openly collaborate with AI is about the willingness to explore the unknown and the capacity to learn, unlearn, and experiment. Plus, it’s a lot of fun.

According to the author AI delivers its best potential and results when we, along with our cognitive biases, step aside. I ask myself, with a smile, “WWAID?” or “What would AI do?” I acknowledge that my unconscious manner of using gen AI tools might default to predictable inputs and outputs. But by asking WWAID, I open myself up to new exchanges and  experiences, which can yield unexpected results.

Tapping into AI’s creative and transformative potential and training your brain for an AI-first world requires us to mindshift our prompting style, engaging AI as a collaborative partner, rather than just a tool.

12 Exercises to Train Your Brain to Work More Creatively With AI

1. Set a daily “exploratory prompting” practice.  Begin each day with an open-ended prompt that pushes you to think big. You might try, “What trends or opportunities am I not seeing in my industry?” or “How might I completely redefine my approach to a key challenge?”
2. Frame prompts around “What if” and “How might we” questions.  Instead of asking direct questions, prompt with open-ended possibilities. For instance, instead of asking, “How can I improve productivity?” try, “What if I could approach productivity in an unconventional way — what might that look like?”
3. Embrace ambiguity and curiosity in prompts.  Training ourselves to prompt without a precise endpoint in mind allows AI to generate responses that might surprise us. Prompts like “What might I be overlooking in my approach to X?” open doors to insights we hadn’t considered.
4. Use prompts to explore rather than to solve.  Many prompts focus on solutions. Shifting toward exploration allows for deeper insight generation. For example, “Let’s explore the future of leadership if AI had a seat on the board or in the C-Suite — what changes might we see in our work, roles, and in corporate culture?”
5. Chain prompts to develop ideas iteratively.  Rather than stopping at the first answer, ask follow-up questions that deepen the response toward more complex and visionary responses. If AI suggests an idea, build on it with questions like, “What would this look like in 5 years?” or “How might this approach change the future of how companies operate?”
6. Think metaphorically or analogically.  Training our brains to use metaphor or analogy in prompts open up creative pathways. For instance, instead of asking for productivity tips, prompt AI with, “Imagine productivity as a dance — how might my approach change?”
7. Prompt for perspectives, beyond facts.  Ask AI to take on different perspectives to broaden the creative capacity for unpredictable results. For instance, “How might an artist, a scientist, and a philosopher each approach the challenge of leading in a tech-driven world?” prompts AI to combine diverse viewpoints, offering a richer pool of ideas, and inspiring you in ways not possible before.
8. Experiment with “role-play” prompts.  Train yourself to consider multiple perspectives by asking AI to generate responses from the mindset of the world’s best experts from any industry or genre — you can even include fictional personas. For instance, try prompting AI with, “How would an innovative CEO, an artist, and a futurist each solve this problem?” Personally, I’ve interacted with the AI’s take on two of my favorites — Steve Jobs and Walt Disney — on many occasions.
9. Ask for impossibilities and involve experiential scenarios.  Open new avenues to reimagine the problem itself, uncovering solutions that others might overlook. Prompt AI for ideas that would “completely eliminate the need for [whatever you’re working on],” or “solutions that solve problems we haven’t even imagined yet.” And go further by prompting AI to create “a day-in-the-life scenario where this [solution or effort] becomes indispensable in every moment of [insert person]’s life.”
10. WWAID — Reimagine AI’s role in the solution itself.  Ask questions that treat AI as a partner in innovation: “How would you, as an AI, design this service or solution to [accomplish A, B, or C] in ways only an AI could perceive?”
11. Establish a weekly “future-driven prompt” session.  Devote one session per week to focus on large-scale, future-oriented prompts, such as “What will my industry look like in 10 years, and how can I stay at the forefront?” or “What radical shifts might cause disruptions or redefine success in my field?”
12. Keep a journal of “breakthrough prompts”.  Though AI tools retain a history of your prompts, document those that yield surprising, innovative, or particularly valuable insights and results. Reviewing this log regularly can inspire new ways to phrase future prompts.

Generative AI is not just a tool; it’s a catalyst to rewire our thinking patterns, break free from the constraints of linear logic, and unlock creative insights we didn’t know we were capable of. A mindshift rewires us to abandon outdated thinking, embrace curiosity, and activate exponential potential by asking better, more audacious questions. To harness its power in innovative ways, the first step is to adopt what the author calls “exponential curiosity,” which allows us to move from merely using AI to actively co-creating with it.

A mindshift paired with Generative AI rewires our brains to work toward an alternate future that we can scarcely imagine — a future that’s filled with awe-inspiring, meaningful breakthroughs that redefine industries, experiences, and the very nature of human potential.

By asking AI questions that challenge assumptions and venture into the unknown, you not only get creative responses but develop a mindset that primes you to see possibilities that others miss. Leaders who foster these mindshifts within their teams will find themselves cultivating a culture where “the impossible” becomes a daily challenge — and achievement.

Give yourself permission and space to excel in an AI-first world.

The pace of change in business has reached unprecedented levels, driven by geopolitical uncertainty, technological disruptions like AI, shifting markets, and a rapidly evolving workforce.

This era of “reinvent or die” demands a new generation of leaders capable of navigating complex challenges and driving transformation. While change has always been a constant, the speed and breadth of disruption today require a recalibration of the skills necessary for future CEOs.

In this new paradigm, tomorrow’s CEOs will need to be skilled in a range of enhanced competencies. These include adopting a global perspective to navigate an increasingly interconnected world, aligning strategic vision with effective execution, communicating in a manner that inspires and engages stakeholders, and building strong, diverse networks to support organizational goals.

Admittedly, no one is ever entirely prepared for the role of CEO, as the position and the broader environment are constantly evolving. “We’ve moved past the era where there was a formula, and checking all the boxes meant you were ready to be a CEO,” says German Herrera, who leads Egon Zehnder in the U.S. Instead, he stresses specific traits that correlate with high performance and the ability to guide an organization through turbulence. These include curiosity, a desire for relentless self-development and learning, determination, resiliency to stay focused and undeterred by obstacles, and the ability to absorb information, connect the dots, and anticipate what’s around the bend.

A recent Spencer Stuart survey underscores the high levels of uncertainty confronting today’s executives, with 79% of CEOs and 81% of board directors reporting significant unease. This environment of constant disruption demands that future CEOs combine timeless leadership traits with new capabilities suited to the modern landscape. Resilience, for instance, has become a critical attribute, not only in a leader’s ability to handle setbacks and ambiguity but also in building it into the fabric of the organization. Leaders must anticipate challenges, plan for adverse scenarios, and integrate adaptability into their business strategies, says Jason Baumgarten, head of Spencer Stuart’s global board and CEO practice.

While the skills required to reach the top rung have evolved to meet the demands of the current moment, traditional competencies remain essential for aspiring CEOs, including setting strategy, leading teams, building relationships with external stakeholders, and driving financial results. These are fundamental to an executive’s readiness for the C-suite, notes Erin Zolna, global assessment capability leader at Russell Reynolds Associates. However, traits that may seem contradictory—such as the ability to think innovatively and challenge norms while also being pragmatic and thoughtful—are most predictive of their long-term success, she adds.

The significance of soft skills cannot be overlooked. Sure, future CEOs must be results-oriented and willing to make tough, sometimes unpopular decisions. Yet, as Seonaid Charlesworth, a leadership advisory consultant at Spencer Stuart, points out, this decisiveness should not come at the expense of humanity. Effective leaders combine resolute decision-making with empathy, acknowledging and respecting the emotions and perspectives of those they lead.

Managing during turbulent times can be daunting, which is why one of the most critical traits of top-performing CEOs is their ability to manage strong internal reactions, such as fear and anger, adds Charlesworth. This emotional regulation underpins the “humble self-confidence” that board directors often seek in CEO candidates. Leaders with this quality remain calm and composed under pressure and project stability and resilience to those around them.

As volatility becomes the norm, says Charlesworth, this blend of decisiveness, adaptability, and emotional steadiness will help define exceptional leadership and determine who is best equipped to rise to the corner office.

According toe the author in his executive coaching and though leadership work, he introduces the concept of ‘PURPOSESCAPING,’ which draws inspiration from George Washington Carver’s methods of crop rotation. The sustainable farming methods provide a wealth of lessons to help individuals ‘restore the depleted soil of the self’ and realign their lives during times of transition or burnout.  PURPOSESCAPING is a seasonal framework that maps the four seasons from nature to any process that is experienced by a living being. It includes spring planting, summer growth, fall harvest, and winter rest.  Through PURPOSESCAPING, we can use a seasonal metaphor to establish a sustainable rhythm in both our personal and professional lives.

PURPOSESCAPING helps you see your patterns and see where you’ve not made room for the work of all four seasons or for the particular season that you’re in. Each season has specific work that you should be doing, specific threats you should be looking out for, specific opportunities you can take advantage of, as well as specific actions to avoid.

Four lessons plucked directly from nature to help you navigate burnout.

Lesson One – No one season lasts forever.  High achievers often favor one season and attempt to stay in it too long and ignore our need to experience the other three seasons.  For example many high achievers are guilty of repeatedly skipping winter which is a setup for burnout. Because the work of winter is quiet and reflective, it can be enticing to stay in the season of fall harvest where visible accomplishments, accolades, and revenue are present. When you are earning money, getting awards, and reaping the benefits of all of your hard work from spring and summer, it’s natural to want to bask in that shine forever. It’s natural to want to be visible.  But the winter season, according to the framework, is all about reflecting on the cycles that have passed and making decisions about what you will plant next. Winter is an essential season, just like rest is an essential ingredient for life. It’s impossible to stay in summer or autumn indefinitely.

Lesson Two – We are always moving through cycles of planting, growth, harvest, and rest.  Purposescaping is a metaphor for life because people are always moving through cycles of planting, growth, harvest, and rest. Even though you may have reached the pinnacle of one area of your life, as you continue to evolve there will eventually come a time to clear the ground and plant something new again.

Lesson Three – Nature’s timing creates a sustainable pace.  Purposescaping offers a lens to better determine when a season is expired or alternatively when you are right on time based on the cycle. The seasonal metaphor can help you accurately assess where you are versus where you may want to be. You may want to be in a harvest season, but in reality you’r still in summer growth doing the work to bring your idea or expertise to maturity.  Often, leaders may share that they feel behind. But if we look at their journey and hold it up against the framework it’s easier to see the “seasons”.

Lesson Four – No season is wasted.  Purposescaping allows leaders to release the unrealistic societal expectation to bloom year-around. It gives them permission to take their time through the full cycles of planting, growth, harvest, and rest with the understanding no season is wasted.

According to the author he has gained from analyzing the journeys of both successful and unsuccessful founders is that our psycho-emotional state can have a far more significant impact on our outcomes than the commonly known reasons for startup failure.  He has realized that our reactions, our ability to manage ourselves and how we handle the emotions triggered by these challenges are fundamental building blocks of success.  10 most common reasons startups fail with recommendations on how to deal with them on an emotional level are:

1. No market need (42%).  Overconfidence and attachment to the founder’s idea often lead to this failure. Founders may believe so strongly in their vision that they disregard feedback or fail to conduct adequate market research. This cognitive bias — anchoring on personal passion — blinds them to whether their product solves a real problem.  To counter overconfidence, founders should adopt a mindset of curiosity and humility. Conducting surveys, user interviews and testing minimum viable products (MVPs) ensures alignment with real customer needs. Seeking external validation from mentors or advisors can provide an objective perspective, helping to counter emotional attachment to the idea.
2. Ran out of cash (29%).  Financial mismanagement often stems from anxiety, denial or avoidance. The stress of balancing expenses and securing funding can overwhelm founders, causing procrastination or impulsive decisions. Fear of addressing financial challenges may lead to unchecked spending or delayed corrective actions.  Creating a clear financial plan with regular reviews reduces emotional uncertainty. Founders should seek financial coaching to improve their resource management skills and use tools to track cash flow. Breaking financial decisions into smaller, manageable steps can reduce the psychological burden of handling large sums.
3. Not the right team (23%).  Under pressure, founders may make hasty hiring decisions, prioritizing speed over compatibility. Fear of delegation, driven by trust issues or a need for control, can also create team misalignment. Emotional stress often leads to unresolved tensions within teams.  It is critical to have a structured hiring process that evaluates cultural fit alongside technical skills. Founders should invest in team-building activities to foster trust and alignment. Therapy or coaching can help address personal trust issues that hinder delegation.
4. Got outcompeted (19%).   Competition triggers feelings of inadequacy and fear of failure. Founders may respond with reactive decisions or obsessively compare themselves to competitors, eroding confidence and clarity.  Reframe competition as an opportunity to learn and differentiate. Conduct regular competitor analyses to identify unique market opportunities. Mentorship from experienced entrepreneurs can help you maintain a focus on long-term goals rather than short-term rivalries.
5. Pricing/cost issues (18%).  Fear of rejection leads founders to undervalue their product, setting prices too low. Conversely, anxiety about profitability can result in inflated pricing without sufficient market validation.  Testing pricing strategies with small groups of customers reduces emotional pressure. Founders should educate themselves on pricing psychology and seek feedback from advisors. Understanding the value proposition helps build confidence in pricing decisions.

User-unfriendly product (17%). Lack of business model (17%). Poor marketing (14%).  Ignoring customers (14%). And product released at the wrong time (13%).