In a little under six months, Procurement Leaders’ CPO community will travel to Copenhagen for the 13th iteration of Ovation, our executive thinktank. During our time together, we will explore some of the most critical current and future issues facing business leaders today.
While our choice of location seems prescient given the current political discourse, the decision had more to do with the need to provide a space for thoughtful debate and reflection.
With a reputation for creativity and design, along with the backdrop of Hygge culture, our thinking was Denmark could provide the atmosphere and creative energy required to drive fresh thinking during these mystifying times. I’m still confident that will prove to be the case, even if some of our conversations will be focused on the geopolitical elephant in the room.
Naturally, a huge amount of time and energy goes into planning and researching an event like Ovation. Over two days we explore business and societal trends to provide CPOs with a framework to better understand the future and how their functional strategies fit into it.
One of our research calls was with a pre-eminent figure in the world of education and academia, who we had a fascinating discussion with about what the future might hold for further education institutions and those embarking on the early stages of their careers.
Foremost to that is the shift from a focus on technical skills to the pursuit of a broad base of adaptable skills that artificial intelligence will be less likely to replace. This includes critical thinking, problem solving, and the ability to analyse complex social and institutional problems enhanced with a focus on communication, collaboration and the “human surface area” of an organisation.
In a world where the need for technical knowledge is becoming increasingly redundant, the pursuit of wisdom over intelligence will act as a differentiator for the leaders of the future.
How this is taught and harnessed – both in universities and in a corporate environment – remains to be seen, but business leaders must embrace the concept of constant learning, with a focus on the social sciences and how they collaborate and integrate more successfully with educational institutions.
And that will mean a fascinating rewiring of a system that’s been in place for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
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