I read your piece multiple times, Kenneth, finding myself nodding in sad recognition and pushing back with hopeful pride. As a collaborator for Hyper Island, I see us striving to be different - focusing on human leadership, critical thinking, and character building rather than mere performance metrics.
Yet I painfully recognise our own slide into hollow language in our marketing materials - using "performance" as a Trojan horse to get through the gates. Without that strategic entry point, we often wouldn't sell a program at all.
What troubles me most is watching clients physically recoil from anything unfamiliar - especially reflection. Many demand fast-food learning and frameworks over actual thinking. However, those brave enough to embrace real action learning and vulnerability inevitably describe our methods as life-changing.
So we find ourselves managing this polarity: Can we afford to lose clients? For sure we can't afford losing ourselves in the process either. So how much do we compromise our methodology to make it palatable versus standing firm and risking rejection in an already saturated and underpaid market? It’s a recurring topic of discussion within the Learning Design team.
I wonder if the problem isn't solely the leadership training industry, but also organisations lacking the courage to embrace truly human leadership with all its discomfort and messiness.
This leaves me contemplating: How might we effectively "sell" human leadership programs when the very mechanisms of selling have changed so dramatically? Perhaps we need to return to ancient wisdom - like the Greeks and their Trojans - finding creative ways to bring what's truly valuable inside the gates. Still, I find myself looking forward to different times ahead.
Graziella, this is a great reflection. I deeply enjoyed reading it and appreciate the time and careful considerations you put into it. I have heard only good things about Hyper Island.
The dilemma you describe with wanting to do more and better + having to ‘fit in’ is a difficult dilemma. Often it feels like fighting windmills.
I have also found that what works best is a Trojan approach. Maybe not in the shape of a big horse, but rather as many, smaller Trojan mice. But it takes a lot more work and sadly it often ends up meeting more resistance from the usual gatekeepers. The fellowship idea that Tolkien introduced in his books is what I’ll compare it to. Both outside and inside organisations. In a shaky world having friends with complementary characteristics, knowledge and skills become even more important.
This captures my lived experience and reverberates my soul as art has a habit of doing. Thank you Kenneth for amplifying my calling to a new way of working and serving people and planet.
This was thrilling to read—a challenge, a validation, a call to (loving, open) arms. From my fellow readers, I’m interested to know: Who would you add from your own leading/learning lineage?
If leadership development has become a theater, it’s only fitting that the vast armada of coaches, change agents, and leadership whisperers, who were largely absent thirty years ago, now help stabilize the very performance they so artfully critique.
Unless we see ourselves not as rescuers but as part of the problem, transformation remains just another theatrical act.
Changing what we do, would be the first rehearsal worth showing up for.
And perhaps, when seen through the cool lens of economics, where the rich are simply getting richer, we must confess: From that perspective, there is no “problem.” Only a remarkably well-run production.
Humans evolved through the necessity of dealing with need. Now, we drown in abundance without a true strategy for navigating affluence, because managing surplus would demand we turn away from glamour and return to beauty.
Perhaps that is the real poverty of our time: mistaking glitter for grace.
I’m on a journey of "REIMAGINING THE ALPHA: Uncovering leadership's missing link. Achieving harmony in the right, the good, and the unexpectedly beautiful."
I’m sharing openly, what I’ve come up with so far: "Reach out, touch faith“.
I read your piece multiple times, Kenneth, finding myself nodding in sad recognition and pushing back with hopeful pride. As a collaborator for Hyper Island, I see us striving to be different - focusing on human leadership, critical thinking, and character building rather than mere performance metrics.
Yet I painfully recognise our own slide into hollow language in our marketing materials - using "performance" as a Trojan horse to get through the gates. Without that strategic entry point, we often wouldn't sell a program at all.
What troubles me most is watching clients physically recoil from anything unfamiliar - especially reflection. Many demand fast-food learning and frameworks over actual thinking. However, those brave enough to embrace real action learning and vulnerability inevitably describe our methods as life-changing.
So we find ourselves managing this polarity: Can we afford to lose clients? For sure we can't afford losing ourselves in the process either. So how much do we compromise our methodology to make it palatable versus standing firm and risking rejection in an already saturated and underpaid market? It’s a recurring topic of discussion within the Learning Design team.
I wonder if the problem isn't solely the leadership training industry, but also organisations lacking the courage to embrace truly human leadership with all its discomfort and messiness.
This leaves me contemplating: How might we effectively "sell" human leadership programs when the very mechanisms of selling have changed so dramatically? Perhaps we need to return to ancient wisdom - like the Greeks and their Trojans - finding creative ways to bring what's truly valuable inside the gates. Still, I find myself looking forward to different times ahead.
I don't know what the answers are, but I love the way you're thinking about the problem! This is a good way to start ✨.
Graziella, this is a great reflection. I deeply enjoyed reading it and appreciate the time and careful considerations you put into it. I have heard only good things about Hyper Island.
The dilemma you describe with wanting to do more and better + having to ‘fit in’ is a difficult dilemma. Often it feels like fighting windmills.
I have also found that what works best is a Trojan approach. Maybe not in the shape of a big horse, but rather as many, smaller Trojan mice. But it takes a lot more work and sadly it often ends up meeting more resistance from the usual gatekeepers. The fellowship idea that Tolkien introduced in his books is what I’ll compare it to. Both outside and inside organisations. In a shaky world having friends with complementary characteristics, knowledge and skills become even more important.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. 🌱
This captures my lived experience and reverberates my soul as art has a habit of doing. Thank you Kenneth for amplifying my calling to a new way of working and serving people and planet.
This was thrilling to read—a challenge, a validation, a call to (loving, open) arms. From my fellow readers, I’m interested to know: Who would you add from your own leading/learning lineage?
This was beautiful yet poignant. Provoking and yet endearing. Thanks Kenneth for writing this beautiful piece.
And HOBB for sharing it. I hope I can be part of the instance soon, I truly feel heard and also impelled to do more.
And going further: as a father, husband, teacher, consultant, facilitator, writer. Human being.
A brilliant staging!
If leadership development has become a theater, it’s only fitting that the vast armada of coaches, change agents, and leadership whisperers, who were largely absent thirty years ago, now help stabilize the very performance they so artfully critique.
Unless we see ourselves not as rescuers but as part of the problem, transformation remains just another theatrical act.
Changing what we do, would be the first rehearsal worth showing up for.
And perhaps, when seen through the cool lens of economics, where the rich are simply getting richer, we must confess: From that perspective, there is no “problem.” Only a remarkably well-run production.
Humans evolved through the necessity of dealing with need. Now, we drown in abundance without a true strategy for navigating affluence, because managing surplus would demand we turn away from glamour and return to beauty.
Perhaps that is the real poverty of our time: mistaking glitter for grace.
I’m on a journey of "REIMAGINING THE ALPHA: Uncovering leadership's missing link. Achieving harmony in the right, the good, and the unexpectedly beautiful."
I’m sharing openly, what I’ve come up with so far: "Reach out, touch faith“.
Captures so remarkably, so eloquently, so accurately what I could not put into words. Thank you, Kenneth.
Wow. Stunning. Thank you for this beautiful, poetic, inspiring reminder. Let’s begin . . .✨
Inspiring Kenneth. And a useful blueprint fir a way forward. Thank you for another stellar contribution
Thank you, dear Shaun.
This reminds me of the concept of Tan Rennin martial arts training and the forging of a Katana blade.
An excellent article that makes me think harder about how I do what I do and, how I choose to move through the world. Thank you.
Soul-stirring and beautiful!
Beautiful reminder to be real and to go deeper.
Thank you for the reminder
- and clear hard talk.
Very inspiring.
What a beautiful piece Kenneth. Thank you. Troels