Selina Neri: Developing Future-Ready Talent

Transcript

Des Dearlove:

Hello, I’m Des Dearlove, the co-founder of Thinkers50, and I’d like to welcome you to the first in the new series of Thinkers50 Radar webinars, where we celebrate the most exciting new voices in the world of management thinking. In January, we announced the Thinkers50 Radar list for 2025, 30 rising stars in the management ideas firmament, and we’ll be hearing from one of them today. We’d also like to hear from you. We aim to make these sessions as interactive as possible, so please do let us know where you are joining us from. And put your questions in the comments box, and we’ll try to put as many questions as we can to our guest.

This year’s Radar List is brought to you in partnership with ATD, the Association of Talent Development. And developing talent is a topic we will be exploring over the coming weeks, including, of course, the implications of AI in the workplace, and the many other challenges and opportunities facing leaders and organisations.

Now, talking of talent, my co-host today is John Coné. John has worked in talent development for more than 50 years, he tells me. During that time, he’s served as a chief learning officer, a vice president of HR, on the boards of non-profit and for-profit learning companies and organisations, including ATD. He currently serves as a catalyst of ATD’s Chief Talent Development Officer Next Group, where he facilitates the network’s applied thought leadership. John, it’s great to see you.

John Coné:

Yes, it’s great to be here, and I’m very excited to talk with today’s guest. I get the pleasure of introducing Dr. Selina Neri, a distinguished leader, educator and strategist in the fields of leadership, corporate governance and future readiness. As the CEO, dean, and co-founder of the Institute for Future Readiness, Dr. Neri is at the forefront of preparing organisations and individuals for the rapidly evolving demands of work and leadership.

A professor at Hult Ashridge Executive Education, she has contributed extensively to global discussions on leadership impact, talent ecosystems, and corporate governance, with her insights featured in the Encyclopedia of Sustainable Management and Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2025. Dr. Neri is a bold thinker, challenging traditional learning paradigms and advocating for transformational leadership that drives real, measurable impact. Today, she joins us to share her expertise and her vision for future-ready talent. Dr. Neri, welcome.

Selina Neri:

Thank you, thank you. Hi, everyone. As-salamu alaykum for everyone in the world celebrating the holy month of Ramadan Ramadan Kareem.

Des Dearlove:

Selina, welcome from me as well, and congratulations on making the Thinkers50 Radar list.

Selina Neri:

My pleasure, my pleasure. An absolute surprise, and I’m very humbled. Thank you.

Des Dearlove:

Well, we’re delighted to have you, and you’re joining us from Dubai, but before we get into some of the research, tell us a little bit about your backstory. What drew you to business management and the talent development field? And how did you end up in the UAE running the Institute for Future Readiness?

Selina Neri:

I think it’s a story of survival and grit really, because I ventured into study business and then working in business, because at the time it seemed like a cool idea to make some money. I didn’t know myself very well at the time, so I looked for advice of people around me. I was advised to go into economics and business, and so I did. But over 36 years that I’ve now been in business, I’ve transitioned four times across industries, lived in so many different countries, worked in so many different functions, always in the private sector. And eventually, after a long search, I found my home in the United Arab Emirates, where I’ve been now for 13 years. And I found my purpose in making generations future-ready, which is the mission of the Institute for Future Readiness. And at this stage in my life, spearheading the institute is absolutely the right thing to do, at the right time, in the right place. And most importantly for me, with the right people. So here we are.

John Coné:

Dr. Neri, you said that your purpose was future readiness. How do you define future readiness, and what strategies might you recommend for talent that aims to be future-ready?

Selina Neri:

Thank you for the question, because future readiness means a lot of things to many different people. And I recently Googled it once again, and it’s 1.6 billion hits on a Google search. It’s a new field, first of all, and it’s a field where ourselves and many colleagues in the world work in this field that are putting forward the thought leadership. First of all, it’s the defining characteristic of people built to thrive; so not born to thrive, but built to thrive, not to survive in the type of complexity that we live in today and in the future of work.

So being future-ready, first of all, isn’t a status. It’s a lifelong journey and a lifelong adventure. And most importantly, it means to be able and willing, and this is very important, not only the ability, the competence, but also the willingness to navigate the future with competence for ourselves and then of course for the people around us, whether they are teams, organisations, countries, communities and societies. So it isn’t about one training, one course, one set of skills. It’s a journey that forces us to continuously master our core components, I like to say rejuvenate our core components or reinvent them altogether, and then apply these to the priority areas of the future.

So core components means competencies, so the skills and the behaviours that we can learn and apply to practice. Of course experiences, what drives us, very important, what motivates us, and what our preferences are. And then we apply these to the areas of the future which are a priority. And these tend to be four legs: human capital development, the technology world and technology literacy, the world of sustainability and green skills, and of course entrepreneurship, given that it is entrepreneurs who contribute more than 80% of the global GDP; it is in large listed companies. So this is, in a nutshell, the emerging view of future readiness.

Des Dearlove:

Fantastic. That’s a very good and very clear definition. I’m going to ask you about an article you wrote, but before I do that, it strikes me that you mentioned the purpose being to make different generations future-ready. This isn’t just for young people, this is something that applies to all of us, all generations of talent, yeah?

Selina Neri:

Absolutely. And this is very important because the so-called multi-generational workforce is one of the current challenges of many, many organisations, because we focus way too much on the differences and way too little on what is common. I mean, I was born in 1968. I am a Gen X. So I am on the older scale  when looking at talent, but we face and we share the same challenges and the same obstacles, although we might have different views about life and work because we were born and raised in different periods. But it’s very important that we talk about generations. So for us at the institute, it’s about youth, which in the United Arab Emirates is defined as people between 15 and 35 years of age. It’s a very broad definition of youth. And of course those beyond 35. As you know, we are all set to live the 100-year life. I’m all for it. And therefore, we need to ensure that people can transition into different ways of working as they go towards the 100-year life.

Des Dearlove:

Okay, now let’s just dig into that article, your article, ‘Why the World Needs Game-Changing Leadership Impact.’ You talk about transformative leadership as critical for being future-ready. Are you finding that the capabilities needed for leadership success have changed?

Selina Neri:

They have changed, they are changing, but in my opinion, not fast enough, given the fast pace in which we live. First of all, I do believe that leadership is the number one quality. We see in the world in which we live, that the future of humans will be defined by how people, communities, countries, organisations are led. So I also would like to say that there are a number of what I call dead ideas around the leadership that have been with us for a very long time, and we still have difficulty in letting go of these ideas. For instance, that leadership is all about leaders. Well, it isn’t. Leadership is very much about those that we lead, the people we are on the journey with as opposed to us or anybody who is a leader. Or that all great leaders share certain characteristics, and therefore get the characteristics right and you’re going to have the output of great leadership. It doesn’t work this way. Or that all great leaders do perform in a certain way.

These ideas are still around and do not allow the competency of leadership to develop fast enough for the future of work. And I give you a couple of examples. Leadership is more and more, first of all, it’s a privilege and is a behaviour and it is a mindset. It’s the competence and the ability and the passion to paint a picture, to build a vision and galvanize and engage the hearts and minds of people towards that vision. And on the way to that vision, making sure that we support and we stretch those around us in equal measures so that we make them believe that they can go beyond what they think they’re capable of.

This is leadership, this is the type of competence and behaviour we need. We are not yet there. There are buckets, and research is indicating this, buckets of companies and people who are further down the line of this journey, but we are engineering a leadership machine that has been with us for a very long time. And this of course takes time. So there’s less emphasis on leaders themselves and there’s more in the future emphasis of those who are being led. And we will discover maybe in the conversation why.

John Coné:

Dr. Neri, you talked about having a vision and being able to compel people toward that vision, but you’re not talking about this model of the charismatic leader that’s become so popular, especially in high-tech recently. What are some of the other essential qualities that these leaders have to have?

Selina Neri:

And thank you, John, for this question, because one of the many studies that recently have caught my attention, I mean, one of them is from Gallup, that is basically indicating something that can be very mind-blowing in the literature and the journey of leadership. What do we want from leaders? We want hope. We want hope for the future. We want trust. We want compassion. We want empathy, because we are not robots. We are humans who live in the age of AI. And we want some form of stability in a world that is unstable.

These characteristics of leadership, for instance, they were never on the table a few years ago, but now they are. And also, there’s a lot of emphasis … because of the pervasive lack of engagement of employees and gig workers globally, we are low on engagement, we are low on thriving on the job, we are high on surviving and getting by. There is a mental health crisis around us. Therefore, I need leaders who are high on emotional intelligence, who can have conversations when we are going through these motions, who have an empathetic way of getting things done, who are able to walk the talk when we talk about wellbeing and mental health. I mean, there are leaders, and I have had bosses myself in my life who were great in equipping the organisation with coaches and with mental health apps that were supposed to help everyone, and get yourself a yoga mat and you will sort out your problem.

It isn’t as simple. We also need leaders who understand, “I am overloaded,” who understand, “I can’t cope with this load. There is something fundamental happening in my life. I’m taking care of my elderly parents or I’m having financial issues, family-wise.” So leaders who have this ability to create hope and build trust and be there for people is one of the key characteristics of what is needed for future-ready organisations.

John Coné:

Yes, I just wanted to follow up real quickly, because I totally agree with the description you just gave. But oftentimes in our conversations we hear people say, “Well, weren’t these qualities always critical? Weren’t they always important?” But you seem to be indicating that maybe we got by without them for a while and now we can’t.

Selina Neri:

Yes, yes, very true. And of course, we can’t speak without precise data, but we know in research that these qualities, for instance, they were never taught in leadership schools in the past. They were not considered the skills, the behaviours that leaders need to showcase. The world was different. There was less emphasis … not so much on mental health and just struggling with life. I think humans have always struggled. But there was less transparency making an employer or the work environment know that we are going through the struggle.

And actually, there were qualities like ambition, like a relentless drive towards results without caring about how those results are achieved, they were much more important. But because today, we are out of balance, for a variety of reasons, because we came out of COVID, because the pace of change is unhuman, because technology is changing our lives so fast … And at times we enjoy the changes. Other times, we are very scared. We are looking at leadership, whether it is country level, community level or organisational level to be more and give us more and give different things that are very human-centric in a world that is very tech-driven. This is an important fact also to keep in mind.

Des Dearlove:

I’m really pleased to see that we’ve got such a global audience. We’ve been joined by people from Dubai, Croatia, Portugal, Montreal, Saudi Arabia, Denmark, London, Virginia, Mumbai, Toronto, Singapore, New York City, the list goes on. So it’s great that we have such a global audience.

Coming back to the technology point that you made, and you mentioned earlier that some of the pillars of being future-ready, you’ve got human development, but you’ve also got the technology … And it’s happening at such a pace now. With the increasing integration of technology in the workplace, obviously especially generative AI and AI, how can organisations balance the technological advancements with the development of their human capital to ensure performance, but also some of the things you were alluding to, people’s wellbeing, or mental health, those issues, how can we think about that balance and get that balance right?

Selina Neri:

Very, very important topic and question. I spent over 26 years of my life in the technology industry. And I always look at technology as an enabler. I wasn’t around with the Industrial Revolution. I’m a bit too young for that. But I was around in the 1980s and ’90s, when the internet was going to overtake the world. So let’s go step by step, because first of all, technology is an enabler, is an industry, yes, but it’s also an enabler of all kinds of types of lives and businesses.

With all the tech talk that is around us, we need to look at the reality on the ground. And there are actually two colleagues from the Thinkers50 Radar list who recently published a wonderful book about AI for managers. I highly recommend it. And we actually discover through their work that about 15% of managers actually use AI in daily work. So there is a notion between the hype of tech, which is also a little bit part of the makeup of the industry, and actually using usable tools out of this hype in day-to-day business life.

To do what? Why do we need to care about tech, and AI is a big part of it? Because we know that there is a promise of three things. One is the promise of increased productivity. The second one is the promise of increased precision. And the third one is the promise of increased personalisation. So out of these three promises, organisations will be able to figure out what AI can precisely do for them within the business model and the processes that they have. But we need as humans, and I come to the human side of things, we need to remain critical, because there’s a difference between saying that being future-ready requires literacy and technology, it does, and it does at every level, and saying we all need to become superheroes and super experts in AI.

No. They are two different things. I don’t have an engineering background, by the way. I built my life in tech by surrounding myself with people who are so much better than me. I have an economics and business background, and exactly understanding technology for what it does into creating solutions in business. So I don’t believe that AI will take over the world. I believe that those of us who learn to work with AI will replace those who don’t. And here are those who cannot, which is a completely different topic that we can talk about. And therefore-

Des Dearlove:

Cannot or will not, are you saying?

Selina Neri:

No, I’m saying those of us who learn to use technology in our daily work will replace the people who don’t want or cannot, because they might be based in a part of the world where … forget AI, we are still talking basic internet connectivity. And that is a very different story, because in the hype of technology, we are forgetting that being able to follow a LinkedIn Live tonight requires basic internet connectivity. If I don’t have that, forget about AI.

So this is the challenge. This is the battle we need to fight. And therefore, taking the anxiety out of so many people, not only in the younger generations, who are actually more interested and more excited about tech, but for instance, my generation, because we need to relearn or learn from scratch stuff that we have never seen before. And those of us who understand this, that it is a skill in my portfolio, that will actually eventually make me more productive or precise or allow more personalisation in what I do, will be the ones that stick around, that remain relevant, as opposed to being fearful or staying on the surface of the hype of tech, which at times, by the way, can be scary.

John Coné:

If I may take this in another direction, earlier, you talked about one of the dead ideas is that leadership is just about leaders. Could you tell us about the five proclivities? Because that seems to go well beyond leadership roles to roles for everybody.

Selina Neri:

Yes. So leadership isn’t just about leaders, it is about those who are being led. So in the world of talent and leadership, as you know, there is a forgotten child. I call it the forgotten child. And this is understanding impact, understanding how we make an impact at work. There are tons of assessments for personality, communication styles, et cetera, but the journey of understanding how we make an impact at work is one that is only 20 years old. So let’s go step by step, and I come to these five ways in which we make an impact.

About 20 years ago, there was a piece of research that started the journey of, what do organisations need for transformational change and for generating sustainable growth? And the answer was they need people who have the capacity for transformational change, for visualising creative thinking of what that transformational change looks like. And these people were labeled, were called, to this day, game-changers. But then we discovered that in reality, the game of transforming an organisation isn’t the game of one hero or a couple of heroes. It is the game of building teams who are capable of having transformational impact. And this was the acceleration of a program of research that today is a global language, a global framework, a global methodology called the game-changing index. And this maps out for all of us the ways in which we are energised to make a tangible impact at work.

So there are five proclivities, we call them profiling, let’s put it this way, five ways in which this impact can map out in everyday life. And let’s take a very simple example for everyone to follow me. If you take any business, any day is going through some form of business cycle that looks like this. We need people who have creative ideas about something. These are called game-changing energies. Then we need people who take these ideas, which could be 10 years ahead, 20 years ahead, and make sense of them: “Okay, does it make sense? Can we afford it? What’s the commercial side of it? What’s competition doing? What’s the data telling me?” These are strategists, so people who map out this future.

Then we need those who are really good and energised in making things happen and getting it done. We call them implementers. And then once the future is mapped out and delivered, we need to make it better. So we need to constantly polish it. These are the polishers. And of course have an energy for continuous improvement and what we call the pursuit of excellence. And last but not least, I need someone, a number of people, who are the director of the orchestra, whose energy is in getting the best from others. And we call them play-makers.

Now, very important is that to understand that these energies exist in all of us. I have my five energies, like you have yours. It isn’t about competence or skill. It’s about if I sit back and I relax and I operate as I am energised to operate, what is it that will map out to the way I make an impact? And in my case, it’s actually game-changer, polisher. That’s my profile.

Now, this window on how we make an impact and how teams make an impact is the game-changer of how we manage talent. It has revolutionised how I attract people, how I develop them, how I use talent within an organisation. Let’s not forget the future of work is about fluidity, not role description or job descriptions and static roles, but fluid use of talent to eventually do what? Solve problems. At any stage in our generational journey, we are all problem-solvers. And if I know not only the experience and the competencies and what makes people think and they’re drivers, but I also know how they make an impact, because that’s how they get energised, so engagement and thriving rather than surviving, then I have a very different way to play the cards of talent to serve whatever is the mission and the organisational objectives. That can be a special project, it can be a five-year turnaround or securing that we exist in a sustainable way for the next 200 years. And this is the new kid around the block in understanding impact.

Des Dearlove:

Gosh, that’s a lot to take in. I’m pleased you said that we all have some of these energies. It’s a question of figuring out which bits we lean towards, what our own pprclivities are.

Selina Neri:

Absolutely.

Des Dearlove:

But let’s talk a little bit about some of the research that you’re doing at the Institute for Future Readiness. You’ve done some surveys which indicate a significant emphasis on lifelong learning, as we would expect. This obviously underpins a lot of the things we’re talking about, but how does this … And again, at the beginning you mentioned that it’s a relatively new field, being future-ready. How do those two things come together? What does future readiness mean for the evolution of lifelong learning as we go forward? And what does that mean for functions in corporations and organisations?

Selina Neri:

So lifelong learning, I look at it as the lifeline or the bloodline of future readiness. It is the highway on which the journey towards future readiness unravels. So the corporate talent function is already undergoing massive transformations because it is becoming, finally, I want to say, the strategic asset, the strategic partner of how a business is organised and delivers value. And of course, lifelong learning is the engine that gives people the direction and the attitude lifelong to be learners. Let’s not forget that leaders are learners, managers are learners. We all are and need to stay in the learning game if we want to constantly be and remain future-ready.

I published a paper in December just before Christmas around the culture of lifelong learning in organisations. And there is a piece of research that I quoted in this paper that says that in a global survey of CEOs of I think it was 2023, 2024, across industries, 91% of these CEOs have actually stated that they believe building a culture of lifelong learning is key to the future of their business. 70% of these people also believe that it is a top driver. And here’s the other catch, more than half of the same CEOs would walk away from an acquisition target, we are talking mergers and acquisitions, if the company they were about to merge or acquire had a poor lifelong learning cultural fit with themselves.

So this is telling us what? This is telling us that we are already seeing the transformation of how CEOs think about lifelong learning. And it’s important: if I don’t see it, I’m not going to then do the work to make it a reality … and then support the talent function to really operate as the strategic partner of the business. And then if we put the other pieces together in terms of understanding impact and the competencies that we need to develop as leaders, the importance of managers taking care of various aspects of what future readiness means, then we also begin to understand that the road map of developing future-ready talent is a complex one, a comprehensive one, but one that will help me address the number one issue that at the moment we are facing, which is, in one word, lack of engagement.

Because all the issues we spoke about, whether it’s mental health, whether it is burnout, whether it is people not feeling a sense of belonging, it’s all linked to the concept of engagement. And what is engagement? Essentially, it is the extent to which I bring, every day to my work, my intellectual capabilities, my emotional capability and my physical energy, and to what extent I use it in my day-to-day life. This is engagement, and we are facing a crisis of engagement. So the talent function as the engine of building future-ready talent sits at the core of this mission of building organisations where engagement is the heart of the culture.

John Coné:

Dr. Neri, I know that we want to get to the Q&A pretty soon, but I do want to follow up on this notion. The surveys out there have shown this crisis of engagement really for many years. It seems to be a chronic problem, not something that is newly popped up. What’s one thing that an organisation can do to begin the process of building better engagement?

Selina Neri:

Well, first of all, I think we need to prioritise it, so understand what it is and prioritise it, because engagement needs to become a business priority. So there are companies and organisations out there, public and private sectors, who are actually doing quite well on turning around this engagement problem. It’s not an overnight type of turnaround. There is intentional year after year effort, but there are a few things that we can do to build strong cultures where engagement is the heart of everything.

So first of all, these organisations recognise that the qualities we spoke about, emotional intelligence, social intelligence, sensing, adapting, character over skills, these are all important features of the leaders and managers of their organisations. So they know these need to be nurtured. Second, these organisations and leaders place emphasis on not only top leaders and high potentials, which we know how to do quite well, but also on hiring and developing managers under those leaders, because we know that my direct manager day in day out is my key to engagement, this engagement, great, thriving culture, toxic culture. So those are the forgotten middle, not of the United States, but the forgotten middle of talent and the leadership journey.

The next thing that they do, these organisations, and some I have the honour and pleasure of working with, is they integrate engagement across the whole employee journey, whether I’m attracting, whether I’m in a recruitment conversation, whether I am managing the life cycle of a person working in this organisation. And then last but not least, they make engagement part of business strategy, meaning the way I look at performance, I reward performance, how I conduct conversations, managers to employees or top leadership to employees, the use of reverse mentoring, all of these tools are part of business strategy. And they’re all aimed to increase engagement.

The other bit, the last bit, is about these organisations have also become really good in emphasizing well-being at work, not only in terms of I have a team that looks after the well-being of my employees, I have a team of expert coaches and mentors who are there to support you, but also I have leaders and managers who walk the talk. Because there’s no point in having the phenomenal well-being set up when then my manager drives me nuts every other day and I have a workload that I humanly cannot cope with, and then I go in burnout because the leadership and managers don’t walk the talk of employee well-being is important.

So there’s a lot more skin in the game that we expect from ourselves as managers and leaders. And the organisations expect this, correctly, to be able to sort out this issue of engagement, which by the way, it can become a very tragic just way of living life and living work. And by the way, I also discovered data, data is important, that there is also an economic cost. There is of lack of engagement in organisations, 9% of global GDP. So even just the economics of it.

Des Dearlove:

Yeah, no, it’s amazing. And of course the other side of engagement is when people … What is sad is we also have an epidemic of burnout. That’s the other big challenge. And sometimes that’s because people were engaged, but they’re mistreated. It’s not managed directly. The leadership and the management don’t appreciate the commitment, and then that leads to a bad situation.

Listen, we’re going to take some questions. There’s lots and lots of comments coming in. There’s a question in there somewhere. I’m going to take one and turn it into a bit of a question. “John reminds us that for years, only 13% of employees globally are engaged, thus 87% are not.” Now, Gallup, year after year, does this survey. And what’s concerning is that the needle doesn’t seem to move. We’ve had the problem with engagement, it goes back a way now, but despite all the efforts and all the initiatives, we don’t necessarily seem to be making great progress. Why do you think that is?

Selina Neri:

Well, I think that, first of all, we have had the problem for a very long time, but we have started to see solutions, meaning the investments of companies who have started to address the issue as being year after year after year. So we are just at the beginning of seeing some form of light. But I also want to throw into the conversation something else that I’ve also lived myself. We have never prioritised in leadership development, talent management, the importance of getting to know ourselves and understanding, what do I really want from life, and therefore from work in life? And what is it that I need to be able to operate at my best?

Ancient philosophers used to say, “This is the goal of life, is the journey of life, to understand ourselves.” I mean, I’m 57, I only began a few years ago to know what I really need to operate at my best and to feel engaged in what I do and the type of people towards whom I can feel engagement. Because these are important elements. It’s not only, “Oh, well, I like my job or I have a great group of colleagues around me, or there is an overall mission of this company I really feel aligned to it.” It’s also about, for instance, people need variety, people need freedom, latitude to make mistakes. Experimentation and innovation need to come from making mistakes. But then if I make mistakes and you’re grilling me as my boss, that doesn’t work very well, right?

So there are elements as to why engagement is low that we are just beginning to discover. And many people, younger and young at heart generations, don’t know themselves very well. We have allowed generations of leaders to grow from zero to hero, and they have no clue about who they are themselves. So how can they generate engagement in others? Because we have been driving a certain agenda and topic of talent development.

So today when we talk about thriving, thriving rests on the understanding that not only my employer or my boss define what thriving looks like, I need to define how I thrive. And I need to be vocal about it. I need to share with people around me at work: “This is what I need.” For instance, “I need you to leave me alone today because there’s a certain type of work I have to do. I need empathy because I am really tired and it’s only Thursday morning or Monday morning. And I need to go home and I want the flexibility to be able to be by myself and do a piece of work.” So all of these developments or discoveries sit inside of us, but we need to do the work to bring them out to be clear about them, because that is a huge push for engagement.

John Coné:

I was just going to say, since this discussion is co-sponsored by the Association for Talent Development, I’m guessing that there are a number of talent development professionals in our audience. And I want to capture something that’s come through. Whether you’re talking about a culture of learning or whether you’re talking about being emotionally intelligent and self-aware, these folks are already on board with that. But they have a question of, “How do I convince my leadership? How do I get the CEO of my company to see this point of view?” Do you have any advice for how they might begin that process?

Selina Neri:

Yes. It can be at times a battle and a battle or a fight, let’s put it this way, or a long and tedious conversation. But we need to help leaders to open the eyes on the right stuff, because there are preconceived ideas that at times are linked to … they’re cultural, they are linked to generational dynamics, experiences that people have been through. So this is why the talent function is such a strategic asset, because they drive these conversations. And it’s not going to be one conversation and not a second one. It is about opening the eyes of these leaders to the reality on the ground and the ingredients that will allow us to find or experiment until we find the right solutions.

And those conversations aren’t easy. And by the way, they even go beyond CEO. They go to board levels, because the boards of today’s companies have a huge responsibility in this piece of work. So it is about being persistent. It is about building argument and convincing arguments that are also based on data. It is about keeping a very close eye on my talent pool, on the people I work with. We say that talent is the number one asset of organisations, so let’s get to know this talent and what they’re struggling with really, really well, so that if we sort out the struggle and we enable them to thrive, then we really are going to have all the power that we need to achieve what we need to achieve.

Des Dearlove:

A question from Sonia, which is very much along the same lines that John is asking, but specifically about small and medium-sized enterprise, because I think particularly when we think about lifelong learning, that sometimes gets lost in small organisations, which I mean, a lot of what we are talking about, we’re talking about big corporations with big resources. And the trouble in SMEs is quite often is we are all kind of hands to the pump. We don’t have chance to do the lifelong learning, and people can be left behind. How do we make the case in those sorts of organisations?

Selina Neri:

I would challenge the assumption that in a smaller type of organisation, in a different stage of development and with different funding, I might struggle on lifelong learning, because lifelong learning isn’t just about going somewhere to be part of an educational experience. It’s also about using the competencies and the skills that I have around the table differently, ensuring that people learn from one another. For instance, I know of companies who have set up learning circles with their clients where their clients, who could be large companies or also small and medium-sized companies, get together at very limited cost. They do it even in the same region or same city. And every time they get together, there is a different learning agenda. One day they’re learning, for instance, how do I bring AI into my day-to-day?

And by doing this, I create what we call lateral thinking. So I bring my people out of my reality, which could be I am a small startup or a small company, and I bring them together with different realities and different industries. So let’s not think that lifelong learning is only about going on a training. Absolutely not. Take the example of reverse mentoring, I mean, where seniors are being mentored by juniors, not only juniors in terms of hierarchy, but juniors in terms of age, in terms of exposure to life. That doesn’t cost much. It simply costs setting up the system so that we have this exchange. And those who are doing reverse mentoring well … By the way, I have a Gen Z sitting in California who mentors me. And it is a humbling and one of the best learning experiences I ever had, because I need to walk my talk myself.

It’s a phenomenal way to understand your market better, understand the opportunity and challenges of a talent pool that is very, very diverse. Understanding where this anxiety for the future comes from. And for leaders, either in terms of seniority and leaders of a company, to sit back and say, “I had no idea of what these people and this age group can contribute to my business.” This is how we find what I call the diamonds, that in traditional way of looking at talent, we might overlook.

Des Dearlove:

I mean, it sounds like lessons and humility as well, which I think we all can all benefit from, for sure. Let’s come back to the future readiness topic. I mean, we’ve been on a fascinating journey talking obviously about engagement and about lifelong learning. We’ve got a question coming in: “Is there some form of a metric for future readiness that you use?” And I know this is a challenge. I was talking earlier to our friends in Oman, in Muscat who’ve got a future readiness centre, and I know that’s something they’re very keen to develop and they’re working on at the moment. Is there a metric you use, other easy things we can measure?

Selina Neri:

Yes. So the emerging model of future readiness that our research is beginning to map out is two layers. And I even have a visual representation, not here with me, but we have a visual presentation of it, where the first layer is my competencies, so skills and behaviors, my experiences, what I’ve been exposed to, what I am exposed to in terms of people, cultures, religions, politics, the whole exposure of life; the drivers, what drives me, what motivates me; and then of course my preferences, how I like to work, how I like to live, what are my preferences in terms of personal and professional development. Then we map this layer with the four legs of the priority sectors of the future. And this maps out skills and experiences and drivers and preferences that build human capital, that build technology literacy, that build green skills, and that build entrepreneurial skills.

So this is the emerging model. And then we are beginning to see some differences in this pool of skills and competencies, experiences and drivers that are vertical, so industries; in our case, oil and gas, financial services, manufacturing, education. And of course, this will take the model and always evolve the model, because it takes years to build this type of clarity. But it is very clearly that it is two layers integrated with one another for now, and that maps out the precise skills and drives experiences and preferences that build future readiness. So it’s a journey beyond skill. This is a very key message tonight, or this morning, for those of us in the United States of America.

John Coné:

There’s a survey that came out recently from the Institute for Corporate Productivity here in the US, and it looked at what they called future-ready cultures. And one of the things that I’d be interested in your comment on, they said companies with future-ready cultures measure executives on employee issues like engagement and retention, those kinds of things. Is that something you’ve seen in your work?

Selina Neri:

Yes, yes. I see it in our work, and I also see it because I’m blessed to live in the United Arab Emirates, and I want to share this. We live in a country that is very young and has built itself from scratch. And the leaders of this country are very vocal about why the future is so important. Why are we so obsessed with the future and the fact that technology is important? Absolutely. The economy is important, absolutely. But building society and building human capital is even more important. The past is gone. We cannot change it, but we can learn. And we should, as humans, be better at learning from the past. But we can use today to map out and design a better future.

So there is an emphasis, absolutely, in building cohesive places, whether they are workplaces or they are nations, where a group of people can share values and share experiences and live together and contribute solutions to the big challenges of our time, in a harmonic and cohesive place. That’s why at the beginning I said future readiness also, for me at this stage, in this place, at this time, with the right people is important. It isn’t by chance that we created the Institute for Future Readiness in the UAE. And any country that has the ambition of remaining and becoming future-ready will definitely need to prioritise the importance of building society, building cohesiveness, and building people who are really human capital on top of the importance of tech and economy and all the other aspects.

Des Dearlove:

Question from Hussein, who asks, “What is the cost of not taking action to make talents future-ready for organisations?” I mean, we’ve been talking about the positive, but I mean, you yourself were saying earlier that those of us who aren’t future-ready are going to be replaced by those of us who are future-ready. So I mean, what is the cost in terms of countries as well as organisations?

Selina Neri:

Well, the cost in terms of countries is a very slippery slope, a very dangerous situation where there is no well-being, there is no good life, there is no hope, and then lots of other issues can stem from it at country level. At an organisational level, I cannot even think about anybody who would not prioritise this given what we just explored, given the huge opportunities that we face with technology and other positive developments, but also given the huge challenges that we have, both at macro level, global level, and at engagement level, mental health level. Not acting and not prioritising being and remaining future-ready is fundamentally saying no to life and no to future well-being and development. So it’s a choice that I cannot even comprehend. And my work and my mission and my team with me is to make people, organisations and countries understand why this is important, this isn’t a fashion, this isn’t a buzzword. It’s the way we are going to live and we are going to thrive in the future of work.

John Coné:

I want to try to pull from a comment from Pramod. Everyone in this meeting today is probably somewhere on this journey. Are there organisations that you’ve come across that you think are in the lead or doing things that others ought to be looking at and trying to emulate?

Selina Neri:

Well, I mentioned before some of the features or the actions of organisations who are really tackling the engagement problem really well, which is at the core of future readiness. I would say nobody has figured everything out, at least nobody I have been exposed to or have the pleasure of working with or studying. It’s also important to remember, because future readiness is a journey that never ends, we can never say, “Oh, well, here I am. I at 105, so I can now relax.” This isn’t the game of future readiness. It’s a game that will never end, because the cards on the table are redefined as I go through this journey.

So there are … well, definitely, I mean, I sit in the UAE, so I learn from the UAE every day. I learn from organisations outside the UAE as well as inside the UAE, where I know things are being done at times, quite frankly, in experimentation modes, meaning people who dare to try where the culture of the place supports failure; if you fail, fail fast, but experiment, try it out. This is important because we are working in a field where there’s very little that I can really hold on to, and therefore experimentation is an important part of being and remaining future-ready. But we have to ensure that when people experiment and they get it right, they are rewarded not only financially, but also when they don’t get it right, there isn’t a punishment that comes with it.

John Coné:

We talk a lot here in the US about the need for greater psychological safety in our organisations, because people won’t even try if there’s a fear of punishment.

Des Dearlove:

No, absolutely. And obviously, Amy Edmondson’s work in psychological safety has been so … And I think future readiness could be on the same journey, by the way. Psychological safety is one of those rare management concepts that you now hear people talking about at parties and in the pub. It’s joined the currency of everyday language, which I think is a testament to how important the concept is and how needed it is as well. And I’m glad that you’ve brought that to the conversation, John.

Listen, we’re running out of time. We’ve only got a couple of minutes left. If I ask you, from all the things we’ve talked about, Selina, what is the one big message you’d really like people to take away from this session? We’ve covered all the ground, we’ve tried to put the world to right slightly, but what would you want people to take away in action tomorrow?

Selina Neri:

Well, I would say, first of all, let’s all be very clear that we need to own our future. We own our future, not our employers, not people for us, not the leaders, not the managers. Each of us, we own our future. We need to own our future. What does that mean? It means I have to drive my journey of future readiness. And why do I need to do it? For the heck of it? No, not for the heck of it. I need to do it because that will allow me to thrive. So owning my future and thriving in my future. People are fed up of surviving. There are way too many people who survive in the jobs they have, and that drives all the stuff we had discussed.

So if I am a talent function or a talent person of or a part-time talent person in a small company, I need to enable everyone to own their future, which means give the responsibilities to people to make that journey, but support them with funding when it is needed, time when it is needed, counsel when it is needed, for them to go on a journey of future readiness. And then make it organisational culture, make it the way we operate. It’s as simple as that.

Where do I start? Well, I, for instance, started by realising that learning is the spice of my life. It has to be, because if I don’t keep learning, I no longer can relate to the world around me. And my competencies, like everyone, will no longer be relevant. To keep on not being irrelevant, then I need to develop new ones. So this way of working, which is by the way, is at times a little bit playful as well, not looking at ourselves too seriously, because we are all in the same game. And never think, by the way, everybody watching or listening, never think that there are people who have it easy or have it easier than us. We are all struggling with the same issues. We are just at different stages on the same adventure.

Des Dearlove:

Fantastic. And if professionals working in talent development can help people move from surviving to thriving, but to recognise too, just to summarize what you said, that we are the masters of our own destinies as well, and that we need to ensure that we as individuals remain future-ready. That’s been a fantastic set. I’m afraid it’s all we have time for. Absolutely massive thank you to our guest, Dr. Selina Neri, and to all of you for tuning in. This is The Thinkers50 Radar webinar, in collaboration with the Association of Talent Development. We’ve been Des Dearlove and John Coné. Please do join us again soon for another episode of Thinkers50 Radar.