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A CEO sits in a boardroom, staring at a strategy deck generated overnight by AI. The analysis is sharp. The recommendations are confident. The numbers line up. And yet something feels off. It feels flat, almost a little too perfect . . . This moment is becoming increasingly common for leaders. Artificial intelligence is now one of the most powerful management tools ever created. It can analyze markets in seconds, surface patterns no human team could find, and generate plans on demand. For many executives, AI already feels indispensable. But as intelligence scales at unprecedented speed, a quieter question is emerging inside organizations: How do we ensure AI is focused on human flourishing? Intelligence Is Scaling. Wisdom Is Not AI excels at intelligence. It detects patterns, predicts outcomes, and optimizes for efficiency. What it does not possess is contextual wisdom: the ability to understand why a decision matters, how it will land emotionally and culturally, or what it reinforces over time. Leadership has never been about having the most information. It has always been about deciding what matters when information conflicts. In an AI-rich environment, where intelligence is being commoditized, leaders face a subtle temptation to outsource judgement itself. When dashboards look precise and recommendations feel objective, optimization can easily be mistaken for wisdom. But AI cannot answer the questions leaders are increasingly accountable for: How is this affecting the precious humans in my care? What values are driving this decision? Is this decision indicative of the kind of world we are trying to build together? These are not computational questions. They are human ones. The Real Risk: Abdicated Leadership Much of the public conversation about AI risk focuses on bias or misuse. Those concerns are real. But inside organizations, a quieter risk is emerging: outsourcing thinking that affects humans to the machine. When leaders defer too often to AI-generated recommendations, they slowly lose confidence in their own judgment. Leadership shifts from sense-making to system-monitoring. Teams stop debating. Leaders stop interpreting reality and start validating outputs. The result isnt better leadership. Its thinner leadership. Over time, this shows up as cultural drift, ethical blind spots, employee disengagement, and loss of trustespecially during moments like layoffs, restructures, or major strategic shifts. When leaders cant clearly explain why a decision was made, people feel optimized instead of led. Strong leaders dont just decide what to do. They articulate why it matters. They connect decisions to shared meaning, values, and narrative. They help teams understand how todays choices fit into a longer human arc of transformation and evolution. AI can propose solutions. Only humans can author meaning. Why Clarity Is Becoming a Core Leadership Skill In an AI-saturated world, clarity is a force multiplier. Clarity about purpose.Clarity about values.Clarity about what not to optimize. Put simply: Clarity is deciding what you refuse to let AI optimize. AI will happily optimize for speed, efficiency, engagement, or cost reduction. It will not ask whether those optimizations erode trust, creativity, resilience, or long-term cohesion. Leaders must. This is why clarity, not charisma or technical expertise, is becoming one of the most critical leadership capabilities of the next decade. Clarity allows leaders to: Set boundaries around how and where AI is used Frame AI insights within human context Decide when efficiency should yield to ethics Protect creativity where optimization would flatten it Without clarity, leaders risk becoming reactive to machine intelligence instead of responsible for human outcomes. How Effective Leaders Use AI Without Becoming Dependent on It The goal is not to resist AI. It is to place AI correctly within leadership practice. Three principles can help leaders do that: Treat AI as an advisor, not an authority.Use AI to surface options, test assumptions, and explore scenariosbut make it explicit that final judgment remains human. In practice, this means leaders own decisions in their own words, not by pointing to an algorithm. Slow down at meaning-making moments.When decisions affect people, culture, or identity (hiring, layoffs, strategy shifts, values) pause. Ask not only What does the data suggest? but What does this decision communicate about who we are? Invest in judgment, not just AI literacy.AI skills matter. But judgment skills matter more. Organizations that thrive will be led by people trained to reason ethically, think systemically, and articulate values under pressurenot just operate tools efficiently. Meaning Is the Leadership Advantage AI Cant Touch In moments of uncertainty, people dont look to leaders for perfect predictions. They look for orientation. They want to know: What matters now? What should I focus on? How does my work connect to something meaningful? AI cannot provide that orientation. Leadership can. As machine intelligence accelerates, meaning potentially becomes more scarce and more valuable. Leaders who offer clarity amid complexity and purpose amid acceleration dont just build better cultures. They drive stronger innovation, greater organizational resilience, and long-term value creation. The Capability That Endures Every technological shift reshapes leadership. This one is no exception. But the core truth remains: leadership is not about knowing more. It is about seeing more clearly and exercising wisdom under pressure. AI will continue to evolve. Capabilities will expand. Tools will improve. What must deepen alongside them is human leaderships capacity for clarity, judgment, and meaning-making. Because in an AI world, the leaders who matter most wont be the ones who rely on the smartest machines. Theyll be the ones who remember in wisdom what it means to be human while using them.
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E-Commerce
If you walk into a grocery store in the Netherlands or Germany, you might not realize youre being steered toward plant-based protein, from vegan tortellini to plant-based yogurt. But across Europe and the UK, major retailers are quietly driving that shift. And theyre seeing results at a time when plant-based sales are struggling in the US. Lidl, a budget supermarket, grew UK sales of its private-label plant-based line by nearly 700% from 2020 to 2025. In Germany, France, and Italy, plant-based retail sales are growing across multiple categories, with most of that growth coming from supermarkets own brands. Lidl is one of several retailers with a deliberate strategy to nudge consumers away from meat and dairy and toward plant-based food. In the Netherlands, major supermarkets now have an ambitious target: by 2030, they’re aiming for plant-based protein sales to outweigh animal-based food, in a 60-40 split. Meat (left) and plant-based meat (right) on display at a Lidl market. [Photo: Lidl] Climate is the biggest motivation. As grocery stores look at their own carbon footprintsdriven by policies like the EUs climate reporting rulesnearly all of the impact comes from food production in their supply chains. And nearly half of those emissions come from meat and dairy. Its hugethis is the biggest lever for a retailer in terms of reducing the climate impact, says Joanna Trewern, director of partnerships at ProVeg International, a Berlin-based nonprofit that advocates for grocery stores to prioritize plant-based protein. In the Netherlands, where stores have gone farthest to adopt new strategies, the organization co-founded a working group that helped retailers plan the transition. The Dutch government also issued a policy paper saying that the population was consuming more protein from animal sources than they should for a healthy dietthe opposite of the new dietary guidelines in the U.S. Stores have taken several steps to boost plant-based sales. First, since the cost of plant-based alternatives is still a barrier, theyve built up their own low-cost, private-label offerings. A core element of our strategy is ensuring that plantbased foods are just as affordable as animalbased alternatives, a spokesperson for Lidl Netherlands told Fast Company. At Lidl, the prices of our plantbased staple items are already equal to or even lower than their animalbased counterparts. This price parity ensures that cost is never a barrier for customers who want to make a more sustainable choice. Lower costs are critical for plant-based protein to grow, and private label products offer the biggest opportunity, Trewern says. “Retailers have more control over ingredient sourcing, it’s easiest for them to scale, and there’s more they can do in terms of price and investing in categories to bring the price down for the consumer,” she says. As plant-based sales have grown, Lidl keeps adding more products to its range. That includes more traditional plant-based protein, like tofu or chickpea-based products. The initial innovation in this space was very focused on convenienceproducts that really mimic meat, says Trewern. Now what were seeing is consumers are looking for something else. Thats led a lot of people to say plant-based is not doing well, the categorys failing. Actually, what were seeing now in many European countries is theyre starting to come back and the category is consolidating with a different type of product. More clean-label, whole-food product sales are going up massively. (Sales of tofu and tempeh are also growing in the U.S., though in both locations, they’re still a small fraction of overall plant-based meat.) [Photo: Lidl] Some stores are also offering new hybrid products. Lidl was the first to start selling a partly plant-based burger60% beef, 40% pea proteinthat tastes like beef but is priced lower than its regular ground beef and has a much lower carbon footprint. The store has also cut back on promotions on meat; twice a year, it makes sure its promotional flyers are meat-free and feature plant-based products instead. It’s also tested other strategies, like placing vegan meat next to animal-based products in the meat aisle. Partnerships with other brands can also help. The French retailer Carrefour worked with manufacturers like Danone and Unilever to bring new plant-based products to market, and met its original sales target seven years ahead of schedule. “Real behavior change happens when retailers and manufacturers work together to deliver products people love that reach price and taste parity with conventional options,” says Abby Sewell, corporate engagement manager at the Good Food Institute, an American nonprofit focused on the industry. The work can’t guarantee on its own that plant-based protein sales always growcountry-wide sales dipped in the Netherlands in 2024, for example, while some other markets expanded. But it’s a useful tool. In the U.S., supermarkets don’t yet have similar goals and strategies. And the growth of private-label brands offers more evidence that price is key. There’s still a large opportunity for more affordable, better-tasting products; almost three-quarters of American consumers are open to eating more plant-based food. “U.S. consumers say the most important factors that would make them more willing to eat plant-based meat are if it tasted better and was more affordable,” says Jody Kirchner, associate director of market insights at the Good Food Instiute. “This is an opportunity for the plant-based meat industry to continue to evolve and position itself for the next wave of growth.” “Weve seen this before with electric cars and solar panelsearly hype, a dip, then a return to growth,” Kirchner adds. “With the right investment and innovation, plant-based meat can find that same curve.”
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E-Commerce
Corporate culture isnt built by policies. Its built by momentsthe unscripted experiences that catch us off guard, bring us closer, and quietly shape how we show up for one another. But many efforts labeled culture-building, including onboarding programs, leadership retreats, and all-hands meetings, still feel like productivity theater: tightly scheduled and heavy on performance. Today, its worth asking whether that model has simply run its course. Consider this: what if the future of culture-building isnt about managing people, but about designing experiences that allow people to feel something real together? What if awe, story, and shared creativity werent treated as indulgences, but as foundational elements of how trust, courage, and belonging actually form? Beyond the Mission Statement While leaders like to bring up the idea of team culture, few can describe what theirs feels like in practice. Thats because culture doesnt live in a mission statement or a values deck. It lives in the stories people tell when no one is watching. It lives in how they feel after a team gathering. It lives in the space between intention and lived experience. The data reinforces this gap. Deloitte reports that only 23% of organizations believe their employees are strongly aligned with corporate purpose. Gallup finds that just two in ten employees feel connected to their companys culture on a daily basis. These arent engagement or communication problems; they are failures of experience design. When culture is reduced to language and artifacts, it stays abstract. When its shaped through shared experience, it becomes something people carry with them. Designing a Culture People Can Actually Feel Imagine replacing a traditional all-hands meeting with a creative exercise in which each team member contributes a visual expression of what matters most to them at work. Or imagine a leadership offsite that trades breakout rooms for a story circle, where leaders share pivotal moments that shaped how they lead today. People may forget the fourth bullet on slide 37, but they remember the moment they felt genuinely seen. Thats where culture actually forms. Across my work with teams and leaders ranging from early-stage companies to established organizations navigating change, the most durable cultural shifts dont come from tighter processes or clearer messaging. They come from intentionally designed experiences built around three elements humans have relied on for connection long before modern organizations existed: art, ritual, and awe. These lay the grounds for emotional experienceswhich can determine trust, risk-taking, and follow-through. Art as a Medium for Meaning When teams create something togetherwithout relying on wordshierarchies soften, safety increases, and unspoken dynamics surface naturally. Art invites play and perspective, two capacities most workplaces quietly suppress. At a recent leadership offsite, I facilitated a collaborative art experience where each participant expressed a core value visually, without explanation. What emerged was more than a collective artwork; it was a shared mirror. People recognized one another in new ways. Long after the offsite ended, the exercise continued to shape conversations. Art creates space for truth to surface without requiring debate or performance. Ritual as Emotional Architecture Ritual has a way of slowing us down and signaling significance. Simple, intentional gesturesopening a meeting with a shared intention, closing an offsite with a moment of gratitude, marking transitions with presenceturn routine interactions into moments of coherence. In my Campfires of Connection work, gatherings begin and end with ritual: lighting a fire, sharing a single word, or pausing together in silence. These gestures dont demand belief or explanation; they communicate something more fundamental: this moment matters. One of my clients began opening weekly meetings with a 60-second pause and a single prompt: What are you bringing here today? Over time, that slight shift deepened trust more effectively than any formal team-building program. Ritual isnt soft; its the emotional structure. It creates the container in which change becomes possible. Awe as a Catalyst for Connection Modern workplaces are loud, fast, and cognitively overloaded. Many people arent disengaged because they dont care; theyre overstimulated and starved of wonder. Awe interrupts that pattern. It resets the nervous system and expands perspective. In one of my facilitation sessions, participants were invited to sketch places from their childhood and share the stories behind them. The drawings were simple and imperfect, yet deeply personal. As each was revealed, the room changed. Colleagues who had known one another only through polished professional roles suddenly encountered one another as whole people with layered histories. That collective pause created a sense of awe. These moments dont happen accidentally. Theyre carefully designed to allow people to encounter something beyond their roles. In environments driven by metrics and deadlines, awe reminds us why collaboration matters and why people choose to stay, contribute, and stretch together rather than simply comply. When Culture-Building Falls Flat To understand why this approach matters, it helps to consider the alternative. I once observed a leadership retreat that checked every conventional box. The agenda featured well-known speakers, the breakout sessions were smartly facilitated, and participants left entertained, informed, and exhausted. But within weeks, nothing had changed. The retreat generated momentum but not meaning. What was missing wasnt effort; it was emotional resonance. There was no moment when people could set aside the performance of leadership and engage with one another more honestly. The experience was efficient, but forgettable. Months later, a much smaller intervention with the same group, a single evening structured around reflection, had a disproportionate impact. Leaders spoke openly about uncertainty, named tensions they had been avoiding, and listened without trying to fix or impress. That evening reshaped how they worked together more than any previous retreat had. Culture doesnt shift because information is delivered; it shifts when people feel something together that changes how they see one another. For leaders designing their next team gathering, the most useful questions may not be logistical at all. What do we want people to feel when they leave this room? What truth needs space to surface here? What has been rushed past that deserves reverence? What might become possible if we slowed down just enough to let meaning catch up? The organizations people love working for arent those with the slickest branding or the most polished values decks. Theyre the ones where people leave a meeting or retreat feeling more alive, more trusted, and more willing to take risks together.
Category:
E-Commerce
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