A Compass, Not a Detailed Map: Leading transformation takes direction, not directions
Join CBS Executive Education’s next event to explore what it means to lead with a compass in practice.
Room: Will be disclosed closer to event date.
About the event
Geopolitical shocks, AI and fragmenting markets mean the terrain now shifts faster than any plan can keep up with. Wait for a better map, and you stand still. Follow the old one, and you get lost.
What leaders need is a compass: bearings instead of a fixed route, judgement instead of a playbook, and the ability to keep moving when the path disappears.
Spend two hours with us exploring what leading with a compass looks like in practice.
Professor Dana Minbaeva opens with a keynote on why strategic transformations fail, and why the reasons go beyond execution gaps and resistance to change. Drawing on her research and her recent book Leading Strategic Transformation: The H-factor, she argues that advantage doesn’t come from a collection of talented individuals or access to resources. It comes from how people, technology and firm architecture interact: when 2 + 2 becomes 5.
Her talk is followed by an executive panel, where three senior leaders join her on stage to test these ideas against practice, each from a different angle:
- Activating Culture: Ulf Hahnemann, former CHRO, APMM: what to do when the culture that made you successful starts holding you back, and how leaders move from cultural alignment to cultural activation.
- Learning to Unlearn: Michael Bang, Group HR Director, Micro Matic: why renewal means unlearning old assumptions, and how to tell a productive failure from an unproductive one.
- Rethinking AI-first: TBC [title, organisation]: what “AI-first” really means when the aim is to strengthen what people can do rather than replace them, and how leaders handle the tension between automating work and augmenting people.
Expect a candid conversation led by people who have done this work, plenty of room for your questions, and time to connect with fellow leaders afterwards.
You will leave with:
- A new way to see why transformations stall, beyond “resistance to change”
- Lessons on culture, learning and AI-first strategy from leaders who have been through it
- New connections with peers facing the same challenges
Programme
16:00-16:30: Arrival and registration
16:30-16:40: Welcome and introduction
16:40-17:10: Keynote: A compass, not a map. Why transformations fail, and what leaders can do about it
17:10-18:00: Executive Panel: Calibrating the compass, on culture, learning and AI
18:00-18:30: Audience Q&A
18:30-19:00: Networking and refreshments
Who should attend?
This event is for senior leaders, executives and decision-makers responsible for strategy, transformation, people or technology. It is also for anyone who has watched a well-designed transformation lose its way and wants to understand why.
Save your seat
Meet the speakers
Dana Minbaeva
Dana Minbaeva is CBS Executive Foundation Chair Professor at Copenhagen Business School and Professor of Strategic Human Capital at King’s College London. Her work asks why some organisations renew their capabilities through disruption while others stall, and what leaders can do about it.
Professor Minbaeva is the author of 'Leading Strategic Transformation: The H-factor' and co-author of 'Encyclopedia of Strategic International Management' and 'Workforce Analytics: A Global Perspective'. She has also published more than 100 articles, book chapters, cases and reports. Dana is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business and the European International Business Academy.
Alongside her academic work, Dana helps senior leaders create and sustain value through transformation, drawing on both human capital and technology. She teaches executives internationally and advises organisations through her consultancy, Nordic Human Capital Advisory.
More speakers to be announced
TBA
Read more
Power is a dirty word - but essential to leadership
Is Your Strategic Toolbox Up to Date?
