Explore 2040’s weekly Ideas and Innovations Newsletter Articles below.
Welcome to 2040’s Ideas and Innovations – where organizational transformation meets human psychology.
Every Thursday for 4+ years, I’ve been sharing insights with 5000+ leaders about why change initiatives succeed or fail. Spoiler alert: it’s rarely about the technology.
I’m Kevin Novak, CEO of 2040 Digital and author of the books “The Truth About Transformation” and “The Truth About Transformation: Leading in the Age of AI, Uncertainty and Human Complexity”. I have spent decades helping organizations navigate change by focusing on the most critical factor: the humans involved.
What you’ll get:
- Weekly deep dives into transformation topics, including strategy and psychology
- Real case studies from 100+ organizational transformations
- Frameworks that actually work in practice
- Leadership counsel and tips
- The human stories behind digital evolution
No buzzwords. No surface-level advice. Just practical insights from the front lines of organizational change.
Subscribe for free and join leaders from Fortune 500 companies, startups, and nonprofits who rely on these insights to drive successful transformation.
Join me here on our website and subscribe using the form provided on this page or find me on Substack (20Forty’s Newsletter).
Kevin Novak, CEO, 2040 Digital and author of “The Truth About Transformation” and “The Truth About Transformation: Leading in the Age of AI, Uncertainty and Human Complexity”.
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2040’s
Ideas and Innovations Newsletter
What Were They Thinking? – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
What Were They Thinking? Issue 101, March 30, 2023 Jared Diamond, author of Collapse, asked a profound question referring to the ancients in Easter Island. When they cut down the last tree on the island, what were they thinking? Seriously, what sane society would make a valuable natural resource extinct with one final hatchet job? Which in turn made their people extinct? Or how about a more complicated social problem replacing the US draft with an all-volunteer military, ultimately making…
The Pathway to Continuous Learning – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
The Pathway to Continuous Learning Issue 100, March 23, 2023 Editor’s Note: Welcome to the 100th Issue of 2040’s Ideas and Innovations Weekly Newsletter. We thank you for your continued readership and your feedback and comments weekly. Everyone has a personal learning style. Independent learners buck the system and find alternative ways to learn on their own terms. Traditional learners are comfortable with the classic teacher-student relationship. And then there is everyone else in between. Whatever preference you have, continuous…
Does Your Organization Have Tunnel Vision? – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
Does Your Organization Have Tunnel Vision? Issue 99, March 16, 2023 You think you see a light at the end of the digital tunnel, and then you realize it is the blinding light of tunnel vision that has derailed you. In considering how to change, transform or simply adapt to changing conditions across a market or profession, organizations (including ourselves) often fall back to doing what we know best and what has worked in the past under different circumstances. Believing…
Case Study: Sidestepping Accountabilities – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
Case Study: Sidestepping Accountabilities Issue 98, March 9, 2023 At 2040 we work closely with our clients to bridge theory to practice. Strategy is great, but if you don’t know how to apply the great ideas, it becomes a hard stop to any forward progress. We can get mired down by details, overthinking – and worst of all, not keeping out of our own way. So, back by popular demand, we bring you another case study that you may be…
Breaking the Bond of Trust – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
Breaking the Bond of Trust Issue 97, March 2, 2023 One of the unexpected outcomes of the pandemic was the development of a new level of trust between leaders and their corporate level workforce. With entire skilled workers at organizations forced out of the office and working remotely, the workforce and management had to implicitly trust one another to meet deadlines, goals, and quarterly expectations. During this time a shift to measuring performance by outcomes, not time or face-to-face contact…
Can You Hear Me … Now? – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
Can You Hear Me … Now? Issue 96, February 23, 2023 The challenge of communicating with colleagues has become increasingly difficult. With the proliferation of tech experts and Next Gens in the workforce, we may need a translator to ensure we all understand each other. Here’s a real-life example. A content team is struggling to understand how to load a certification testing module into a new software platform. The project lead from the platform is a developer who thinks with…
ChatGPT: Shapeshifting Our World – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
ChatGPT: Shapeshifting Our World Issue 95, February 16, 2023 If you’ve been paying even a nanosecond of attention to the tech news headlines, you might think the universe shifted on November 30, 2022, when OpenAI introduced its natural language, generative program that produces text and images in response to user prompts, ChatGPT. Yes, we know that everyone under the tech corridors’ suns have weighed in on its disruption. And guess what, we’re going to as well, and as you will…
The Consequences of Unbounded Optimism – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
The Consequences of Unbounded Optimism Issue 94, February 9, 2023 All societies live by stated or perceived mantras. In the United States we reach for the stars, believe the sky is the limit, and if we build it, they will come. These sentiments permeate our culture, inspire our children, and guide our business leaders. We love entrepreneurialism; we reward it, admire it, and aspire to it. The entrepreneurial spirit and manifest destiny represent the American can-do ingenuity and genius of…
How to Master the Art of Storytelling – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
How to Master the Art of Storytelling Issue 93, February 2, 2023 Origin Stories Storytelling and narrative have become the buzzwords of modern marketing. You’ve heard it before: What’s your organization’s brand story? Make your organization come alive through narrative. Help customers relate emotionally to your business by telling a story. And possibly the most ominous: Tell your story, or else your stakeholders will write it for you. Storytelling has been around as long as humans; the 50,000-year-old cave paintings…
When Less Is More – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
When Less Is More Issue 92, January 26, 2023 “We’re too big to fail.” Try that one out on Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. If there were ever two visionaries with an overabundance of hubris, they’re the ones. Although the concept of “too big to fail” technically refers to an organization that is so important to a financial system that a government would not allow it to go bankrupt due to the seriousness of the economic repercussions (Wiki), one could…
The Future Isn’t Going to Look Like You Think – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
The Future Isn’t Going to Look Like You Think Issue 91, January 19, 2023 Organizations founded on exponential growth are in for a wake-up call. In reverse-trend thinking, some experts believe that good enough is just good enough. Entrepreneurs believe that there are no limits to growth. What do we believe? It requires a deeper look at what is going on in our global population shifts to really understand future growth…or constriction. We wrote about this in our book, The…
Anger and Rage – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
Anger and Rage Issue 90, January 12, 2023 A group of white men wearing T-shirts, Patagonia fleece vests or zip-front sweaters, Allbirds sneakers, and faded jeans are sitting around a conference table. It is 7:30 in the morning. They are collegial, familiar with one another, and engaged in friendly banter. The senior team turns their attention to their leader who has just walked into the room; he looks exactly like they do. Two women follow him, dressed in the female…
Forging a Pathway Into 2023 – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
Forging a Pathway Into 2023 Issue 89, January 5, 2023 Two of the most important qualities we need (personally and professionally) to make good decisions are perspective and context. In order to move forward, both give relevance to how the past informs the present and can be predictive of how to plan for the future. If we take three tenses, we can reflect on what we have learned and how those insights can guide us today and tomorrow. Having said…
Taking Stock – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
Taking Stock Issue 88, December 29, 2022 One could argue that January 1 is an arbitrary date to evaluate the past 12 months. We routinely like to look back to the past calendar year, determine what went well and reflect on what we wanted to change. We view January 1 as a fresh start to tackle our procrastination, fix things that are broken, generally refresh, and forge a committed pathway forward. We all know that for many, these reflections, decisions,…
The Unintended Consequences of Indecision – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
The Unintended Consequences of Indecision Issue 87, December 22, 2022 Should I stay or should I go? Should we pivot or stay the course? Are my next-gens going to quietly quit? How are we going to make more money in such a disruptive economy? Is everyone going to agree with me? Am I going to be held accountable? Do I even need to be accountable? And why is everything so damned hard all the time? If you are a leader,…
It Was the Best of Times …and Maybe the Worst – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
It Was the Best of Times …and Maybe the Worst Issue 86, December 15, 2022 It’s that time of year for stories. We’ve all got them: holiday merriment, missteps, and mayhem. All the stories that we remember and pass on from our portfolio of family and personal legends. We have a few stories as well. In our new book, The Truth About Transformation, we have an entire section devoted to dispatches (aka case studies) that are some of the most…
Belonging Matters – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
Belonging Matters Issue 85, December 8, 2022 According to the British Columbian First Nation Haida, if you have forgotten or lost your language and your stories you are among the walking dead. (And there are only 24 people left in that nation that speak their endangered language.) The same could be said about evolving an organization’s purpose, using the past to help redefine the future, moving toward a shared purpose and always staying true to an organization’s North Star. A…
Is Your Organization Ready to Comply with Privacy Protections? – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
Is Your Organization Ready to Comply with Privacy Protections? Issue 84, December 1, 2022 A wise man once told us when thinking about a significant life event, “We can be prepared, but we’ll never be ready.” So, it may be a stretch to connect mortality with privacy laws, but we would argue that most organizations are neither prepared nor ready to deal with the privacy changes at the state level in the United States and countrywide in many countries around…
What Does It Mean to Practice Gratitude? – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
What Does It Mean to Practice Gratitude? Issue 83, Nov 23, 2022 We’ve been thinking about gratitude, and not just because it’s the season. Every era has its set of challenges and disasters, and each ensuing decade we think it’s getting worse. But we would argue that perception is based on the human condition that we are risk averse and generally content to live in a safe and secure bubble, professionally and personally. That’s not an indictment, it’s just the…
Back to Basics – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
Back to Basics Issue 82, Nov 17, 2022 How often have we been reminded to get back to basics? We live in an overprogrammed, overcommunicated, overstimulated world. Recently several cultural threads caught our attention, and when combined, remind us of how the basics in art and culture can have a positive effect on ourselves, our workplace, the organizational community, and society writ large in counterpoint to high-tech. Although we have been seduced to worship technology over the past few decades,…
What’s Holding You Back? – Ideas and Innovations from 2040
What’s Holding You Back? Issue 81, Nov 10, 2022 An important part of 2040’s practice with our clients is to use an open mind in applying intelligence and solutions from one sector to another. The concept of systems thinking is to look at the world holistically and find the intersections of new ideas and trends that paint a larger picture of an organizational landscape. By habit, we often become so focused on the day-to-day and keeping our nose to the…
A Modern Fable About Social Media: Ideas and Innovations from 2040
A Modern Fable About Social Media Issue 80, Nov 3, 2022 Over the past 18 years, social media has become a way for organizations to market their products and services. It has also enabled society at large to remove physical borders to connect, express their thoughts and opinions, and share the events of their day-to-day lives. Social media offers efficiency and immediacy in a highly-connected world. Before the internet, connecting took time — whether in person, writing letters, telegrams or…
Uncertainty and Disruption: Ideas and Innovations from 2040
Uncertainty and Disruption Issue 78, Oct 20, 2022 You know something’s happening, but you don’t know what it is. Your competition is edging ahead. Your stakeholders are ambivalent. Your workforce is listless. Your management team is exhausted. Nothing that worked before is working now. You’re not alone. High performance in disruptive markets puts everyone to the test and on edge. Old strategies don’t work because conditions have changed. Managing a remote workforce with traditional management tactics doesn’t work because they’re…
The Shape of Things to Come – Ideas + Innovations from 2040
The Shape of Things to Come Issue 79: Oct 27, 2022 As we contemplate the end of another year, now is a good time to revisit the opportunities and shortfalls of technology. And to clear up some popular theories that may be losing ground. As we have said many times, technology is no panacea or silver bullet, it is simply a tool to augment our intelligence, make our solutions smarter and help us measure what matters in a way that…
Too Much Choice Makes Brand Loyalty an Endangered Species – Ideas + Innovations from 2040
Too Much Choice Makes Brand Loyalty an Endangered Species Issue 77: Oct 13, 2022 There’s a sea change taking place in social media and streaming platforms which should be a red flag for organizations that offer memberships, subscriptions or use devices that seek to deliver continuous value via consumer consumption, leading to rich sources of recurring revenue. Members Only Membership and subscription have become all the rage over the past five years across many businesses. The continual drips of monthly…