We’re really off and running for 2025 now… it’s hard to believe February is already zooming by!
How are you adapting to meet the rapidly shifting expectations of your teams, customers, investors, and regulators?
You might know I’ve been doing some research over the past few months.
Firstly, a huge thanks to the 100+ people who’ve already shared their perspectives, experiences, and insights. I’ll keep the survey open until 28 February and do a few more interviews, then it’s time to synthesise what I’ve heard.
I’d love to hear your thoughts if you haven’t already done the survey.
I’d also love your help spreading the word.
The link is nice and easy: dynamic4.com/leading-change.
The survey is a mix of structured and free text responses with very few mandatory fields. You can get through it in under five minutes. I designed the questions to help you reflect on your own leadership journey (if you have that title or not) and what you value, so some people are spending more time on it.
I’ll present the findings from my research in a report. It might even evolve into my next book.
I invite you to get involved…
Who should get involved?
My research is focused on what you as leaders – and your teams and stakeholders – are experiencing. What you care about, and what you’re aiming for. What you feel good about. The challenges you’re facing. And the longer-term trends at play.
I’m curious to learn more about what you think leadership and being a leader actually means. Do you see yourself as a leader? Why? Why not? What are the perspectives of teams, senior executives, internal stakeholders – and the people & culture/L&D professionals who are focused on growing leadership capability.
I want to learn more about how you’re responding to the changed and changing context. Some key themes and trends I’m exploring include:
- Expectations of teams, customers, investors, and regulators
- The role of purpose in business
- Digital transformation, innovation, and emerging tech
- Collaboration, workflow, organisation design, and hybrid work
- Leader, team, and stakeholder wellbeing and psychological safety with diverse and inclusive teams and work environments
- How all of these dimensions fit with organisational culture, learning strategies, and managing risk
I’m not looking to validate my thinking, I’m doing this to test, learn, and challenge my thinking. I’m keen to hear the diverse perspectives of people in my network and people I already work with… and beyond. Please help me reach as many people as possible with diverse experiences.
I’ll follow the evidence.
Depending on how we met, you might know me and frame this research in the context of the various places I play… leadership, design, innovation, regen, wellbeing, purpose-driven business, product, tech, digital transformation, learning & development, project and change management, risk management, sustainability, financial services, corporates, social enterprise, startups, NFPs, academia, health & fitness, inclusive tech.
The answer is yes to all and any of these. My research is across all of this and more. You also don’t need to have a title or position of authority.
My aim is that the actionable insights and framework from this research will help us all:
- Build our own leadership capabilities
- Nurture our teams and emerging leaders
- Grow organisational cultures that are adept at navigating complexity to solve problems that matter in more empathic and innovative ways…
How do I get involved?
I want to keep this as simple as possible…
- Join the waitlist for the report. You’ll be the first to get it and I’ll also share insights that are emerging during the process
- You’ll be invited to complete the survey that takes ~5 minutes, and you can also express interest to be interviewed – or recommend someone who you think I should interview
Thanks!
To say thanks for taking the time to share your perspectives, experiences, and insights, you’ll get a free digital copy of my bestselling 350-page book Solve Problems That Matter when you complete the survey.
PS: If you’ve already done the survey and you’re wondering where your free book is… look out for an email next week 😃
Ideas
A couple of blog posts and a couple of events for you…
Build the Habits for Regenerative Momentum & Success with Ben Pecotich – BFGN Webinar #13
On Wednesday, I had the privilege of collaborating with the Business For Good Network (BFGN) for the first in their 2025 webinar series. Check out my slides and links to resources.
In the session I covered reflecting on your strengths and assets, building your happiness habits, developing your personal wellbeing plan, and setting your intent and direction… to align your leadership and personal goals with regenerative principles to achieve momentum and success.
Australia Design Thinking (AusDT)
It’s been amazing watching the design thinking community grow over the past 9.5 years since we started Sydney Design Thinking (SydDT) in 2015. The community has grown beyond Sydney over the years as people have moved around…
To support this, we’ve changed the name of the Linkedin group to Australia Design Thinking (AusDT). The purpose of the Linkedin group is to share design thinking (and related) events, news, articles, and other inspiration. An online place to stay in touch and continue conversations. Check it out!
SydDT #108: Visual Thinking with Alan Chen & Diana Ayoub from Sh8peshifters
We’re lucky to have Alan Chen and Diana Ayoub from Sh8peshifters kicking off SydDT for 2025 with a visual thinking workshop on 13 February!
Visual thinking is a powerful tool for reflecting, problem solving, and mapping out ideas. In this interactive session, you’ll get started with sketchnoting, a visual note-taking process that uses hand-drawn images and text to convey information.
No drawing skills needed. Just come along and explore how you can make visual thinking your superpower. Grab your ticket now!
SydDT #109/Adelaide Design Thinking #1: What Does Design Mean in Adelaide?
We’re excited to be launching Adelaide Design Thinking (AdlDT) on 20 February! The community grew to 100+ members in the first three weeks – and our first meetup on 20 February is already sold out with a bunch of people on the waitlist. You can still join the community and waitlist for free… more spots might open up.
I’m stoked to be collaborating with Natasha Ballantyne, Maria Raymond, John Robinson, and Monique Moushis who are Adelaide locals to help convene AdlDT.
The focus of our first meetup will be to explore the vital role of design in South Australia, and co-design what the community wants from this meetup.
Natasha Ballantyne and Maria Raymond will be our MCs… and I’ll be hosting a panel with a bunch of awesome Adelaide local designers: Bek Kennedy from Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA), Simon Woods from Employment Hero, and Claire Webber from Intopia.
This will set the scene and flow into open space as an interactive and participatory experience to co-design AdlDT.
Let’s Collaborate
At Dynamic4, we specialise in leadership, design, and innovation with a focus on purpose and wellbeing. We do that by working alongside leaders and their teams to navigate complexity and solve problems that matter.
We love helping our clients design, build, and launch ideas that customers and teams love, make money, and do great things for people and our planet while increasing wellbeing. My book Solve Problems That Matter is a good way to get started.
This draws on my 30+ years of bringing together strategy, design, and tech to lead, design, and deliver strategic change in financial services, digital & tech, health & fitness, and building startups/social enterprises.
What do we actually do? Key ways we help is through coaching and advice, workshops, innovation sprints, and designing and delivering leadership, design thinking & innovation programs.
Our approach builds personal, team, and organisational capability to solve problems that matter with more:
🌿 Confidence to navigate complexity and solve problems that matter for your teams, customers, shareholders – and build momentum with more certainty and less risk while increasing your wellbeing
❤️ Clarity to empathically engage your stakeholders, make better decisions, and collaborate to create solutions that your teams and customers love, make money, and do great things for people and our planet
🎯 Purpose that drives progress on your goals and creates meaningful value that you’re proud of for all stakeholders – and build the relationships, workflows, rhythms, and habits for success
Keen to chat about how we can have fun collaborating to solve problems that matter? Book a free 15-minute discovery call.
Have fun!
Ben
