Leadership & Culture

After 35 years in disability inclusion, I believe AI offers us an extraordinary opportunity to rethink exclusion. But technology cannot change systems we are unwilling to question.

When I was in high school, I noticed something that bothered me. There were plenty of clubs and activities, but some of my friends, including friends with disabilities, weren’t being included.

So my brother, his best friend, and I started our own club.

We welcomed the artists, the creative thinkers, the students who saw the world differently, and people who hadn’t found a place in the other groups. What started as a small idea became one of the most popular clubs in the school.

That experience taught me something I’ve carried throughout my life. When we stop deciding who belongs and start creating opportunities for everyone to participate, extraordinary things can happen.

Now, after 35 years working in accessibility and disability inclusion, I find myself asking a much bigger version of that same question.

Why have we accepted so much exclusion in a world that has always been filled with human diversity?

Think about the systems we have created. Schools that cannot accommodate children with disabilities. Transportation that people cannot use. Housing that is inaccessible. Employment systems that routinely overlook talented people because their minds or bodies work differently.

Disability is part of being human. Some of us are born with disabilities. Others acquire them through illness, injury, or aging. Many of us experience disability within our families. Yet we continue designing society as though disability is an exception rather than an ordinary part of the human experience.

And now artificial intelligence is challenging what we once believed was possible.

The Shift: AI Is Expanding What Is Possible

I am genuinely excited about the potential of AI. Not because I believe technology will solve every problem. It won’t. But because AI gives us opportunities to remove barriers, connect people, share knowledge, and rethink how our systems work.

Imagine a child with complex communication needs having more ways to express their ideas. Imagine people accessing information in their own languages, regardless of where they live. Imagine a small disability-led organization in Africa, Asia, or Latin America being able to participate more effectively in global conversations without needing the resources of a large international institution.

These possibilities matter.

As someone who is neurodivergent, I also know personally that there is no single correct way to think, learn, communicate, or contribute. Technology should adapt to human diversity, rather than forcing human beings to adapt to systems designed around narrow assumptions.

Through Billion Strong, we have built relationships with disability leaders and advocates across a network engaged in 142 countries. The diversity of perspectives is extraordinary. But so are the differences in resources, infrastructure, access to technology, and opportunities to influence decisions.

AI can help organizations like ours connect, communicate, research, and work across borders in ways that once required much larger teams and budgets. That is an important shift. It creates opportunities for organizations and communities that have historically been excluded from global decision-making.

But opportunity is not the same thing as inclusion.

A technology is not truly inclusive if people cannot afford it, access the internet, understand its language, or influence how it is developed.

And we must recognize the real concerns surrounding AI, including bias, privacy, misinformation, employment disruption, and environmental costs. These concerns deserve serious attention. But I do not believe fear should prevent us from exploring technologies that could significantly improve people’s lives.

The question is not simply what AI can do.

The question is who gets to shape what AI does, who benefits, and who is left behind.

The Gap: We Cannot Keep Demanding Inclusion Without Examining Ourselves

This is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable.

For decades, the disability community has challenged governments, employers, technology companies, and other institutions to become more accessible and inclusive.

We have been right to do so.

But I believe we also need to ask difficult questions about our own organizations and networks. Are we practicing the inclusion we demand from everyone else?

Are persons with intellectual disabilities genuinely influencing decisions? Are Deaf people included in global conversations with the communication access they need? Are people with complex support needs welcomed into leadership and participation? Are grassroots advocates in low-resource communities helping shape priorities, or are they simply invited to support decisions others have already made?

Who controls the funding? Who sets the agenda? Who gets invited into the room? And who is still missing?

I see disability organizations sharing beautiful AI-generated graphics without alternative text. I see conferences about inclusion that fail to make participation accessible to all disability communities. I see passionate advocates discussing representation, even as the same voices continue to dominate international conversations.

I don’t raise these questions to criticize people who have spent their lives fighting for disability rights. I am part of this movement, and I believe deeply in it. I raise them because I believe we can do better.

That belief led us to create Disability Mirror™, an evidence-based reflection initiative that invites the disability ecosystem to look inward.

In its first year, Disability Mirror examines 50 influential organizations, including Billion Strong itself, across seven domains covering governance, funding transparency, participation, accessibility, safeguarding, learning, and emerging technology accountability.

It is not a ranking, certification, or competition. We are not giving organizations grades. We are creating a clearer picture of where we are today, what we can learn from one another, and where we need to improve.

Because if we want a more inclusive world, we must be willing to examine the systems and organizations we have built ourselves.

That includes my own. And it includes how our community approaches AI.

Technology can amplify existing power structures just as easily as it can challenge them. If we develop AI around the perspectives of those who already have resources, access, and influence, we risk reproducing the very exclusions we claim to oppose.

We cannot build a more inclusive future by simply making today’s unequal systems faster and more efficient.

The Next Step: Move From Participation to Shared Power

For business leaders, policymakers, technology developers, and disability organizations, I believe the next step requires more than another commitment to inclusion.

It requires changing how decisions are made.

First, persons with disabilities must help shape technology and policy from the beginning, rather than simply being invited to provide feedback after important decisions have already been made. Their expertise should be valued, compensated, and reflected in governance and funding decisions.

Second, we need to stop treating accessibility as an additional feature or expense. It should be part of how we design products, services, workplaces, education, and communities from the start.

And third, we must create opportunities for communities to identify their own priorities rather than assuming that the most visible or best-funded organizations speak for everyone.

This is especially important globally.

The priorities of a disability advocate in rural Kenya may differ markedly from those of a professional working in London or New York. Access to transportation, education, communication, assistive technology, or basic infrastructure may be far more urgent than the innovations dominating technology conferences.

We must listen before assuming we understand what people need.

That is why convening people matters so much to me. Through Billion Strong, we want disability communities around the world to have greater opportunities to connect, share knowledge, identify common challenges, and influence the decisions shaping their lives.

AI can help us support that work at a scale we could barely imagine a few years ago. But technology cannot decide that every human being deserves a place in society. That decision belongs to us.

The Future We Choose

I have spent much of my life advocating for people who have been overlooked, underestimated, or excluded. And after 35 years, I am still hopeful.

I am hopeful because I see more people questioning the systems we have inherited. I see disability leaders demanding greater accountability, and I see emerging technologies creating possibilities that were once unimaginable.

But hope without action changes very little.

We have talked about inclusion for decades. We have written policies, created programs, held conferences, and celebrated progress.

And yet billions of people still face barriers to full participation in society.

Now we have new tools, including AI, that could help us accelerate meaningful change.

AI can help us scale inclusion. But first, we must be willing to challenge the exclusion we have accepted for far too long.

I don’t want a future where technology becomes more sophisticated while humanity continues leaving people behind.

I want us to build a world where human diversity is expected, where people have genuine opportunities to contribute, and where everyone has a voice in shaping our shared future.

We have an extraordinary opportunity in front of us.

The question is whether we will have the courage to use it differently.

What Years Inside the Industry Taught Me About Leadership

There are lessons you cannot learn in a classroom. There are lessons no leadership seminar can teach you. And there are realities you will never fully understand from a boardroom, a spreadsheet, or an executive office.

You learn them in real time while standing beside a frightened resident or listening to a caregiver who has just finished another 12-hour shift or dealing with a family member who asks, "Why isn't my mother getting the care she deserves?" You realize that the people closest to the work often understand the problems long before the people making the decisions ever see them.

After years as a nurse working within assisted living communities, and later transitioning from nurse to business owner, I have learned that the greatest challenges facing assisted living are not simply staffing problems, financial problems, or regulatory problems. They are human problems. And when human problems are ignored long enough, they become organizational problems.

The Reality Behind the Doors

Assisted living was created to provide something many older adults need: safety, dignity, companionship, and support while preserving as much independence as possible.

But somewhere along the way, parts of the industry became increasingly focused on occupancy, budgets, productivity, documentation, and operational targets. Those things matter. But they cannot become more important than the people they are supposed to serve.

When financial pressure becomes the primary lens through which decisions are made, residents begin to feel like numbers. Families feel like revenue sources. Employees feel like replaceable labor. Staff members enter this profession because they care. Yet many eventually experience exhaustion, frustration, moral distress, and burnout. They may know exactly what a resident needs but lack the time, staffing, resources, or authority to provide it.

Imagine caring deeply about someone and repeatedly being placed where you cannot give them the care you know they deserve. That takes a psychological and emotional toll. And everyone downstream feels it, residents notice when caregivers are rushed, when staff turnover is constant, when their concerns seem to disappear into a chain of command. Families notice, too.

The damage is visible to everyone except, often, the people with the authority to address it.

What Happens When Leadership Cannot See What Frontline Staff See

One of the greatest leadership lessons assisted living taught me is this: distance changes perspective.

The farther leadership gets from the frontline, the easier it becomes to believe that reports tell the entire story. They do not. A report can tell you how many residents are in a building. It cannot tell you which resident cried today. A staffing report can tell you how many people were scheduled. A financial statement can tell you what was spent. It cannot tell you what happens when employees become so overwhelmed that they stop believing anyone is listening.

Frontline employees see the gaps between policy and reality. They know when a change will improve care and when it will create another burden. Yet the people closest to residents have the least influence over the decisions affecting them. That is a structural failure, and when it goes unaddressed long enough, it becomes something worse.

When Management Becomes Manipulation

There is a difference between leadership that cannot see the problems and a culture that does not want to. Healthy leadership creates trust. Unhealthy leadership creates fear. When employees believe speaking honestly could cost them their hours, position, reputation, or job, silence becomes a survival strategy.

When families are given carefully orchestrated information, trust begins to erode. When concerns are minimized, redirected, or buried under layers of management, families feel powerless. This is about recognizing what happens when organizational culture rewards protecting the organization instead of confronting the problem.

Good leaders should never be afraid of bad news. Bad news is information. Information gives us the opportunity to fix something before it becomes a crisis.

I saw both sides of this dynamic, first as a nurse navigating it, and later as a business owner responsible for creating something different.

What Becoming a Business Owner Taught Me

Moving from nursing into business ownership changed the way I understood leadership. As a nurse, I experienced the reality on the frontline. As a business owner, I began to understand the decisions happening behind the scenes: the financial pressures, operational responsibilities, staffing challenges, compliance requirements, and difficult choices that leaders carry.

The transition taught me that the frontline and the leadership office are not supposed to be opposing sides. They are supposed to be connected. Every leadership decision eventually reaches a resident and a caregiver.

I carry one moment with me. A resident once told me, "It's always the good ones that leave. No one listens like you do. No one takes the time to talk like you do. No one does the special details in a room like you do, leaving a small bag of chips or chocolate on a pillow after making the bed with fresh linen. You're always upbeat with a smile on your face, and I can tell you love your job or you would not be here."

That is why the work is worth it. Transforming a life, offering hope and purpose, as a nurse, that is more meaningful than money itself. And that understanding, earned on both sides of the divide, shaped how I see the industry's future.

The Industry Is Changing

Assisted living is entering a new era. Technology is changing how communities operate. Families expect greater transparency. Residents and their families are more informed. Workforce expectations are shifting. Financial pressures are increasing. At the same time, the population needing supportive care continues to grow.

The old model of simply filling beds and managing operations will not be enough. The future belongs to organizations willing to ask harder questions: Are our employees thriving? Are residents truly being heard? Do families trust us? Are our financial decisions sustainable without sacrificing human dignity? Do our leaders understand what happens on the floor?

These questions are not weakness. They are leadership.

What I Carry Forward

I believe the future of assisted living must be built around a stronger connection between people, purpose, and responsible business practices. We need leaders who regularly walk the floors, not for inspections, but for understanding. We need systems that allow frontline employees to speak without fear. We need families treated as partners rather than problems. We need residents treated as human beings rather than occupancy numbers.

You cannot build a financially healthy organization on an emotionally broken workforce. The answer is not simply hiring more people. It is building cultures where people want to stay. It is not simply creating more policies. It is creating accountability when policies are not working. It is not simply asking employees to care more. It is creating conditions that allow them to care well.

My journey from nurse to business owner gave me a different lens, but my commitment has remained the same: people matter. The assisted living industry does not need more silence. It needs courageous conversations, frontline voices at the table, and leaders willing to remember why these communities exist in the first place.

To care for people. That is the work. That is the responsibility. And that is the future worth building.

What the Gita teaches us about why independent thought gets relabelled in the workplace

Somewhere between the boardroom and the shop floor, a strange transformation takes place. An employee who once asked sharp questions, pushed back gently but firmly on a flawed strategy, and offered feedback anchored in genuine observation,  is quietly recast. No longer "engaged." No longer a "team player." Instead: resistant to change. Difficult. Not aligned.

If you have ever watched someone get quietly relabelled after saying something true, you know exactly how this works.

I have spent two decades building sales and distribution strategy across India's most demanding markets.  I have watched this transformation happen to colleagues, to teams I led, and, more than once, to myself. Understanding why it happens requires looking somewhere most corporate playbooks never look: the Bhagavad Gita.

A Retail Expansion, and a Partner Called B

A few years ago at Apple, we were working on a retail expansion plan. Leadership had opened the floor for a genuine strategy discussion: which partner to go with, and how  explicitly positioned as work in progress. At the planning meeting, I presented my data-backed view on why Partner A made more sense than Partner B: market fit, execution capability, and long-term scalability.

Leadership eventually chose Partner B. That wasn’t the problem; leaders can see things a regional view may miss. What struck me was that my open support for Partner A, the kind of discussion leadership had asked for, began to be seen as resistance after the decision.

But that was never my intent. Once a call is made, my instinct has always been to get genuinely convinced of why it makes sensenot to perform an agreement, but to actually understand it  so I could carry that conviction to my team, the people who would execute on the ground. A leader who doesn't believe in a decision cannot communicate it credibly downstream. Seeking that conviction was the job. To someone watching only the optics, it looked like I hadn't let go.

The Moment the Shift Happens

Independent thinking doesn’t usually look like rebellion. It often starts with a simple question, honest feedback, or someone not agreeing with a plan that doesn’t make sense. In good organizations, this is what leaders say they want.

But there’s a clear moment when open discussion changes from being welcome to threatening, and it’s rarely about what was actually said. It’s really about what the feedback means to the person hearing it. As soon as independent thinking hints that leadership might be wrong, the conversation stops being about ideas and becomes about ego and control. At that point, feedback gets relabeled, not because it’s changed, but because hearing it now feels riskier.

This is where the Gita's teaching on the nature of the self becomes strikingly relevant, long before any modern leadership theory arrived at the same insight.

Arjuna's Dilemma, Reframed

At the opening of the Gita, Arjuna stands on the battlefield and refuses to fight. He questions the entire premise of the war before him: its purpose, its cost, its legitimacy. Krishna does not silence him. He engages with the question fully, because the dialogue itself is the path to clarity, a patient unfolding of why the plan makes sense, and where Arjuna's reasoning falls short.

Compare this to how most companies treat their own Arjunas. When challenged, leaders rarely respond as Krishna does. Instead, they try to manage, reframe, or isolate the person raising questions. That’s not real leadership; it’s just ego hiding behind the idea of alignment.

The Gita gives us a useful way to see this: it distinguishes between atman (your true self) and ahamkara (your ego, or who you think you are). We react badly when we confuse our ego with our real self, when being right or in control feels like part of who we are. A leader stuck in ego hears questions as attacks. A leader who’s grounded in their true self just sees information for what it is.

This is the real fault line. It is not independent thinking that threatens leadership. It is leadership's attachment to a particular version of itself.

The Employee Who Speaks Up

The Gita has a parallel teaching for the employee: Nishkama Karma, action without attachment to the fruits of that action. Speak the truth as you see it, with full commitment to speaking it well. Release your attachment to how it is received. That is exactly what carried me through the Partner A conversation: the reasoning was offered in full faith, and once the call was made, the energy moved toward understanding rather than resistance.

What Leaders Have to Do

Just because a question makes you uncomfortable doesn’t mean it’s a bad question. Before calling pushback resistance, a leader needs to separate the actual feedback from what it threatens in them, as Krishna did for Arjuna. That’s not weakness; that’s real strength.

The organizations that survive change and competition aren’t the ones where everyone always agrees. They’re the ones where disagreement is voiced early, while it can still make a difference.

What I learned about resilience through art

​For three months, I sat inside a large, empty, expensive gallery that had nothing in it. We rented the space in October, during the third COVID wave. The idea was simple: start with a solo show in November and see what happened next. But the lockdowns didn’t end as planned. November passed, then December, then January. Each morning, I walked in, turned on the lights, and sat in the quiet, wondering if we had made a mistake.

The truth is, my husband Sudhir and I never planned to open a gallery. I just needed a place to paint. Anyone who’s tried to work creatively at home knows how hard it is with constant interruptions and chores. I wanted a studio with a door I could close. Sudhir listened and said, "You know what, why don't we just make it a gallery?" So we did. And then we sat in it, waiting, wondering.

Before There Was A Gallery

I’ve painted most of my life, though I never went to art school or got a diploma. No one told me I could do this. Wherever Sudhir’s job took us, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, I kept painting. I taught art classes in every city for kids, women, or anyone interested. At home, we joked that my paintings never piled up because I gave them away to friends moving into new homes. Gathering enough work for a show took patience.

During the COVID period, before we had the gallery, I began teaching online art classes for children from less privileged backgrounds. These kids struggled with textbooks and exams, but they always joined the sessions. They tried new things and got fully involved. For that hour, they disregarded the outside world and just created. At that time, that meant a lot.

The Moment I Understood

When restrictions eased and I held my first show, people came, looked at the art, and shared kind words. Even after years of showing my work in different cities, real reactions from people surprise me. They matter. It felt like passing a test I wasn’t sure I could handle.

But the moment that told me why I'd opened the gallery in the first place came later that year.

A painting I made years ago hung on the wall, a mother holding her newborn wrapped in a towel. I hadn’t planned to paint it. I made it when I was pregnant with my second daughter. My older daughter was four, Sudhir was working long hours, and I was handling everything at home. One afternoon, I picked up my brushes and painted. When I finished, I felt lighter.

Years went by. The painting stayed in the gallery. Then one day, a woman came in, saw it, and bought it for her daughter, who was expecting a baby. It was a way to welcome new life and to say, I understand what you’re about to feel.

A painting made in my own overwhelm, sitting on a wall for years, then moving into another family's story entirely. That is what art does when you let it. It carries something from one person's unspoken feeling into another's, across years and circumstances neither of them could have predicted.

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That realization led me to create Sip & Shades, a workshop series for people in the corporate world. I wanted to share this with others, especially those who might not think of themselves as creative but still carry the burden of stress. In a world where pressure has become a persistent part of work and life, I came to see art not just as an expression but as a form of recovery.

I had seen how stress affects people in those workplaces for a long time. It’s not always dramatic burnout, but a steady, constant pressure with no real break. I kept thinking that art could help here.

There is research to support this. A 2016 study by Girija Kaimal and her team at Drexel University found that just 45 minutes of art-making lowered cortisol, the main stress hormone, in 75% of participants, regardless of artistic experience. That mattered to me because it confirmed what I had been seeing firsthand: you do not have to be an artist to benefit from creating.

I found that fascinating and, honestly, a little validating. But I'd also learned from meeting people in corporate settings that the moment you mention painting, they step back. "That's not for me. I'm not creative. I can't draw." So I started being more direct: please come anyway. Just try it once.

Amul was the first company to try it. They opened a hall at their plant and invited employees from different departments. I brought all the supplies: canvases, easels, paints, and aprons. We painted together, step by step, with music, drinks, and snacks.

What struck me, every time, was watching people who came in convinced they couldn't do it, and then, an hour later, standing a little straighter, proud of something they'd made with their own hands. The stress they'd carried had dissolved into the paint.

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What A Simple Act Of Making Can Do

A brush and an hour of music seem like a small thing. I know that.

But I opened a gallery during a lockdown and sat in its quiet for three months before anything happened. What I learned during that silence was the same lesson I learned the day I painted a mother and child alone: making something, anything, changes how you feel.

You don’t have to be an artist for this to help. I’ve seen it work for a struggling child, an overwhelmed mother, and a room full of professionals who just needed a moment to catch their breath.

You just need to be willing to begin. In a stressful world, that small act of making can be powerful.

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How overlooked markets, funding blind spots, and embedded bias are defining the next frontier of health innovation

 Imagine receiving approval in 2017 for a patent on something as simple as a sponge or a pen, an everyday object whose basic function seems obvious. Yet this is essentially what happened when my patent for a new type of hygiene device for women was approved. The experience revealed something that every operator in health innovation eventually confronts: the most significant market gaps are often the ones that have been hiding in plain sight. For those of us building in women's health, this is not an abstract observation. It is the daily operating reality.

Today, we may finally be reaching a turning point, but it will require founders, investors, and operators to make decisions different from those they have made in the past.

I was born 55 years ago into a society where my father, the man, was the breadwinner, while my mother, the woman, worked part-time and managed all the housework. From the very first moment I entered this world, I was exposed to patterns of gender inequality that became subconsciously ingrained. It was always clear to me that I was not expected to perform or achieve the same accomplishments as my older brother. I grew up like many of my peers, sharing similar patterns of thought and expectations.

As an Israeli, I knew that when I grew up, I would serve in the army, but meaningful roles, pilot, fighter, would be closed to me because of my gender. I also knew I would retire earlier than men. The childhood stories of Snow White and Cinderella created in my mind the dream that one day a perfect, strong prince would take care of the family and me, and we would build together. That has since changed; women in Israel can now serve in almost all roles, but the mental frameworks those expectations created take far longer to rewrite.

It took me many years to recognise some of my own blind spots regarding gender inequality and to gradually remove them one by one. These were things I had taken for granted without realising they did not have to be this way. One such moment occurred when a company called Egal introduced a new toilet-paper-style sanitary pad that solved a long and painful problem shared by menstruators around the world. A relatively simple technological solution, yet it had not existed before. This is a strong example of how gender-focused technology can close gaps that arise directly from anatomical differences, gaps that went unaddressed not because the solution was technically complex, but because the people controlling research priorities and funding did not experience the problem themselves.

As a woman entrepreneur working in women's health for over 20 years, I have experienced firsthand many of the structural blind spots surrounding gender gaps - in funding, in research, in market assumptions. These gaps were partly created by anatomical differences between the sexes, which means health innovation sits at the doorway of closing them. The opportunity is significant. So is the friction.

The Funding Gap Is Not Only A Man's Problem

Women often believe that these gaps exist only in men's thinking. In my experience, that is not the case. One of the main factors still holding back women's health innovation is the blind spots in women's own decision-making - our internalised biases about risk, return, and what constitutes a serious investment opportunity.

It is no secret that women invest significantly less than men, and when they do, they tend toward more conservative risk profiles. When we examine how the wealthiest women in the world deploy their resources, we often see a preference for philanthropic causes over early-stage innovation. Many of the funds created specifically to support women, including those offered by organisations such as Pivotal, founded by Melinda Gates, are structured for non-profits and are not accessible to commercial ventures like mine.

 This matters because risk capital is what turns early-stage health innovation into workable products. Women's health companies cannot expect male investors to deeply understand problems they do not personally experience; it is only natural that people hesitate to fund problems they do not fully grasp. But significant change will only come when women investors and operators recognise and actively override these blind spots. The frustration is legitimate. The solution requires action, not just acknowledgment.

The Systemic Risk Hiding In The Data

Beyond funding, a more systemic risk is emerging that operators cannot afford to ignore. Our mental frameworks are usually shaped in ways that lead women to perceive themselves as less capable and to expect less of their own potential. Artificial intelligence, which is increasingly influential in decision-making across industries, has been shown to contain inherent gender biases. The reason is clear: large language models are trained with vast collections of published text, much of which reflects centuries of gender inequality. As a result, instead of helping to eliminate existing gaps, these systems risk preserving them within our collective digital infrastructure.

This is not a philosophical concern. It is an operational one. AI is now embedded in hiring decisions, medical diagnostics, research prioritisation, and investment screening. If these systems carry embedded gender biases, they will not simply reflect the inequalities society is trying to overcome; they will accelerate them at scale.

A Better World For Everyone

More than forty years ago, humanity walked on the Moon through bold technological innovation. Yet here on Earth, medicine still struggles to properly address conditions such as endometriosis, menopause, fibromyalgia, and many other health challenges influencing millions of women globally. These are not niche concerns. They represent some of the largest addressable gaps within modern healthcare, and some of the most significant commercial opportunities for founders and investors willing to look.

The solutions exist, or can be created. Gender-focused technologies and research have the potential to dramatically improve women's health and close longstanding gaps.

But the market will not self-correct. It requires operators- founders, investors, researchers, and executives, to make deliberate choices about where they direct capital, talent, and attention.

Those who build here first will not only advance women's health. They will have shaped one of the most consequential and underserved markets of the next decade.

The aspirational talent imperative for CXOs

If you and I were sitting across a table discussing growth strategy, you might say: "We need more innovation. More agility. More people who think differently.”
And then, in the very next hiring meeting, someone asks: "Do they fit our culture?”
That one question often carries more weight than the strategy deck. It quietly decides whether you’ll build for the future, or preserve the past.

Shift: From Stability To Volatility

Across markets, from India’s digital acceleration to Brazil’s industrial reinvention and Europe’s energy transition, the competitive environment is no longer linear. Technology cycles are shrinking. Customer expectations are rising. Business models are evolving in real time.

Consider what has happened in the last decade alone. Traditional retail has been disrupted by digital-native platforms. Automotive companies are becoming software companies. Manufacturing firms are investing more in analytics and automation than in infrastructure expansion.

In those environments, yesterday’s expertise quickly becomes tomorrow’s limitation. Yet our hiring practices often remain rooted in an earlier era, one where predictability mattered more than adaptability.

For decades, “culture fit” felt safe. It minimized friction and fostered cohesion. But in times of uncertainty, cohesion without challenge breeds complacency.

Research supports this. Studies from leading business schools show that cognitively diverse teams solve complex problems faster and generate more creative solutions than homogeneous groups. McKinsey’s global research on diversity has repeatedly demonstrated that companies in the top quartile for diversity outperform peers in profitability. Boston Consulting Group has found that organizations with diverse leadership teams generate significantly higher revenue from innovation.

The shift is: we are no longer competing on efficiency alone. We are competing on adaptability. Adaptability does not come from sameness.

Gap: Where Talent Strategy Falls Short

When leaders say “culture fit,” what we often mean is someone we are comfortable with, someone who thinks like us and won’t disrupt the rhythm. It sounds practical. It appears intuitive. It is truly human. But it creates three invisible risks.

First, innovation erosion. Homogeneous teams converge quickly. Consensus feels like progress. But consensus built on shared assumptions rarely produces breakthrough thinking. The 2008 financial crisis exposed how groupthink within highly educated, like-minded leadership teams contributed to systemic blind spots.

Second, talent drain. High-potential individuals who think differently often disengage within environments that subtly reward conformity. Great Place to Work data shows that employees who feel excluded or unheard are significantly more likely to leave within 2 years. Attrition at senior and mid-management levels becomes a silent tax on growth.

Third, strategic blind spots. Rapidly changing industries require multiple cognitive lenses. Kodak’s inability to adapt quickly, despite inventing digital photography, is a classic example of organizational inertia reinforced by internal consensus.

 Technology can scale processes. Only diverse thinking can scale intelligence. That is the gap.

Next: From Culture Fit To Culture Add

The alternative is what I call the Aspirational Talent Imperative: hiring not for who we are, but for who we must become. Instead of asking, “Does this person fit our culture?” ask, “What does this person bring that we are currently missing?”

That question reshapes the conversation.

Hire for aspirational alignment. Evaluate candidates against your future ambition, not your historical comfort zone. If your strategy calls for digital transformation, global expansion, or customer-focused innovation, your hiring must reflect that aspiration. When one global manufacturing company shifted from hiring primarily mechanical engineers to including data scientists and behavioral economists in leadership roles, productivity improved, not because existing employees were incapable, but because new thinking reframed old processes.

Engineer constructive friction. This is not chaos, it is a structured challenge. High-performing boards and executive teams often assign rotating devil’s advocates to stress-test strategic decisions. Documenting minority opinions before final approval prevents premature convergence.

 Measure cultural evolution. Most organizations measure alignment. Few measure evolution. Ask whether new ideas come from diverse sources, whether assumptions are regularly challenged, and whether leaders are comfortable being questioned. Organizations that embed dissent as a discipline, rather than suppress it, build resilience. During the pandemic, companies that encouraged cross-functional debate pivoted faster than those waiting for centralized consensus.

Here are two "culture value add" moments from my own leadership journey.

In my previous stint as CHRO of a large manufacturing organisation: a promotion that upgraded the conventional operating system. In one succession discussion, the safe choice was a high-performing insider, strong execution, widely liked, and fully aligned with how things had always been done. We instead promoted a leader based on potential, assessed through a scientifically designed and deployed Growth Centre, which offered a different lens: data-led problem-solving, tougher shop-floor discipline, and the nerve to question long-held assumptions about manning and accountability. The first month felt uncomfortable, more debate, more pushback. By the next quarter, reviews had turned evidence-based, improvement ideas started coming up from the shop floor, and decision speed picked up as problem framing sharpened. That promotion didn't just fill a role; it lifted capability.

A similar story in an Indian-origin Personal Care and Healthcare organisation: a hire that raised learning velocity. For a business-critical role, "industry fit" and "style fit" were tempting shortcuts. We chose a leader who brought fresh consumer insight, a different way of thinking, and the confidence to disagree respectfully in senior forums. The impact wasn't one dramatic initiative. It was a steady stream of better questions: which customer segments were we under-serving, which channels were being under-used, and which assumptions had gone unchallenged for too long. The team's learning velocity went up, and better decisions followed.

Both instances share the same pattern: short-term discomfort, long-term advantage. In my work with organisations across sectors, I've observed that most businesses operate in one of four modes. Plan A is pure execution, strategy-driven, action-oriented, and focused on delivering what's already been decided. Plan B is defensive, risk-averse, built around protecting existing positions rather than building new ones. Most organisations spend their entire lifecycle cycling between these two, mistaking activity for progress.

What genuinely transforms organisations is the shift to Plan C, Culture-led Business Transformation, where leadership deliberately builds the conditions for different thinking, diverse challenges, and sustained reinvention. When Plan C takes root, it naturally gives rise to Plan D, a Disruption-oriented Thinking Culture, where questioning assumptions isn't a threat to stability but the very engine of it.

The two promotions described above weren't lucky outcomes. They were the result of leaders willing to move past the comfort of Plans A and B and build something harder and more durable. That's the real distinction between a business manager and an authentic leader.

 

The Leadership Courage Factor

This approach requires significant personal and professional courage and not tentative managerial conditioning. It’s easier to hire people who mirror us than people who stretch us. But markets reward evolution, not nostalgia.

In your next hiring discussion, try this experiment. Instead of debating fit, ask: “If this person rebuilt our culture tomorrow, would we be stronger for the future?” If the answer is yes, you’ve found aspirational talent. The future belongs to organizations brave enough to choose evolution over comfort.