Take time to explore your context – by walking.
At the 54th St. Gallen Symposium, we hosted a walking session called "Learning for Planet" and discovered that sometimes, the best way to think about strategy is to leave the building and take a walk in the rain.
The session was called "Learning for Planet," and it explored a question we've been sitting with after several projects in the education sector: in a world where answers are just a prompt away, what is left to learn for organisations — and how do they do it?
Walking together shifts the way conversations unfold. Side by side rather than across a table, participants began exploring their context — not just looking straight ahead, but left and right, up and down. The change in environment breaks habitual patterns. Insights that seem hidden in a meeting room sometimes appear in plain view when you step outside.
Strategy doesn't solely happen on paper. It happens by engaging with your context.
Organisations don't create value on their own. They do so through interacting with their environment. And yet, many struggle to navigate this complexity. Instead of embracing adaptive strategy work, they hold on to fixed plans that don't fit the current times anymore.
In our walking session, we explored how strategies can become platforms for learning instead of fixed roadmaps. Moving together, one step at a time, is often where clarity emerges.
This is what we practice at For Planet Strategy Lab: designing settings that pull people out of their routines and into their context. Thank you to Tim Kramer and SQUARE for co-hosting, to Felix for inviting us, and to all participants who walked with us despite the weather.
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