In a landscape defined by constant flux, static plans fall short. Glacier guides in Iceland and moonshot thinkers in Florida offer a blueprint for continuous adaptation and proactive problem-solving.
By Caroline Stokes, Author of AfterShock to 2030: A CEO’s Guide to Reinvention in the Age of AI, Climate, and Societal Collapse
“What? You move the poles every day?” I asked Gabriel, our 42-year-old guide from Milan. He has spent many seasons shepherding tourists through the Katla Ice Cave in Iceland.
“Yes. In summer, the ice melts so fast that the poles have to be moved and hammered into a new location for the walkway. By the end of October, maybe once a week.”
Gabriel explained that rushing glacial melt water, rain, sleet, snow, extreme wind, and volcanic ash constantly reshape the landscape. This creates new hazards like volcanic ash quicksand, collapsing ledges, crevices and, of course, stepping on new ice melt, all of which make for a potentially life-limiting obstacle course.
It was clear that the guides of our tour and other tours to the ice cave notice everything. Together, they communicate, anticipate what needs to adapt and act quickly on what they see changing by returning after their shifts to move walkways or invent a new route for the next day. For perspective, this is the opposite of the construction industry. In a matter of months, entire sections the size of multiple mansions and streets disappear, exposing a whole new landscape, new paths and ice caves forming for the next visitors to explore.
The guides can’t stop the ice from melting. They can’t feel despair or sadness for retreating glaciers. They just get on with making it hospitable, safe, and manageable for people discovering the wonders of Iceland’s volcanic and glacial terrain. And they do it with real commitment and dedication — and joy!
The guides are doing what I describe in AfterShock to 2030 as the work of catalysts and citizens: continuous ownership in a constantly changing system for humans to participate in. Every day the ice, the poles, the surfaces, and the risks create new questions for the guides to solve. Adaptive resilience, accountability, and responsibility are ingrained in their day-to-day.
Most of us are now expected to operate in the same kind of uncertainty, with the same kind of commitment, without knowing just how we ourselves need to reinvent, adjust, and work together better towards the mission.
A few days before visiting Iceland, I had been at Disney Springs in Florida for IEEE-USA’s inaugural members event, called BiG Thinkers. I worked with the events team on my speaker session and, over two days, was “sold out” coaching engineers tackling a lot of timely problems. During some downtime, I wandered the hall and spoke with people from X, The Moonshot Factory about how they approach solving big problems that affect millions or billions of people. They even gamified it to spark creative thinking. It was fun and inspired great conversations about what to do next.
Humility
Back in Iceland, I spent a full day in Reykjavik contemplating everything I’d experienced over the past week — from IEEE-USA to the ice cave tour. While writing some notes, I identified this pattern:
Successful teams are “humble-first”. They exhibit:
- Humility with their own ego. The mission is bigger than them and they’re all connected to delivering it.
- Humility with each other. Accepting that someone else may have a better idea, or notice something first, or can carry it through to get it done.
- Humility towards the mission and whatever tools are available to complete it in a massively unpredictable environment.
This is exactly what’s behind AfterShock Labs. Most of the work CEOs need to do right now can’t be done between meetings, Slacks, calls and report writing. It requires the same condition the ice cave guides already have: enough uninterrupted time to notice what’s actually shifting and decide what to move.
If you want protected time with a small group of anonymous CEOs to do that work, AfterShock Labs at Canyon Ranch, Tucson, is built for it. AfterShock Performance is built for the new horizon for team implementation. Please get in touch if either fits what you need.
