[slow down to speed up]

Grow Beyond Business as Usual

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Slow down to speed up

[slow down to speed up]

Relax. This is not a place for quick fixes or instant answers. It is a space to slow down, reflect, and grow the inner capacity required for wise leadership in complex and consequential times.

We are no longer in a normal cycle. Leaders today face converging pressures — geopolitical instability, ecological overshoot, technological acceleration, and societal fragmentation — that cannot be met with speed alone. What is being tested is not only strategy or execution, but leadership maturity itself.

This blog explores leadership, strategy, and transformation through a deeper, integrative lens — connecting inner development with outer impact, and short-term decisions with long-term consequences. It’s not for those in a hurry, but for those who realise that they will regularly have to slow down to see clearly and co-create meaningful impact and renewal across self, teams, organisation, and beyond.

The book 'Better Business Better Future' helps business leaders understand the Sustainability Revolution and decodes the strategic practices of purpose-led sustainability trailblazers. From Patagonia and Interface, to Ørsted, Unilever, IKEA, Oatly, and more.
Better Business Better Future
“I liked most about the book, that it spreads hope. It shares a vision about how Better Business can contribute to a Better Future. We, leaders, are not passive victims waiting for slow policies to save the world…” -Dr. Michael Kolk

This short clip is from a longer dialogue with Vincent Stanley, the Director of Philosophy at Patagonia (January 12, 2023), as part of the Better Business Acceleration Program™. You can read more about Patagonia’s journey here >>

Welcome to a free online learning space designed to support you as a leader in developing your capacity to lead in uncertainty – with wisdom, clarity, care and courage.

Learn more and sign up here >>

This journey starts with you!

As business leaders, we can go far beyond demonstrating in the streets. We can mobilize capital, minds, and actions and cooperate to nudge consumers into making choices that co-create the healthy future we want and need for our business, humanity, and the generations to come—our own children and grandchildren included. Below are a few resources to help you accelerate this important shift.

Learn more, and accelerate your own work in building a Better Business and a Better Future, in the book by Elisabet Lagerstedt.
Elisabet Lagerstedt
Sign up to Elisabet's newsletter to go beyond business as usual, explore Better Business, and co-create a Better Future.
This unique online program helps you as a business leader to navigate the why and the how of the Sustainability Revolution.

Latest blog posts

Beyond Business as Usual

Welcome to slow down to speed up – and enjoy the reading!

Fit for Purpose — Designing Business Around What Truly Matters

Strategy

Fit for Purpose — Designing Business Around What Truly Matters

23 February, 2026 Strategy ,

This is a very practical blog post, focusing on business value creation. Returning to Lund University Master’s program of Entrepreneurship and Innovation for the…

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The Fit for Purpose Model Navigator (AI)

Strategy

The Fit for Purpose Model Navigator (AI)

22 February, 2026 Strategy , ,

The Fit for Purpose Model is a free strategic framework designed to help purpose-led leaders design and transform their organisations to become aligned with…

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Fit for Purpose: Learning from the Past, Acting in the Present, Designing for the Future

Strategy

Fit for Purpose: Learning from the Past, Acting in the Present, Designing for the Future

22 February, 2026 Strategy , ,

Time is change, transformation and evolution. Still, when leadership teams gather to discuss strategy, the conversation often begins with numbers, market shares, risks, competitors…

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Beyond leadership as plumbing and poetry

Leadership

Beyond leadership as plumbing and poetry

2 February, 2026 Leadership ,

Not too long ago, I came across the book On Leadership by James G. March and Thierry Weil, a leadership classic from 2005, coming…

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A Challenge of Leadership Capacity: We Are Not in a Normal Cycle

Leadership

A Challenge of Leadership Capacity: We Are Not in a Normal Cycle

31 December, 2025 Leadership ,

For much of modern business history, leadership has been shaped by a fairly stable mental model of how change unfolds: a model deeply intertwined…

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Why leadership, wisdom, and inner capacity need to shape strategy in the age of AI

Leadership, Strategy

Why leadership, wisdom, and inner capacity need to shape strategy in the age of AI

17 December, 2025 Leadership, Strategy , , ,

The past years have not been demanding because of one disruption, but because of the simultaneity of many forces unfolding at once. Geopolitical volatility…

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The Inner Practice of Leadership & Strategy: Slowing Down to See Clearly and Lead Wisely

Strategy

The Inner Practice of Leadership & Strategy: Slowing Down to See Clearly and Lead Wisely

19 November, 2025 Strategy ,

There is an aspect of strategy that we rarely acknowledge, perhaps because it feels too subtle, too human, or too inward to fit comfortably…

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The Power of Slowing Down: Finding Clarity and Coherence in Complex Times

Leadership

The Power of Slowing Down: Finding Clarity and Coherence in Complex Times

14 November, 2025 Leadership ,

In a world that rewards speed, slowing down can feel countercultural — even irresponsible. Yet for leaders navigating increasing complexity, slowing down is not…

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Introducing the Strategy Navigator: A Reflective Partner for Leaders Beyond Business-as-Usual

Strategy

Introducing the Strategy Navigator: A Reflective Partner for Leaders Beyond Business-as-Usual

27 September, 2025 Strategy

The challenges facing business today are not only strategic and operational — they are existential. Climate change, societal fragmentation, technological disruption, and shifting stakeholder…

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Seven Boundaries Breached – and the Silence in the Room

Leadership

Seven Boundaries Breached – and the Silence in the Room

25 September, 2025 Leadership , , ,

Yesterday, the Planetary Health Check 2025 was released. Its message is sobering: human activities have now pushed Earth beyond seven of the nine scientifically…

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Riding the Shake: Meeting the Inner and Outer Challenges of Transformation

Leadership

Riding the Shake: Meeting the Inner and Outer Challenges of Transformation

22 September, 2025 Leadership , ,

If you are leading transformation today, you already know it is not just a technical project or a strategy exercise. It is a lived,…

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From Overwhelm to Evolution: Navigating the Leadership Gap in a VUCA World

Leadership

From Overwhelm to Evolution: Navigating the Leadership Gap in a VUCA World

8 August, 2025 Leadership , ,

Across the world, more and more leaders are at unease and sensing the consequences of the growing leadership capability gap — a sign that…

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"Like the digital revolution before it, the sustainability revolution promises to change everything. Yet, just as with digital, many companies are moving too slowly, taking an incremental approach to a challenge that demands a radical rethink." -World Economic Forum
"The Sustainability Revolution has the magnitude of the agricultural and industrial revolution, but the speed of the speed of the digital revolution." -Al Gore
"Good business is simply good for business and seriously needed in co-creating solutions to the worlds wicked problems." -Elisabet Lagerstedt
"Instead of seeing our potential contribution as limited, we need to realize that our zone of influence as business leaders can be much larger than we think." -Elisabet Lagerstedt
"Slowing down is sometimes the best way to speed up" -Mike Vance
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” -Mahatma Gandhi
”No one wakes up in the morning and says, ‘today I’m going to destroy the planet and inflict harm on myself and those around me’. Yet at a collective level, that’s what we are doing.” -Otto Scharmer, MIT
“In the next 10 years, we will experience as many changes as humanity has seen during the past century.” -Ray Kurzweil, Futurist at Google, Co-Founder of Singularity University