We’re All Mad Here: Lessons from Wonderland
We’re all mad here.
When I started M. Hatter Consulting 12 years ago, I was drawn to work that asked people to believe in what did not yet exist.
With my clients, I’ve had the privilege of helping reimagine businesses in ways that once felt impossible. We’ve built new digital capabilities, transformed aging assets into new products, and designed operating models that stretch across borders.
Bold work, steeped in adventure.
Like all of you, I feel the next era arriving at a speed that can be disorienting. AI has changed so much, so quickly. We’re all genuinely students again.
That is why I felt so grateful to participate in Northwestern’s Kellogg program on Reinventing Work and Organizations for the Intelligent Age, led by global business transformation leader Ravin.
I adored the frameworks and strategies, all of which underscored that while technology may be the lead instigator of this new era, it is deeply human choices that will shape how it unfolds.
Some of my key takeaways:
It’s no use going back to yesterday, because we were different people then.
Some of what made us successful in the past deserves respect. But not all of it can come with us. We will need to challenge many of our trusted mindsets, toolkits, and skill sets, or risk letting our legacy playbook become a liability for future growth.
The path depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
The most promising AI journeys are not the ones making today’s headlines. There is another path. It is the one where we redesign work thoughtfully, help people build new skills, and deliver exponential economic results that endure beyond the next quarter.
Let’s believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
This era will ask more of us. Not just technical fluency, but creativity, adaptability, courage, and lifelong learning. Designing a new operating model will ask us to deconstruct, redeploy, and reconstruct how value is delivered. We will step through the looking glass not because we have all the answers, but because reinvention is now table stakes.
Here’s to becoming curious again.
Here’s to letting go of yesterday.
And here’s to jumping down the rabbit hole, with intention, together.