Leadership has never been this difficult – could regenerative thinking show a way forward?

I recently heard a claim that stayed with me: there has never been a more difficult time in history to be a CEO. It is easy to believe. Whatever the company or organisation, there is no shortage of challenges.

Economic pressures are squeezing competitiveness and profitability. Technological development, led by AI, is propelling us forward at speed while raising major questions about the future of work and ethics. The limits of our planet are under such strain that seven of the nine planetary boundaries have already been crossed. On top of all this, we are living through an exceptionally volatile period marked by wars and geopolitical crises.

Amid these interconnected crises, another claim could be made: sustainability has never been more important, yet advancing it has become increasingly difficult. Perhaps the easy things have already been done, while new challenges are forcing us to reconsider previous plans and targets. The question is no longer simply how a company can reduce the negative impacts of its operations or meet the requirements placed upon it. Increasingly, we need to ask where value will come from, what kinds of products or services will be needed, and where it makes sense to invest over the long term. We are living through a period in which the meaning and role of sustainability are being reassessed, while also asking whether sustainability will even remain a distinct concept in the future.

For many companies, this also means rethinking strategy more broadly. How can you build a business that can withstand geopolitical and economic turbulence and the impacts of a warming climate and accelerating biodiversity loss, while continuing to renew itself and succeed in changing conditions?

Regenerative thinking offers a new perspective on this situation and an interesting tool for renewing strategy.

It starts with a holistic, systemic understanding of the world. A company does not operate in isolation from its surroundings. Its success is connected to the success of others: its employees, customers, partners, society and nature.

The perspective in regenerative thinking is always systemic and deliberately broad. The aim is not simply to safeguard the company’s own success or reduce the harm caused by its operations, but also to strengthen the vitality of the people, communities and natural environments on which the business depends.

The shift in thinking can be illustrated by comparing it with traditional mechanistic thinking. In the latter, problems tend to be addressed as separate components, and solutions are often framed as either-or choices. Regenerative thinking seeks to move beyond compromises and identify connections and opportunities in which several parties can benefit at the same time. At its best, the result can be a win-win-win: the business succeeds, people benefit and nature thrives. At the heart of this way of thinking is a model drawn from nature and living systems, where everything has its place and different parts evolve and help one another develop.

This does not mean that conflicts disappear or that all goals can always be reconciled. But framing the questions systemically from the outset can reveal opportunities we have not previously known how to look for.

Practical experiments and applications in regenerative business have been developed for some time. One of the best-known examples is regenerative agriculture. At its best, regenerative farming methods can improve soil health and biodiversity while strengthening farmers’ long-term productive capacity and economic resilience.

In many other industries, however, the connection between regenerative practices and business success is not as easy to identify. This brings us to one of the central challenges of regenerative thinking: how can the value it creates be made concrete and financially compelling enough for business leaders to embrace it?

Business and organisational leaders need to be able to justify where investments are made and what returns are expected. Regenerative thinking does not always fit neatly into this equation. Instead of ready-made solutions and measurable benefits, it offers new perspectives and possibilities whose value may only become apparent over the long term.

On the other hand, regenerative thinking also challenges the assumptions behind this very premise. Today’s financial decisions are already based on assumptions about the future, and existing calculations do not necessarily capture every factor that may influence success.

A recent example can be found at the level of the national economy. This summer, a report by the Finnish Government found that the effects of climate change and biodiversity loss are still inadequately accounted for in economic forecasts and debt sustainability calculations, even though their economic consequences could be comparable to those of pandemics or wars.

The report also raises an interesting question for business and organisational leaders: What about your organisation? Do you understand the dependencies and risks that will be essential to your future business well enough? Are you sure your spreadsheets include all the right variables?

One of the key tools of regenerative thinking is simple: asking new, systemic questions.

Strategic analysis can be broadened by asking what the company’s success depends on and how it could strengthen the vitality of its operating environment. Customer and stakeholder research can look not only at customers’ current needs but also at what they will need in order to succeed in the future.

Scenario work can place greater emphasis on the connections between different changes. What happens if climate, nature-related and economic risks materialise at the same time? And what kind of positive future could the company itself help create?

When setting goals, companies can ask how they might measure not only their own success but also the positive change they create. Equally, we can ask what we actually want to measure. There are not yet established metrics for everything, but that does not prevent us from beginning to develop goals and ways of verifying progress towards them.

In strategic decision-making and investment assessment, companies can look for business opportunities in which competitive advantage is built by simultaneously strengthening the capacity of customers, partners or nature to thrive. And what if, instead of simply consulting stakeholders, the starting point were reciprocal partnerships in which different parties jointly develop new solutions and strengthen one another’s prospects for success?

Regenerative thinking is not necessarily easy to adopt. Fully internalising it takes time because it challenges many familiar assumptions about the role of business, success and value creation.

But applying it can begin with surprisingly small steps.

It is important to recognise that regenerative thinking can also be applied selectively. There is no need to build an entirely regenerative strategy all at once. You can start with one question, one analysis or one strategic choice and examine it from a new perspective.

Regenerative thinking does not remove the need for financial rigour. Quite the opposite: at its best, it can help identify long-term risks and opportunities for value creation that might otherwise remain invisible.

When the challenges are this great and old solutions alone are no longer enough, why not at least try thinking differently?