Last week, I watched a woman on the train in formal business dress, eyes fixed on her phone, playing Candy Crush.
She looked like one of the leaders that would attend our leadership programmes.
At first, I was surprised to see her so absorbed in the game. Then I realised it made perfect sense. In a day likely full of meetings, messages and decisions, this was probably the only moment where she didn’t have to perform, decide or deliver anything. Candy Crush provided the perfect low-stakes, low-effort escape: a break from extraction.
That moment stuck with me because it captured what many of us quietly manage at work: no real pauses, no space to reflect, and no time to connect meaningfully with others or with ourselves.
We’ve created working cultures where movement and noise are mistaken for progress, where being always-on is a proxy for commitment. Slack pings, inbox refreshes, back-to-back online video meetings and tightly packed agendas have normalised a kind of performative productivity, driven by dopamine. As a result, in a world of drive and threat, stepping out to soothe is key to survival.
Recently, we supported a leadership programme where participants received 360 feedback. One of them - thoughtful, bright, and well-intentioned - took the call while driving. He nodded through ten minutes, treating it like another diary item. Then he realised this conversation needed more from him. We agreed he would call back. The second time around, we had the conversation we should have had originally: reflective, honest and useful.
That story and the woman on the train illustrate a wider pattern: not a lack of intelligence or care, but a lack of space —a default to distraction or transaction instead of reflection.
But when we reach for the next thing, we fail to ask the important questions which help us grow and work more effectively: How am I really doing? What am I not seeing in the rush to deliver? What help do I need to thrive and improve in my work? Who should I reach out to if I want to be even more effective? How does this work fit into the broader aims we’re trying to achieve as a company?
These questions have been coming up more frequently in a different context, as people talk to me about their desire to embed an enterprise mindset in their organisation.
They’re looking for people who think systemically, collaborate across functions, and make decisions with the wider business in mind. It’s a reasonable aspiration, but very few organisations confront the reality that the current environment makes those behaviours difficult to access, let alone sustain.
Enterprise mindset isn’t a personality trait or a content gap. It’s a cognitive and relational capability. Like any capability, it depends on the context. You don’t get systems thinking and judgment from people who are constantly reacting and firefighting their way through every day, week and year of the business cycle. The pressure to get things done drives silo behaviours because asking others for input – including the people around you, is too time-consuming.
The result is short-termism, overwhelm and the need to reach for Candy Crush.
It’s tempting to respond with frameworks, models or more information. But an enterprise mindset doesn’t come from doing more; it comes from doing differently.
It requires our leaders to step out of performance mode and into relationships and for the creation of development spaces that allow for reflection, not the delivery of content. It needs conversations where our people can stop long enough to think clearly and listen properly. It’s also where people can consider what might be getting in the way of their being able to think clearly or listen successfully. That’s where the shifts happen: not through learning a new tool, but in the space.
So, approaching an enterprise mindset as if we need to fix people so that they try harder is a mistake. We must address the environment people are in. If we want people to think like owners, we need to create the conditions where ownership is even possible: where space allows for judgment to develop, and connection isn’t treated as a calendar item, but as the work itself.
The lesson from the man in the car and the woman on the train is that unless we protect and value the space to reflect, we won’t unlock the mindset we’re asking for.
If enterprise mindset really matters, we need to stop treating it as a motivational gap or knowledge gap and start recognising it as a structural one, resulting from the way we let our people work every day.
The biggest block to people stepping up and getting behind big organisational goals isn’t willingness, it’s the system we’ve put them in.
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