The Odyssey

The difficult bit: getting home

Odysseus won the war. Then came the difficult bit: getting home. The world he returned to was not the world he had left.

Today, leaders are facing their own return journey. AI is changing the nature of work, old assumptions are being challenged, and difficult decisions rarely come with easy answers.

The Odyssey gives us a different way to explore these challenges, using one of the world’s great stories to think about leadership, change, uncertainty and the choices we make along the way.

The Return

Coming down can be harder than going up. What happens when you’ve achieved what you set out to do, and now the world you face is unrecognisable?

This two-thousand-year-old story provides an opportunity to view current challenges through a mythic lens. Its non-linear chronicle reflects the topsy-turvy nature of the world Odysseus is trying to navigate. It is a fitting metaphor for today’s leaders, who can draw not only solace but resource from this ancient story.

• How do I choose when all the options are bad ones?
• How do I navigate when neither the map nor the territory is familiar?
• How do I live with regrettable choices?
• How do I stay humble and compassionate under stress?
• What can I do to keep myself and my team afloat in such times?

A story people can remember

The aim isn’t to turn The Odyssey into another leadership model. It’s to give people a story they can use: a shared language for difficult things, a different way of looking at familiar challenges, and memorable characters, places and choices that continue to prompt conversations.

As AI and other forces quickly change the landscape of work and life, leaders are feeling overwhelmed and fatigued. The Odyssey provides a refreshing and insightful lens while tapping into our need for co-creation and engagement.

The One-Day Workshop

The Odyssey is primarily a one-day workshop for leadership teams and organisations navigating significant change or uncertainty.

Using the story as a shared starting point, we explore the themes that resonate most strongly with your organisation and apply them to the challenges you face now. The workshop is practical, experiential and shaped around your context.

The Keynote

Nobody Trained Us for What Was to Come brings The Odyssey to life for leaders and representatives from different organisations.

This one-off invitation event is an opportunity to experience the thinking behind the programme, meet others facing similar challenges and explore whether The Odyssey could be useful in your own organisation.

More than a story

Stories stay with us. The hope is that The Odyssey gives your people more than an enjoyable workshop. It gives them a language, a set of questions and a different perspective they can take back into their work.

The journey may be ancient. The challenges are very much our own.