“There are two ways to fail with absolute certainty: The first is to abandon rationality, the second to trust it blindly.”

– Blaise Pascal, mathematician and philosopher.

The biggest risk for businesses today isn’t disruption. It’s playing it safe. Sticking to the proven, the measurable, and the predictable might feel like the smartest move—but in a world changing this fast, that’s exactly what will hold you back.

From workplace well-being to sustainable growth to AI-driven transformation, companies today face a fundamental choice: Keep optimizing what already exists. Or open themselves to rethinking how they operate, compete, and create value. The first path often seems safer–but only in the short-term, as the second path is where reinvention happens. We propose the latter: embracing the transformative power of openness.

Openness: the one (and only) factor that’s guaranteed success throughout human history

Openness isn’t just the key ingredient in creative thinking. It’s the foundation of progress, innovation, and long-term business survival. Yet most companies resist it. Not because they don’t value creativity—but because openness demands comfort with uncertainty. And uncertainty doesn’t fit neatly into a KPI dashboard.

Johan Norberg’s book Open – The Story of Human Progress makes an unignorable case for openness: the single most deciding factor in humanity’s progress has been the courage not to make immediate decisions, daring to keep processes and decisions open as long as possible (but not longer). Our biggest leaps–in civilizations, business, and individually, too, have been fueled by the ability to remain open to new ideas, partnerships, and ways of thinking. The companies that thrive are not the ones that rush to premature certainty. They are the ones that dare stay open for as long as possible. Uncomfortable? Very likely. A competitive advantage? Absolutely. 

AI won’t guarantee the future of your Brand. Open just might.

Embracing openness as a business strategy is particularly urgent now as AI reshapes industries at an unprecedented pace,  yet many companies are rushing to integrate AI Businesses are rushing to integrate AI—automating decisions, cutting costs, optimizing processes–without questioning what they actually want it to achieve.

Some businesses see AI as a tool for efficiency. They use it to make what already exists run faster, cheaper, and smoother. Other businesses see AI as an enabler of reinvention. They use it to explore, to augment human creativity, to rethink the nature of work itself. One of these approaches leads to more of the same, just faster. The other leads to entirely new ways of creating value.

The companies that treat AI as just another optimization tool will fall behind. The ones that use AI to expand their creative capacity—to experiment, imagine, and rethink assumptions—will define the next era of business.

Openness is what makes the difference. What new possibilities could AI unlock if we allowed it to augment human creativity rather than replace it?

The Future Favors the Open

We learned this firsthand when we founded We Are Open in December 2020. We didn’t start with a rigid business plan. We started with a belief—that openness itself was the missing ingredient in business transformation.

Openness to new ways of working. Openness to new ways of thinking. Openness to new ways of collaborating. Openness to accept that you don’t always have the best idea.

It wasn’t the easiest path. Openness means operating without guarantees, trusting instincts before all the data is there, and making space for uncertainty. But it also led to our biggest breakthroughs.And that’s the point: the best decisions don’t always begin with certainty. They begin with openness.

Companies today face the same choice: They can either proactively shift their culture toward openness—seeing their role as building something new that works better for all—or be left behind by forces bigger than them. The businesses that cling to certainty and efficiency alone will find themselves in the position of California’s famed vineyards—drying up in a drought they played no part in creating.

We want to be crystal clear: openness is not indecision. It is not procrastination. And it is certainly not about rejecting data. Openness, at its best, is a strategic advantage. It is driven by both intuition and information—thus avoiding both of Pascal’s paths to failure.

Open is the best method we know to move from incremental change to leaps of progress. That’s why we chose Open—both as our name and as our method. Open frees us from what is, and lets us imagine, then build, better ways of working, and better companies.

What will open look like for you?

The first step toward openness is a leap of faith. It starts with daring to declare, “We don’t know… yet.”

Open is not a policy. Open is a practice. It’s a way of operating that fosters trust, curiosity, and creative confidence. A feeling that I am trusted, and I can trust others. A feeling that we don’t need all the answers upfront—that knowing where we want to go matters more than having a perfect roadmap to get there.

Open frees us from the straitjacket of best practices. It stops us from copy-pasting what worked yesterday and mistaking it for the best strategy for tomorrow.

And that’s not a bad start. 

Because the future belongs to those who don’t just change the ink cartridge in the photocopier—but to those who dare to design something entirely new.

This post by We Are Open and more for Creativity 2030 initiative here; https://www.mrktng.fi/luovuus/

Do you feel like you’re working harder than ever—but the real change you want to see keeps slipping further away? You’re not alone.

Despite rapid technological advancements, most businesses still struggle to create real transformation. That’s because most business transformation isn’t actually transformation—it’s optimization. For the past decade, companies have mistaken efficiency for progress, believing that digitization, automation, and now AI would reinvent business. Instead, these tools have mostly reinforced existing structures—doing the same things, only faster and cheaper.

And that’s the real trap: mistaking speed for progress and automation for reinvention.

The mental modelholding businesses back

For decades, business leaders have been taught to trust data, efficiency, and structured decision-making above all else. But what if the very way we process information is limiting how we approach change?

Neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist argues that we live in an era of “left hemisphere tyranny”—where we prioritize logic, categorization, and short-term decision-making at the expense of broader vision, creativity, and long-term impact.

The myth of left- and right-brained people has been debunked, but our organizations are undeniably dominated by left-hemisphere thinking. The left hemisphere thrives on details, labeling, and compartmentalization. It prefers quick decisions, black-and-white conclusions, and predictable outcomes. The right hemisphere understands complexity, sees the bigger picture, connects seemingly unrelated ideas, and embraces uncertainty. The left hemisphere is an expert in what is. The right one is an expert in what could be.

And if businesses want to do more than survive the next decade, they need (way) more of the latter.

AI is accelerating the wrong kind of transformation

Optimization creates a false sense of momentum—companies believe they are advancing because there is a plan, targets, movement. Yet nothing truly changes.

AI, for all its power, is reinforcing this pattern.

AI analyzes what is, recognizes patterns, and optimizes for efficiency. But it does not imagine. It does not dream. It does not challenge assumptions.

Instead of breaking old paradigms, most AI-driven transformation is accelerating them. Businesses are using AI to cut costs and automate tasks rather than to reimagine purpose, strategy, and long-term impact.

This is where businesses face a critical choice:

Will you use AI to optimize the past?
Or to help build something new?

Creative transformation: the future of business

The future will not be optimized into existence—it must be imagined, created, and built.

That is why we need to reclaim right-hemisphere thinking: trusting intuition, encouraging dreaming as planning, and creating a culture of systematic openness to what could be.

This is where AI must be seen as a tool, not a driver. The real breakthroughs happen when human creativity leads, and AI assists—rather than the other way around.

We call this shift Creative Transformation.

"Those who dream by day
see many things which escape
those who only dream by night."

– Edgar Allan Poe

For too long, creative practices have been underestimated as a transformative force in business. This piece of brain research should wake up your boardroom: Relying solely on left-hemisphere thinking—data-driven optimization, predictive analytics, and rigid decision-making—makes leaders overconfident in their choices while limiting their ability to see new possibilities. It has led companies to place an irrational weight on what can be measured today, while undervaluing the ideas that could shape tomorrow.

AI adoption is accelerating, but many businesses are making the same mistake. If we continue treating AI as a driver rather than a collaborator, we will accelerate toward a future that looks disturbingly like the present—only more efficient at sustaining the status quo.

What does creative transformation look like in practice?

First off, it acknowledges there is no one right solution. It must be tailored to each company. But here’s a place to start:

• What if your company invested in potential, not just proven track record?
• What if you doubled down on the people you have instead of chasing the latest technology?
• What if you taught your teams how to have transformative conversations instead of how to navigate team-building software?
• What if playfulness and enjoyment weren’t seen as distractions, but as vital to innovation?
• What if alternate ways to define problems and solutions weren’t just welcomed, but required?
• What if you spent less time overplanning and more time taking action (rooted in your strategy)?
• What if you measured success differently—not just by quarterly growth, but by long-term impact?
• And what if your ultimate success metric was through the eyes of your grandchildren’s grandchildren?

Humanity faces challenges we cannot solve with business as usual—or with AI as a substitute for human creativity. Businesses face the same existential threat.

That’s why Creative Transformation isn’t just a strategy shift—it’s a cultural shift. It’s about building organizations where creativity isn’t just a department—it’s the fabric of the company.
Where purpose isn’t a mission statement—it’s how decisions get made.

Companies that embrace Creative Transformation don’t just create better products, services, or efficiencies. They build something bigger: a shared sense of purpose, a culture of imagination, and a future that people want to be part of.

That’s why Creative Transformation isn’t a luxury—it is a necessity. It is the only way we can build the kind of businesses, economies, and futures that will thrive beyond the next quarter.

This post by We Are Open and more for Creativity 2030 initiative here; https://www.mrktng.fi/luovuus/

"Profits should not come from creating the world’s problems, but from solving them.”

– Paul Polman, Unilever CEO 2009-19.

The business model we can’t afford anymore?

What happens when the stories we tell ourselves—as societies and businesses—are holding us back from meaningful change?

Blink, and you miss how we got here: 75% of youth under 25 globally say they are “very afraid” of the future, feeling betrayed by their governments. Two out of three American parents no longer believe their children will be better off than they were. Faith in business is just as fragile. Globally, only 40% of people under 40 believe companies can have any positive impact. Even CEOs aren’t convinced: 39% of US business leaders don’t believe their own sustainability efforts have any impact and call them “mostly a PR stunt.”

This is the real crisis businesses face: a crisis of credibility.

Companies are scrambling to be seen as part of the solution, but before they can rebuild trust externally, they need to overcome skepticism internally. The first step? Rewriting the deep story they’ve been telling themselves.

The story that’s holding us back

Sociologist Arlie Hochschild talks about the ‘deep story’—the narratives societies use to make sense of the world. The deep story that has dominated global business for the last century is the story of the consumer.

It’s a story that reduces companies to providers of products and services and people to buyers. It’s a story where competition and consumer choice define us—a world where companies succeed by creating demand, driving sales, and optimizing for quarterly growth. It has shaped everything from business culture to corporate strategy, so deeply ingrained that it’s hard to even imagine an alternative.

Yet we must.

Paul Polman, former Unilever CEO, puts it bluntly: “Companies can only safeguard their future by a radical shift in how they do business.” In Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take, Polman challenges businesses to think beyond ESG goals and fundamentally rethink their role in the economy—moving from extraction to regeneration, from consumption to contribution.

Consumerism is no longer a viable operating system for business. The companies that cling to it—those that continue to treat people as consumers, extract natural and human resources as if they are infinite, and optimize purely for transactions—will not survive the coming decade.

From consumers to contributors: a business model for the (very near) future

We’re not saying companies should restructure themselves around a “Buy Nothing” button. What we’re saying is this: businesses excel at shaping behavior. They’ve spent the last century mastering the art of persuasion, influence, and shifting public perception. Now, the question is: can they use that same superpower to rethink the very stories that have shaped both their industries and the economy at large? 

This shift isn’t hypothetical or wishful thinking—it’s already unfolding. Consumer behavior is moving away from passive consumption toward what we might call contributionism. A recent Harris Poll found that 40% of Americans are adjusting their spending habits to reflect their moral values, prioritizing brands that align with deeper societal and environmental action. Investors are following suit, moving beyond ESG checklists toward regenerative business models that create long-term value. 

Businesses that want to thrive in the near future must stop seeing themselves as providers of products and start seeing themselves as contributors to a world that works better for all. Who even wants to be a consumer anymore? How much more empowering, how much more exciting, to see ourselves as being in the contribution business; as co-creators of the future, rather than passive participants in a spent, maxed out business model. This shift isn’t just a moral imperative—it’s a competitive advantage.

AI is already shaping the next deep story—but we can rewrite the ending

As businesses step into this shift, they face a choice: will they use AI to accelerate the transition from consumption to contribution, or will they let it reinforce the same old story? 

Right now, most companies are using AI to automate consumption, not reimagine business. AI is optimizing ads, tracking purchases, personalizing content, refining supply chains—but all within the same outdated consumer-driven model. It’s accelerating the very systems we should be replacing. Yet, like any tool, AI is only as powerful as the intent behind it. What if AI could help us rewrite the very story of how businesses operate?

What if AI became more than a tool for optimization—what if it became a force for creativity and contribution? What if we used AI not just to sell more, but to create more—more sustainable solutions, more inclusive economies, more imaginative ways of doing business? The companies that realign AI with creativity instead of consumption—who use it to amplify contribution, not just efficiency—will define the next era of business impact.

The companies that lead this shift will not measure their success in quarterly gains alone, but in what they help build for the long term. They will not ask, “What can we afford?” but instead, “What can we no longer afford?” They will not see themselves as producers of goods and services—but as contributors to the common good. And in doing so, they will succeed beyond their wildest dreams. Because in the end, businesses won’t just succeed on what they sell—they’ll be defined by the story they choose to tell.

This post by We Are Open and more for Creativity 2030 initiative here; https://www.mrktng.fi/luovuus/