Seeing the Future Differently: Hasmeet Kaur on Diversity of Thought
What happens when a leadership team stops assuming it shares one picture of the future? For Hasmeet Kaur, President of the Transportation Division at MANN+HUMMEL, the answer was a wider view of her own organization and, in her words, becoming a better leader.
In a short conversation with Carina Stöttner, CEO of Futurewise Company, Hasmeet looked back on the futures work our teams did together. Carina’s opening question was simple: has anything changed about the way you think and plan for the future?
Same framework, different futures
Hasmeet’s first realization was how differently people imagine the future, even inside one company. „I think it opened up also my perspective on how different we all see and imagine the future to be,“ she said.
Everyone in her organization works within more or less the same framework. Yet, as she put it, „we have a completely different perspective on how certain things could shape.“ Making those differences visible was the first step.
Escaping the confirmation trap
Leaders can easily surround themselves with people who think the same way. Hasmeet named this risk directly: „sometimes we can fall into the trap of confirmation.“ The futures exercise pushed her not to take shared thinking for granted.
She found diversity well beyond international background or gender. What mattered most was „the diversity of thought that is in our organization.“
That discovery paid off across the hierarchy. Hasmeet called it „extremely rewarding for me at all levels“: the levels above her, her peers and her own teams. Her teams challenged her and brought perspectives to the table that she had not considered before.
A new discussion culture
Carina described what Hasmeet experienced as „a new sort of discussion culture.“ When people talk about the future, they lay out their personal options and assumptions. Those are shaped less by the work and more by how each person was shaped in the past.
Laying those assumptions out in the open is something teams rarely do on a regular basis. The value comes from discussing them without emotion. The question is not whether a colleague’s view of the future matches your own, but how to look at it objectively.
A better leader for the future
Asked if she had anything else to share, Hasmeet summed up the experience in one line: „I think I am a better leader in terms of steering the future of the company.“ She added that she enjoyed the work and learned a lot, and closed by thanking the team „for the fun work we did together.“
For leaders planning their own futures work, her story points to three lessons:
- Assume your team holds different pictures of the future, even within a shared framework.
- Look for diversity of thought, not only diversity of background.
- Make assumptions explicit, then discuss them objectively rather than emotionally.