How Organisations Adapt and Perform When it Matters Most
Author’s Note
Ben Shoshan, CEO and Co-Founder, Open Water
Mindset has become an overused term, often applied loosely to describe how people interpret the world. In the context of leadership and organisations, however, I present an argument that involves two interdependent forms of ‘mindset’ necessary for effective, sustainable change: Individual Mindset and Collective Mindset.
Last weekend in London, on Sunday 26 of April, a little piece of history was made.
In the 2026 London Marathon, Sabastian Sawe broke the two-hour barrier, winning the men’s race in 1 hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds.
It wasn’t the record in hours, minutes and seconds that made this so poignant; it was the sense that something long considered out of reach had suddenly shifted. A symbolic, psychological barrier had been crossed.
This moment echoes another that changed sport and captured the public imagination in a similar way seventy-two years earlier.
In 1954, the running world held a powerful yet flawed belief: that it was physically impossible for a human being to run a mile in under four minutes. And if you did, you would die. Athletes believed it. Coaches believed it. Medical professionals reinforced it.
Roger Bannister – a physician studying at Cambridge – questioned that belief. He wasn’t the strongest or most well-trained runner of his generation. Yet he broke the four-minute mile.
The most interesting part of the story wasn’t just that he did it – it was what happened next.
Within weeks, another runner followed. Within a year, many more had done the same*. A limit that had stood unchallenged collapsed with surprising speed.
Nothing changed in human physiology.
What changed was mindset.
* Depending on the source, many suggest that more than a 100 people broke this record within a relatively short period.
The beliefs we hold are extremely powerful narratives that influence how we perceive the world, how we respond to situations, people, and circumstances we’re confronted with. As we share these narratives with others, the more compelling they are, the greater the adoption.
Ever been given a description by a friend or colleague about a person you’re about to meet? Let’s say they suggest that although the person seems pleasant on the outside, they can’t be trusted. Even if you consider yourself objective and fair, try as you might, the story lingers – and before long you begin looking for, and finding, evidence to fit the belief.
In the case of Roger Bannister, one man’s determined refusal to accept a universally subscribed belief not only shifted his behaviour and results, but that of many others.
One individual’s mindset disrupted a collective mindset – and once the shared story shifted, what became possible expanded rapidly.
This is Mindset Inside™ in action: the lens through which we interpret the world, our context and what we believe is possible – both individually and collectively.
Mindset is the set of underlying beliefs and interpretations that shape how people experience pressure, regulate emotion and choose action.
As leaders, we need to be conscious of the individual mindsets we reinforce and the collective mindset we shape (or inadvertently allow to take hold).
Moments of change – rapid scaling, strategy resets, leadership changes, integrations, sustained pressure, or the slow realisation that what used to work no longer does – often create both opportunity and strain.
Not because organisations lack intelligence, expertise or ambition, but because humans are wired to react when operating in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment, often referred to as VUCA, a term popularised in leadership thinking by scholars such as Warren Bennis.
When stability or security feels threatened, people instinctively move into fight-or-flight.
Fear takes hold. Self‑doubt creeps in. Blame follows.
“Why is this happening to us?”
“Why are people doing this to us?”
When this mindset takes over, vision and processing capacity narrow. Decision‑making slows. Energy drains away from the work that actually matters – just when organisations need their people most.
What separates organisations that grow from those that stall is the ability to notice this shift and respond consciously.
To move from
“Why is this happening to us?”
to:
“What strengths can I lean on?”
“What do I need to learn next?”
This marks a transition away from survival mode towards a more resourceful state – one where curiosity returns, options expand and learning becomes possible.
At its strongest, this resembles what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described as “flow”: a state of focused engagement where clarity, creativity and collaboration increase. People don’t need to live permanently in flow to perform well, but organisations do need to create conditions that allow people to access it – rather than consistently triggering fear and self‑protection.
How people perform is shaped less by what is happening around them and more by how they interpret and respond to what’s happening.
Under challenge, opportunity, uncertainty or growth, attention can either widen or contract. When people become anxious about performance metrics, judgement, or protecting their own domains – roles, specialisms, swim lanes or livelihoods – attention narrows. When it widens, learning, creativity and collaboration become possible.
In most organisations today, much of working life takes place in what can be called ‘Chronos time’, i.e. clock time – linear, agenda‑driven, efficiency‑focused. Chronos is essential; it’s how things get delivered.
What has changed is the pace at which Chronos now operates. Global connectivity, virtual collaboration, constant communication and AI-enabled productivity mean we can do more, faster and almost without pause.
The unintended consequence is that many people now spend their time working almost entirely in Chronos. Meetings spill into meetings. Notifications never stop. Recovery time disappears – and without recovery – cognitive bandwidth narrows.
The problem is not Chronos itself. It arises when Chronos becomes the only state available.
To balance task-oriented efficiency with creativity, innovation, good judgement in decision making, coaching and development; one also needs a healthy dose of ‘Kairos time’. Time where you can isolate yourself and/or the team, without concern. Moments of space where urgency drops away and the brain can disengage from pressure, reflect, make sense of complexity, and choose responses deliberately rather than react automatically.
Kairos is the state you enter when reading a book, playing the guitar, writing an article, or spending relaxed time with friends. It is where insight surfaces, creativity emerges and wiser decisions are made.
When Kairos is absent for long periods, the human cost becomes visible: burnout, anxiety, emotional fatigue and brittle performance. In leadership research, this lived experience has increasingly been described as BANI – brittle, anxious, non‑linear and incomprehensible.
Sustainable growth doesn’t come from doing more, faster, indefinitely. It comes from leaders being intentional about the conditions they create – not just the outputs they demand – and from providing the space and autonomy for people to balance Chronos and Kairos so they have the space to think, recover and perform at their best over time. This moves leaders beyond pure clock‑time optimisation toward better judgement, timing and impact – an idea echoed from Sarah Ban Breathnach’s modern reframing of Kairos to Cal Newport’s work on Slow Productivity.
Everything starts with mindset – the invisible engine behind behaviour, performance and results.
Mindset is shaped by beliefs, values, identity and purpose, alongside experience, emotion and unconscious bias. As Robert Dilts’ work on neurological levels shows, these elements operate as powerful drivers beneath everything we do – shaping not just behaviour, but perception, motivation and meaning.
Put simply:
Mindset drives emotional state.
Emotional state drives behaviour.
Behaviour drives performance and results.
When organisations focus only on behaviour – what people should do differently – progress rarely holds. Lasting growth requires shifting the beliefs and identity from which behaviour flows.
Many organisations are good at focusing on the delivery of skills training, strategic frameworks, and processes. These matter – but they are rarely sufficient on their own.
Skills explain what to do.
Mindset determines whether they actually implement the change in order to develop the skill; whether they believe they can succeed, whether they stay open under pressure, and whether they persist when things feel uncomfortable.
Neuroscience reinforces this. Research highlighted by Andrew Huberman shows that when we do things that requires effort – particularly things that are good for us that we instinctively resist – a part of the brain known as the anterior mid‑singular cortex strengthens. This area is associated with resilience, persistence and adaptive capacity. Over time, effort builds our ability to endure and change.
Viktor Frankl’s reflections on survival in extreme conditions in Man’s Search for Meaning, reminds us that meaning – mindset – is not a luxury. It is a critical, life‑sustaining force.
One of Open Water’s foundational beliefs is simple: everyone is a leader.
Leadership is not a title. It’s the ability to influence outcomes, shape decisions and affect how work gets done.
As Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini argue in Humanocracy, many modern organisations are “overburdened by bureaucracy” and constrained by “authoritarian power structures, suffocating rules” that crush creativity and stifle initiative.
“It’s time to free the human spirit from the shackles of bureaucracy – and that doing so will produce profound benefits for individuals, organizations, economies, and societies.”
– Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them by Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini
In the same way that those of us as parents learned that to trust our growing children to use their good judgement meant that they would. Isn’t it time for us to allow the workforce to be treated as adults rather than controlled corporate teenagers?
As I write this, I’m reminded of an activation we ran literally this afternoon with a small leadership team within a big corporate US client. We ran an exercise designed by Patrick Lencioni (Table Group) called Personal Histories to build trust within the group.
One participant told a story of how their mother worked with ‘troubled’ teenagers. During a class, she realised her car was badly parked and asked one of the boys to move the car for her as she couldn’t leave the room. After she handed over the keys and the boy left, there was hubbub of what sounded like disapproval, disbelief and concern from the other folks in the room.
One of the students said: “Do you realise why the boy had been ‘institutionalised’?”
“No,” she replied.
“Stealing cars.”
Her response was simple. So what? He had been punished and had probably learned his lesson. And although she was a little concerned for the next 40 minutes until the boy returned, she was able to say that she’d demonstrated how giving trust evoked trustworthiness.
When people believe they can influence outcomes, they step up. They take responsibility, make decisions and move things forward. When they believe decisions sit elsewhere and their voice won’t count, hesitation and disengagement follow.
In complex environments, organisations can no longer rely on top‑down control. Performance depends on people at every level being able to think clearly, exercise judgement and learn fast.
Culture forms whether it is intentionally designed or not.
Every organisation wants to develop patterns of belief around compelling visions, inspiring purposes and missions, and rewarding, satisfying outcomes. At the same time, organisations also develop beliefs about what is safe, what is rewarded or punished and how pressure is handled.
Over time, these beliefs shape shared behaviours – how decisions are made, how conflict is handled, and how responsibility is owned. This is culture in practice.
When individual mindsets align around ownership, learning and trust, collective behaviours shift. Over time, those behaviours become culture. This is how mindset moves beyond personal development and becomes a lever for organisational performance.
Organisations that want different results must start by cultivating different mindsets.
As articulated by Dan Pink, people perform at their best when three conditions are present:
When these conditions are in place, engagement deepens, learning accelerates and performance becomes more resilient under pressure.
“Autonomy correlates with initiative and innovation. Shrink an individual’s freedom and you shrink their enthusiasm and creativity.
– Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them by Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini
At Open Water, we embed Mindset Inside™ into every aspect of what we do – strengthening individual mindsets, growing leaders at every level, and helping organisations build cultures that thrive under pressure.
Grounded in cutting-edge neuroscience and cognitive behavioural science, we transform research into practical, experiential activations. Through hands-on activities and immersive experiences, participants don’t just hear about mindset – they feel it. These “aha!” moments reveal how perceptions shape behaviour and how shifting mindset can ignite transformation.
When mindset shifts first, execution speeds up. Ownership increases. Change stops relying on force. Agency strengthens at every level, and learning becomes possible again.
Mindset is the difference between organisations that stall and those that adapt.
Mindset Inside™ remains the core lever behind sustainable growth – and at the heart of everything we do at Open Water.
Specialists in the human side of change, we partner with leading life science organisations to deliver deep change and cultural transformation.