In 2020, we asked, "Are passionate, agile mindsets coming out of colleges and universities the most precious raw material that employers seek to develop and promote?" The answer was yes, to paraphrase then Chief Marketing Officer of a leading US corporation. In 2025, there's never been so crucial a mindset for any team or organization. It's likely to be a highly sought after and rewarded trait.
In that 2020 face-to-face sit down with MBA students, top executive Kevin Warren provided three career tips for excelling in one's career journey based on his having excelled in C-level leadership at Xerox, UPS, on public company boards, and as a Georgetown University trustee.
Said Mr. Warren, "Companies looking to grow globally look for people who can help them do it — people who are passionate with agile mindsets, innovative ideas and diverse backgrounds." Leadership lessons he learned along the way and his three key bits of advice included:
1. Make success a matter of choice.
2. Resolve to do the unthinkable.
3. Reframe change as an opportunity.
He added, "Successful companies know customer decisions and loyalty spring from interactions with people." Indeed, agile-mindset employees are a competitive advantage!
Eric Gustafson, Founder/President of Access Point Partners, who has known Mr. Warren for two decades, added, "An agile mindset which equips one's career begins in college and is often seeded from outside the course curriculum. Degrees are verifiable, but an agile mind requires probing. When we interview executives, we go back and explore this area."
For instance, did a candidate (when in college) place themselves within agile and diverse programs, attend debates, etc. for perspectives other than their own found beyond the classroom? Or, did they only leave with a degree and a linear mindset?
Back in 2020, one school with potentially fertile ground for enabling the "agile mindset" was Lafayette College in Easton, PA. Then Prof. Brandon Van Dyck, with a co-founding student, created a debate and speakers program named The Mills Series to schedule debates and events offering competing perspective. What a concept! Outside funding of The Mills Series was provided and embraced by "free speech" supporters and agile-thinking alumni who were successful current and former entrepreneurs, consultants, corporate executives, and wealthy retirees.
Still, in 2020 it was too early to know whether Lafayette's students' futures and careers were benefiting from The Mills Series. Unfortunately the opportunity stopped there as its momentum was halted: Lafayette's faculty, President, and Trustees declined tenure to Prof. Van Dyck and The Mills Series co-founder, a Harvard PhD credentialled moderate, left the college. Seeds don't root in rocky terrain, yet being highly agile himself, Van Dyck moved on to lead an enthusiastically-received initiative at Princeton University and to this day is advancing agile perspectives across the conservative/liberal spectrum.
Employers sought agile, diverse thinkers in 2020 and they still do. Despite an academic organization rejecting diverse-thought-initiatives, agility cannot be sidelined. Of all ironies, Prof. Van Dyke went forward to be embraced by the Princeton, the #1 ranked University in the United States.
As 2025's new frontiers come into view, agile people and organizations will be more important than ever from addressing governmental restructuring to private sector adaptations. Agile leaders are in high demand and those companies empowering them will be the highest performers.
Eric Gustafson
For information on The Mills Series go to: https://www.themillseries.org/#about
“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.” John Stuart Mill
For Mr. Warren's post on LinkedIn go to: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kevin-warren-cmo-ups_ups-weareuofl-uoflbiz-activity-6629040065639137281-vMe5
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