Deliberate Calm: How to Learn and Lead in a Volatile World

Drawing from a unique blend of psychology, neuroscience, and consciousness practices, as well as more than fifty years of combined international boardroom experience, three experts offer a unique approach to leadership development, learning and leading with awareness and intentional choice amid even the most challenging circumstances.

As change accelerates daily in our increasingly complex world, leaders tasked with performing outside their comfort zones in both their personal and professional lives must adapt. Yet the same conditions that make it so important to adapt may also trigger fear, causing resistance to change and a default to reactive behavior. The authors call this the “adaptability paradox”: at a time when we most need to learn and grow, we stick with what we know, often in ways that stifle change and innovation. To avoid this trap and be ahead of the curve, leaders must become proactive.

Enter Deliberate Calm, which combines cutting-edge neuroscience, psychology, and consciousness practices, along with the authors’ decades of experience with leaders around the globe. By practicing Dual Awareness, which integrates internal and external experiences, leaders can become resilient and respond to challenges with intentional choice instead of being limited to old models of success. With Deliberate Calm, anyone can lead and learn with awareness and choice to realize their full potential, master high-stakes decisions, and thrive even in times of uncertainty, complexity, and change.

How can you stay resilient and make intentional choices when the pressure is on?

• Adaptability and Learning: Overcome the “adaptability paradox” that keeps you stuck in old patterns precisely when you need to innovate most.
• Self-Mastery Practice: Learn to use Dual Awareness, an integrative method for observing your internal and external worlds to respond with intentional choice instead of being limited to old models of success.
• Neuroscience-Based Tools: Discover how cutting-edge research from psychology and neuroscience can help you regulate your stress response and remain calm under pressure.
• Team Effectiveness: Apply these principles not just to your own performance, but to foster resilient and effective teams capable of navigating uncertainty and complexity.

Jacqueline Brassey, PhD, MAfN, is McKinsey’s chief scientist, the director of research science for People and Organizational Performance at McKinsey, and a global leader with the McKinsey Health Institute. She is also affiliated with the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands, is an adjunct professor at IE University in Madrid, Spain, and serves on the supervisory board of Save the Children NL. Jacqui and her husband, Nicholas, live in Luxembourg with their teenage twins.

Aaron De Smet is a senior partner at McKinsey & Company. For twenty-five years, he has helped institutions transform to improve performance and organizational health. After getting his MBA in 1992, Aaron helped lead research to enhance the impact of behavioral health programs. He earned his PhD in social and organizational psychology at Columbia University and joined McKinsey in 2003. He lives with his family in Montclair, New Jersey.

Michiel Kruyt is the CEO of Imagine.one with a mission to help business leaders create systemic transformation toward a more sustainable and equal planet. Before joining Imagine, Michiel was a partner at McKinsey & Company and a cofounder and managing partner of change leadership at the firm Aberkyn. He started his career working for Unilever in the Netherlands, Italy, and the United States. He is a board member of the Urban Consciousness Center in Amsterdam. Michiel, his wife, Christine, and their three children live just outside Amsterdam.