Great Minds DON’T Think Alike

Welcome to Love Mondays More, the weekly LinkedIn newsletter that delves deeper into the ideas and concepts driving my Love Mondays email newsletter series .

Why ‘Love Mondays’? Mondays are often the low part of the week, earning the title of “worst day of the week” by the Guinness World Records. So I aim to provide a 4-minute caffeine hit of content to fire up the other 10,076 minutes of your week and stave off the Monday malaise. Don’t just live Mondays, Love Mondays!

We’ve all heard the saying, “great minds think alike,” but I’m a firm believer that real breakthroughs happen when great minds think differently. When you bring together people with diverse backgrounds, ideas, and experiences—that’s where true innovation takes off.

And that’s the idea behind Energy Disruptors , the summit I co-founded in 2017—and still proudly host and curate—to shake up an industry that (like many others!) needs to unleash new thinking and collaborations to overcome the challenges it’s facing.?

From day one, we had a clear vision: disrupt the energy sector by smashing the silos that kept key players apart. For too long, oil and gas stuck to their own lane, battery tech stayed separate, and renewable energy advocates operated in isolation. Everyone was playing their part, but no one was playing together.

But the future of energy isn’t going to be shaped by one sector—it’s going to take all of us working together, collaborating, and sharing ideas.

So, we asked ourselves a simple but powerful question: What if we brought these unlike minds together? What if we took leaders from oil and gas, battery tech innovators, renewable energy advocates, and even those from outside the industry—like finance, tech, and activism—and got them to sit at the same table, challenge each other, and share their visions? What if we allowed some productive heat into the conversation (i.e. permitted respectful challenge and debate)? We didn’t just want the usual suspects at the table; we wanted everyone whose voice and ideas could help shape the future of energy.

Since then, Energy Disruptors has become an award-winning global event that brings passionate and innovative thinkers to the energy table. And, as our next event, EDU24 , kicks off tomorrow!, I couldn’t be more excited to once again host and facilitate the conversations that will shape the future of energy. (If you’re interested you can check out some of the incredible talks from past events here .)

"We believe we can be a catalyst for uniting unlike minds, getting uncomfortable, and challenging the status quo. Through this, we can change the future of not only the energy industry, but the world. We are in the business of inspiration that leads to action." Energy Disruptors

If you want to shake things up in your own organisation or industry, here are three key lessons I’ve learnt from our Energy Disruptors journey that will help you do just that:

3 Lessons from Energy Disruptors to Help You Shake Things Up

1. Break Down Silos

At Energy Disruptors, we saw firsthand how industries—particularly traditional ones—tend to operate in silos. But the future of energy demands collaboration across these divides. So, we created a platform where cross-industry conversations could thrive.

And we didn’t stop there. We invited voices that don’t usually get heard at the same table—thought leaders from different industries, climate advocates, and Indigenous leaders, whose perspectives are absolutely critical to building a sustainable energy future. These are people whose paths wouldn’t normally cross, but when they do, magic happens.

As a leader, think about how you can bring people together from different sectors or departments in your organisation to create unconventional collaborations. True innovation doesn’t come from the familiar—it comes from the unexpected.

1. Invite Voices Outside Your Industry

One of the most powerful lessons we learned was the impact of inviting experts from outside the energy space. Bringing in thought leaders like Malcolm Gladwell, whose expertise is in storytelling and human behaviour, or Susan Cain, who studies introversion, sparked new ways of thinking that wouldn’t have emerged if we’d stuck only to energy insiders. Their ability to offer the view of ‘informed outsiders’ and to offer their professional expertise in a manner that could enrich the thinking of leaders within the energy space injected invaluable ideas into the energy ecosystem.???

Ask yourself: who are the “unlike minds” you can bring into your organisation or leadership team to challenge your thinking?

1. Embrace the Friction

Let’s face it, innovation isn’t always smooth sailing. When you bring unlike minds together, there’s going to be some friction. And that’s okay. In fact, it’s more than okay—it’s necessary. We have to embrace the discomfort, because it’s in that tension that the most groundbreaking ideas are born.?

At Energy Disruptors, we intentionally design panels to make sure we don’t have universal agreement. We explore territories where we expect divergence and invite respectful disagreement. We respect our audience’s intelligence and believe dialogue is stronger where we give voice to objections and critique and provide the opportunity for rebuttal, versus perhaps a more common tendency to avoid the “elephants in the room”.

This can be uncomfortable and it requires the establishment of strong trust and rapport with the presenters and leaders you’re working with. Walking that tightrope has become an increasingly important part of my craft in the last few years but it is a dance, and where my counterparts are prepared to lean in with me, it unlocks a truly special alchemy of vulnerability, intellectual humility and firm resolve that allows the genuine complexity of this moment in leadership to be explored.?

How can you encourage respectful dissent and turn differing perspectives into your team’s greatest strength?

If you’ve got a bit of time, one of my favourite examples of unlike minds coming together was at EDU 2019, when best-selling author and social science expert Malcolm Gladwell, A.I. expert Dr. Vivienne Ming, and the late Sir Ken Robinson, an education and creativity thought-leader, discussed everything from the future of energy and the need for an education revolution, to using AI for good, embracing change, and creating global equality. Check it out below.