by Dr. Roze Phillips | Sep 16, 2025 | African Future Desk
We are excited to launch our inaugural White Paper in collaboration with GIBS Business School (Gordon Institute of Business Science)‘s Personal and Applied Learning Centre. It emphasises the importance of anticipating and embracing uncertainty instead of fearing it. Futures Consciousness offers a set of strategic foresight skills for the future-fit because, as per Peter Drucker: “The best way to predict the future is to create it”. You can also access the full paper above and sign up for our 2-day Futures-Ready Executive Programme at GIBS launching early in 2025. More to come on this.
Access White Paper: https://gibswebsitestorage.blob.core.windows.net/cmscontent/media/yhbhh0g0/cross_developing-leaders-with-futures-consciousness_2024.pdf
by Dr. Roze Phillips | Sep 15, 2025 | Radiocasts
While we are training our machines, our machines are training us. Are we outsourcing our thinking, the very thing that sets us apart as humans? AI is helping us write faster, work faster, and think faster. But could it also be quietly eroding our ability to think deeply, solve problems creatively, and connect meaningfully? Are we slowly training ourselves out of the very skills that make us human? The real risk of AI isn’t job losses, it’s that we might lose our ability to think. It isn’t just automation, it’s atrophy, which if ignored, could shape tomorrow’s work in ways we might regret. It’s about mental fitness. If we stop practicing critical thinking, creative problem-solving, and deep collaboration, those muscles weaken, just like any underused muscle. Listen to Dr Roze as she unpacks this for us.
by Dr. Roze Phillips | Aug 11, 2025 | Radiocasts
This Saturday we all celebrated Women’s Day in South Africa — a day where we honour women’s resilience, leadership, and contribution. But Dr Roze says it’s time to stop celebrating resilience and start asking the system to be accountable. She calls it The Permanent Understudy Economy and that “we need to stop empowering women”. If that seems a bit counterintuitive—especially during Women’s Month, then yes—because it’s become a comfortable lie. We love to say, “Let’s empower women.” But empowerment often assumes that women are the problem. That they lack confidence. That they need fixing. We’ve made a career out of asking women to endure, adapt, and be endlessly ‘empowered’ without ever actually transferring power. That’s the heart of the Permanent Understudy idea.
by Dr. Roze Phillips | Jul 14, 2025 | Radiocasts
Every year on 18 July, we celebrate Mandela day. Why is care so rare that we have to schedule it on special days? What happens when care becomes the exception instead of the norm? Have we designed it out of society entirely, and if so, what does that mean for our future? Listen to Dr Roze as she tackles all these questions and more.
by Dr. Roze Phillips | Jun 9, 2025 | Radiocasts
Do we only see our youth in economic terms—unemployed, not productive enough, not “ready”? What is Shame and why is it different to guilt? Listen to Dr Roze as she discusses why shame is one of the most corrosive emotions a human being can feel, especially when you’re still forming your identity. Shame and guilt are often confused, but they are not the same. Guilt says: “I did something bad.” Shame says: “I am bad.” And as Dr Roze points out, for a young person, that is dangerous.
by Dr. Roze Phillips | May 26, 2025 | Radiocasts
Listen to Dr Roze as she explores what it means to create spaces—not just for growth or profit—but for dignity. We know her as our favourite African futurist, but now she also adds to her titles – author of a powerful new White Paper titled Spaces for Dignity. It’s an URGENT call to business, academia, and society to transition from extraction to regeneration. Three years ago, she felt like the world was unravelling. She knew we needed a shift—not from greed to guilt, but from extraction to regeneration. She went looking for it—and found it, right here in Johannesburg, where she lives.
