Who Are Your People Learning From?
Your best people may be ready for the next step. Are they connected to the people who can help them take it?
By Sharon Schön, VP Partnerships, PWN Global
Think of the last time someone returned from a conversation outside their organisation with an idea that changed how they worked. A fresh perspective. A challenge to conventional thinking. A connection that opened a door.
How often does that happen by design, and how often by chance?
Businesses invest in developing talent, yet much of that development takes place among people who share the same systems, assumptions, and professional circles.
There is a world of experience beyond those walls. Are your people connected to it?
Talent is everywhere. Opportunity is not.
The joint Lean In and McKinsey & Company Women in the Workplace 2025 study (link to: Women in the Workplace 2025), covering corporate America, found that 93 women were promoted to manager for every 100 men. At the entry level, 31% of women had a sponsor, compared with 45% of men. Employees with sponsors were promoted at nearly twice the rate of those without one.
The message is clear: talent matters, but so do the relationships that help it progress.
A sponsor who advocates for you. A mentor who has navigated the next step. A peer in another industry who sees a solution you have overlooked.
Sometimes the most valuable person in your professional circle is someone your organisation would never have introduced you to.
The advantage of thinking beyond your own walls
At PWN’s 2026 Global Summit in Lisbon, leaders from different sectors, countries, and generations explored Collaborative Intelligence: what becomes possible when people challenge assumptions and learn from perspectives different from their own.
The principle applies well beyond leadership events. Organisations need people who can see beyond their immediate environment, build relationships across boundaries and bring fresh thinking to familiar challenges.
For businesses operating internationally, those connections can also offer something particularly valuable: global reach grounded in local understanding.
This is where partnerships can make a difference. They create opportunities for people to connect beyond their usual professional circles, while giving organisations a more purposeful way to engage with wider talent communities and markets.
And balanced leadership cannot be left to women alone. It takes women and men working together to widen access to opportunity and change who gets heard, supported, and promoted.
Three questions for your next leadership meeting
- Who, outside our organisation, challenges the thinking of our future leaders?
- Who is advocating for talented people whose potential might otherwise go unnoticed?
- What opportunities could emerge if our people had access to a wider professional world?
If those questions give you pause, perhaps the next step in your talent strategy lies beyond your organisation.
Dare. Network. Be visible.
At PWN Paris’s 30th anniversary this autumn, three words captured the spirit of network-building: Osez. Réseautez. Soyez visible.
Dare. Network. Be visible.
Good advice for professionals. Equally relevant for organisations.
Your next breakthrough may not come from another internal initiative. It may begin with a conversation you would never otherwise have had.
Read how your organisation can partner with PWN to connect people, perspectives and opportunities across markets.
Contact partners@pwnglobal.net to start the conversation.