In times of crisis, many of us ponder existential questions about

health, security, purpose, career, family, and legacy. However,

more often than not, such contemplation is short-lived. The
demands of everyday life — the here and now — can overwhelm
us, leaving little time to think about the long term and what we
are working toward. As a result, when faced with life decisions
both big and small, we are left with nothing to guide us but
emotion or intuition.

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The corporate equivalent, of course, is attempting to run a

business without a strategy, which every HBR reader knows is a
losing proposition. But as longtime consultants to organizations
around the world, we wondered: Could we adapt the model for
strategic thinking that we use with institutional clients to help
individuals design better futures for themselves? The answer is
yes, and the result is a program that we call Strategize Your Life.
We’ve tested it with more than 500 people — including students,
young professionals, middle-aged employees and managers, C-
Vanessa Branchi suite executives, board members, and retirees — to help them
develop their individual life strategies.
The Big Idea Series / Strategize Your Life

Use Strategic Thinking to Create the You can create a life strategy at any time, but it can feel especially
appropriate at certain milestones — a school graduation, the start
Life You Want
of your first job, a promotion, becoming an empty-nester, retiring
by Rainer Strack, Susanne Dyrchs, and Allison Bailey — or after a major life event, such as a health scare, a divorce, the
December 05, 2023 loss of a job, a midlife crisis, or the death of a loved one. When you
have a strategy, you will be better able to navigate all those
transitions and difficult moments, building resilience and finding
Summary. In corporate strategy projects, executive leadership teams work more joy and fulfilment while minimizing stress. This article will
through a series of questions to determine how their businesses can succeed. help you get started.
Individuals can use a similar process to figure out how to live a meaningful life. It
starts with defining what makes a great life... more
A Surprising Symmetry
Every corporate strategy project is different. But the hundreds
that we’ve conducted for large organizations have had
commonalities, including the use of certain methodologies and
tools. We typically work through seven steps, each guided by a
question:

1. How does the organization define success?

2. What is our purpose?

3. What is our vision?

4. How do we assess our business portfolio?

5. What can we learn from benchmarks?

6. What portfolio choices can we make?

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7. How can we ensure a successful, sustained change?

As the former head of strategy for a U.S.-based Fortune 50
These steps can be easily adapted to an individual: company told us, “Knowing the right questions is much harder
than having the answers.” Just as corporate strategy is an

1. How do I define a great life? integrated set of choices that positions a company to win, life
strategy is an integrated set of choices that positions a person to
2. What is my life purpose? live a great life. What’s more, we can apply tools from classic
organizational strategy and other realms to help you find answers
3. What is my life vision?
to the seven questions above and make better decisions.
4. How do I assess my life portfolio?
Critics might say that you can’t transfer concepts from business to
5. What can I learn from benchmarks?
life. In the 1960s there were similar concerns about whether
6. What portfolio choices can I make? strategy ideas from the military and politics could apply to the
corporate world. The management guru Peter Drucker even
7. How can I ensure a successful, sustained life change?
changed the title of his 1964 book from Business Strategy to
Managing for Results because everyone he and his publisher
asked told them that strategy belonged to those realms, not to
business. Yet we’ve also seen business-world principles employed
to improve people’s self-management. For example, in their best-
selling book Designing Your Life, Stanford University’s Bill process. In step 1 you define what a great life means for you. In
Burnett and Dave Evans modified the design thinking they used step 2 you outline your purpose; in step 3 your life vision. Step 4 is
in software development to help individuals. a portfolio analysis of how you spend your 168-hour week, while
step 5 involves setting life satisfaction benchmarks. In step 6 you
Strategize Your Life is our attempt to do the same for strategic incorporate the results of the first five steps and determine your
thinking in a concrete, step-by-step way. We believe it can lead choices and potential changes in your life, and in step 7 you map
you to new insights on how you define and find your great life. out a plan for putting your choices into action. We recommend
Our goal is to give your emotion and intuition an analytical that you take notes throughout so that, by the end, you can put an
partner. initial version of your life strategy on a single page. (To help, we
created a life strategy worksheet, which should be filled out after

In surveying our workshop and coaching session participants, we you’ve gone through all the steps.)

found that, in the past, only 21% had outlined what a great life
means to them, 9% had identified their purpose, 12% had set a This work may seem daunting, but in practice it should take you
vision for their life, 17% had created concrete goals and only a few hours. That said, it might not be easy. You will have to
milestones, and a paltry 3% had developed what could be called a challenge yourself and go beyond the obvious. But you shouldn’t
life strategy. These are critically important issues that very few of give up, because the answers you’ll discover are so worthwhile.
us are spending enough time on. After all, what’s more important than your life? Commit to
thinking strategically about it, look forward to the insights you
Strategize Your Life: will gain, and enjoy the journey.
Series reprint

 buy copies

As Martha, a 26-year-old graduate student, explained, “Life keeps

taking shape… When all the Christmas parties and weddings and
trips are suddenly over, you ask yourself, ‘Have I really lived or
has life just happened to me?’” She was eager to be more
proactive. “What better help is there than a high-level plan for
life?” she asked. “Not to strictly follow it and forbid life to unfold,
Watch Rainer Strack explain how to build a successful
but to have a common thread. What should my story be? What
life portfolio.
should I have experienced so that in the end I can say to myself, ‘I
have lived’?”

Unlike most self-help books, we don’t present one golden path to

The Seven Steps
happiness or life satisfaction. Because everyone is unique, we give The process begins with a simple yet profound question:
you the tools to find your own path in a seven-step life strategy
1. How do I define a great life? A framework that includes all these factors — hedonic,
eudemonic, and relational — is the PERMA model, introduced by
The starting point of any corporate strategy process is to define
Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology and a
fundamental metrics for success. For instance, does the
University of Pennsylvania professor, in his 2011 book, Flourish.
organization want its strategy to focus on driving sales,
Other researchers later developed it into PERMA-V, which stands
shareholder value, or positive societal impact?
for Positive emotions (frequent feelings of pleasure and
contentment), Engagement (being in the flow, losing track of
What are the right metrics in an individual’s life? Our social
time), Relationships (mutual feelings of caring, support, and
norms and hierarchies might suggest we measure ourselves with
love), Meaning (contributing to making the world a better place),
money, fame, and power. But studies have shown that money
Achievement (striving for success or mastery, reaching goals), and
leads to greater happiness only to the extent that our basic needs
Vitality (being healthy and energetic).
are met, after which its returns diminish or even plateau. Other
research shows many of us are on a “hedonic treadmill”: After we
To determine what makes a great life for you, start with each
get a pay raise, are promoted, or purchase something that triggers
element in PERMA-V, or even add your own categories, such as
a pleasurable high, we return to our original level of happiness.
autonomy or spirituality. Then rate each one’s importance to you
And then there is social comparison — no matter what you
on a scale from 0 (not important) to 10 (very important). Try to
achieve, someone will always be richer, more famous, or more
recall periods of deep satisfaction in your past and consider what
powerful than you.
triggered them.

The ancient Greeks saw two main dimensions of a great life:

In the first step of strategy projects, we conduct a comprehensive
hedonia (a focus on pleasure) and eudaimonia (a focus on virtues
analysis of the status quo. So, you should also rate your current
and on meaning). More recently, scholars have pointed to the
satisfaction with each dimension on a scale from 0 (not at all
importance of social connection. A study of more than 27,000
satisfied) to 10 (very satisfied). This quick assessment will give
people in Asia found a strong correlation between being married
you a rough idea of how you define a great life and initial ideas
and being satisfied with life, while a study that has followed 268
about what you need to change.
Harvard College men from 1938 to the present, and was expanded
to include their children and wives, as well as a study that has
followed 456 residents of inner-city Boston since the 1970s, also
2. What is my life purpose?
expanded to include children and wives, found that meaningful For a corporate strategy to be successful, it must be anchored to
relationships were the key driver of long-term happiness. The late the organization’s purpose, which lies at the intersection of, What
Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen agreed: In are we good at? and What does the world need?, and takes into
his classic HBR article “How Will You Measure Your Life?” he account, What are our values? and What excites us? Using these
wrote, “I’ve concluded that the metric by which God will assess questions, we’ve helped companies around the world develop
my life isn’t dollars but the individual people whose lives I’ve purpose statements. A purpose statement serves as an important
touched.” guardrail for your strategy and is a North Star for your
organization.
The same questions can be used to find your life purpose. Ask cited health care, freedom, and equality. In the end, he wrote this
yourself, What am I good at? Think about situations at work or in purpose statement: “Remain medically passionate, willing to
other areas of life in which you have demonstrated critical learn, entrepreneurial, and strong-willed to drive medical
strengths such as creativity, teamwork, or communication. Then innovation and create equitable access to health care for people.”
ask, What are my core values? Think about critical decisions
you’ve made and principles you hold dear that have provided A chief human resources officer at a global industrial company
direction, such as honesty, fairness, or integrity. There are dozens wanted to step down from her current role but was unsure
of online lists and tests to help you consider your most important whether she should look for a similar role in another company or
values. The next question is, Which activities light me up? do something completely different. She went through the seven
Perhaps your answers include mentoring, problem-solving, or steps and came up with a simple purpose statement, “To help and
engaging with different types of people. Finally, ask, What need lead others to aspire,” through which she realized that she did
can I help address in the world? It could be one of the 17 want another senior HR role, just in a different company.
Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, such as
health, education, gender equality, or climate action, or it could There are other methods for defining one’s life purpose, of course.
be something much more general, such as love, kindness, trust, or But it’s important to find the time and a way to do it. We’ve seen
security. some workshop participants sharpen their existing purpose ideas,
while others have had a real “aha” moment, finally understanding
In the purpose-defining stage of strategy projects, we conduct what they were meant to do. Purpose guides your life strategy.
belief audits to get input from many stakeholders. Do the same.
Ask friends or family members what your strengths are, what 3. What is my life vision?
values you live by, what things excite you, and what need you
might help fill. The next step in building a corporate strategy is to set out a vision
for the future. We typically ask leadership teams where they want
their organization to be — in terms of innovation, growth,
Draw from your own answers and theirs to draft a purpose
product portfolio, market presence, etc. — in five to 10 years.
statement, and then ask for feedback on it. Or you can engage
Often we have them ask themselves questions like, What
ChatGPT in an interactive dance, using the answers to the four
newspaper headline about our company would we like to read a
questions as input to help you develop your purpose statement, as
decade from now?
Tom, a climate physicist, did in one of our recent workshops.

Individuals should also strive to envision who they want to

When Joudi, a Kurdish refugee from Syria currently living in
become in the years ahead. As the Stoic philosopher Seneca said,
Germany, went through this exercise, he identified his core
“If you do not know which port you are sailing to, no wind is
strengths as ambition, passion, and hunger for knowledge. His
favorable.” At the same time, you want to remain open to
core values were justice, peace, family, and charity. He said he was
surprises and serendipity. Seneca commented on this as well:
most excited by innovation, neurosurgery, and entrepreneurship
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
(notably his experiences selling accessories as a street vendor in
Strategizing your life is the preparation.
Istanbul and founding a multilingual AI-powered integration
support platform for Ukrainians who had fled their country for
Germany). As for the world needs he wanted to address, Joudi
So, ask yourself: What story would I like people to tell about me 4. How do I assess my life portfolio?
five to 10 years from now? What would I do if money wasn’t an
Companies typically use portfolio analysis to assess their business
issue? What will the 80-year-old me not want to have missed in
units on key parameters such as market growth or share and to
life? Your purpose and your strengths might also trigger some
decide where to invest capital. BCG is well-known for its 2×2
ideas about your vision.
growth-share matrix.

For this step we have used a photo-sorting exercise similar to

But what is the equivalent of a business unit in life? We focus on
what our corporate clients use in branding and innovation
six strategic life areas (SLAs): relationships; body, mind, and
strategy projects. Out of 180 photos, workshop participants select
spirituality; community and society; job, learning, and finances;
two to four that best represent their personal and professional
interests and entertainment; and personal care. We then
vision — what one person described as a “mood board.”
subdivide the six SLAs into 16 strategic life units (SLUs). (For a full
list of the SLUs, see the exhibit “The Key Areas of Life.”)
In both business and individual life strategy, a vision can give you
focus. Jim, who will soon be a doctor, had a purpose statement
that was rather general: “Bring people together and share
passions.” His vision was more concrete and specific: “To create
spaces for more social encounters, such as a medical practice with
a shared coffee shop, and to get involved in homeless medicine.”
Your vision should be equally descriptive.

You might end up with a short list of bullet points or a one-

sentence summary of your vision. No matter how you capture it, a
vision statement can be powerful in guiding your life. An example
we love comes from our colleague Sebastian when he was 14. After
a poor math test result, his teacher told him, “Teaching you is a
waste of time” and warned he’d never get a high school diploma.
For the next couple of years Sebastian took that to heart, skipped
school, and started working as a bricklayer. Eventually, however,
he decided to make a change, and it began with this vision
statement: “I will go to university and get a PhD and then go back
to my math teacher — all in the next 10 years.” He did just that,
graduating summa cum laude with a PhD in economics, and in
another 10 years he was a managing director and a partner at See more HBR charts in Data & Visuals 

BCG.

And what are the equivalents of capital expenditures in life?

Time, energy, and money. A week has 168 hours. How do you
spend them? With your significant other, with family, at work,
playing sports, at church, getting a good night’s rest?
Look back at the past year, including holidays, and assess how societal engagement, and education/learning. His job/career SLU
much time you spent on each of the 16 SLUs in an average week. was split between two quadrants, and he was spending too much
When an activity crosses categories, split the time between them. time on online entertainment, which charted in the bottom-right
For example, if you went jogging with your significant other for quadrant. It became clear to Toni what he needed to change.
one hour a week, allocate half an hour to the significant other SLU
and half an hour to the physical health/sports SLU. Next, rate all
16 SLUs on a scale of 0 to 10 based on how important they are to
you. Then rate the satisfaction you derive from each on the same
scale. (This goes one level deeper than the similar PERMA-V
exercise.)

Now sketch out your own 2×2; we call it the Strategic Life
Portfolio. But instead of mapping growth against share, you will
put the importance of each SLU on the y-axis and the satisfaction
it brings on the x-axis. Plot each SLU with a bubble, making the
size of the bubble roughly proportional to the percentage of time
in a week you spend on it.

In the top-left quadrant, you will find the SLUs of high

importance and low satisfaction. These are areas of high urgency,
because you care about these activities deeply but aren’t focusing
on them enough to get the most out of them. The SLUs in the top-
right quadrant also deserve some attention: You want to keep
devoting significant time and energy to your most important and
highest-satisfaction activities, and invest less in those that are less
important (bottom left and right).

Finally, look at your entire 2×2 and ask yourself: Does my current
portfolio of SLUs put me on the right track to support my purpose
and achieve my vision? Does it bring me closer to how I define a
great life? Where can I save and reallocate my time? Just as in
corporate strategy projects, you want to set some high-level
priorities — rather than a detailed plan — for investments of your
time, energy, and money.

When Toni, an engineer, completed this exercise, he saw four

areas for urgent improvement in the top-left quadrant: significant
other (since he didn’t have one), mental health/mindfulness,
 See more HBR charts in Data & Visuals 

5. What can I learn from benchmarks?

In almost every strategy project, we do a best practice and
benchmarking analysis to understand what we can learn from
leading companies. We can do the same for individuals by looking
at role models and then, more importantly, at the research on life
satisfaction.

Ask yourself: Who conducts their personal and professional life in

a way I admire? Maybe it is a coworker caring for his bedridden
parent, the mother of three at your kids’ school who also manages
payroll for a Fortune 500 company, or your religious leader who
lives his purpose. Ask yourself what makes them admirable, and
what choices they would make if they were in your shoes.

Now consider what scientific studies tell us about life satisfaction

— not anecdotally but across large populations. We already
mentioned the Harvard and Asia studies. One of the largest
studies worldwide on life satisfaction is the German Socio-
Economic Panel survey, which covered almost 100,000 people
from 1984 to 2019, gathering more than 700,000 completed
responses. It found that significant others, children, friends,
sports, spirituality, community involvement, salaries, savings,
and nutrition all contribute to life satisfaction. Not surprisingly,
health problems have a very negative impact, and you can find an
optimum amount of time to spend on leisure and sleep.
 See more HBR charts in Data & Visuals 

Other studies have found that proven life-enhancers include

practicing kindness, mindfulness, meditation, and gratefulness;
cultivating more humor and laughter; dedicating time to
learning; and developing a growth mindset (that is, believing your
abilities and life can improve through effort and persistence).

As you do this work, it’s important to understand and learn from

what has worked for others, while also remembering that you
can’t just copy and paste someone else’s approach. Your life
strategy should be unique to you.

6. What portfolio choices can I make?

Corporate strategy is about making choices between options:
Should we keep our current portfolio, diversify, focus, acquire a
company, or enter a new market? In life, the equivalent questions
are: What happens if I continue to live my life the way I am now?
What if I change my priorities? Equipped with your definition of a
great life, your purpose, your vision, your SLU ratings, and your
benchmarks, you are ready to find out.

Go back to the great-life exercise in step 1 and think about what

you can do for your areas of dissatisfaction. Review your purpose
and vision from steps 2 and 3 and brainstorm how you might
realize them. Think about the SLUs that step 4’s portfolio exercise
identified as needing more attention, and how you can improve
satisfaction or reallocate time there. Then consider how the
insights gleaned from step 5’s benchmarks can help you with all of
the above. From this long list of potential changes and actions —
small and large — select several that will best move you toward a
great life, and commit to them.

Now you need to be specific about what you want to change.

Examples from our workshop attendees include reconnecting
with three friends from school, visiting one’s grandpa every week,
engaging in a weekly micro-adventure with one’s significant
other, changing jobs, committing to a new sleep schedule, trying a which benefits those around you and makes you more productive
meditation app, starting a gratitude journal, spending more time at work, potentially leading to new outputs that greatly impact
with one’s kids, exercising every day, supporting refugees, starting the lives of others.
a social business, practicing religion again, dedicating 15 minutes
to learning every day, switching college majors, converting a van
into a camper to travel, and moving abroad. The possibilities are
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On the other hand, you have only 168 hours each week, which
means you must reduce, outsource, or bundle existing activities, Sign Up
or make them more efficient through productivity strategies and
tools. For example, when you work out with your boyfriend or
volunteer for a good cause with your friends, you are bundling If you know which strategic life unit needs work but don’t know

sports and significant other or societal engagement and what changes to make, dig deeper and develop a substrategy for

friendship. Life strategy is about setting priorities; it is not about that unit — a job/career strategy, a family strategy, a mental

filling every waking minute. Remember to reserve space in your health/mindfulness strategy, and so on — just as each business

calendar for downtime as well. Researchers at the University of unit does with the overarching corporate strategy.

Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and UCLA’s Anderson School of

Management found that people are happiest when they have two For example, to develop a job/career strategy, ask yourself the
to five hours of free time each day. following questions: How does my current job support my
purpose and vision? Does my current job give me a sense of

When Judi, a workshop attendee, finished making her list of achievement and engagement (two of the six great-life

actions, she commented, “If I change all this, I will be a different dimensions)? How does my current job align with the strengths I

person in a few weeks.” Your life strategy could involve big steps identified in the purpose step? Finally, look for benchmarking

like starting a business, traveling the world (as one of us did), or data, such as BCG’s Decoding Global Ways of Working study,

setting up an NGO, or it could involve a small step like meeting for where we list the top 10 criteria of great jobs according to more

coffee every week with people you care about. Even a small than 200,000 respondents. Again, rate how your job measures up

change can have a big impact in two key ways. First, if you do it to these criteria. The answers to these questions will give you an

over and over again, you take advantage of the compound growth idea of how to move forward in your career.

rate. Second, you are a node in a network of people, so your

change not only affects those close to you but also ripples 7. How can I ensure a successful, sustained life change?
outward. After all, sometimes big changes are triggered by small, Change is not easy. Need proof? More than 40% of Americans set
seemingly insignificant actions — the famous butterfly effect. For New Year’s resolutions each January, and reports indicate that
example, research has shown that doing just 15 minutes of more than 90% fail to follow through on them.
physical activity a day increases life expectancy by three years
(despite amounting to only about half a year of time investment).
Many companies, such as Google, ensure successful
Exercise also gives you a dopamine boost, improving your mood,
implementation of the strategies they’ve outlined by using OKRs
(objectives and key results). OKRs are focused, ambitious, output-
oriented, flexible, measurable, and transparent. Your One-Page Life Strategy
Often, the seeming enormity of an important task — like life
We recommend doing the same for each of the changes you strategy development — is what stops us from doing it. So, to
committed to in step 6. Define the broad objective and the date by make what seems impossible possible, we recommend recording
which you want to achieve it. Then break down each of those your entire life strategy on a single sheet of paper or in a single
objectives into a few key results or action items, again with location. If you have finished the exercises in this article, you can
deadlines. Consider adding them directly to your calendar. If you easily do this. To start, write down what defines a great life for
are unsure about implementing a big move in your life, you. Next, record your strengths, your values, what lights you up,
experiment. For example, Toni identified mental and what the world needs, and then add your purpose statement
health/mindfulness as a high priority, so he might set an objective that incorporates those ideas. Third, summarize your life vision.
of “Download an app and try meditation techniques for 10–15 Fourth, refer to that 2×2 you sketched and note the SLUs that are
minutes a day (finish by the end of November).” He could then high priorities for action or that you spend too much time on.
break it down into two key results: (1) review meditation apps and Next, write down the changes you’d like to make and commit to.
get started (first week of November), and (2) try an app for three Finally, for each of those changes, list an objective and two to
weeks, review the experience, and make it a daily habit (last three three key results with deadlines, and then note the anchors, the
weeks of November). consequences, and the check-in plan to make the change stick.

There are many ways that companies hold themselves to OKRs. Download the PDF. 

Here, we focus on three of them. Anchoring means sharing your

plan, as Google does by making its OKRs public. Who will you tell
about your plan or ask to join you on your journey? Strategy
projects always involve small teams, so consider not only seeking
input from others but also inviting one or two people to work on
their own life strategies and then workshop everyone’s results as a
group. Consequences means setting up incentives for
achievement, such as bonuses for success or penalties for failure.
How will you reward yourself when you’ve successfully changed
an aspect of your life, and what will the consequences be if you
don’t? And check-ins means routinely stepping back, refining and
adjusting your efforts, and celebrating your achievements, as
agile project development teams do. When each week can you
spend 15 minutes to review and update your life strategy?

Toni, for example, might tell a friend to hold him to his changes,
promise to donate a significant amount of money to a charitable
cause if he doesn’t stick to them, and schedule a weekly check-in
with himself every Sunday before his study session.
 The chief human resources officer we mentioned earlier puts her
one-pager on top of all the papers on her desk. She looks at it
every day to reinforce her belief in what makes a great life and to
ensure she executes on her strategy for achieving it; when she has
an idea for refinement, she writes it down. You can try that, too. A
couple we worked with, who wanted to develop life strategies in
tandem, went so far as to document their life purposes and goals
with photos and notes in a picture frame. They hung it on the wall
of their home, a daily reminder of where they want to go both
together and as individuals.

Life is full of adventure and trauma, love and sadness, joy and
stress. It can be great or terrible. There will be ups and downs. But
a lot of it depends on you and the choices you make. A life
strategy will not only guide you but also build your resilience so
that you’re better able to recover from missteps.

Sophia, a doctor who suffered from a serious chronic illness,

wrote to us after attending a workshop: “I realized I want to make
more decisions, do really crazy things, enjoy small and big
moments, celebrate successes, go to places I’ve never been, meet
people I’ve never seen before, take breaks in between, follow my
flow, and make myself my most important project in life!”

Now, go and do the same. Your life is your top strategic priority.
This page is your first minimum viable life strategy. As with
corporate strategy, it needs to be reviewed, adjusted, and updated
on a regular basis. Proprietary data from BCG suggests that 50% of
companies review their strategy once a year, and 20% more than
once a year — what we call always-on strategy development.
Rainer Strack is a senior partner emeritus and
a senior adviser at BCG, where he built up and
Likewise, in addition to your weekly 15-minute check-in, we led the global People Strategy topic for 10 years.
In 2014 he gave a widely watched TED talk on
recommend scheduling a longer, one- to two-hour review session
the global workforce crisis. He formerly
with yourself, or with the life strategy group you started with coheaded the Future of Work initiative for the
other people, every six to 12 months. Review all seven steps, World Economic Forum, and in 2021 he was
inducted into Personalmagazin’s HR Hall of
consider setbacks or shifting circumstances, and adjust Fame. He is a fellow of the BCG Henderson
accordingly. Institute.
 Susanne Dyrchs is an executive adviser, a
coach, and a people strategy expert. She is also
a BCG U faculty member and a coauthor of
numerous publications on organizations,
leadership, and talent. She has written a
personal account of her transformational
journey, Wir-Zeit [Us Time], which was
published in 2021.

Allison Bailey is a senior partner and a

managing director at BCG. She leads the firm’s
People & Organization practice globally and is a
coauthor of several publications on the future
of work, the bionic company, digital learning,
and upskilling. She is also a fellow of the BCG
Henderson Institute.

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