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2025-10-13 03.28.17 PM
Andy IslerOct 20, 2025 11:59:47 AM4 min read

The Future of Management Meetings – Why 2026 Will Be the Year of Experiential Leadership

Feel the Strategy.

Strategies rarely fail because of ideas.
They fail because people don’t feel them.

2026 will be the year when Management Meetings reach their true potential –
not as information sessions, but as transformation spaces
where leadership becomes tangible, attitude visible, and strategy truly experienced.

The most successful organizations understand that leadership can’t be explained –
it must be activated.
Energy, emotion, and participation are the new currencies of impact.

Leadership becomes real when people don’t just listen to strategy –
but feel it, act on it, and embody it.
And that’s where the Return on Emotion (ROE) begins –
the model Creating Future uses to turn meetings into real movement.

 

Why 2026 Will Be the Year of Activation

In an increasingly complex world, leaders are under pressure to provide clarity, purpose, and direction.
But traditional meetings are reaching their limits: too linear, too passive, too little resonance.

The trends are clear:

  • Emotion over information – content must move people to be remembered.

  • Space as amplifier – environments become strategic catalysts.

  • Experience over agenda – co-creation, simulation, and storytelling replace passive formats.

  • Measurable impact – emotion and energy become new performance metrics.

Leadership is no longer discussed – it is practiced: together, active, and experiential.

The ROE Model – Return on Emotion

With the Return on Emotion (ROE) model, Creating Future has developed a framework that makes the emotional effectiveness of management meetings visible, actionable, and measurable.

ROE means that emotions are no longer side effects,
but a strategic resource for sustainable leadership.

Only when people feel what a strategy means does identification emerge.
Only when they resonate does momentum build.
And only when they act does vision become reality.

ROE measures how strongly a meeting generates energy, engagement, and emotional alignment.
For organizations, that means faster implementation, stronger leadership coherence, and a more vibrant culture.
For participants, it means purpose, motivation, and true agency.

ROE_Model_CF

The Six Levers of Successful Management Meetings in 2026

 

1. Emotional Focus over Rational Overload

Numbers explain. Emotions anchor.
In 2026, it’s not about what is said – but what is triggered.
Meetings must generate energy, not just understanding.
People don’t act because they’re convinced – they act because they feel connected.

2. Spaces with Meaning

Physical space amplifies mental energy.
The more extraordinary the location, the stronger the effect.
Spaces speak – before a word is said.
From the Grimsel power station carved into the rock, where energy is literally under pressure,
to the tropical greenhouse beneath the Alps, where leadership learns balance,
to the abandoned cinema in Berlin, where the future takes the stage.
These places are not backdrops, but catalysts
opening perspectives, shifting patterns, and creating resonance between attitude, emotion, and strategy.

3. Participation as Principle

Leadership emerges through participation.
People don’t want to be informed – they want to be involved.
Meetings that generate energy turn participants into co-creators,
fostering ownership, trust, and shared momentum.

4. Narrative Connection


Strategy needs story, not slides.
Storytelling translates objectives into meaning and shared direction.
When head and heart beat in sync, strategy becomes collective movement.

5. Technological Co-Creation


Technology expands experience – it doesn’t replace it.
AI-driven tools, metaverse environments, and live analytics
create new levels of interaction and emotional engagement.
The future lies not in data, but in the connection between people, ideas, and technology.

 

6. Measuring What Truly Matters


ROE shifts the focus from attendance to transformation.
What counts is not who was present – but who was moved.
Sustainable impact shows in how people think, feel, and act differently afterwards.

 

Two Cases That Created Movement

 

The Knowledge Hotel – Where Leadership Becomes Real

A leading global insurance company wanted to modernize its leadership strategy
and launch a new service unit.
Creating Future developed the virtual “Knowledge Hotel” – an immersive learning environment in the metaverse –
combined with a real-world leadership experiment:
120 executives ran a hotel for three days under the new leadership principles.

Strategy turned into behavior, theory into culture.
Participants experienced what empowerment, customer focus, and agility truly mean –
and brought that understanding back into their daily leadership.
The result: sustained strategic alignment, a stronger culture,
and a measurable Return on Emotion.

Hotel_Workshop_check-In

Leadership on Set – When Strategy Becomes a Shared Script

At a leading Swiss private bank, strategy became cinema – and leadership took the director’s chair.
Under the guidance of Pierre Maillard, management teams received an incomplete script
with the key points of the new corporate strategy.
Their task: to create a story that made the strategy emotionally tangible and culturally resonant.

Each team produced one scene; the full picture emerged only through collaboration.
The outcome was more than a film – it was a shared understanding of leadership,
purpose, and strategic coherence.
A vivid example of the transformational power of the Return on Emotion.

2025-10-20 08.48.58 AM

Both formats proved one thing:
When strategy is experienced, it creates resonance.
When resonance emerges, it shapes attitude.
And when attitude aligns, transformation begins.

Both case studies are available for download in our Whitepaper below.

Conclusion – The Leadership Lever of 2026

The true lever of the future lies not in talking, but in experiencing.
Management meetings are becoming strategic activation formats –
where strategy, emotion, and space merge into a living experience.

These gatherings are no longer obligations.
They are stages where strategy turns into culture
and the future becomes tangible.

When people experience what strategy means,
momentum, identification, and measurable Return on Emotion (ROE) follow.

Whitepaper Download
“Management Meetings that Move – Turning Strategy into Impact with ROE”
Discover how to transform your next management meeting into a strategic activation format –
with real-world cases, tools, and the most extraordinary locations around the world.
(Includes case studies, checklists & location guide.)

 

 
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Andy Isler
Andy Isler Creative Director, Experience Designer & Chief Future Activator at Creating Future Known as the Quantum Alchemist, Andy activates creative intelligence in leadership, culture, and transformation. He helps organizations and leadership teams break fixed patterns, ignite bold visions, and turn change into an experiential future story – beyond PowerPoint and buzzwords. His specialties: – Transformative leadership offsites – Immersive brand experiences – Future-driven activation formats – live, hybrid, and AI-powered Andy doesn’t believe in planning the future linearly. He believes in radical rethinking. That’s why he creates spaces for thinking. For experience. For future. With clarity that resonates, ideas that last, and formats that move people – activating real transformation.
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