Edition 2025: Navigating uncertainty
Talk about little, talk about uncertainty. Between economic crises, environmental pressures, technological change and reconfiguring consumer expectations, retail and e-commerce brands are treading on shifting sands. Their strategic plan? It often melts like snow in the sun. So how do they stay the course? One way is to make learning a lever for transformation, well beyond the "HR training" box.
This is the gamble taken by Agnès Alazard, co-founder of Maria Schools, who came to shake up our certainties at the One to One Retail E-Commerce event.
VUCA, BANI... and us in the middle
Remember the acronym VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity)? It's a mild euphemism for the new way of looking at the future that futurists are proposing: BANI stands for Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear and Incomprehensible. And that's just the beginning.
In this context, the very notion of a linear strategic plan loses all meaning. ‘Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face,’ jokes Agnès, quoting Mike Tyson. For her, we need to relearn how to reason: abandon roadmaps set in stone and cultivate scenario-based thinking, attentive to weak signals. Above all, we need to free ourselves from three obstacles: judgement, cynicism and fear.
Learning is no longer an option
So how can we move forward when the environment is changing faster than our organisations? By putting learning back at the heart of the game. Not top-down, static learning in dusty e-learning mode. But active, applied, strategic learning.
That's the DNA of Maria Schools. Here, we don't talk about "ready-to-consume content", but about unlearning in order to make room and put ourselves in a position to learn based on today's needs, then experiment and put things into practice. "Our only obsession is that it works. You learn by doing", Agnès insists. Her inspiration? Maria Montessori, of course.
The result: training courses that are co-constructed with the teams and directly relevant to their day-to-day work. All supported by multi-disciplinary methods drawn as much from pedagogy as from design thinking, neuroscience and... yoga.
The key skills are not the ones you think
Knowing how to code or handle generative AI is important. But it's not enough. According to the OECD, 80% of fundamental skills between now and 2030 will be cognitive. The future of work will first and foremost be human.
Collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking... these famous "soft skills" are becoming the new currency. With one nuance: they are no longer enough. We need to add a meta-skill: adaptability. And to achieve this, learning to learn is becoming a way of life.
Maria Schools relies on a form of reasoning that is all too rare in the professional world: computational thinking. Formulate a problem, test it out, fail, adjust and try again. All without fear of making mistakes. What if learning by doing became your next growth lever?
Learning also means (re)inspiring people
"Who here did sport last week? And who has been training? The question posed by Charlotte Bricard, host of the conference, drew a smile from the audience. We take care of our bodies, why not our brains?
But beware, if employees are to want to learn, we need to change the paradigm. Agnès talks about "skills-based organisations": companies where everyone knows their skills, their desire to progress, and builds their career path like a pack of cards to be added to.
Some of the big companies are starting to do this - L'Oréal, LVMH, Danone, etc. - because they have realised that the challenge is no longer just performance, but retention and collective resilience.
Inspiration from elsewhere... and from unexpected places
At Maria Schools, we also look to New York, where the Daybreaker concept combines yoga and dance at dawn to boost participants' energy. Or Japan, with “Shoshin”, the beginner's spirit that allows you to remain curious, open and humble, even when you're an expert.
It's not anecdotal: this mental posture makes all the difference in a world that's changing at breakneck speed. And it's precisely this kind of energy that we need to inject into our organisations.
In conclusion: learning as a compass
Continuous learning should no longer be a luxury, or an HR option. It's a strategic investment in the face of uncertainty. It's a way of strengthening our collective ability to improvise, to bounce back, to innovate - in short, to stay on the move.
What if, to weather the storms ahead, you decided to make learning your Plan A?
