Edited highlights of our full conversation.

How does your company fit into your story?

Rishad Tobaccowala is a thought leader, author and one of the great provocative thinkers. His insights are drawn from his many years spent as the Global Strategist and Chief Growth Officer of Publicis Groupe and now from his work as an independent advisor to businesses across the world.

We all have a story we want to tell about our lives. Our answer to who we are and why we're here.

For too many years we have tried to mould that story to fit the needs of the companies we wanted to work for.

If we were accepted, the shape that we had carved ourselves into became a lasting edit. One that we carried with us to the next job. And the one beyond.

And what we too often left behind was the story of who we wanted to be.

That has changed now. The individuals stand firm and watch potential employers twist themselves into pretzels to convince the candidate of the company's rightness, its worthiness, its fit.

Which, from a leadership perspective, strikes me as a mistake.

The tsunami of change brought about by a global pandemic will slowly recede, and the companies left standing will be those who stayed true to their stories and know the kind of people that can help write the next chapter.