Rishad Tobaccowala on Why “Change Sucks but Irrelevance is Worse.”

What I’ve Learned

For decades, Rishad Tobaccowala has helped leaders navigate transformation. He’s seen organizations and individuals falter not because they lacked talent, but because they misunderstood the landscape they were operating in.

“Change sucks, but irrelevance is worse.”

His word encapsulate what he's witnessed again and again: leaders clinging to the familiar, failing to understand how the world around them was shifting, and then losing their influence.

Understanding the landscape, he believes, requires constant reinvention — not as a one-off act, but as a lifelong discipline.

How I’ve Sharpened

Rishad has developed personal practices that keep him attuned to the landscape and prevent him from becoming static:

• Read widely, outside of business. He draws insights from poetry, philosophy, and art. “The best way to understand tomorrow’s business is to understand today’s humanity.”
• Teach what you learn. Writing, speaking, and mentoring clarify his own thinking and force him to distill the noise into what truly matters.
• Seek cross-generational input. He actively learns from younger voices and listens to older perspectives, ensuring he sees trends across time, not just in the moment.
• Experiment constantly. He pilots new tools, technologies, and platforms before they’re mainstream — so he can understand not just how they work, but how people are using them.
• Reflect daily. Practices of writing and meditation help him separate signal from noise, sharpening his perspective on what really matters.

Why It Matters

Understanding the landscape is not about looking harder at what’s in front of you. It’s about expanding your lens so you don’t miss the forces reshaping the horizon. Rishad’s story reminds us that leaders who don’t invest in reinvention risk irrelevance. But leaders who commit to seeing the world differently — across disciplines, generations, and cultures — not only understand the landscape, they shape it.

“The world doesn’t stop changing. Neither can you.”

About Rishad Tobaccowala

Rishad Tobaccowala is a senior advisor, board director, and author of Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data and most recently “Re-Thinking Work.”  Formerly the Chief Growth Officer of Publicis Groupe, he is recognized globally as one of the most original voices in marketing and leadership. He helps organizations and leaders embrace change with humanity, curiosity, and courage, reminding them that reinvention is the only true safeguard against irrelevance.