The alarms went off the evening before. Schools went back to home learning overnight. At 8 AM the next morning, fifty leaders walked into Media One Hotel for the Bravos Lab with Aqsa Khalifa on Working with Gen Z.
This is a short note on what happened in the room.
Who hosted: Aqsa Khalifa, Pupilar, NextGen Talent Fest
Aqsa is co-founder and COO of Pupilar and Festival Director of NextGen Talent Fest. She works with the generation entering the workforce every day. The theme of the Lab — Working with Gen Z: Comedy, Chaos, and Control — was hers, and she earned it.
The room
Stephane Brismontier warmed up the room. Media One Hotel laid out a great breakfast. Four of our Accredited Coaches were there — Carine Bouery, Maud Gaspard, Benoit Demeulemeester, Paul Littlejohn — listening to UAE leaders share things they do not usually say out loud at work. We experimented. We laughed. We played.
What we did not expect: a real part of the room was Gen Z. Working leaders, founders, students. A Lab about working with Gen Z became a Lab with them in it. That changed the conversation in ways that would not have happened in a room of only senior people speculating about a generation. The senior leaders asked the questions they had been holding back for months; the Gen Z leaders answered them directly, and asked harder ones in return.
The LIE framework: one of many insights
Aqsa closed the session with her LIE framework — Loyalty, Identity, Energy — three things this generation looks for in the people they choose to work for. It was one of many insights from the morning. If you want to know more, ask Aqsa directly.
What this Lab made visible
A few things worth holding onto from the morning:
This is the second time in three months a Bravos Lab has happened in a room of people who chose to be there during a regional security event in the UAE. We are not going to overstate it. We will just say: the community is what it is.
Eighty-one leaders had registered. Fifty made it. Thirty-one did not. The room that showed up was the room that decided to.
What the Lab makes visible — every time — is the gap between leaders who say employee engagement matters and leaders who put time into it. The people in this room had already crossed that line. That is the only ticket Bravos checks at the door.
Find some of the pictures here
Coming next: the Corinne Konrad Calder Lab, June 9th
The next Lab is Monday June 9th. Corinne Konrad Calder on relational well-being at work. Same format, same kind of room — though the room is bigger now, and a bit sharper.
Register for the next Bravos Lab →
— Yves, on behalf of the Bravos community
