The Surprisingly Simple Tactics of Christian Kromme, a Global Futurist and Technology Trendwatcher
Imagine a world-class speaker talking about the latest technology trends. You would expect complex jargon being delivered in typical management consulting style, right?
Think again.
Christian Kromme is a leading futurist and technologist with the surprising method of simplifying his messaging so that anyone can relate to his expertise.
By cleverly aligning disruptive technology with concepts inherently understood by humans, Christian's ability to resonate with any audience has earned him recognition as a best-selling author and sought-after speaker worldwide. Having delivered more than 1,500 keynote speeches across 36 countries, he often guides audiences to a transformative ‘wow moment.’ This includes advising the world's wealthiest family offices, influential personalities, and members of government and royal households.
Despite the rise of AI-related concerns, Christian's expertise remains in demand by top global companies who recognize they have to integrate AI immediately or risk falling behind.
With his direct line to Fortune 100 and 500 CEOs through his weekly AI briefings, Christian is intentional about why he does this work and what his impact will be. His mission is to "inspire a future where technology enhances and mirrors the best aspects of humanity."
While Christian's success is rooted in technology advocacy, he attributes a particular human skill as the top factor in the decision-making process that drives his momentum.
Building Momentum
Although Christian founded a technology company in 2000 and sold it in 2015, he considers the catalyst of his momentum to be writing his best-selling book "Humanification: Go Digital, Stay Human." The book's success led to inbound speaking requests, locally at first, then globally, marking a significant turning point in his career.
Nevertheless, Christian was intentional about growing his reach. He chose to continually simplify the story he tells in his speeches, broadening his audience beyond just technical decision makers.
"I've been telling the same story for the last ten years" Christian noted, "but I try to make it simpler, more visual, and easier to understand for people." This "reduced complexity" as Christian calls it, is his unique value proposition as a speaker and a key aspect of differentiating himself amongst the multitude of AI experts.
During our conversation, Christian candidly shared about his dyslexia and the power of images in his own learning process. A byproduct of those experiences is that he now uses imagery and visual communication extensively in his presentations. This approach allows him to avoid the role of a 'convincer.' Instead, the audience can clearly see and understand the conveyed message themselves, encouraging their independent thoughts and accelerating their move towards transformation.
While Christian's ability to simplify complex ideas and visually convey messages is beneficial, the true strength of his leadership in the technology optimism movement lies in his ability to harness a human capability that is inherent in all of us.
Nature as the Unifier
How do you get people and organizations around the world to buy into a technology embracing, futurist mindset?
Christian skillfully uses nature, the most inherent and primordial component of being human, to explain how we can and should use technology.
While advocating for technology is his underlying theme, Christian's main focus is to show clients "how nature has evolved, what its blueprint is, and how natural processes solve problems."
So what does that actually mean?
Christian paints the connection between the way nature evolves, and our own technological progress. He uses the same patterns and principles that are found in nature, "to create technology that enhances, not overshadows, human life" and demonstrates that throughout his work.
Primarily addressing corporate audiences, Christian understands that not everyone in the company is motivated to think broadly or tackle complex, long-term problems. Taking into account there may be people in the audience solely because their company sent them there, Christian seeks out a way to engage them and create alignment with his messaging, regardless of their outlook.
For example, he uses visual imagery that explains how nature solves complexity within organizations of natural systems. Such as, how cells solve problems in the human body and how cells evolved from single-celled organisms towards the society of cells that make up our bodies today. Ultimately, he makes the point that cells faced the same kind of issues back then that we as humans do today, just on a smaller scale.
Those complexities amongst cells is biology, and the complexities amongst humans today is technology. Christian pointed out "They're building organisms, and we're building organizations, but the pattern is exactly the same.”
He went on to say "By showing people this pattern, they instinctively recognize its truth because nature is true. They see it and can't deny it. The examples are so intuitive and natural that people can't ignore them. They say, 'okay, I believe this is the way, so how can we do it?' That's when we turn to technology and see how we can solve it today."
Only after people make the connection between nature, evolution, and the similarity of technology's evolution to the natural evolutionary process, does Christian demonstrate how they will implement it together and why they should do so.
The Transformation
After learning of Christian's fascinating approach to connecting nature and technology, I wondered how he guided his clients and international audiences to reach their moments of transformation.
I should have seen it coming, because his answer is a fundamental of community building and high-performing teams: anchoring their experience to a long-term vision. What this means is that people are more likely to get on board with a big idea if they see the long-term vision, believe it creates a positive impact in the world, and understand what their part is in that process.
For instance, Christian referred to the ‘Overview Effect’ during our discussion. This is a phenomenon astronauts experience when observing Earth from space and report feeling "overwhelming emotion and feelings of identification with humankind and the planet as a whole.” (Yaden et al., 2016)
Drawing parallels between this overview effect and his mission of transformation for his audience, Christian facilitates a feeling of unity, purpose, and a clear vision of the future, similar to the experience of astronauts thinking about their deep appreciation for the Earth and humankind.
By establishing a future reference point, Christian enables his audience to emotionally connect with what lies ahead. This is no easy feat, as envisioning beyond our current reality can be abstract and challenging. Yet, Christian is dedicated to helping people overcome these hurdles. He encourages them to visualize a world unrestricted by our present limitations and to embrace extraordinary technology that may currently seem unfathomable.
Unexpectedly Human
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Christian’s methodology was his strong belief in emotional intelligence (EQ). Despite working in a data-driven field, he often makes pivotal decisions based on intuition and a deep understanding of the human experience.
When I asked Christian my standard closing question - What was most helpful in your ability to build momentum and make an impact in your field? He chose the answer "Having relationships with the right people." His explanation for how he chose those relations was a simple "I use my gut feeling."
Christian explained that when influential mentors, coaches, or other people first came into his life, he simply asked himself if it felt right. He recalled that on an intuitive level, he observed "What do I feel right now? Is it okay? Is it not okay?" Then, if it felt right he was open to collaboration and working towards a shared goal. He also pointed out that he used intuition to decide on relationships, rather than determining based on profit or if the relationship would bring him other benefits such as additional work.
During our focused conversation, Christian often emphasized the importance of aligning with one's purpose. Similar to popular phrases like ‘follow your north star’ or ‘if it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no,’ he believes that when you are synchronized with your purpose, everything flows naturally and uses the least amount of energy.
To close out our conversation, Christian used a beautiful (and visual of course) analogy of floating down a river: the flow of the river carries you in the direction you want to head automatically. If others are floating downstream, they will naturally join you because everyone is moving in the same direction. He also warned of activities and distractions that take you out of flow, akin to getting out of the river and back in, it uses a lot of excess energy unnecessarily.
As someone who preaches the benefits of disruptive technology, Christian's reliance on emotional intelligence and human intuition was an unexpected discovery. As surprising and delightful as mother nature herself.
References
Yaden, D. B., Iwry, J., Slack, K. J., Eichstaedt, J. C., Zhao, Y., Vaillant, G. E., & Newberg, A. B. (2016). The overview effect: Awe and self-transcendent experience in space flight. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, 3(1), 1.