José Andrés’ keynote at Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo London 2026 brought creativity, adaptability and purpose into the leadership conversation. The message that stayed with me was his emphasis on responding to the situation in front of us. My notes capture the idea that a plan develops through being on the ground and engaging with the complexity of the moment. For workforce leaders, I see a powerful invitation to stay close to reality as they make decisions.
The photograph I took records the phrase “Adaptability beats planning.” I understood the wider lesson as a challenge to plans that prevent people from responding intelligently when circumstances change. Andrés connected creativity with action and a willingness to move beyond a familiar comfort zone. His account made adaptability feel like something demonstrated through decisions, rather than a quality that can simply be declared in a strategy document.
José Andrés’ keynote emphasised adaptability. Photograph from Alison’s session notes.
Learning through the situation
My notes refer to his restaurant work and World Central Kitchen’s work serving meals in war zones. The significance in this keynote was the relationship between purpose and response. Food was a concrete need around which action could be organised. Andrés’ perspective encouraged leaders to recognise complexity without waiting for every part of a situation to become predictable before doing something useful.
I would apply that lesson carefully to organisational work. A workforce plan provides direction, but it should also help people respond when conditions change. My reflection is that leaders need feedback from those closest to the work, together with the judgement to revise a course of action. Otherwise, a plan can remain internally consistent while becoming less relevant to the problem it was intended to solve.
Recognising the courage to decide
Another line in my notes was the need to celebrate people brave enough to make a decision. That raised an important question about the behaviour organisations reward. If leaders ask for initiative, I would want them to consider how they respond when someone makes a thoughtful decision under uncertainty. The reaction can influence whether the next person speaks up, tries an alternative or waits for permission.
This is my interpretation of the keynote’s relevance to HR. Adaptability requires people who can read a situation and an environment in which they can act responsibly. I would bring that into development conversations through the decisions people actually face: what they noticed, how they chose and what they learned. It makes the capability more tangible than a general expectation to embrace change.
Keeping purpose in view
Food security was another substantial thread in my notes. Andrés discussed threats associated with weather, pests and conflict, and the importance of giving food a place in leadership priorities. My takeaway was the value of paying attention to an essential need that can become easy to take for granted. It widened the discussion of innovation beyond organisational efficiency and towards the consequences of leadership choices for people.
The notes also record experimentation with seeds that grow in seawater and a closing image of longer tables and shared connection. I took these as expressions of curiosity and a generous view of possibility. They linked the willingness to try a different approach with an ambition to bring people together. That combination gave the keynote a distinctive place within the conference’s discussion of transformation.
As a future-of-work expert and founder of AmpliTask, I left thinking about strategic workforce adaptability: the ability to redirect expertise towards a changing need while retaining a clear sense of purpose. Gartner’s platform brought a different leadership experience into the room, and Andrés made its relevance easy to feel. The question I would carry into a planning conversation is whether our approach helps people respond to reality, learn through action and keep the human purpose of the work visible.
Sources
Session notes and photographs by Alison, Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo London 2026.