Engaging people starts with an organisation’s culture, values and leadership, it does not depend on an individual’s educational or professional background. The current education system rewards people on their ability to learn, assimilate and feedback. We have absolutely no evidence that the best people to lead organisations in the future are those who have firsts from leading universities. Success in these terms tells us nothing about a person’s empathy with the world, nothing about their capability to work with people and motivate people. But currently there is no entry system to the world of work unless you conform to a certain model. We constantly sift different people out when we should be finding ways of sifting them in, otherwise we risk losing their potential and our competitive advantage. In the future talent must focus not just on developing products and services but developing an empathy for the environment in which they will be delivered, for example developing products that flourish in a lean energy economy. This will create the value economy that will supersede the so called knowledge economy: how can we build an economy on something that is ubiquitous and free?