Would you prefer a crystal ball or a flawless chess strategy?
This question encapsulates the essence of foresight versus strategy.
As we go into the new year, we explore five predictions for 2025 that go beyond the hype and provide real trends to watch.
“Bull in China Shop” Leadership
The Era of the Strongman is upon us, with governments trending toward more command-and-control leadership. History repeats itself. Will this be the kind of authoritarian leadership that lifted 800 million people out of poverty (as seen in China) or will it resemble Chainsaw Al Dunlap’s turnarounds, which couldn’t withstand scrutiny? Markets (and strategists) thrive on stability, and I’ve seen gains from top-down planning in Asia (hello, Singapore!), but not without feedback mechanisms or counterbalances. Many government systems are broken enough that some good may emerge from such leadership, so long as it doesn’t sacrifice human well-being. However, in a world where AI is replacing human labor, the incentives aren’t always aligned.
My Take: Prepare for policy shifts and embrace constructive opportunism. Scenario planning across possible outcomes and developing flexible execution strategies will be a competitive advantage.
This shift towards command-and-control leadership is occurring alongside another major trend: the fragmentation of media.
Distributed Media is the Media
The hollowing out of news media as a business, the proliferation of long-tail content and the Murdochization of the media (secure power for profit, secure profit for power) is reaching its natural end point.
Most major media outlets reinforce existing biases or dole out entertainment that we can talk about at the office. Business media, once trusted for objectivity, has fallen prey to broad institutional distrust, but continues to be one of the only curators of capitalist credibility.
Information has exploded exponentially, much of it machine-generated noise. We thus look to our own lookalikes for information that seems credible and craft our info-input graph using our social graph via bloggers and experts who range from flammable provocateurs to credible, deep thinkers.
My take: AI will supercharge the ability for business to aggregate data to monitor and craft reputation with real time responses, changing the way people use news. Authenticity will reside in individual creators for now. Curate your sources, mindful of your own bias. Check all sides of the story.
Inclusion is out, Flourishing is in
“Speak softly and carry a big stick,” said President Teddy Roosevelt. It’s clear from the legal backlash in the US against ESG and walk-backs by some larger corporates on their sustainability policies that performative virtue is out.
C-level insiders are now pivoting from being vocal “allies” to quietly focussing on ensuring financial success in precarious environments via access to talent. The World Economic Forum Jobs Report shows large companies are particularly focussed on this. Agility requires pulling from the greatest pool of talent, especially with declining demographics in developed markets.
This means less media hype but more real work on quality data across healthcare, work, investment that helps balance the playing field for success. This is a long term goal with short term opportunities to create the data sets and new business, like the folks at SHAPE, who are quantifying human flourishing.
My take: Create environments for people to flourish by starting with data about what they need. Map medium-term needs with benefit policies and learning and development to ensure a competitive edge in talent.
Work is Dead, Long Live Value Creation
Achieving peak company productivity requires two things: widespread generative AI adoption and minimal employee disengagement or displacement.
Gig work has flatlined but portfolio work has exploded and the move towards “skills, not jobs” supports the trend towards companies of one, fractional execs and internal mobility in companies.
My take: While technologists are accurately adopting generative AI, companies haven’t fully used people as catalysts to create opportunities beyond simply increasing efficiency. This was a key topic in my 2024 keynotes. In 2025, most learning and development teams will prioritize ‘AI catalyst’ programs.
AI Superpowers Redux
Geopolitics will remain complex, and China will continue to play a significant role. The AI Superpowers competition between China and the US will intensify as new products emerge from the BATs (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent). Don’t forget that China accounted for 10 percent of Meta’s sales in 2023 – and that from a country that doesn’t have allow any Facebook or Instragram users. China is going global where it can.
My take: The AI Superpowers competition of China vs. US will also heat up as new products come on the market from the BATs.
That’s a condensed ride through new predictions for 2025. If you want to discuss your own company predictions and scenarios, let’s chat!
P.S. I bet a bottle of champagne with my daughter that self-driving cars will be common in cities in ten years. She disagrees. What do you think?