Decide Your Destination in 2026

As we all navigate our Future of Work trajectories, how far out are you looking? A short term mindset shortcuts the critical long term shift. Unrelated, limited adjustments with truncated timeframes work for temporary situations, not structural, evolutionary developments. Weekly, monthly or quarterly tweaks enable your business to adapt and grow sustainably ONLY as coordinated elements of an expansive, digitally-integrated, transformative strategic plan.  

“Short-termism is a real problem in corporate America. You have to take a long-term view.” — ​Indra Nooyi​, former CEO, PepsiCo.

In a period of turbulence, short-term reactions may seem to make sense. The aim might be to meet key customers' urgent demands, increase teams' tactical use of AI tools, or tighten budget reins to cautiously keep costs constrained.

However, a patchwork of uncoordinated adjustments cannot generate the comprehensive overhaul your business needs for the AI/digitalised landscape and accompanying dynamism of modern work. While uncertainties can reduce clarity to a few months or less, research/reports align to indicate evident trends.

To compete, a system-wide, structural transformation - including redesigning operations and work - is ultimately needed. A multi-year plan comprises timed, company-specific clustered shifts which, being interdependent, must integrate to upgrade your entire ecosystem with long-term investment in transformation.

“The greatest mistake investors make is to believe that what happened in the recent past is likely to persist.” — ​Ray Dalio​, Founder of Bridgewater Associates.

Shift from Short-Sightedness

Among seven interwoven aspects, focus with intention on the foundational four to coordinate your plans for the year ahead. Take a long-term view to build the critical cornerstones of the flexible, digitally-mature system you need:

1] STRATEGIC STRUCTURAL AI

AI is now integral to business infrastructure and workforce skills. Without investment in AI dexterity, governance, and strategic deployment, your company risks structural obsolescence.

Short-termism results in low or fragmented investment, rushing pilots without governance, ethical frameworks, and suitable workforce integration. Training is still lacking leading to uneven adoption and resistance, increasing risk.

Most companies are early in scaling AI and capturing enterprise-level value [McKinsey ​State of AI in 2025​]. In 1-3 ('Now') and 3-5 ('Near') year timeframes, Gartner sees growing gaps between AI-mature and -immature organisations across internal platforms, agentic and physical AI, and security aspects.

• 1/3 are scaling AI across the enterprise.
• 62% of respondents are experimenting with AI agents.
• AI high performers are 3.6x more likely to expect their organisations to use AI for enterprise-wide transformative chance.
• AI high performers are 2.8x more likely than others to be fundamentally redesigning workflows when deploying AI [McK, ​State of AI in 2025​].

“Technology leaders face a pivotal year. These trends are not just technical shifts — they are strategic imperatives.” — Gartner, ​Top Technology Trends 2026​.

2] DIGITALLY RESILIENT OPERATIONS

Modern operations depend on an integrated ecosystem, with flexible digitalised workflows. Delayed investment (money and time) results in operational fragility.

A short-term approach causes delayed upgrades, extended use of temporary workarounds, distributed teams lacking updated workflows and tools, and inefficient, often rigid, processes that strain people and resources.

A fragile system limits growth and hampers future capacity expansion and scale while maintaining quality. Underinvesting in your company's digital foundations undermines your ability to execute a coordinated AI strategy.

• Disruption is up 33% y-o-y [Accenture ​Pulse of Change: 2024 Index​].
• 100% of C-suite leaders anticipate significant changes to the workforce.
• 30% of C-suite leaders feel confident in their change capabilities [Accenture, ​Change Reinvented Report​].

"Today, all leaders need to be successful at leading change in order to develop culture and activate strategy—it's fundamental to growth, resilience and innovation,” said ​Karalee Close​, global lead of Talent & Organization at Accenture.

3] HUMAN-CENTRIC SUSTAINABLE WORK

Talent strategy must balance new tech-driven dynamics. Digitalised business demands competitive responses including integrating digital labour and building long-term trusting relationships instead of transactional interactions.

Short-term hiring/firing cycles reduce institutional knowledge and erode trust and psychological safety leading to lower engagement and results. Employees feel pressured to upskill amid rising concerns about AI replacing jobs. Unaddressed burnout decreases engagement, productivity, and results.

Meanwhile, to achieve AI productivity gains 80% of firms are predicted to evolve large software engineering teams into smaller, AI-augmented teams by 2030 [Gartner, ​Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2026​]. How might your company effect this structural change (no layoffs necessarily involved)?

A modern social contract at your company - founded on intentional mutual investment in learning, flexibility, and empathy - can forge strong bonds to co-create a sustainable balanced talent-based, tech-driven competitive business. With trust and transparency, the workforce community can collaborate and adapt to the shifting blend of employees, contractors and digital labour.

4] (ECO)SYSTEMS THINKING

The Future of Work is ecosystem-based. Your organisation is an integrated system encompassing the Customer Journey and Employee Journey and extends across your entire supply chain - including partners and vendors, wholesalers and other intermediaries.

Isolated projects or solutions don't recognise unintended consequences such as greater complexity or cost. Short-term perspectives, transactional exchanges, and decisions based solely on cost undermine sustainable growth. Lack of investment in interoperable or shared applications hinders scaling.

Long-term systems design enhances resilience, improves collaboration and strengthens forecasting and adaptability. Businesses rely on partnerships with aligned or shared strategies, ease of communication, and external expertise to innovate rapidly.

Other areas to pay attention in your long-term planning for 2026:

5] CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE & LONGEVITY

6] EXPERIMENTATION & INNOVATION CAPACITY

7] PURPOSE, IDENTITY & DIRECTION

Additional useful reports for your holiday break reading and planning:

• ​Reinvention in the age of generation AI​, Accenture.
• ​The 2025 AI Index Report​, HAI Stanford Univ. Human-Centered AI.
• ​Why You Need Systems Thinking Now​, Sept-Oct 2025, HBR.
• ​2026 Global Digital Trust Insights​, PWC.

PLAYING THE LONG GAME IN 2026

Most transformations fail because organisations don't plan long-term and continuously clarify, communicate, and coordinate.

Which of the four key areas mentioned above is bothering you most:

· AI strategic integration - how to add sustainable leverage not noise.

· Digital resilient operations - flexible, adaptable, and updated processes.

· Human-centric talent management - trust, training, and transparency.

· Systems thinking - an expansive, coherent, coordinated approach.  

I've added a few more 20-minute Intro Sessions through Jan 5th. These no-cost sessions are available only to newsletter subscribers.

Book a slot and bring one live situation - such as human-AI balance, hybrid productivity issues, or generational friction. We’ll cut through the noise, discuss your options, and consider the best next steps.

📹 ​Human skills we need in an unpredictable world​, Margaret Heffernan.

📘 ​The Ecosystem Economy​, Atluri and Dietz.

🗞️ ​Why Some Companies Grow Amid Uncertainty​ - and Others Don't, HBR.

🎶 ​Roads​, Portishead - great music for the journey.

The organisations that thrive over the next 12 months won’t be the ones that reacted fastest in 2025. They’ll be the ones that invested time, energy and attention, designed intentionally, and stayed focused on what matters most. Build advantage, develop resilience, centre on people, find your long-term direction, and go for it.

Meantime, take advantage of some days off to think through a few gnarly issues bothering you. I have some slots over the next 2-3 weeks to engage and share perspectives and experience. ​Click here to book a 30-minute session.​

Play the long game.

See you after the holidays!

‍

Sophie