Blog

Future Focus: Preparing Your Team for 2025 and Beyond


As a leader, you must focus on the right priorities as we move towards 2025. There are many internal issues – like flexible work, diversity, and AI – but the most important focus should be external – on your customers.

Are you focusing on the right things when you’re thinking about your work and workplace in the year ahead?

I was reflecting on three conversations I had with clients and audience members last week – one in the insurance sector, one in mining and resources, and the third in a large state government department. In all of those conversations, people asked me essentially the same question:

What’s the most important thing we should be thinking about when planning for 2025?

If you’ve been following me, you know I have many answers to that, including flexible work, more diversity to tackle complex problems, and of course AI. These ARE important, of course, but they are also all issues you’re facing internally.

The one thing that trumps them all is to focus on your customer. Think external first! Whether you call them customers, clients, members, patients, or constituents, it doesn’t matter.

Always keep asking: What problems are we solving for them now and in the future?

This has two components:

  1. Be sure your customers, and their problems and goals, right now.
  2. Understand the needs of your future customers.

As a leader, you have this two-fold responsibility: to keep your team focussed on what your customers need right now, and also understand what’s coming up over the horizon and around the corner.

You might think you do really understand your customers because of your experience, long-term connections, and strong loyalty. But it’s also easy to get so caught up in internal things that you forget about your customers. Maybe you were solving their problems in the past, but if they have drifted or you have drifted, you might not be as closely aligned anymore.

This is one of the four pillars of the future of work: What I call “Assess”. This is about assessing future trends, knowing what they mean for your customers, and adapting your work to match.

I’m running a free public online presentation about the future of work very soon. It’s open to everybody, particularly leaders who want to understand how to be fit for the future, especially in 2025 and beyond. I’ll share some ideas around each of these four pillars, and also give you practical things you can do right now in each area. It’s open to everybody, so please register and invite others to join as well.

REGISTER FOR THE VIRTUAL MASTERCLASS

Find Out More

Scroll to Top