As 2025 rolls around, it feels as though we are staring yet another year of uncertainty in the face. From rising global conflict to political upheaval, the climate crisis and the ongoing cost of living, the world looks and feels a bit…wobbly.

But clients often ask me, ‘is it really any more uncertain than it has always been?’. Well, yes! Since 2020, the International Monetary Fund has helpfully published the World Uncertainty Index, the first global measure of uncertainty and one that gives a really useful historical perspective on patterns and drivers of uncertainty around the world for the last 60 years. Short version, uncertainty is rising and has been for decades. For the longer version, take a look at the Index’s origin story.

So now that we can safely assume that uncertainty is real and is on the increase, SO WHAT for organisations as we look to the future?

Well, lots of change and uncertainty there too of course. Remember the heady days when it seemed possible that we’d only have to transform our organisation once, or once every five or ten years, allowing us to really embed the change, from strategy through to culture? Accenture’s Pulse of Change: 2024 Index, suggests that those days are long gone and, like the global pace of change, the pace of organisational change is fast, and the speed is increasing. USA based think tank Reinvention Academy’s latest speed of change research found that 20.6% of companies were reinventing every 12 months or less to survive in 2022[SL1] . They are currently collecting data for 2023 and 2024.

From a brand and strategic perspective all of this change means there is a need for far greater willingness to build agility and flexibility into the way that organisations intend (or hope!) to create value for themselves and their clients in future. Strategy is after all a theory for success that is vulnerable to reality, rather than a plan with a guaranteed outcome.

We need to shifting our mindset from planning for one version of the future to preparing for multiple possible futures.

Done right, this multi-future perspective opens the door to the opportunity to rethink and reimagine what the organisation can do and for whom. New markets, new customers, new offerings. A chance to thrive, rather than simply survive.

Futures Cone graphic (Hancock and Bezold)

But what about employees, tasked with making it happen? For them, delivering in the day to day, change and transformation can feel more like punishment than opportunity. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2024 report seeks to bring the voice of the employee to the fore. Reading it is like hearing a scream from employees everywhere ‘Please, make it stop!’.

According to this most recent issue of the report, only 23% of employees are ‘thriving and fully engaged at work’. Meanwhile 63% are ‘quiet quitting’, in other words, they’re employed but not engaged. Perhaps most worrying, 15% of employees around the world are ‘loudly quitting’, actively resisting change in their organisation.

In the context of the last four years in particular, it’s perhaps easier to conclude that employees don’t fear change so much as they fear loss. And they have lost so much already to uncertainty on the global stage. With the trend in uncertainty set to continue.

And that is the opportunity; defining and communicating[1] a clear, compelling and engaging vision of the future your organisation wants to build and be a part of. What culture are you trying to create? What impact do you want to have in the world, what’s your PURPOSE? How will you know you’re being successful?

While you must do the thinking to define the primary outcomes (the WHY and the WHAT), through engagement with your brand, employees and customers can help you to shape the HOW. Not just in the short term but throughout the journey from here to there. What do they want to see in and from this organisation? How will they measure your success? What part do they want to play in the organisation’s story?

Defining the HOW together in this way helps to create accountability and predictability in the actions you then take to make the vision a reality: whether that’s ensuring the story of your organisation seen by a potential employee is then lived by them as a new recruit, or the consistency and quality of the experience you offer to customers across the portfolio. Accountability and predictability are key to building trust.

In times of great uncertainty, your stakeholders are searching for clarity and predictability. Your brand is a vital tool in both telling and shaping the future story of your organisation.

A clear vision enables the entire organisation to align around act in pursuit of specific outcomes. But only if you communicate it. Harvard Professor, and change guru, John Kotter famously found that organisations typically under-communicate their vision ‘by a factor of ten (or 100 or 1000)’.

About the author

Eleanor is a foresight and innovation specialist whose career has spanned legal policy, money laundering investigations, innovation and future thinking. She designed, built and led KPMG’s Future Institute in the UK, the firm’s first foresight capability, and has worked with the senior leadership teams of organisations spanning multiple sectors and industries from healthcare through to mining, logistics and financial services.

Eleanor is co-author of The Disruption Game Plan: New rules for connected thinking on innovation and risk and a member of faculty on the Kings College London and Duke Corporate Education Executive MBA programmes

[1] A clear vision enables the entire organisation to align around act in pursuit of specific outcomes. But only if you communicate it. Harvard Professor, and change guru, John Kotter famously found that organisations typically under-communicate their vision ‘by a factor of ten (or 100 or 1000)’.