There’s a lot coming at us… are we ready?

I’ve had a lot of conversations lately with people trying to navigate what’s coming and what’s next.

Leaders are talking about AI, new strategies, restructures, changing client expectations and new ways of working. Organisations are investing heavily in initiatives designed to help them adapt, grow and perform. Individuals are wondering what all of this means for their roles, their careers and what they need to do next. There is a lot coming at us. And, understandably, that can feel overwhelming.

But there is something else I’ve been hearing too. Despite all the investment, not everything is landing as intended. Programs are launched but don’t always stick, new technology is being introduced but isn’t necessarily embraced, strategies make sense on paper but don’t always translate into different behaviours, and organisations restructure, but some of the same problems remain.

Why aren’t some of these investments delivering what they should?

Perhaps part of the answer lies in what we mean by preparation.

Preparing for more than just the WHAT

When organisations know something is coming, they generally do a lot to prepare their people for it. If it’s new technology, we explain what it does and train people how to use it. If it’s a new strategy, we communicate the direction and what it means for different teams. If it’s a restructure, we explain new roles, reporting lines and responsibilities.

In other words, we tend to prepare people well for the WHAT: What’s changing? What do I need to know? What do I need to do?

All of that matters, there is another part of preparation that can receive far less attention: HOW people will respond.

Will they:

∞    Approach what’s coming with curiosity or scepticism?

∞    Take ownership or wait to be told?

∞    Protect what they know or be willing to let something go?

∞    Work with others or retreat into their patch?

∞    Focus only what the change required of them, or consider what they might contribute?

Those responses aren’t contained in an implementation plan, but they can shape whether an initiative gains traction or stalls.

Perhaps preparing people requires us to think about two things. We need to prepare people for WHAT they will need to know and do. But we also need to strengthen HOW they are able to respond.

One prepares people for the initiative. The other develops the person meeting it.

It’s not an EITHER / OR consideration, it is an AND / ALSO.

And what if we don’t know what’s coming?

There is another challenge. While an organisation may know the strategy it is launching next month, none of us knows exactly what work will look like in five years. We don’t know which opportunities will appear in our careers, what technology will change, or what life will put in front of us.

We can make plans, identify risks and think through scenarios and all of these are useful. But there is a limit to how much any of us can predict.

If I know I’m running a marathon, I can train specifically for a marathon. If I’m presenting to a Board next Tuesday, I can prepare for that presentation. But if I don’t know the destination, I can’t prepare for every possible version of it.

I can, however, prepare myself.

I can:

∞    Know myself better

∞    Become more comfortable making choices in uncertainty

∞    Stay curious and keep learning

∞    Connect with others and strengthen relationships

∞    Get better at working with people who see the world differently from me

∞    Become more aware of how I respond when challenged

∞    Ask for help or support

∞    Take greater ownership of the contribution I make.

None of these things tells me what’s coming – instead, they give me more to work with when it arrives.

Perhaps that is the broader power of preparation: not only getting ready for a known event, but developing capabilities we can draw on when the future refuses to follow the plan.

Preparing for careers we can’t map

This feels particularly relevant when I think about careers. Trying to map the next 20, 10, or possibly even five years is feeling increasingly difficult.

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 found that employers expect 39% of workers’ core skills to change by 2030, while 63% cite skills gaps as a major barrier to business transformation. Alongside technological capability, human capabilities such as resilience, flexibility, agility, leadership, collaboration, curiosity and lifelong learning remain important.

So career preparation can’t only be about acquiring the technical capability we think we’ll need for the next role. It also means being able to navigate the moments we didn’t plan for: an unexpected opportunity, a role that changes beneath us, missing out on a promotion, or realising the path we thought we wanted no longer feels right.

When I look back over my 32-year career at EY, some of the opportunities that shaped it most weren’t things I could have predicted years earlier. They emerged through conversations, relationships, changing circumstances and sometimes simply being willing to step into something unfamiliar and give it a go.

I couldn’t have prepared for every opportunity. But I could (and did) develop things along the way – relationships, curiosity, confidence, perspective and a willingness to keep learning. These things meant I was able to do something with those opportunities when they appeared.

Because often opportunity doesn’t give us six months’ notice.

When understanding isn’t enough

This brings me back to organisations. People can understand a new strategy, complete the training and have the technical capability required – and still hesitate, resist, wait to be told or retreat into familiar ways of working.

Knowing what to do isn’t the same as being ready to do something with it.

The shift I’m interested in is from “What’s this going to do to me?” to “What can I do with this?”

That second question changes the conversation. It invites people to consider the part they will play, who they need to work with and how they can make things better. Readiness becomes more than information transfer or training completion; it becomes a human response.

This may also explain why some perfectly sensible initiatives fail to fully achieve what was hoped for. The initiative itself may not be the problem. The conditions around it may simply not be helping people engage with it in the way the organisation needs.

Life doesn’t give us a run sheet either

And, of course, none of this stops when we leave work. In some ways, life is where the idea that preparation equals prediction falls apart completely.

Some things we can plan for and many we can’t. People enter and leave our lives, our health changes, families change, opportunities appear, plans fall apart, or maybe something happens on an ordinary Tuesday that we could never have included in our five-year plan.

We can’t prepare specifically for all of it. But again, similar to the list above, we can:

∞    Know what matters to us

∞    Genuine connect with and care about others and nurture relationships before we need them

∞    Build broad perspectives – “not right, not wrong, just different”

∞    Learn to ask for – and accept – help (or if it is easier to do, seek support – we are not meant to do it alone!)

∞    Become more comfortable with not having every answer

∞    And remember that while we don’t always get to choose what happens, we usually retain choice in how we respond and in what we do next.

The American Psychological Association describes resilience as successfully adapting to difficult or challenging experiences through mental, emotional and behavioural flexibility. Importantly, the resources and skills associated with greater resilience can be cultivated and practiced.

We may not get to choose what arrives, but we can develop who meets it.

So what are we really preparing?

Perhaps preparation is less about having every future mapped and more about building the capacity to so we are better prepared for whatever arrives.

For organisations, that means looking beyond the initiative itself to the conditions it is being introduced into. This is because what you plant matters, but so does the ground you plant it into.

A great strategy, program or technology still depends on people choosing what they will do with it. And the same is true in our careers and our lives: plans matter, but so does the person we are becoming along the way.

Closing thought

So perhaps the question isn’t only, “What are we preparing for?” but also:

Are we developing ourselves – and our people – to be ready for what comes next?

It’s a question I’m increasingly exploring in my work with leaders and organisations: how we strengthen the human capabilities that help people take greater ownership, work more effectively with others and make a meaningful contribution, whether the future is clearly mapped or impossible to predict.

Because while we can’t always fully plan for every future, we can be better prepared to meet it.

Let me leave you with a few questions…

❓  When you think about what’s coming next, are you preparing only for what you’ll need to know and do – or also for how you’ll need to respond?

❓  If you’re leading others through change, what are you doing to prepare the people – not just the initiative?

❓  What human capabilities might you – or your people – need to strengthen now, to be better prepared for whatever comes next?

About “The Power of…” newsletter series

These newsletters are a way for me to share practical reflections, insights and tools on what really matters – because sometimes it’s the smallest changes that shape our careers, leadership, relationships and lives.