In a crowded conference hall of human resource professionals, the first address of the North Carolina Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) annual conference was high energy, comical at times, and clear in message. The human resource executive needs to “up his or her game” to meet the most demanding challenge today’s organizations are facing – the demand for human talent.

Revitalizing workforce agility is urgent; it is a priority that must be satisfied if business leaders are to achieve transformation or modernization goals amidst an ever-changing landscape.

The future of work and workforce agility is uncertain, but not unknowable. Preparing for the future starts with understanding what is creating it. We have identified five drivers shaping the future of organizations and individuals.

Smart city technologies include the internet of Things (IoT), hyper-connected citizens, and data-driven public solutions among other things. These innovations are indeed disruptive individually, but in aggregate promise incredible opportunity for our metro areas. They also have the potential to create major hurdles for those tasked with putting these new resources to work. How do you transform an uncertain future into a platform for competitive advantage?

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Once again, the Pentagon has reorganized.[1] Motivated by a concern about how emerging technologies will impact the future of war, the department has aligned its leadership structure to put particular focus on quantum science, hypersonics, artificial intelligence, and directed energy. It’s a change that organizes and assigns specific responsibilities to two relatively new offices within the Department of Defense (DoD) – the offices of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment and the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USD R&E).

The following recommendations were designed to provide DHS S&T with clear steps to increase reach, impact, innovation, and resilience. Our hope is that you will also be able to use the basis of our study as a starting point to understand the implications these changes mean to you and how to prepare and plan for the future.

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To ensure a successful transformation to a Market Intelligence 3.0 capability, it is important to establish a governance organization to create a business case, develop a roadmap, design associated communication and coaching programs to manage the change across the enterprise, and position a capability that serves as a source of information and insight for leaders across the organization.

Purpose as the reason for action or existence has remained consistent over centuries. It’s where and how people and societies locate their purpose that has evolved over time. As we consider the state of our government and the present and future state of work, we see that the impetus to pursue purpose has not changed, but how and where we find it has.

This year’s Boston Marathon left a lasting imprint on my heart. Maybe it’s because I’m currently training for my first marathon, which I’ll run in Chicago this Fall. Watching the race from almost 2400 miles away, I felt like I was a part of the activities – as if I was there on the course with the runners, struggling through the miles, trying to stay warm and focused. Anticipating the finish line with every step. Celebrating the achievement.

Strategy is overcomplicated. Government and commercial executives get so wrapped up in working to figure out all the details of a complex task or objective that they lose sight of the plan.

This simple four-step strategy approach helps to identify the path you need to take, which informs the strategy you need to build. Each step in the process below should have a clear answer that involves stakeholders from inside and outside the organization.

Over the past three years, the trust of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) has declined. In 2017, the Edelman Trust Barometer unveiled that only 53% of respondents showed trust in NGOs, a notable decline from a peak of 66% trust in 2014.¹ NGOs were not alone in this decline; levels of trust fell across all four institutions – NGOs, businesses, media, and government. Perhaps that is because, despite the reductions in perceived credibility, many companies continue to align themselves with NGOs because they are established organizations with clear processes, head-counts, rules, and regulations.