Acceleration as The New Normal: Lessons From 2025 & The New Road Ahead

As we close out 2025, one thing is clear: this has been a year of acceleration. We saw the promises of AI tested against operational reality, watched composable enterprises take shape, and saw governance, trust, and resilience move from the edges of strategy to its center.

In this year-end episode of Bold Agendas, Mimi is joined once again by Frank Diana—global futurist, thought leader, and Managing Partner and Principal Futurist at Tata Consultancy Services—to reflect on what 2025 revealed about the changing nature of transformation and explore what leaders must be prepared for as 2026 begins. It’s a timely conversation about acceptance, acceleration, and adaptability, and a powerful reminder of a new truth: transformation is no longer a destination, but a continuous state of becoming.

Timestamps: 
00:00 – Introduction: Reflecting on 2025 and Accelerating Toward 2026
02:43 – Big Movements in 2025: Acceptance, Acceleration, and Systemic Adaptation
07:52 – What Successful Companies Did Right in 2025: Open-minded Leadership, Workforce Inclusion, and Collective Intelligence
10:41 – Lessons Learned from 2025: Adaptable Governance and Simulation 
15:57 – Frank Diana’s Strategy Framework: Pathways, Possibility Chains, and Systems Thinking 
25:55 – Actioning the Strategy Framework
30:39 – Leading Through Orchestration, Unlearning, and Human Adaptability
33:26 – Accelerated Learning and the Culture of Experimentation
35:42 – The Core of the Strategy Framework: Convergence and Possibility Chains
38:26 – Activating Purpose through Human-Centric Pathways
43:29 – Emerging Global Priorities
44:45 – The 2026 Road Ahead: AI, Robotics, Synthetic Biology, and Policy Innovation
49:06 – Composability and the Fall of Hierarchies in Organizational Design 
51:43 – The Reality of Predictions Meeting Plausibility
53:05 – Leadership Advice for a Changing World: Acceptance, Sense-Making, and Ambient Learning