What will 2025 bring?
My offer to help your Organisation thrive in 2025
I am loving reading lots of posts reflecting on the past year and looking to the future. Some list the challenges faced or fears for the future, others state that 2024 has been amazing and 2025 looks even better.
As Donna Ashworth’s quote acknowledges, I suspect most people have experienced their fair share of difficulties along with some positives. If we are honest, our lives are usually a mixture of good and bad things, and how we interpret them very much mirrors our approach to life. Those who are blessed with a very positive outlook will focus on their successes and achievements, those with a more negative view will see mainly the challenges they have faced. Neither is better or worse than the other, just a different perspective.
I find New Year quite difficult and tend to use the time to hibernate a bit, read a few good (or not so good) books and try to figure out what I want to achieve in the next 12 months. I want to be ready for whatever January brings, which will no doubt be a mixture of positive and negative experiences, or as I like to reframe it as successes and opportunities for growth and development.
Reflections on 2024
2024 for me has been unexpectedly good. I started my new consultancy at the end of 2023 with what I hoped were realistic expectations, but mentally I prepared myself that it might not go as planned. As it turned out, I have been fortunate to land several interesting and rewarding contracts, ranging from strategy planning and business development to one-to-one coaching and mentoring – thank you to the many organisations who have worked with me in 2024.
We welcomed a new granddaughter – I love being a Granny, all the fun of having small people around, experiencing the world anew, without any of the responsibilities of making sure they eat a balanced diet or sleep through the night! Also, we spent 3 weeks in Australia as a family celebrating my daughter’s wedding, my eldest son’s birthday and my middle son’s engagement!
Forecast for 2025
So what about 2025? Well, as always, it is largely unknown. What we can be sure of is that it will involve a lot of change as organisations respond to the challenges imposed by the budget, the growth of AI, changing tastes and attitudes, new working practices and 101 other implications.
We are living through rapidly changing times, and there is no certainty of how to approach this and manage change effectively. All organisations, no matter what sector they operate in, will have to be flexible, adaptable and willing to embrace change in order to survive and thrive.
History has demonstrated that organisations that survive turbulent and challenging times are the ones who spend time reviewing what they do and how they do it continuously and see change as an opportunity not a threat.
When you are busy running your organisation, keeping customers happy, supporting your team and generally keeping the show on the road, it can be almost impossible to take time out to look at the horizon and plan what you need to do strategically to remain effective and relevant.
With this in mind, I am opening up new availability for executive and senior leadership coaching and business reviews from January onwards. The space that coaching provides in our busy working lives helps leaders take time out from ‘doing’ to look at what could and should be done in future to ensure their organisation and team thrives.
In the words of someone I worked with recently ‘ Being able to speak to someone who has so much experience and to have the opportunity to pull apart all of the open tabs in my head and produce a plan to move forward has been amazing. The sessions help to give me direction, clarity and lighten the load!’
If you are wondering what the best investment you can make in your organisation in 2025, you should be considering investing in yourself and your senior management team – strong leadership and a clear purpose and vision will help you navigate the choppy waters ahead.