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Top 5 Organization Development Priorities for 2025

Let these priorities serve as a catalyst for meaningful dialogue within your organization to help it thrive in these uncertain times.

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Thu Jan 30 2025

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This year is marked by profound uncertainty as countries and organizations navigate seismic political, technological, and environmental shifts. From the geopolitical impacts following a “super election year” where voters in more than 60 countries elected leaders to rapid advances in generative AI and escalating environmental and geopolitical crises, organizational leaders have their work cut out for them.

For talent and organization development professionals, these profound changes create both opportunities and challenges. Our role is to help organizations navigate complexities while building critical capabilities to sustain performance in uncertain times.

As a pracademic, I draw on my combined experiences as a practitioner, academic, and advisor in this incredible field to highlight five organization development (OD) priorities for the year.

1. Develop Leaders’ Uncertainty Capabilities

In my consulting work, I’ve observed that while many leaders acknowledge the increasing prevalence of uncertainty, few have developed systematic strategies to deal with it effectively. The political transitions happening in the US and globally in 2025 only amplify this challenge. As we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, we are not powerless in the face of uncertainty. As Professor Furr wrote back then in an HBR article, leaders can enhance their capacity to navigate the unknown by reframing challenges into manageable and actionable terms.

Efforts to strengthen leaders’ uncertainty capabilities should prioritize middle-level managers, who serve as the critical link between strategy and execution and drive the performance of frontline workers. Talent and OD professionals are uniquely positioned to help foster a culture that embraces ambiguity and supports leaders willing to take risks in uncertain contexts. I recommend the following practical strategies to turn uncertainty into possibility:

  • Design programs that equip leaders with evidence-based strategies for reframing uncertainty as an opportunity for learning, innovation, and growth.

  • Build decision-making frameworks that provide leaders with tools to embrace ambiguity in their decisions, enabling them to act decisively even with incomplete information.

  • Develop knowledge management systems that curate and disseminate relevant information to help leaders make sense of complexity and ambiguity.

2. Enhance Human-AI Integration

With the explosive growth of generative AI tools, I have noticed a remarkable shift in how leaders discuss AI adoption. The discussion has moved beyond whether or not to adopt AI tools to ways of enhancing human-AI integration. This is a serious challenge, as recent MIT Sloan research highlights that human-AI collaborations frequently fall short of top-performing humans or AI in decision-making tasks. One interesting finding is that human-AI combinations had immense potential in creative tasks.

In my discussion with organizations implementing AI, I’ve found that successful integration requires a systematic approach to upskilling. One client, for example, achieved remarkable results by creating AI learning labs where employees could experiment with tools in a low-risk environment. Talent and OD professionals can also support organizations’ efforts in the following ways:

  • Design ethical frameworks for human-AI collaboration to address moral and legal concerns on generative AI tools.

  • Identify tasks where human-alone and human-AI collaborations are optimal and redesign jobs and processes to amplify human creativity.

  • Develop learning programs to help employees acquire the technical skills required to use AI tools and the soft skills necessary to leverage them effectively in their work.

3. Stay Focused on Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity

A recurring question I hear from my clients and students is, “Is DEI dying?” My consistent response is no. While we face strong headwinds and many prominent organizations retreat from their commitments, DEI is far from disappearing. In fact, today’s challenging climate presents an opportunity for talent and OD professionals to leverage their expertise to advance DEI, as I outlined in an edition of TD at Work .

The need for inclusive, diverse, and equitable workforces remains undeniable. A recent Pew survey found that 52 percent of employees say DEI is a good thing, compared to just 21 percent who see it negatively. This underscores the need to stay committed to embedding DEI throughout the organization. I recommend paying attention to the following:

  • Align diversity, equity, and inclusion with organizational values and objectives to clearly demonstrate its importance and impact.

  • Leverage OD tools to embed DEI values into the organizational culture, creating deeper, more sustainable change.

  • Equip HR professionals and leaders with the skills to reimagine DEI as a transformational initiative and enable them to deal with change and resistance effectively.

4. Cultivate a Thriving Culture Across Work Modalities

Which work modality—remote, hybrid, or in-person—best suits our organization? Can we sustain a thriving culture when employees work remotely or in hybrid settings? Many leaders are grappling with these pressing questions, especially as large organizations like JP Morgan, Amazon, and IBM require employees to return to the office full-time. While the optimal approach depends on the organization’s context, there is increasing evidence that a hybrid approach is a win-win for employers and employees. A recent study by Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom, for example, shows that employees working remotely two days a week are just as productive, just as likely to be promoted, and much less likely to quit.

Still, many leaders are concerned about the impact of different work modalities on culture, organizational effectiveness, and productivity. In my experience, building a thriving culture is tough across all modalities, which is why adopting a thoughtful, evidence-based approach is crucial. Here are three important priorities to focus on:

  • Incorporate equity into work modality decisions, considering the impact on employees across roles, demographics, and geographies.

  • Focus on performance outcomes and accountability rather than physical presence. Equip managers with the skills to lead in-person and distributed teams effectively.

  • Evaluate and monitor the impact of different work modalities on team dynamics, performance, and employees’ sense of belonging, using data to inform decisions and improve culture.

5. Promote Organizational Transparency

Transparency in the workplace is no longer a luxury—it is now expected from employees, activists, and even regulators. For example, fourteen US states now have pay transparency laws following similar legislation in the European Union. To be clear, my focus is not on compliance-driven transparency but on what a recent Deloitte research report calls “proactive transparency,” where leaders — and employees — share information intentionally to improve trust, decision making, and organizational effectiveness.

This strategic, proactive approach to transparency becomes even more critical in uncertain times like now. Organizations should prioritize information sharing in the following areas: leadership priorities and organizational goals, financial and operational data, and talent and workforce decision-making processes. I recommend paying attention to these actions:

  • Develop leaders’ capabilities to foster two-way transparency, recognizing the importance of information flowing from and to leadership.

  • Identify and overcome individual and systematic barriers to implementing proactive transparency efforts.

  • Analyze and communicate the skills and competencies organizations and employees need to thrive in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

Looking Forward

By embracing these five priorities, talent and OD professionals can help organizations build the resilience needed to navigate 2025’s uncertainties. From my experience working with diverse organizations, success requires more than just implementing standalone initiatives—it demands a holistic approach that recognizes how these priorities interconnect and reinforce each other. For example, successful human-AI integration depends on transparent communication about how AI will be used, while building a thriving culture across work modalities requires leaders skilled in navigating uncertainty and maintaining clear communication. Start by addressing your organization’s most pressing needs while keeping sight of how these priorities work together to drive success.

I hope these priorities serve as a catalyst for meaningful dialogue within your organization and help it not just survive but thrive in these uncertain times.

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