Hello KSKOers
For the last few years I’ve been setting out watchwords for the coming year, as both premonitions and guiding principles. As we head into the second quarter of the century, I suspect change will be underpinned and overarched by ultra-digitalism. And as we move further into the digital age, we’ll need to balance it with hyper-humanism to ensure man and machine can co-exist in harmony! Check out my watchwords for 2026.
Looking forward to joining you on your learning journey!
Hyper-Humanism & Ultra-Digitalism
As we hurtle into the digital age, our need for nuanced human empathy, warmth, and understanding will grow ever stronger. Our need for face to face interaction and social connection was starkly highlighted during the social distancing enforced in covid. It was then that the humanity of humans and our need for social contact became abundantly clear. As we shift into 2026, I think work life will be both underpinned and overarched by a constant balancing act of keeping our human world human, whilst capitalising on what machines can offer.
“We need the AI to be the brain, automation to be the hands and the human to be the heart, to ensure that we balance ultra-digitalism with the inimitable qualities of hyper-humanism.”
Care
As touchy feely humans who benefit from the contact of others, care will always be a mainstay of what it means to be hyper-human. Whilst humans rely on each other as sellers, consumers, carers, clients, patients, beneficiaries and service users, leaders will always need to care for others. Whilst interaction is human to human, humanity will always involve care. Care as kindness, care as service and care as safe-keeping: we’ll need them all to balance out ultra-digitalism.
Tenacity
Covid changed the world, it changed what we value, how we live and how we work. It happened incrementally and now, we hardly notice the change. But, if we look back at life 5 years ago and 10 years ago, everything is a little bit different. What we think, what we believe and what we do is different. The differences may be minuscule, but when you put them all together, they create a distinct shift in humanity. I suspect the history books in the year 3,000 will consider covid as a disruption in human evolution. The trend lines before 2020 and after 2025 will be going in noticeably different directions. For me it means that 2026 will be a year of continuous change. And change is hard.
Throughout the year we’ll need to be tenacious in our resolve to ride the wave of change. We’ll need to hold on to our ability to flex and adapt whilst both we, and the world around us, change. We’ll need to work out what the world wants of us and how we fit with it. We’ll need to be tenacious in our efforts to work it out and hold on to the flotsam that carries us along.
Artificial Intelligence
What AI can do for us is only just beginning to be realised. Our interactions with it are just like a new starter in a new job - we don’t know anyone, and we don’t know much of anything. But, we will start to explore and in 6 months time, 6 years and 16 years time we’ll live alongside AI like a trusted colleague and a familiar friend and wonder, “how did that happen??!” I suspect that 2026 will see AI become embedded into more organisations and few will be able to withstand its lure. The small organisations, the laggard leaders and the resistors will all be impacted and influenced, one way or another. More functions will become automated or AI generated as standard, and business as usual tasks will be delegated to Gemini, Copilot and the other myriad generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) and large language models (LLMs). Whether you like it or not, the businesses, services and support functions you need will rely more and more on AI and leaders will have to step up or step out.
Innovation
Necessity is the mother of invention and in a world that’s riding a wave of change, innovations will spring all around us. When humans are having to dig deep and be tenacious just to get by, more and more people will explore how AI and automation can make life less challenging. Small businesses with AI and automation mavericks will appear, providing services that we didn’t know we needed. Small organisations will take leading roles and no longer will tech be the domain of the rich and famous. As more people have access to digital solutions and those solutions become cheaper and more accessible, we’ll see innovators and entrepreneurs appearing on global stages from bedrooms, sheds and attics. AI trainers will bring the laggards up to speed and the fascinated will grasp on to new learning opportunities to build apps on their kitchen table and new tools while standing by the coffee machine.
The Last Word
I’m hoping we’ll experience positive change in 2026, locally, politically and globally. I’m hoping we’ll hold on to our humanity and proliferate care and kindness. I crossing my fingers that leaders currently not being caring move over and let better leaders rise up. I’m hoping that artificial intelligence will be driven by real world need and innovation will be sparked from necessity. I think life will become ultra-digital and we’ll need to ensure we are super-human to balance it out. And to deal with it all, we’ll need to be tenacious, hold our resolve until the tsunami comes to rest on sandy shores, where there’s an abundance or warmth, clean water and fruit to eat.
Wishing you all a 2026 full of care, innovation and tenacity in a world that’s adapting to artificial intelligence changing the world at a rapid and relentless pace.
You might also like to read…
Here’s a list of my watchwords for 2022 - 25 and articles discussing them…
Nia is an expert leader who talks the talk and walks the walk. She is an academically awarded thought leader in self-aware leadership and practices self-aware leadership every single day in her role as a strategy and operations leader.
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