Future Ready Leadership With Jacob Morgan

January 30, 2026: The future of work is accelerating—and for many leaders, it feels overwhelming.
Political shifts, new laws, rapid advances in AI, rising ethical expectations, and changing employee demands are all converging at once. The volume of change can make it feel like you're stuck on a treadmill that keeps getting faster.
But here's the reality: not every trend deserves your attention.
In this episode, I walk through how external forces—political, legal, and ethical—are reshaping the employee experience, from pay transparency and AI governance to data privacy, workplace monitoring, and evolving expectations of leadership. I also explain why compliance is no longer just an HR or legal responsibility—it's becoming a shared leadership mandate.
More importantly, I share why trends aren't truths.
Just because something is happening doesn't mean you should chase it.

January 29, 2026: Today a series of stories made it impossible to ignore how fast work is changing. Meta says AI now allows one employee to do the work of entire teams. Engineers at Anthropic and OpenAI say AI writes nearly 100% of their code. Amazon and Dow announced thousands of job cuts as they restructure for efficiency. And at the same time, companies are hiring storytellers to help cut through the growing flood of AI-generated content.
In this episode of Future Ready Today, I connect the dots across these developments and explain what they reveal about shrinking teams, disappearing roles, changing career paths, and the rising importance of human skills in an AI-driven world. These aren't isolated headlines — they're signals of a deeper shift in how companies are redesigning work right now.
I break down what's actually happening inside organizations, share the data behind these changes, and offer a futurist lens on what this all means for leaders, employees, and anyone trying to stay future ready.

January 28, 2026: In today's episode, I zoom out to help you see what's really shaping the future of work.
Before we talk about AI, leadership, or organizational strategy, we need to understand the forces happening outside our companies. Because work doesn't evolve in isolation—it's shaped by powerful external trends in technology, society, economics, and more.
That's why I walk through the STEEPLE framework: a futurist tool designed to help leaders move from reacting to predicting—and from predicting to designing.
STEEPLE stands for Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political, Legal, and Ethical forces. Together, these seven domains explain how work is changing and what leaders need to prepare for over the next five-plus years, especially in an AI-driven world.
We explore how AI is becoming the central nervous system of organizations, why skills are replacing job titles, how identity and purpose are reshaping careers, and why the economic contract between employers and employees is being rewritten in real time. I also share why the future of work isn't something organizations "deliver" to employees—it's something that's co-created, requiring accountability on both sides.
If you're trying to make sense of rapid technological change, shifting employee expectations, and what leadership really means in the age of AI, this episode gives you a practical framework to understand what's coming—and how to design for it.

January 27, 2026: Executives say AI is making work more efficient. Employees say it's barely saving time. Gartner warns that overreliance on AI will actually lead to worse decisions. And one of the world's leading AI CEOs says the real risks are arriving faster than society is prepared for.
In today's episode of Future Ready Today, I break down four stories that, together, reveal what's really happening at work in the age of AI:
A 5,000-year historical lens from Forbes Tech Council on how every major technology shift redefines what humans are valuable for — and why AI is no different, just faster.

A new warning from Gartner that by 2030, 30% of organizations will see worse decision-making because employees are relying on AI before developing judgment.

Reporting from the Wall Street Journal showing a growing gap between executives who believe AI is boosting productivity and employees who experience more rework, confusion, and an "AI tax" on their time.

A sobering essay from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who argues that AI is entering its "adolescent" phase — powerful, fast-moving, and increasingly difficult to govern.

Grab a copy of my new book: https://8exlaws.com/ 
Request to join my CHRO group: https://futureofworkleaders.com/ 
Join my Non-CHRO group: https://employeeexperienceleaders.com/

AI can handle entry-level tasks today, but at what cost to your future leadership? Many companies are accidentally "hollowing out" their talent pipeline by cutting junior roles, creating a massive gap that will haunt them in five years. Efficiency today shouldn't come at the expense of your leaders tomorrow. How do we thoughtfully architect the future workforce to prioritize the health and depth of the leadership bench? In this episode, Melanie Tinto, CHRO of Grainger, joins us to explore how the company utilizes Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) to ensure a "tech powered, human led" organization that balances automation with career development. This discipline informs every aspect of Grainger's talent strategy, from navigating the impact of AI to addressing talent shortages. We look into the necessity of viewing workforce planning as a mirror to financial planning, focusing on the strategic migration of roles and skills rather than simple headcount reduction. Key highlights include managing the surge of AI-generated job applications, the importance of foundational talent programs such as maintaining the campus recruiting "spigot," and transitioning toward a skills-based organization through internal upskilling and "build vs. buy" strategies. This episode is the CHROs' blueprint to become strategic visionaries who stay three moves ahead of market disruption. Discover how to master these critical "chess moves" before the talent gap becomes irreversible.
 
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Future-ready organizations are built, not hoped for. My latest book, -The 8 Laws of Employee Experience shows how. Preorder here: 8EXlaws.com