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Leading the Next S-Curve: From Futuring to Strategic Action

S-Curves - Week 5

By Rick Aman
on

Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master — Christian Lous Lange

In this final article of the Colliding S-Curves series, I turn from awareness to application — from seeing the patterns to leading through them. Higher education stands at a moment when technology, workforce, and society are reshaping each other faster than any strategic plan can track. The question for leadership is no longer what will change, but how we will prepare.

Through my work with governing boards, CEOs, and professional organizations, I’ve seen how futuring can transform not only how we plan, but how we think. It reframes leadership as an act of anticipation rather than reaction to what is happening, a practice of envisioning and steering toward a preferred future rather than defending the status quo.

From Awareness to Action

Futuring is more than a thought exercise; it’s a discipline of looking ahead to guide decisions today. The institutions I work with often begin with a familiar story, a comprehensive strategic plan that once looked impressive, but now is adding 3% to last year. It feels outpaced by reality. The world moved, but the plan didn’t.

That’s why I encourage boards and CEOs to view strategy as a living system rather than a static document. The process begins by identifying early signals of change, demographic shifts, emerging technologies, new learner expectations, and testing how those signals might impact mission, programs, and people. BTW, futuring doesn’t replace strategic planning; it precedes it. It sets the tone and direction for what’s likely ahead.

In one leadership retreat I facilitated, trustees were asked a single question: “What does your institution look like three years from now when it is fully aligned with the next wave of workforce and learning demand?” The discussion that followed reshaped how they viewed their priorities. Budget assumptions changed. Program development accelerated. Conversations moved from managing the present to designing the future.

The transition from awareness to action begins when leaders stop trying to predict the future and start preparing for multiple possibilities. Futuring gives them the tools and the language to do both.

 How AI Will Influence the Next Workforce Shift

Across industries, a major realignment is underway. Artificial intelligence is moving up the value chain, automating work that once required advanced credentials or years of experience. What began as automation in logistics and manufacturing is now reshaping law, accounting, design, and management.

White-collar employees, long protected from automation, are now facing task erosion. Large language models and AI agents are handling research, drafting, analysis, and administrative processes with increasing precision. The next workforce transformation will not only affect factory workers; it will redefine professional work itself.

This isn’t solely a story of job loss; it’s a story of job redesign. As AI takes on routine and rules-based functions, the human advantage shifts toward judgment, creativity, empathy, and strategic reasoning. The future belongs to those who can partner with technology, not compete against it.

At the same time, skilled trades and technical professions are entering a resurgence. Electricians, welders, healthcare technologists, and energy specialists perform complex, hands-on tasks that require adaptability and context, areas where AI has limited reach. These workers are essential to building and maintaining the very systems that enable digital transformation.

A few years ago, I worked with a community college that recognized this transition early. Enrollment in general associate degrees was strong due to dual credit and college transfer, but demand in advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity and renewable energy was rising faster. The board made the strategic decision to reinvest in technical programs aligned with regional industry needs. Within two years, graduates were in high-wage, high-demand jobs, and the college had reclaimed its position as a workforce anchor. That’s what strategic foresight looks like in practice, seeing the shift before it becomes a headline.

AI will not replace the human workforce, but it will reshape it. Institutions that prepare both knowledge workers and skilled professionals, those who think deeply and those who build boldly, will thrive on the next S-curve.

Governing Boards, CEOs, and Professional Organizations: Leading with Foresight

The collision of innovation and technological S-curves is not an abstract concept; it’s a leadership test. Strategic foresight must now sit alongside finance, policy, and compliance as a core responsibility.

Boards that govern effectively are expanding their field of view. Beyond budgets and enrollment, they’re scanning for signals of relevance, what employers need, how students learn, and how technology is transforming work itself. CEOs are doing the same, often using AI-assisted labor analytics and scenario modeling to anticipate regional shifts.

In one retreat I facilitated, a college board reviewed workforce data showing that automation would disrupt many of their traditional business and office programs. Instead of waiting for enrollment to fall, they took action, repositioning the business program around data analytics, logistics, and entrepreneurship. The board’s courage to pivot preserved relevance and opened new opportunities. That kind of foresight changes the leadership conversation. Instead of asking, “Which programs should we cut?”, the question becomes, “Where is our next relevance?”

For CEOs, this means cultivating cultures of experimentation, testing small pilots, measuring outcomes, and scaling what works. For professional organizations, it means preparing members for new roles that blend human capability with digital fluency. And for boards, it means embedding anticipation into governance: reviewing trend data and scenario outcomes as part of every strategic discussion.

The leaders I work with who excel in this space treat adaptability as a fiduciary duty. They understand that leadership isn’t about holding the line, it’s about helping the organization evolve before the curve steepens.

Governance at the Edge of Change

Governing in this environment requires dual focus: stability for today and transformation for tomorrow. Boards and CEOs must ensure fiscal discipline and compliance while also investing in innovation, talent, and technology.

A simple futuring framework helps make this balance real:

When boards use this process regularly, planning becomes continuous rather than episodic.  Governance at the edge of change is not about predicting perfectly; it’s about preparing consistently. The institutions that practice disciplined anticipation will be those that shape the future, not just survive it.

Summary: Vision as the Ultimate Advantage

Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different  — Michael Porter

The Colliding S-Curves series has explored how technology, human capacity, and institutional vision intersect. The ultimate lesson is this: the future doesn’t reward certainty, it rewards clarity of purpose and readiness to act.

For governing boards, CEOs, and professional organizations, vision must now function as the central organizing principle. It guides not just what an institution hopes to achieve, but how it prepares to evolve.

AI will continue to redefine white-collar work while skilled trades rise in value. The challenge for higher education is to prepare both the innovators who design the systems and the builders who make them real. The work of higher ed leadership is to unite those converging curves with vision to anticipate change, alignment to stay true to mission, and resolution to act before the future arrives.

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Aman & Associates Insight At Aman & Associates, we help governing boards, CEOs, and professional organizations move from vision to measurable action through AI-assisted futuring and strategic leadership frameworks.

Ask us about a half-day Futuring Mini-Retreat—a focused session for boards, leadership teams, or employer groups exploring how to align mission with the emerging technological S-curves reshaping work, learning, and leadership.

 rick@rickaman.com | www.rickaman.com/articles