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Future Ready Leadership With Jacob Morgan

Future Ready Leadership With Jacob Morgan

By: Jacob Morgan
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The future of work isn't coming. It's already here — and it's moving fast. Future Ready is the podcast for leaders who want to stay ahead of AI, workplace transformation, and the forces reshaping how organizations operate and compete. Hosted by Jacob Morgan, futurist and bestselling author, this is where strategy meets reality. Every week, two formats in one feed: honest, unfiltered conversations with the CEOs, CHROs, and senior executives actually building the future of work — and sharp, no-fluff daily briefings that take the most important developments in artificial intelligence, AI agents, leadership, hybrid work, and organizational strategy and tell you exactly what they mean for your business. No hype. No filler. Just the insights, frameworks, and real-world playbooks that help you lead smarter, build resilient teams, and make better decisions in a world that won't slow down. If you're serious about leading what's next — this is your podcast. Subscribe to Future Ready wherever you listen. Daily Economics Management Management & Leadership Politics & Government
Episodes
  • 358-Year-Old Merck's Future Ready Formula: Transform While You Perform & Why Leaders Must Eat Last

    358-Year-Old Merck's Future Ready Formula: Transform While You Perform & Why Leaders Must Eat Last
    Nov 2 2026
    I sit down with Khadija Benhamada, member of the executive board and chief people officer at Merck Group, a 358 year old life science, healthcare, and electronics company with more than 62,000 employees across 66 countries. We unpack why leadership is a daily choice not a title, why Khadija believes you're not born a ready leader but become one through aspiration and practice, and how Merck balances two critical energies that every leader must master: performing today while transforming for tomorrow. I explore why performing means understanding customer expectations, delivering with clarity, and using AI to scale productivity faster and cheaper, while transforming is about asking more questions than having answers, building agility at scale, and creating an organization ready for whatever might come next without trying to predict the future. Khadija breaks down why great leaders eat last and put their teams first, why she doesn't count her work hours because impact matters more than time, and why micromanaging kills both energy and results. We get into the four pillars of transformation including being two steps ahead, visionary thinking, risk taking, and scenario planning, why Khadija tells her teams to hope for the best and prep for the worst, and how working for a company that impacts patients with multiple sclerosis and helps people have children creates a noble pressure to always have a plan B. Chapters 00:00:00 Leadership as a Daily Choice: Walking Before You Run at a 358-Year-Old Company 00:07:41 Clarity Versus Transparency: Managing Noise Without Creating Panic 00:09:59 Leaders Eat Last: Why Caring for Your Team Comes Before Everything Else 00:19:08 The Chess Player Mindset: Scenario Planning and Connecting the Dots 00:33:45 AI Productivity Versus AI Transformation: The Two-Speed Strategy 00:38:11 The Agent Manager Dilemma: When Employees Manage Bots Instead of People 00:50:16 Hope for the Best, Prep for the Worst: Building Possibility Over Risk
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    52 mins
  • Tech Stocks Massacred, Engagement Hits 15-Year Low & Can An Employee Opt Out Of AI?

    Tech Stocks Massacred, Engagement Hits 15-Year Low & Can An Employee Opt Out Of AI?
    Oct 30 2026
    October 31, 2026: I get into why tech stocks are getting absolutely massacred with the NASDAQ down more than 3.5%, Intel losing 30% of its market cap, Alphabet down 12.6% in its worst day since going public in 2004, and the NASDAQ 100 on pace to lose more than $1 trillion in market value. I look at Gallup's report showing employee engagement hit a 15 year low at 29%, why I think this headline is more dramatic than the reality since engagement started at 26% in 2000 and is now 29% after a dot com crash, financial crisis, pandemic, remote work, and AI, and why a metric that barely moves through all of that isn't a very sensitive alarm. Finally, I unpack the case of David Derman, a research administrator at the University of Kentucky who became the first known humanist to receive a religious exemption from using AI, why the 2023 Supreme Court case Groff versus DeJoy raised the bar for employers to deny religious accommodations, and why religious discrimination charges jumped from 2,400 in 2021 to nearly 14,000 in 2022 during COVID vaccine mandates. Chapters 00:00:00 Bartleby's Rebellion: When Employees Prefer Not To 00:04:09 Tech Stocks Massacred: The $1 Trillion NASDAQ Wipeout 00:15:42 Inside the CHRO Tech Stack: Why Nobody Loves Their Software 00:25:42 The AI Opt-Out: First Religious Exemption Approved at University of Kentucky 00:33:40 The Organic Fruit Niche: When Human-Made Work Becomes a Selling Point 00:34:04 Leader Action Items: Write the Standards Before Someone Says I Prefer Not To
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    36 mins
  • Marissa Mayer Outsourced Daughter to AI, AI Builds Nevada, Kills Vegas Jobs & SAP's €2B AI Savings

    Marissa Mayer Outsourced Daughter to AI, AI Builds Nevada, Kills Vegas Jobs & SAP's €2B AI Savings
    Oct 28 2026
    October 28,2026: I unpack Marissa Mayer's viral moment when she asked her AI assistant Dazzle to tell her what made her 10-year-old daughter special, why the internet erupted over whether parents should outsource that kind of thinking, and the three questions you need to ask before handing anything off to AI. Then I head to Nevada where AI is building jobs in the north and replacing them in the south, why more than 100,000 acres of desert east of Reno are becoming one of the world's largest concentrations of data centers providing work for thousands of electricians and pipe fitters, and why 400 miles away on the Las Vegas Strip companies like Zoox and Waymo are replacing human-driven taxis while MGM's call center cuts hundreds of jobs using AI. Finally, I look at SAP replacing expensive AI models inside its software with cheaper alternatives, why their CFO says the move could save more than 2 billion euros in efficiency gains over the next two years even as overall AI spending rises, and how this works like a flat rate plumber who charges $300 to fix a leak no matter which parts go in. Chapters 00:00:00 The Cake Mix Paradox: Why Effort Matters in the AI Age 00:11:03 The Three Questions: Deciding Which Eggs to Keep Cracking Yourself 00:16:42 The Myth of Permanent Jobs: What Construction Workers Already Know 00:21:42 SAP's $2 Billion AI Efficiency Play: Swapping Models Without Cutting Spending 00:24:15 The AI Model Commodity Shift: What It Means for Workers, Vendors, and Customers 00:26:42 Jevons Paradox Returns: Why Cheaper AI Means More AI, Not Less
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    29 mins
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