Ardent’s In & Out List 2025
I have a confession… I really am quite bad at social media. I don’t have Twitter, Instagram, or any of those other ones. Sometimes, from my ivory tower I think, yes I am doing well without it. But I must admit, when you are not tapped in to the online world, you can miss out on a hell of a lot. So when pondering what Ardent’s first newsletter of 2025 could be about, I was completely out of the loop when Ella suggested an ‘In and Out’ list (good job at least one of us understands the zeitgeist).
So here goes. Below are our 9 things we want to see more of in 2025, and 9 things we are so over (and would ideally like to see blasted into outer space forever).
IN
1. Courage 💪
Top of the list for 2025 is: doing the big, scary thing! Having the courage to take a stand, not for personal or political gain, but simply because it is the right thing to do. We don’t see this nearly enough, especially not from those in positions of power (who often stand to lose the least). So when you have the opportunity to do the right thing this year, use the power you have, and lean into integrity - even if it’s hard.
2. Interdisciplinary approaches 👭
To really tackle some of the most pressing challenges of our time (climate change, institutional racism and discrimination, all manner of social injustices, poverty…), we must take more of an interdisciplinary approach. We need to work collaboratively with those with different expertise from our own. In DEI this means linking up more with psychology, behaviour change, and sociology experts.
3. Listening to your neurodivergent colleagues 👂
You know what’s always been a good idea, but really has yet to become the norm? Listening to our colleagues who are neurodivergent and supporting them when they request reasonable adjustments. We seem institutionally stuck in neurotypical mindsets around productivity, presenteeism, and flexibility. And in the words of a neurodiversity expert we work with “the accommodations I need are good for everyone - it’s just that I need them, whereas for most they are simply a preference.” Designing working cultures that are accessible by default is good for everyone.
4. More time outside 🌳
Our over-reliance on our phones means we don’t spend as much time outside as we used to. This is becoming a huge problem across all generations - but especially children. So this year why not prioritise quality time in the great outdoors? Go on mindful walks, play with the children in your life at the park, or in the garden, and take in as much fresh air as you possibly can.
5. Purpose over profit 💸
This year I would really love to see more organisations taking a stance. I want to see founders living by their espoused values. I want to see VC investment and government funding going to companies who are working towards a clear mission for social good. If more value was placed on funding only the businesses that prioritise purposeful, values-based decision-making and demonstrate a net good for the planet, what a different world we could live in.
6. Data 📊
Good old data, oh how I adore you. No but for real, data is so, so important. For whatever issue one is trying to address, gather data! Find out what is going on on the ground. Talk to people, gain rich qualitative insights. In the workplace, and when it comes to DEI and wellbeing, data is indispensable. Collect data throughout the lifecycle of your project, and train your employees in how to analyse, and interpret data sufficiently. Without this you are stumbling along in the dark. If you really want to impress, pair this data with behaviour change principles!
7. Systems approaches ☀️
Many individuals in the DEI and wellbeing space unfortunately end up doing a lot of tinkering around the edges. Perhaps suggesting an intervention or two. But these interventions are bound to fail if they are not part of a wider systems-based approach to change-making. Organisations are systems, therefore only a systematic and holistic approach will create the kind of transformative impact required. In 2025, I would love to see more organisations incorporating more systems thinking when creating their DEI or wellbeing strategy.
8. Psychological safety ✅
The concept of psychological safety is pretty well established - but it’s so often misunderstood and misused within the workplace. This year we’d like to see organisations understanding this phenomena correctly. Psychological safety is defined as ‘the shared belief that team work spaces are safe for interpersonal risk taking’. In this vein, if a company has data showing that some individuals have psychological safety (often due to their positions of power and/or privilege), and yet others in the org do not, then ultimately psychological safety hasn’t been established in the team.
9. Leaning into our human-ness 🕺
It is easy sometimes to forget to be a human. With so much automation and technology at our finger tips, it can often feel like the most efficient way of ‘being’ is to be more like a machine. But guess what - we are not machines - and we have unique qualities as humans that we should offer to other humans. Be kind, offer a stranger help when they need it, make eye contact, give some of your free time to worthy causes, and stop trying to be more productive than is humanly possible.
OUT
1. Outsourcing EVERYTHING to AI 🤖
N.B. This is a real example!
Recently, we witnessed Chat GPT being used to write an end-of-year gratitude note to a colleague. How did we get here? The entire point of a gratitude letter - the thing that gives it meaning - is that one human has taken the time to think about and be thankful for another. This simple act benefits both the giver and receiver. We are at the precipice of a very slippery slope with AI tools. It is crucial that we start embedding some boundaries about how and when we use it. These powerful tools have wonderful potential, but we need to be thinking much more deeply about which tasks require the unique expressions of our shared humanity.
2. Social media 📱
It feels like social media has been limping along in its twilight years for a little while now. For so many of us, it has simply failed to meet its promises of connectivity, whilst simultaneously lowering our attention spans, literacy and critical thinking skills. If that isn’t worrying enough, tech oligarchs with a higher net worth than the GDP of entire countries are playing a dangerous role in engineering social media platforms to meet their own political agendas. I don’t know about you, but I am ready to put social media into room 101 never to been seen again. Bye Felicia.
3. Binary thinking 💡
I’ve spoken about this before, and I will continue to do so: we must stop trying to respond to difficult, complex questions with simplistic and binary answers. We live in an increasingly complex world, and as such, the way we navigate and engage with said world must reflect this complexity. Much more education is needed for young and old individuals alike on how to engage with nuanced information, and how to hold more than one idea or possibility at a given time - more often than not it’s both/and, not either/or.
4. Misinformation ❌
Misinformation is one of the most resilient scourges of the modern world. The reach of its slimy tentacles is enormous (not helped by aforementioned tech oligarchs) - so too is the damage it can wreak. So insidious is misinformation that many otherwise intelligent folk are falling foul of it on a daily basis. Internet rabbit holes and conspiracy theories abound. Folks are losing family members to Fox News. We need many more protections in place in order to kick misinformation to the sideline for good, and our elected officials need to step up.
5. TERFs ☠️
As exhausting as it is harmful, transphobia needs to get in the bin for 2025. The past few years have seen their fair share of trans-bashing (often from you know who ((JK Rowling)). The TERF brand of supposed ‘feminism’ has now reached the bullying-a-cisgender-female-Olympic-boxing-champion-on-the-basis-that-she-seems-masculine stage of brain rot. Women who don’t present as ‘feminine’ are increasingly being harassed for using female toilets. Solidarity with trans folks is simply essential - for everyone.
6. Neoliberalism 🎯
One thing I would really like to see the back of is neoliberalism. This vision-less philosophy - associated with policies like increased privatisation, deregulation, and austerity - has enabled the sweep to the far right that we are seeing across societies in the global north. We have witnessed a shift within traditionally leftwing progressive parties towards the centre, and even centre-right. When an electorate is presented with two main choices; one far-right, and another whose main appeal is (as David Graeber aptly described) ‘well at least we are not them’, society is in a grim place indeed. So jog on neoliberalism - let’s see more bold, progressive politics in 2025. God knows, we need it.
7. Obsession with Socialism as ‘evil’ 🦹
Have we not yet evolved enough to be able to have intelligent discussions on alternative ways of governance (i.e. anything beyond straight capitalism)? When individuals throw the terms socialism and/or communism around as forms of insults, it does little to invite open conversation, but rather acts as a way to shut down another person’s viewpoint. It is clear that many people labour under the misapprehension that socialism is evil, while simultaneously benefiting from socialist policies (e.g. the NHS). So let’s wave bye-bye to this reductive and frankly boring trope.
8. Multitasking 📵
Here’s a thought: perhaps instead of carving our attention span into a thousand pieces, why not give our whole focus to one thing at a time? When out for dinner with a friend, let’s put that phone away. At work, let’s start setting aside dedicated time to do the deep work we need to do, all without the constant distraction of meetings, emails, and slack messages. Our work (and our social lives) will be the better for it.
9. Return to office mandates 🏢
I don’t think I even need to justify this one… though I will for any doubters out there. Return to office mandates will not improve productivity or performance, and will likely piss off your employees who joined your organisation on the promise of flexible working. So can organisations just stop forcing their employees back into the office if it is not necessary? K, thanks.