After a try out, where I talked about my draft list of HR trends for this article, one of the participants commented: “I think in some ways you are more a trendwisher than a trendwatcher, as some of these trends seem more wishful thinking than that they are based on facts and thorough research”. In my view, this was certainly a justified remark. It is difficult to be a neutral observer. Organisations, and especially HR in organisations, sometimes seem to change slowly. We have sensed all the trends we describe in this article, and for most of them we would hope an acceleration in 2019!

For years, female executives have come away from women-only leadership programs empowered to do—and ask for—more, valuing the opportunity to examine their strengths and shortcomings in the psychological safety of their peers and to use the experience as a springboard for personal development. But organizations are leaving unexamined the most powerful lessons these programs offer.

It is common these days to condemn CEOs for misconduct, but we should also learn from after-action reviews of successes—not just the pathologies of failures. That’s why it’s worth taking a few minutes to dig into how theater chain AMC Entertainment’s CEO Adam Aron and his team handled every corporate leader’s worst nightmare: a racially insensitive and very public screwup by employees that posed a potentially devastating hit to the company’s reputation.

If a teacher told students that they would be tested on only three chapters of the textbook, would they bother to read the rest? Ranking systems for law schools and hospitals, employee reward schemes, and other incentive systems make just that mistake: revealing too much about their ranking criteria.

It’s human nature to grumble a little about the boss, the boring meeting, or some seemingly clueless directive from several layers above. Strictly speaking, such grumbling doesn’t cause real harm; everyone needs to vent now and then.

But an organization is in serious trouble when most discussions on crucial issues take place in side conversations, rather than in formal meetings, where concerns can be addressed thoughtfully with people in a position to instigate a change of course.

While visiting Chicago a few years ago, economist Judith Chevalier got into a conversation with her Uber driver. She learned that the driver’s primary job was running a small, traditional funeral home. But that didn’t cover the bills, so when there were lulls in her responsibilities at the funeral home, she drove for Uber. Driving for the rideshare company was one of the few jobs that allowed her to take days off every time there was a funeral to arrange, the driver said.