How to succeed in uncertain times

In a difficult environment, leaders need to resist the impulse to adopt a defensive pose. They must instead take actions that will position their organization for success.

- WILL JACKSON-MOORE, HEATHER SWANSTON, AND MOHAMED KANDE

Uncertainty is like the weather. It’s always there, part of the atmosphere, and a condition over which individuals and organizations have very little control. The severity of uncertainty, like the severity of the weather, can rise and fall. At the moment, around the world, CEOs are operating under a series of severe uncertainty alerts.

Most prominent among these is the sudden onset of the COVID-19 virus, which has created a series of rolling demand, supply, and health shocks whose length and long-term impact remain difficult to judge. Underlying this, there are sources of uncertainty that existed before the appearance of the new coronavirus, and that will persist after it abates. There is great uncertainty surrounding the geopolitical context in which companies operate: the continuing saga of Brexit; trade conflicts between the U.S. and China; tensions in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. There is structural uncertainty — namely, the disruption to many business models brought about by technological change, the rapidly changing nature of work, climate change, the drop in oil prices, and tectonic shifts in consumer needs and tastes. Many of these trends will be accelerated in the wake of COVID-19 as industries transform into a new normal. Regulatory uncertainty, another omnipresent factor, is also at a high, as businesses grapple with shifting patterns of regulations such as tariffs, evolving data privacy regimes, structural shifts in tax policy and the regulation of technology transfers, and international investment. In the wake of COVID-19, governments are proposing and enacting far-reaching policies to respond to sudden social and economic crises.