![]() As they try to manage their way through the crisis, they need a way to link current moves to future outcomes. The stakes are high, and decisions that leaders make now may have ramifications for years-or even decades. (There are no futurists in foxholes.) But many business and political discussions still demand farsightedness. A lot of organizations have had no choice but to focus on surviving immediate threats. Now the tyranny of the present is supreme. By the start of 2020, the sense of uncertainty was so pervasive that many executives were doubling down on efficiency at the expense of innovation, favoring the present at the expense of the future. In response, many leaders sought refuge in the more predictable short term-a mechanism for coping with uncertainty that research has shown leaves billions of dollars of earnings on the table and millions of people needlessly unemployed. Uncertainty was so all-encompassing that to fully capture the dimensions of the problem, researchers had devised elaborate acronyms such as VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) and TUNA (turbulent, uncertain, novel, and ambiguous). And in the midst of a global pandemic, answering it has never felt more urgent.Įven before the Covid-19 crisis, rapid technological change, growing economic interdependence, and mounting political instability had conspired to make the future increasingly murky. That’s the fundamental question leaders must ask as they prepare for the future. How can we formulate strategy in the face of uncertainty? ![]() To make effective strategy in the face of uncertainty, leaders need to institutionalize strategic foresight, harnessing the power of imagination to build a dynamic link between planning and operations. One important element of the practice is scenario planning, which helps leaders navigate uncertainty by teaching them how to anticipate possible futures while still operating in the present. The practice of strategic foresight provides the capacity to sense, shape, and adapt to change as it happens. As a leader, how can you prepare for an unpredictable future while managing the urgent demands of the present? The Promise Good strategy creates competitive advantage over time, but the uncertainty of the future makes it difficult to identify effective courses of action, particularly in the midst of a crisis. The complete Spotlight package is available in a single reprint. ![]() In this article Kessler advises leaders, managers, and organizations to recognize that people may be experiencing different kinds of grief and to treat them accordingly. He has since come to believe that grief has a sixth stage- meaning-which can take many forms: remembering the joy that someone or something gave rituals of remembrance gratitude or turning the loss into something positive for others. The author collaborated with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross on the book On Grief and Grieving, which adapted the five stages of grief from her landmark work in the late 1960s on the five stages of dying: denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and acceptance. They also speculate on what the future might hold for business: more reliance on digital technology, a new relationship with government, and fresh thinking about social inequality, environmental sustainability, and the delivery of health care. These executives discuss leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic, how the crisis has affected their companies, and how they are responding. In this roundtable discussion, HBR’s editor in chief, Adi Ignatius, leads a conversation among five top executives: the fashion mogul Tory Burch Geoff Martha, of Medtronic Nancy McKinstry, who heads the professional information services firm Wolters Kluwer Chuck Robbins, of Cisco Systems and Kevin Sneader, of McKinsey & Company. “What Is the Next Normal Going to Look Like?” But one-off exercises are not enough: Leaders must institutionalize that process, building a dynamic link between thinking about the future and taking action in the present. To use it well, organizations must imagine a variety of futures, identify strategies that are needed across them, and begin implementing those strategies now. Its most recognizable tool is scenario planning. Its aim is not to predict the future but to help organizations envision multiple futures in ways that enable them to sense and adapt to change. The practice of strategic foresight offers a solution. Yet the decisions they make now could have ramifications for decades. Leaders can’t draw on experience to address developments no one has ever seen before. In times of great uncertainty, it’s difficult to formulate strategies.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |