Navigating Today’s Uncertainty

A recent article in our local business journal, interviewed a restaurant group CEO, asking how he was navigating the tariff impacts on his business. Two comments he made struck me as something we can all learn from.

“Our company was founded and is run by two families who came to this country in the wake of the Vietnam War. Survival and growth in periods of uncertainty is in the company DNA.

To get through this, the team will rely on the strength of its business relationships and staying in tune with what is happening so decisions can be made quickly.”

Major disruptive events are no longer a once in a century or even once in a decade event. No sooner do we begin to feel a sense of calm and stability after the disruptions of COVID, than we have to face the disruptions of a tariff war.

Disruptions create uncertainty and business doesn’t like uncertainty. Yet, disruptions, and therefore uncertainty, has become the new backdrop for everything we do.

How do you make survival and growth through uncertainty part of your organization’s DNA?

It starts with how we view disruptions and uncertainty. The history of disruptions is that after the initial shock wave, there is almost always new opportunities that will propel growth. Time and again, I have seen some organizations turn disruptions into a catalyst for implementing changes they have always thought about.

Are you positioned to turn disruptions into opportunities?

Start with developing an Improv Mindset. Improvisation is a discipline that goes well beyond what you might think of as Improv comedy. It dates back to Roman times and has been taught not only to performers but to leaders in all fields. Improv is the ability to say “yes, and” to whatever life brings.

The ‘yes’ is the ability to simply accept as a given, whatever shows up. There is no upset, no judgement, no preference it should be different. It simply is. The ‘and’ is the ability to take whatever shows up and add on to it, to take the next step without being concerned about what may come from that step.

And the ability to take that next step requires learning how to trust your intuition. Data analytics will not help you when there is no data. And one reason events are disruptive is because there is no history, no repetition to collect the data that allows us to map the cause-effect relationship. All we have is our intuition.

Intuition works best when we know who we are, why we exist, what we are committed to and what we want to create in the world. What we call the Strategic Compass. That creative, inspired, intuitive aspect of being human is designed to help us create what we are committed to. 

The clearer we are about our Strategic Compass the better our intuition will guide us.

What does it mean to lead in a world that constantly changes and never seems to settle.? How do we guide our teams, our companies, ourselves in a world that is consistently uncertain?  These questions were what I set out to answer when I created
The Living Organization® Framework.

In this issue I’ve shared how two aspects of that framework, Improve Mindset and Strategic Compass are key to have the ability to embrace uncertainty as part of your organizations DNA.  In coming issues, I will share additional skills that will help CEOs move beyond managing disruption and begin building organizations that thrive within it. Organizations that are resilient, agile, alive, and deeply aligned with purpose.

That’s the work we do. I don’t have all the answers, but I have walked the road of uncertainty with many others, and have navigated through it. If this resonates with you, let’s talk.