Empowering action and bold decisions to foster lasting impact in times of uncertainty
Would it not be cool if a crisis is not an unpredictable shock? Would it not be cool if a crisis is not turbulence? Would it not be cool if a crisis is a root for big bets? Would it not be cool if a crisis is a bedrock of opportunities wrapped with urgency and imperfect information for making bold decisions? However, among us, most of us miss the key ingredient during these “Would it not be cool if…” scenarios—taking action. Remember, COVID challenged our inaction with bold strength we never thought we had—executing unfamiliar, high-stakes decisions.
Post-COVID, in today’s overlapping economic maelstrom, new entrants in any industry are commoditizing, introducing lower-cost offerings. The old guard increasingly lets velocity-to-value go elsewhere and has even deprioritized innovation, to an extent that has prevented any aggressive evolution. The amount of uncertainty becomes exponentially complex with a finite addressable wallet. In the arena of action, crisis is a precondition to healthy growth.
Contours of crisis—what’s the issue, how might it unfold, what are the facts, what’s the impact on me, what’s the impact on my company, what is the scale of the impact on others, what is the priority segregation, and what influence do I have?
Crisis vis-a-vis change is a thread that binds our professional and personal lives. We are molded to build our legacy and impact through umpteen “Would it not be cool if…” scenarios on the fly. Pause! Give yourself a moment to step back. Anticipate! Anticipate not the unfolding scale of impact, but how many people were impacted and sent in different directions because of our action-reaction-inaction. Take, for example, January 2009, when Captain Chesley Sullenberger paused, anticipated the impact on the 155 people he was responsible for, ignored the fog of doubt, and built his own balcony perspective to successfully land a plane on water.
Would it not be cool if, during the ups and downs, CEOs (Captain Sully’s) could harness radical resilience to accelerate and upgrade different opportunities while piloting to harvest efficiency for an ecosystem that flourishes in the employee experience, customer experience, and the catalyst for their existence—TSR (Total Shareholder Revenue)?
No two crises are the same. The confluence of turmoil and disruptions fails to adequately capture the suffering that seems shallow and brief. To confront the toughest situations with an all-consuming response, franchises bounce inflationary risks to restructure, reconfigure, and rescope their defense intensity. Would it not be cool if we didn’t make this tragic mistake? Would it not be cool if the crisis pivots were decision decentralization, compassion reallocation, accountability activation, authority delegation, and escalated communication?
In the heaviest of seas, with inevitable existential risk, “It would be cool” to be fragile, to have compassion for ourselves, and to be the crisis-friendly cockroach.
– Manav Ahuja
Co-founder & Managing Partner
Stratgyk Consulting Inc.
