By Peter Power, FBCI FIRM BA JP
“If there’s one thing that’s certain in business, it’s uncertainty,” is a quote widely attributed to business guru Stephen Covey, the author of ‘Predictable Results in Unpredictable Times’ published in 2009, directly after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. I don’t know about you, but I think he was spot on, especially in our increasingly volatile world since then, where, for some organizations, uncertainty becomes too difficult to comprehend and just ends up as a curious refuge for ill-defined hope. Meanwhile, other more agile and resilient businesses can actually thrive in the winds of change.
Some of the greatest innovations and business breakthroughs emerge during times of uncertainty. For example, the 2008 financial crisis gave rise to now-household names like Airbnb, Uber, and WhatsApp. These companies didn’t avoid uncertainty; they capitalized on it. They spotted changing consumer behaviours and unmet needs and built solutions that resonated in a new reality.
Of course, not all uncertainty is opportunity but in uncertain times, when traditional norms are questioned and new markets are discovered, unconventional thinking can be rewarded.
Easy to say, but we need to dig a little deeper to help find solutions, especially when entrepreneurs don’t always shine.
Unlike risk, which can often be quantified and managed, uncertainty is nebulous and difficult to predict. It can challenge those who, despite the obvious fragility of so many once stable business environments, still insist on often futile attempts to construct immutable plans for years ahead. In which case the illusion of certainty can be more dangerous than uncertainty itself.
Businesses that cling to outdated models or rigid forecasts risk being blindsided by change. Those that embrace uncertainty – expecting it, preparing for it, and even welcoming it – create a chance of gaining a competitive edge.
In my experience, organizations that thrive in our uncertain world are seldom the ones with the most detailed five-year plans, but those that are agile, adaptive, and responsive are likely to be more successful. In this sense, agility means having the systems, culture, and mindset in place to pivot quickly, test ideas rapidly, and make decisions with incomplete information.
So, where might we look to help us make sense of uncertainty and construct our business cultures for the future, where clues are not always available in the present?
Back when Ronald Reagan sat in the Oval Office, the American military came up with a natty acronym that provided a simple lens through which organizations could interpret their challenges and opportunities. In particular, it emphasised the need for strategic foresight and dealing with uncertainty, which in turn flagged up the need for agility built on an attainable platform of net resilience.
The VUCA framework (identifying Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) soon gained traction in a wider world. I guess because, like all successful acronyms, it is easy to remember, logical, and is relevant in many situations.
Jump forward forty years from the mid-eighties to a conference that I was co-chairing in London a few weeks ago and it seems that the same topics are still applicable today. During the conference we explored modern day corporate anxieties, this time using another acronym that first appeared in 2004 – ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance). Under Governance the key concerns discussed with delegates were collectively identified as:
- Lack of corporate foresight.
- Blame cultures that prevent understanding and learning.
- Lack of agility.
- Unable to transition to a more realistic way of functioning.
- Inadequate net resilience seen as a pan organizational mindset.
- Over dependence on elusive certainty in an increasing world of uncertainty.
While VUCA gave us a language for exploring uncertainty, ESG brought a new lens through which to understand how organizations respond to it.
If readers of this article also recognise the above concerns, I suggest the next stage is to identify solutions to outmanoeuvre, or at least mitigate, some of the pitfalls inherent in them. To identify solutions, we might look once again at the past, noting that whilst technology has certainly changed, human behaviour is pretty much the same: it requires motivation, time, and support to overcome inertia and established organizational pathways.
Having been in the resilience business for well over thirty years, twenty of which running my own company where I was fortunate to advise several governments and many international business operations, I have noticed that despite some comparatively unique current threats, history does have a habit of repeating itself. So, I suggest this is what we now need to recognise and focus on as measurable objectives:
Accept that uncertainty is normal
If you can, reframe uncertainty as opportunity. Uncertain times are where new ideas, paths, and skills can emerge. Start seeing ambiguity as a space to create, not just survive.
Ensure flexibility
Build flexible cultures and business operating systems that are not dependant on rigid plans. Instead, use adaptive planning: set a direction, move forward, learn lessons, and adjust as necessary.
Develop a sense of corporate agility
Recognise ambiguity instead of filling the gaps with too many assumptions or fears.
Diversify markets and revenue streams
Where possible, target multiple customer segments to buffer against shifts in demand.
Rethink branding and purpose
Is it time to align your brand with what might be called authentic values, those that resonate more with Gen Z and Millennials?
However, just flagging up difficulties and suggesting objectives is not enough. Having so far listed some of the problems that we face and measurable objectives to hopefully thrive in a world of uncertainty, the final part is to introduce and measure a change management route map that leads from old normal to new normal, when trying to make sense of our uncertain world.
It’s about changing attitudes, mindsets, and business models to identify new approaches in our uncertain world.
There are several models out there to help achieve this. To keep within the lessons from the past theme of this article, it’s worth going back to an excellent idea from 1996 created by John Kotter at Harvard Business School that has stood the test of time.
Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model provides a structured framework for leading organizational change by building eight successive steps:
- Create a Sense of Urgency – highlight the opportunities and challenges that make change necessary.
- Build a Guiding Coalition – form a group of influential individuals from various departments (depending on organizational size) who can help to champion and guide the change effort.
- Form a Strategic Vision – create a clear, simple vision for the future that explains the purpose of the change.
- Enlist A Volunteer Army – share ideas to gain buy-in from employees and stakeholders.
- Enable Action By Removing Barriers – identify and resolve obstacles, such as clinging on to outdated blame cultures and preserving business waymarks that are likely to be elusive, or of little value today.
- Generate Short-Term Wins – visible short-term goals that can be reached quickly to demonstrate the value of the net changes.
- Sustain Acceleration – build on the momentum from the short-term wins, but don’t declare victory too early.
- Institute Change – integrate the revised approach into the organizational culture and subsequently monitor.
These eight steps are likely to be more successful by (a) having effective leadership and management to drive visionary innovations and business breakthroughs during times of uncertainty; and (b) recognising ‘mind and heart’ of stakeholders to address both the rational (mind) and emotional (heart) aspects of change. After all, recent history has already shown us that innovations and business breakthroughs emerge in times of uncertainty – providing we see beyond institutional barriers.
“When the winds of change blow, some people build walls, while others build windmills”. Chinse proverb.
The author
Peter Power FBCI FIRM BA JP has considerable hands-on experience of real time events and for many years has supported various governments and organizations in several different countries. He occasionally appears on TV and radio as an expert guest. He is also a past member of the UK Security Review Commission (IPPR) and previous Chairman of the World Conference on Disaster Management. Peter is a co-author of the UK Cabinet Office / BSI standard on Crisis Management (BS11200) and in an earlier life was instrumental in helping to create/promulgate the UK ‘Gold/Silver/Bronze’ Crisis Command System. He is quoted in the UK Government Guide on Integrated Emergency Management and is the author of many guidebooks, including the original UK Govt. (then DTI) issued guidebook on business continuity. Nowadays his focus is very much on promoting organizational resilience.
Peter is an Editorial Advisor for Resilience Forward.
