Leading Through Unprecedented Times | CEO Blog

“I just want to live in precedented times”,  as the meme goes. Things are normal until they are not. Interestingly, the top risk on the National Security Council risk register has been pandemic for quite some time. As is common with risk, people take heart in the likelihood of high impact things occurring being, on the whole, quite small. Perhaps this leads to a naturally greater focus on the middle of the Cartesian diagram. Either way here we are.  
 
It seems almost churlish to comment on the strain of leadership under these circumstances. I am not running a ward in a hospital, fighting to maintain an ambulance roster or systematically risking my health in some other way in support of the NHS or essential services. My appreciation and respect for those who are in those roles knows no bounds.  

For the rest of us, however, uncertainty and doubt abound. The foundations of normal life and business have been at least warped and in some cases thrown into complete disarray. It seems that three horizons emerge: the immediate shock and requirement to react to reset an organisation;, the medium-term manoeuvre to safeguard organisational survival; and lastly the sense of what this will all mean in the thereafter.  

Recovering from shock and mustering logic and analysis to service the medium term are still the priorities. The levels of certainty typically required for significant decision-making are mostly unavailable. When will ‘normality’ return? What assumptions can be made about the future financial environment? What is the long term effect on finely-tuned supply chains forced to be held in stasis?  

There is an emerging discussion on how the pandemic will change the future but these ponderings seem premature to many. The future of work, lifestyles, recession,  ‘U’, ‘V’ or ‘W’ recovery models, global cooperation, the nature of society and community, the implications of resilience in systems thinking... the list will grow. WIG will be ready for the conversations, but in the meantime, we thought it fitting to provide a probably incomplete list of contributions made by our membership in support of the current crisis. Our team is collating these positive stories on a regular basis so do reach out and let us know how your organisation and team is responding and what creative collaborations have come out of this crisis for you.

Originally published: 30/03/2020