Leading During A Polycrisis: Expert Tips To Keep Companies Flying High
An ex-fighter pilot and others offer advice about dealing with stress and the mindset needed to view a crisis as an opportunity rather than a danger
This article covers:
- How traditional leadership relying on instinct and personality is no longer suitable
- Why mindset – seeing opportunities in crises – can accelerate growth
- How investment in futures and foresight strategies can help navigate volatility
Crowe Global’s Art of Smart content aims to inform and inspire business leaders to make smarter decisions. It is founded on four pillars: boldness, growth, innovation, and diversity. The quartet of business factors is under threat in this post-pandemic era, where geopolitical issues, supply-chain challenges, and advances in artificial intelligence collide against economic uncertainty. So the insights offered here could be business-critical.
“Polycrisis” is a term popularized by Adam Tooze, an economic historian at Columbia University, in 2022. The following January, the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2023 explained how “present and future risks can also interact with each other to form a ‘polycrisis’ – a cluster of related global risks with compounding effects, such that the overall impact exceeds the sum of each part.”
In addition to dealing with a polycrisis, the dark clouds of a global financial crash are looming, so it’s understandable that leaders’ anxiety levels are rising. But are this pace of evolution and the multitude of crises likely to decrease any time soon? Indeed, as historian Niall Ferguson said of the concept of a polycrisis: “It’s just history happening.”
Crowe LLP’s Executive Outlook Study, published in April in collaboration with Forbes, surveyed over 1,000 executives from organizations with at least US$500 million in annual revenues, and almost half—43 percent—reported that disruptions and market volatility had weakened their business.
According to the research, the leading source of volatility among executives was overall economic change—inflation and the threat of a global financial crash—with 40 percent. Currently, supply chain (38 percent), talent (37 percent), financial risk (35 percent), and geopolitical change (34 percent) were next on the list.
Embracing volatility
However, by 2025, the executives expect the leading sources of volatility to be different: financial risk (45 percent), overall economic change (44 percent), talent (43 percent), geopolitical change (42 percent), and supply chain (41 percent). Notably, all sources rise in percentage, meaning greater volatility is expected.
Clearly, business leaders must embrace volatility, drive innovation, balance short-term needs with longer-term planning. First, a calm, growth mindset is required to lead in a world where change is the only constant in these uncertain times.
Leaders could learn from the opportunism of John F. Kennedy. The 35th president of the United States knew plenty about handling pressure in uncertain times. JFK commanded patrol torpedo boats during World War II, was at the helm during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and signed the first nuclear weapons treaty a month before his premature death.
What would the youngest-serving U.S. president have made of modern-day pressures, not least the advancement of artificial intelligence in the post-pandemic world? Kennedy’s observation that “the Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis’” is perhaps apposite. “One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity,” he explained. “In a crisis, be aware of the danger—but recognize the opportunity.”
Traditionally, business leaders have run organizations on instinct, personality, and a lack of adaptability. Now, though, those at the helm have to plan for change and disruption, not for perfection. Leaders should recognize that looking forward and planning for the future is more critical than dwelling on past performance. Old working methods are unsuitable for a successful organization in 2023 and beyond. What worked yesterday will unlikely work tomorrow.
Thanks to its extensive research and expertise in this area, Crowe LLP can help leaders reveal business value in volatility—explore more here.
A new style of leadership
As 18th-century English historian Edward Gibbons said: “The wind and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigator.” His point is that leaders can better navigate challenges by having a broader scope of understanding.
A leader must have the courage to support a technology platform that offers a single source of truth accessible to all key personnel within the organization and trusted specialist advisors and analysts. Trusting the process and accessing insights uncovered by quality data from numerous internal and external sources might initially be uncomfortable for business leaders still mentally operating in the 20th century.
The recent Crowe LLP research highlighted the extent of this paralysis. Nearly 40 percent of respondents admitted their organizations have been slow to react to market conditions, despite more than two-thirds expressing confidence that they can predict, detect, and reduce risk from volatility.
San Francisco-based Rania Succar, CEO of Intuit Mailchimp, advises fellow leaders to be “constantly gathering perspectives on the environment around us. For example, I spend a lot of time with my team, with my peers, with colleagues externally, just getting a sense for what’s top of mind for them, what opportunities do you see, what challenges do you see, and therefore you’re constantly getting new insights into what the ongoing threats and opportunities are.”
Succar stresses the importance of “stepping back” to consider the information and focus on what “matters most.” She continues: “You have to be very clear in your mind to achieve hyper-prioritization. You’ve got to ignore, quiet down, and neutralize all the less important things. If you’re trying to address all the different forces coming at you, you’ll never be successful.”
How to leverage anxiety
He continues: “So what you want to do is cultivate a culture where you use a level of anxiety that you control, enabling you to find energy and discipline to perform. Because without anxiety, you won’t perform. And bad stress and bad anxiety prevent you from taking actions that create value; they do not remove issues from your life but often create even more.”
Chuet explains how to “leverage anxiety.” He says: “It’s not just turning in your bed at night worrying, but sitting at your chair and being clear about your objectives and what mission success looks like.” It helps to have three plans in a leader’s mind. “In aviation, you always go with at least three plans: the ‘most likely’ plan, ‘worst case,’ and what we call ‘no enemy.’ If you have present those three plans in your mind, the truth will be somewhere in the middle.”
If the worst happens, the pilots are ready because these three plans have been outlined and, to an extent, expected. “We always verbalize those plans, and we make sure our teams understand because when something happens, you don’t have to restart all the training, all the reflection,” adds Chuet. “It is already somewhere here in the mind, so you can use what we call decentralized command and have an impact very fast.”
How leaders would love Chuet as their wingman to combat the polycrisis and fly high despite the expected volatility in the coming years.
How ThriveAgric successfully converted a crisis into an opportunity
Its investors needed money to weather toughening economic conditions. Still, its farmers had issues selling due to closed roads, disappearing social circles, plummeting food consumption, and many businesses shutting down nationwide. Briefly, it seemed that ThriveAgric would close down too.
Oshone Anavhe, Head of Operations at ThriveAgric, says clear communication was vital to weathering the storm. “During a crisis, people want to know what’s happening and the plan. Transparency is crucial, both internally and externally.” For ThriveAgric, this meant holding regular all-hands meetings to keep employees informed and sharing regular updates with stakeholders.
To recover, Anavhe recalls that ThriveAgric built a culture of communication, adaptability, and planning ahead with intensive and expansive data and foresight. Anavhe says this is a perfect culture mix to wade through crises, however deadly they might be. “Since the pandemic, we’ve dealt with even worse crises with far greater financial implications.”
A good example is how the war in Ukraine led to skyrocketing prices of fertilizers in Africa and deadly disease infestations that wiped out livestock en masse. In places like Nigeria, where there are limited insurance options, being able to foresee and prevent the financial implications of crises means a lot.
Anavhe said they stockpiled fertilizers in preparation once the news about the Ukraine invasion broke, and their intelligence team foresaw it would affect fertilizer prices. Another time, they heard news about changing rules in logistics and pre-transported and warehoused fertilizers to their farmer populations before the law took effect, allowing them time to register for a new license under the new regulation. Data and insight, Anavhe says, are more than looking at your field or industry. It’s essential to be abreast of adjacent and tangential industries to yours.
“Plan contingencies, be swift, and be flexible,” says Anavhe. ThriveAgric has built a habit of having quick notice, short but actionable meetings, and standups. The business also invests and relies heavily on its talent as part of crisis management. During the pandemic, the startup had to hire an interim CEO who had better experience managing crises. “Many times, it’s not a top executive; knowing which talent can be more suitable to deal with a particular crisis is also important,” adds Anavhe. “Hire talent that is more conversant with that state or has more experience weathering that sort of thing.”
Key takeaway questions
- How could you be better at balancing short-term targets with longer-distance goals?
- Do you invest enough time, money, and effort in planning for all eventualities?
- When was the last time you reviewed the business’ crisis-management strategy, and how has it evolved in recent years?
- Are you guilty of following a perfect plan, and if so how can you build in more agility?
- What more could you be doing for your wellbeing in these volatile times?
