The bravest leaders emerge from uncertainty

British executives need to develop a new kind of leadership based on their ability to adapt quickly and strategically to continued uncertainty.

Some people are more comfortable with change than others, but nobody is a natural. It takes practice and concentration. When I look across all the clients we work with, there are three qualities that differentiate the masters of change.

Become agile at your core

Covid, the energy crisis and cost of living concerns have all been massive disruptors which forced businesses to rapidly adapt to uncertainty. We’ve seen pharmaceutical companies find new ways to launch and develop vaccines in a compressed timeframe, retailers transform digital interaction and companies learning to live with a new hybrid work style.

If time is money, velocity is value – you’re going to need more speed if you want to overtake.

The UK has been one of the fastest markets to adopt new digital technology for business to consumer, yet we’ve been slower at reimagining processes for productivity.

Accenture research says the highest 10% of companies reimagining their processes deliver almost twice the revenue of the bottom 25%.

Adopt a brave mindset 

Brave businesses foster a culture of striving to be better through continuous learning. Instead of punishing failure, these leaders encourage and reward learning, which will pay dividends in terms of sustained productivity improvements.

Technology can help scale a continuous-learning culture. For example, our recent Fjord Trends report identifies the metaverse as one of the top five trends business leaders need to be aware of for 2022. Many view it as a space for gamers and consumers, but it can be a brilliantly dynamic corporate space – helping to engage your people and providing new opportunities for collaboration, learning and development.

Sustain innovation

Periods of uncertainty provide an opportunity to innovate, but it’s important to sustain this for the long term. There’s a clear link between maximising tech investments, speeding up the pace of innovation and driving increased productivity.

We’ve worked with a well-known confectionary brand to create a digital twin of their manufacturing process in the metaverse. By experimenting with optimising a few production lines in their plant using the digital twin, we’ve designed a new process, which means they will achieve multi-million savings when the solution is deployed into that handful of lines in real life.

Beyond cost savings, the real opportunity of moving to cloud-based platforms and tools is around doing work in new innovative ways and ramping up productivity.

Dealing with change is the number one priority for CEOs right now. Fostering a culture of agility, creativity, and innovation, with continuous learning baked into the DNA of the organisation, won’t let you ignore change. It will help you take advantage of it.