"What if this isn't the storm?"

Cheryl Strauss Einhorn recently wrote an online article for the Harvard Business Review, entitled "In uncertain times, ask these questions before you make a decision".  The article recommends that leadership teams change their approach to decision-making during times of uncertainty.  There is no question that we are living in a time of great uncertainty, and leaders (and their organizations) have to learn to rapidly pivot.  

The one question that Einhorn recommended that resonated with me the most was "What if this isn't the storm - what if it's the climate?"  In other words, what if what leaders and organizations are experiencing today isn't some blip on the proverbial radar screen?  What if we are experiencing the new normal for the future?

It's a humbling (and daunting) question.  But as Einhorn suggests, this shift in thinking is "more than semantic - it's strategic."  If we as leaders believe that what we are experiencing is just temporary, we likely won't ask ourselves the hard questions.  We won't push ourselves or our organizations to change.  Instead, as Einhorn writes, we will "delay, defer, or design for an imagined return to stability..."  

I don't know what the future holds.  However, what I can be sure of is that the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) that confronts us today likely won't subside anytime soon.  I think that most worldwide transformations start with a period of turbulence and chaos.  Today's world is turbulent and chaotic, and with that in mind, it seems more appropriate to say that this is a climatic change as opposed to a temporary storm.  The leaders who will be most successful in the future are the ones who will be able to adapt to organizational life in this new climate.