
CPR: taking the stress out of practicing public speakingÂ
Practicing a speech is intimidating. Not only do you have to know your stuff, but you also have to think about your structure, your gestures, and your audience. Here’s how to use...
by Howard H. Yu Published December 29, 2022 in Brain Circuits • 2 min read
At the core of any business strategy is making a bet on what you believe the future to look like. It is necessary to take a stance, but, like any investor, companies need to hedge their bets. Smart companies create options for themselves not just to hedge, but to capture outsized upswings as well. To create options, you need a strong viewpoint even if it’s inaccurate.
Without a viewpoint, you can’t allocate resources. You can’t build new capabilities. Allocating resources requires substantial logic and rationale. But then again, your mental models need to be continuously updated. For a company, what’s needed when making a strategic choice is this: have a viewpoint widely shared, but fully acknowledge the inherent uncertainty.
The exercise
So, today, try a simple exercise. Look at your current strategy and where you have placed your resources. Involve your whole strategy team. Now ask yourselves, if your bets prove to be wrong, and the future presents a completely different reality, what would you do? Gameplay it.
This sounds absurdly commonsensical, but most companies actually do the opposite. Managers go through the most excruciating data analytics based on history, declare a bold move, align the entire organization for its implementation, and then never look back.
Success from insecurity
It is exactly this kind of paradoxical thinking that drives success where change is constant. Survival takes an inner insecurity that propels a CEO to become forever vigilant. Being vigilant means doing everything to prevent disasters, despite having a strong viewpoint on how the future will look based on your best educated guess.
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Further reading:Â
Everybody can be a good forecaster, here’s what you need to know by Howard Yu
LEGO® Chair Professor of Management and Innovation at IMD
Howard Yu, hailing from Hong Kong, holds the title of LEGO® Professor of Management and Innovation at IMD. He leads the Center for Future Readiness, founded in 2020 with support from the LEGO Brand Group, to guide companies through strategic transformation. Recognized globally for his expertise, he was honored in 2023 with the Thinkers50 Strategy Award, recognizing his substantial contributions to management strategy and future readiness. At IMD, Howard directs the Strategy for Future Readiness program.
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