For a generation of business leaders, we have been operating in and living through what we believed were uncertain times. Continual upheavals, disruptions and global shifts like digitization, technology transformation, changing geopolitics, evolving business models, and a changing consensus on globalization and trade have for decades challenged the very notion of executive decision-making.
The COVID-19 pandemic, however, is changing–or has already changed–our collective calculus of uncertainty because there is no reference case for the COVID-19 crisis in living memory. Unfortunately, in uncertain times, executives aren’t spared the responsibility of critical decision-making. If anything, the time frame for making choices shortens, even as the contextual uncertainty makes decision-making commensurately harder.
