2019 : Uncertainty = Opportunity

I can’t remember many years starting with such an air of foreboding as 2019. If you want to feel depressed, pick your theme : Brexit, climate change, inequality, nationalism, protectionism, war. We’re entering the last year of a decade still without a name, but if history christens it the lost decade, it won’t be a surprise.

But fatalism never got anyone anywhere. As Hermes says in the superb HadesTown currently wowing audiences at the National Theatre, Orpheus could see the world not as it is, but as it could be. And that’s we should do in 2019.

The key for business is to focus on the things that it can influence and control. For many this means controlling costs, deferring investment decisions and delaying plans. And I have no doubt that we will see further redundancies and cost reductions. But I always try to remember Henrik Ibsen’s observation that the majority is always wrong. In the world of investing, John Paul Getty advised people to buy when everyone else is selling and hold until everyone else is buying. If everyone else is feeling uncertain, that means there must be opportunity, either to acquire for value or enter new markets slightly freer of competition.   

Closer to home, there is a major opportunity to unite all colleagues behind the purpose of the organisation. In an uncertain world, a business can offer certainty – of social purpose and of objectives. Everyone should know why an organisation exists, what it’s here to do, why clients should choose it and why people should want to work there. If those things are not already clear where you work, then 2019 should be the year of defining purpose.

2019 should also be the year where business leaders shed their timidity and begin to speak out. Capitalism may well be a flawed system, but it is better than all the others and we need to convince society of that. And our society now expects the best of our businesses to engage with its key issues, whether they be education or health or gender equality, diversity and opportunity for all.

At Lansons, while we’re never going to disown our “PR” heritage, we continue to evolve our skills and abilities and re-position ourselves as a full service Reputation Management consultancy, with a fast growing Content Marketing capability. I was commissioned jointly by the leading UK industry body (the PRCA) and the leading global industry body (ICCO) to write their book on our industry - and Reputation Management : The Future of Corporate Communications and Public Relations was published by Emerald on Friday, 21st December. In it, I argue that the best organisations need to be as good at managing reputation as they are at everything else. For a preview, the publishers have opened the first few pages of the book, together with details of the 81 people who contributed, on Amazon at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reputation-Management-Corporate-Communications-Relations/dp/1787566102/ref=zg_bsnr_268325_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=NRTCK8N87FDNVP2CFMPE .

On the eve of another year of uncertainty, on behalf of everyone at Lansons, I’d like to thank all of our clients for your continued support. I’d also like to wish all of you and all of our other friends a happy holiday season. And I’d suggest that in 2019 we modify that most British of slogans - and keep calm – and carry on being ambitious.

This article originally appeared in the Lansons Christmas Newsletter, December 2018.