Feeling uncertain? Get used to it.

Anyone who lived through the last year will tell you great change can happen in no time at all. But what do we do when great change is happening all the time, which is likely to be our condition in the 21st Century?

Let’s stipulate that in every age and operating environment there is instability, a feeling that the world moves too fast. The measure of a successful adult is the capacity to adapt to that feeling and still act with conviction.

Organizations are no different. The organization’s concern is with its capacity to navigate the new and make the most of it. But how do we get out in front of what we will eventually come to realize was inevitable?

Fox or hedgehog?

If we were to chart our adaptation to any period of accelerating change we would see that the cycle of change becomes compressed. This compression powers rapid innovation in systems, business models, organizations. Compression also powers stress—the stress of contending with frequent periods of uncertainty. Leadership under stress puts a spotlight on temperament.

Leadership styles have sometimes been reduced to the “fox and hedgehog” dichotomy popularized by the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin. The fox, said Berlin, knows many things. But the hedgehog knows one big thing.

To know one big thing is to optimize for stability, which in a predictable environment is a useful trait. If we were running a steel company 60 years ago we might want to put a hedgehog in charge. But in the first two decades of our volatile century some might argue hedgehogs are obsolete, that these times require a fox’s temperament: Leaders who are adaptable and pragmatic, who can roll with uncertainty.

It is generally forgotten that Isaiah Berlin came to regret the reductivism of his fox versus hedgehog dichotomy. In an organization a leader can’t be one or the other all the time. Maturity is knowing when you have to be a fox responding on multiple unfamiliar dimensions and a hedgehog optimizing a winning hand—even if only for a little while.

In our age of perpetual uncertainty leaders will assume the temperaments of both fox and hedgehog as circumstances in the operating environment demand. They won’t get to choose.

Accelerating the inevitable

Someone once said that smart strategy acknowledges the inevitable and accelerates its arrival. This past January, for example, General Motors announced that it would phase out gas-powered vehicles entirely in the next 15 years. CEO Mary Barra GM is not edging up to this change. GM is now all in on electric vehicles when a little more than a year before Barra was pushing for a relaxation of air-quality standards. This certainly demonstrates adaptability.

The switch to EVs is not a visionary moment. What GM is doing seeing through present events—this spring’s chip shortage, for instance—to prepare for an inevitable future. Even when change is inevitable there will be resistance stress. The temptation to simultaneously keep GM’s legacy business and build EVs must have been enormous.

In the next few years Mary Barra will at times need to be both hedgehog and fox. Hedgehog to optimize the new direction. Fox to respond to the inevitable surprises—surprises both positive and negative.

Stress will come—for Barra and for her organization—as GM learns a new way of being. Stakeholders may not share the leadership’s sense of urgency. Productivity may take a hit. The share price may decline (although since the announcement it has held up well. And that’s with the chip shortage.). Within the organization jobs will have to change.

If the audience for change is not there it will need to be built. Step one will be making a complex idea seem not just inevitable but graspable. Leaders have to tell the truth if their growth story is to be credible.

In February of 1942, for example, the lowest point for the United States in its war with Germany and Japan, Franklin Roosevelt told the nation, “The news will get worse and worse before it begins to get better.” FDR was not asking his audience for a leap of faith. He gave it the respect of speaking truthfully. He radiated conviction, and that made him able to acknowledge bad news and admit that he did not have all the answers, that he was going to need help.

Compare that to the cheerleading of politicians in the spring of 2020 who assured everyone that Covid wasn’t real or would soon burn away. Nothing needed to change. The difference is that FDR treated his constituency like adults: Give it to me straight. Tell me what is needed. That’s a growth story.

Step two of building the audience for change is assuring people that they have a role to play. Inside GM, for instance, how will people who are the best in the world at building internal-combustion engines continue to feel valued? Some will opt out, of course. For those who remain, what will amplify their excitement and reanimate their commitment?

The propositions are simple. The real-life answers are not. Each organization will be different. What will be the same is acknowledging the inevitability of volatility as our 21st Century condition and accepting that the familiar won’t stay that way for long. If you want to know how to get out in front of the inevitable, that’s how.

This essay was written in collaboration with Andrew Green, founding partner of Broad Reach Growth. To read the original on Medium click here.