Guiding Principles During Times of Uncertainty

Just when you thought the pace of change and uncertainty could not get any more chaotic or unpredictable, along comes a dangerous pandemic to upend even the best crisis-management plans.

Over the years, business leaders have come to accept the fact that change is never-ending and the pace of change will always continue to accelerate. Even with that reality, it’s fair to say the past two years have been unlike any others. Leaders continue to face an unprecedented level of disruption, uncertainty, change and challenge -- from lockdowns, evolving health guidance and new variants to labor shortages, inflation and supply chain issues. And much more.

As a recent article in The New York Times put it, “At companies large and small, new and old, public and private, 2021 was a year that played havoc with expectations.” As a result, 60 percent of executives surveyed by IBM said COVID-19 has adjusted their approach to change management. Not surprisingly, IBM’s research found that leaders expect to make enterprise agility a higher priority.

In a constantly changing business environment, a rigid long-term strategic plan is just not realistic or practical. Companies and leaders must be agile and resilient – more open to admit mistakes and quicker to acknowledge changing circumstances that require a shift in strategy or execution.

When the pandemic began in early 2020, I was CEO of TIAA, responsible for the livelihood of thousands of employees and the financial well-being of millions of customers. At that time, so much was unknown, so much was unpredictable, making it difficult if not impossible to rely on traditional forecasts to make firm decisions about things such as when it would be safe to bring employees back into the office.

To forge a path forward in this unchartered territory, I realized it would be valuable to develop a set of guiding principles to help us determine the right thing to do as we faced challenging issues and decisions. Done right, these principles could also help us maintain the trust of our employees and clients, and better manage the stress of the organization.

Essentially, as leaders, we would always consider: 1) the health – physical and mental – of our people, 2) service to our clients, and 3) the long-term financial health of the institution. We would do our best to balance all three. While the three variables are tethered to each other, the priority matters.

We put our people first because I knew if we took care of our employees, they would take care of our clients. And if we took care of our employees and our clients, that would ensure the long-term strength of the institution. So, we knowingly made some decisions that were not necessarily the ones we would have made if the immediate strength of the institution was our only concern.

Guiding principles such as these can help leaders and managers make decisions and communicate clearly, which is particularly challenging and especially important during times of uncertainty. To be effective, principles should be simple; given the nature of change and uncertainty, making them too detailed or rigid would be counter-productive. Most important, they must reflect the culture and values of the organization; they must be consistent with the ways you act and operate in “normal” times. The right set of principles will also be easy to adopt. In essence, they become self-executing and natural for leaders and managers.

While they might appear obvious or simple, a core set of principles can provide a sense of much-needed equilibrium and offer guardrails as thousands of decisions are made and countless actions are taken across the organization during a crisis or challenging situation.

And doesn’t that sound like a valuable management tool in times such as these?