Are You Heeding the Warning?

“Beware the Ides of March.”

Words spoken by Shakespeare’s Oracle to Julius Caesar. Words made famous when, on March 15th (the Ides of March), a power-hungry mob of Congressmen killed Caesar, his best friend Brutus wielding the knife for the final stab.

Decisions and actions in the US reverberate across all industries and have global implications. Being wary – as the Oracle warned Shakespeare's Julius Caesar – makes sense.

Boards offer valuable perspective

Anticipating and managing risk is always important. In fact, risk is likely an agenda item in upcoming quarterly board meetings. Boards offer valuable perspective about emerging issues with the potential to knock a business off its strategic course. They – and your leadership team – are tremendous resources for identifying vulnerabilities that could impede progress or worse: become catastrophic.

Boards also have an obligation to assess a company’s fitness to mitigate or manage identified risks. At the very least, everyone must know what to do when lightning strikes.

Not enough to identify risks or mitigation strategies

It’s not enough for leaders to identify risks or mitigation strategies. Success requires understanding the warning signs to discern what actions are required and with what urgency.

Skilled executives dive deeper. For example:

• What’s the one thing that makes you most uncomfortable right now?
• How deep or broad is the potential impact on sales, operations, access to cash or capital, etc.?
• How well do you understand its relevance for your people, customers, products, or services?
• What about this issue makes you most vulnerable, and thus, requires immediate action?

Take action

The executives I advise take action to make meaningful progress:

• Make sense of the warning signs, while having imperfect information.
• Prepare for and manage the unexpected, as it happens.
• Engage the board in both conversation and decision.
• Attend to the offense even when rapid upheaval or chaos requires strong defense.

Notably, Caesar’s downfall was not about a lack of knowledge or awareness of a critical risk. The Oracle made sure of that. Caesar failed to heed the Oracle’s warning. That failure left him unprepared and ill-equipped. And the results were decidedly catastrophic.

The Ides of March is coming. Some say it’s already here.

Are you heeding the warning and making the adjustments needed to survive and thrive in the uproar?

The executives I advise routinely navigate chaos better. I can help you too.

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?2025 Tara J Rethore.?All rights reserved.?Permission granted to excerpt or reprint with attribution.