Sam Wambugu: How to steer business in turbulent times

Faced with a torrent of tech and Covid-19 disruptions that have rocked businesses, leaders must be feeling like they are building a plane while at the same time flying it.

From banking to media, health, manufacturing, education, and professional services — they all must adapt to relentless changes now compounded by the pandemic. Yet, technology is expected to play a pivotal role in revitalising the economies crippled by Covid.

These changes create an aura of uncertainty about the future.

The sheer unpredictability of business means that the traditional approaches for forecasting fail to provide the definitive long-term strategies — the kind that leaders have relied on in the past to discern the future.

Business leader

The whirlwind of changes makes it hard for business leaders to cope. As the person at the centre of the web in a company, a business leader must be at home with the idea that uncertainty is inevitable. But that realisation does not come naturally.

Business leaders need to explore what is technologically possible, anticipate changes and how such changes will disrupt the markets.

Perhaps the most important skill leaders need to hone is listening. Business leaders must be listeners. They need to listen to their clients and customers, their teams, peers and partners. They must listen with the intent of getting ideas that change their minds.

Reading biographies of captains of companies that have persistently disrupted their industries shows that they are ravenous readers. They have a broad-based desire to explore, discover, discern and discuss with others.

Likewise, leaders who aspire to lead in these tumultuous times must study how successful leaders navigate or instigate tech turbulence. They must do so with the aim of applying the insights to their own business.

Dgital technologies

Drawing from troves of insights — reading, researching, and learning from others — leaders evolve their thinking. They raise their quotient of digital acuity — a sharpness or keenness of thought, vision, and understanding of digital technologies and how they bring forth competitive advantage.

Such leaders have the humility to accept to be challenged. They search for digitally savvy mentors to recalibrate their thought process. Mentors and coaches help them shed outdated mindsets in favour of behaviours attuned to the changing times.

They must also be risk-takers: They must test-drive new business approaches, capabilities, technologies, and, most importantly, possess the courage to lead creative and often maverick digital teams.

Here is my point: Digital business leaders are not beholden to the status quo; they are willing to change about everything.

Only those willing to question everything will have the mettle to navigate the ebbs and flows of relentless tech disruptions.

[email protected] @Samwambugu2