We “fire from the hip”, focusing on internal operational activities that can be cut or reduced without linking them to the organisation’s strategic objectives. Our brains go into the fight-or-flight mode of survival, and we don’t properly assess the changing situation. In times of complexity and with situations changing rapidly, it is easy to go on autopilot. One reason for this is that individuals confuse tactics with strategy. In a pandemic, strategic thinking has never been more important - or more difficult. However, some organisations have not changed their strategies significantly, or not adjusted their target objectives to reflect the new environment. By now it should be a firm fixture in strategic risk reporting and backed up with key scenarios exploring possible directions as organisations move from a lockdown state into a post-pandemic world.
We can agree that most organisations did not have a global pandemic on their strategic scorecard or built into their strategy prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.
