Back in November 2015 I wrote the article ’Uncertainty is the strategic leader’s best friend’. While that year had some political upheaval in Australia with the ousting of Tony Abbott by his own party, which replaced him with Malcolm Turnbull, it was, in hindsight, a pretty stable year. Since then, we have had Brexit, Trump’s 1st term, Covid-19, the Ukraine war, China’s acceleration, Trump’s 2nd term and his country’s war in Iran. Oh, and there is that thing called AI.

You would be forgiven if you call BS on ‘Uncertainty is the strategic leader’s best friend’! However, should you? Perhaps you should double down, given the current environment would suggest that the commonly quoted statistic that 70% of strategies fail due to poor execution is true. Executing any strategy in this environment is inherently difficult.

Here are three tips you could follow right now to help ensure your strategies are executing well in the perma-uncertain environment of 2026:

1. More voices: At times of heightened uncertainty, more voices are needed to gain perspectives that don’t miss anything critical. No one person on your executive team can know, with high levels of well-founded confidence, what to do next. Do some mini-crowd sourcing to identify what is going on in people’s minds.
2. Reassess signals: Revisit your KPIs and your KRIs or other signals you have been monitoring. Interrogate them with new voices in the room. Ask “What are they most sensitive to?” to assess if they are helpful right now. That is, can the sensitivities be linked to the price of oil, the disruption to supply chain, to customer hesitancy. If not, you have the right people in the room to find the new signals you need.
3. Review appetite: Ask the room, do we still have the same appetite for business? This one is critical. If you are too risk averse right now, you can miss massive opportunities that turn into an emerging strategic risk as the world moves while you’re still contemplating your next move.

I sincerely hope these tips help, as we could all do with a little clarity of action right now! 😊