Rising Chaos Makes the Case for Just-in-Case Management
The pandemic, climate change and geopolitical upheaval have shredded the certainties that CEOs once took for granted.
More disruptions ahead.
Photographer: NOAA Photo Library/Getty Images/Hulton Archive
The business world is in the process of adopting a revolutionary new philosophy — or perhaps having a new philosophy thrust upon it: just-in-case management. In the great age of globalization that started in the 1980s and entered its triumphant phase in the 1990s and 2000s, the twin watchwords of business were speed and efficiency. Today speed and efficiency must compete with security and resilience.
This new belt-and-braces world has been coming for some time. The climate crisis put a question mark next to efficiency. What is the point of creating the world’s most cost-effective machine if you torch the planet in the process? Donald Trump’s ill-tempered repudiation of the postwar consensus in favor of America First isolationism forced businesses to rethink their assumptions about tariffs, regulations and relations between the U.S. and European Union. Then the global pandemic forced them to rethink even more basic assumptions about office life. Now Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is completing the uncertainty revolution. Suddenly everything that business had taken for granted has been torn to shreds and replaced by a series of just-in-case questions.