External shocks don’t create business fragility; they reveal it. Feeling uncertain? Savvy leaders don’t wait for chaos to force change. They create organizations where pivoting is muscle memory—not a panic response.
External Shocks
Businesses that struggle are rarely victims of bad luck. More often, they’re casualties of leaders who mistook “stable” for “prepared.”
The recent tariff chaos isn’t an anomaly; it’s a stress test.
If you are agile and adaptable, you can survive. If you are always ready, you very well may leap ahead.
You are Not Alone
You are part of an ecosystem. Rarely does a business (or individual) own every aspect of the goods or services they create and consume. If your business is investing in becoming more agile, you want the ecosystem you are part of to do the same, and to reliably communicate so everyone can act swiftly when something changes. Your investment can’t hold up if parts you took for granted as stable—materials, products, services, or even financial markets—turn unstable without warning.
If instability is certain, we can note it and plan around it. But “unknown unknowns”—risks we can’t anticipate, per Donald Rumsfeld—may create sudden shocks. How might you ready your workplace to move quickly to action, not stall in confusion, when you are hit by something you didn’t expect?
The Pivot Playbook: From Fragility to Agility
I bring up unknowns because there is no local system, process or procedure in place to address an unknown. The shock will create a stall unless a people system is in place to activate employees who are empowered to surface what they see coming and change how work is done.
Does changing how work is done and information is shared seem impossible? If so, your business is fragile. Before you can be always ready to pivot, you’re going to need to first pivot from fragility to agility
You can start now, in any industry:
- Model Embracing Discomfort
Teams mirror leaders. If you avoid visible struggle, they’ll resist change. If you are uncertain, you don’t need to be the sole expert of what to do differently in every role.
What doesn’t change? Your purpose. Your vision. Your strategic objectives still matter, they just demand a new path.
Teams won’t abandon old habits unless they trust that the discomfort leads somewhere better. Your job: Show them how.
Consider inviting input that gives permission to be imperfect, including to yourself. Something like,
“I’m certain of our direction—yet now uncertain about our planned actions. Let’s revisit this together,”
And then prioritize the next steps with them.
- Reward Rethinking, “How We’ve Always Done It”
In business, hold sacred only those traditions that make your organization more vibrant—that deliver higher value, competitive edge, and a better workplace.
Stop clinging to ways of work, how information flows, and how people work together if not supportive of your best future.
Future-ready leaders know: Stability isn’t about control. It’s about creating systems that learn as fast as the world changes.
- Shared Systems, One Truth
If you’re feeling uncertain, a system change is likely needed.
Your business’ future is missing its full potential as you hold on to data siloes, strategies and plans not communicated for alignment, and coding that only suits your local use and not an easily shared standard.
Digitize the data, workflows and reports that matter (see #2) to better serve you now. But do it with ecosystem vision, one of “global” (shared) rather than “local” (isolated) improvements. Moving toward one version of the truth across all partners and hand-offs leads to greater clarity, alignment, speed, and cost savings.
“Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” ~W. Edwards Deming
If you’re feeling uncertain, then there’s likely a system that needs to change.
- Poor execution? Look at people systems, including communication, decision-making, and performance.
- Costs escalating? Look at supply chain or service delivery systems.
Speaking of supply chains—something many became more familiar with during the pandemic, as prices escalated, and stock-outs increased—there are countless industries in the global trade ecosystem. One industry especially overdue for a pivot is shipping.
Global Trade Pivots – Digitize and Lead
Some industries take longer to change. The lack of agility across the entire global trade ecosystem impacts all of us.
Despite its vital role in moving goods worldwide, the shipping industry still relies too heavily on manual processes, local codes and fragmented systems—vulnerable to costly errors, inefficiencies, and delays. It’s fragile, not agile.
Freight forwarders, who handle communications between shippers, buyers, governments, and carriers, have made progress in digitizing and automating. Future-thinking companies like TradeTech are helping drive this much-needed shift toward greater agility.
BUT, have the leaders been involved and are they pointing toward more secure, seamless sharing compared to local systems with a few integrations?
The pressure to show immediate return on investment can keep teams focused on local improvements. Local gains don’t always translate into broader readiness. When systems can’t talk to each other—or when data isn’t shared securely across partners—costs rise, errors multiply, and agility vanishes just when it’s needed most.
This isn’t just a technology problem. It’s also a leadership one.
Leaders who modernize their workplaces—not just their tech—build alignment early. They model adaptability. They challenge “how we’ve always done it.” And they invest in clarity—about direction, about roles, and about what it really means to be ready for anything.
Always be ready to pivot.
Make change a muscle memory, not a reaction. Lead the way to stay agile or quickly adapt when the next external shock hits.