Your Crisis is Your Competitive Advantage

Digitalisation, financial crisis, geopolitics, reputation …

I've been watching business leaders respond to external shocks for over a decade, and I've noticed something counterintuitive: the companies that thrive long-term aren't the ones that weather the storm best—they're the ones that recognise the storm can help them build a better ship.

Most leaders view difficulties as temporary disruptions to their existing strategy. They assume current market conditions are an anomaly that will eventually return to normal. They're fighting to preserve a business model designed for a world that may no longer exist.

But here's what I've learned: an external shock isn't just revealing what's broken in your business—it's showing what's broken in your assumptions about the world and where it’s heading.

This isn't just anecdotal. Research consistently shows that companies making bold strategic moves during downturns often emerge stronger than those that hunker down.

A Harvard Business Review analysis of 4,700 companies across three recessions found that 17% of companies not only survived but also flourished, posting higher sales and profit growth than before the downturn, outperforming their peers. These companies shared a common approach: they balanced operational efficiency with strategic investment. They cut costs selectively while investing in areas that would differentiate them when conditions improved.

The pattern is clear, but the execution is hard. Why?

Because using crisis as a catalyst requires you to make the most important decisions when you feel least equipped to make them – when cash is tight and pressure is high – our brains default to preservation mode. We become risk-averse precisely when calculated risk-taking could save us.

This is where most leaders fail. They treat the symptoms instead of addressing the underlying condition.

Consider what the external shock signals about the future:

1. Customer behaviour is shifting. When budgets tighten, people don't just buy less—they buy differently. The purchasing patterns that emerge during a crisis often persist long after conditions improve. What customers drop isn't coming back; what they prioritise becomes the new baseline.
2. Technology adoption accelerates. External pressure forces organisations to find efficiencies they previously avoided. The digital transformations, automation investments, and process innovations that seemed optional have become mandatory. A crisis compresses five years of gradual change into eighteen months.
3. Market structures reorganise. Fragmented industries consolidate. Supply chains reconfigure. Geographic advantages shift. The business ecosystem that emerges from external shocks often looks fundamentally different from what came before.
4. Workforce expectations evolve. How people want to work, where they want to work, and what they expect from employers change during the crisis and rarely revert. The employment relationships that survive external shocks become the template for future employment relationships.

Most leaders see these signals as problems to solve so they can return to "normal." But normal is what got disrupted. The crisis isn't interrupting your strategy—it's showing you that your approach was based on assumptions about a world that no longer exists.

The companies that understand this use external shocks as an early indicator of tomorrow's competitive landscape. They recognise that what feels like a temporary disruption is permanent acceleration.

So, how can you utilise external pressure to gain insight into the future?

Start by reframing the crisis. Instead of asking "How do we get back to normal?" ask "What is this telling us about where our industry is heading?"

Then develop future intelligence systematically:

1. Study the signals, not just the symptoms. Don't just track what's declining—analyse what's growing within the decline. Which behaviours, technologies, or business models are emerging stronger?
2. Map the accelerated timeline. Identify trends that were already developing slowly and assume they'll now occur more rapidly. A crisis doesn't create new directions; it accelerates existing ones.
3. Anticipate the new baseline. Assume that temporary adaptations will become permanent preferences. The workarounds people develop during a crisis often become their preferred way of operating.
4. Position for the aftermath. Build capabilities for the world that will exist when the immediate crisis ends, not for the world that existed before it began.

The magic key is developing strategic foresight before the crisis, or at the very least, while managing operational reality. You can't ignore immediate pressures, but you can't let them blind you to emerging patterns.

The leaders we need

Acting on early insights during external shocks requires a specific type of leadership discipline: the ability to recognise directional change amid temporary disruptions.

Most leaders can't do this. They're too focused on preserving what worked yesterday to see what will work tomorrow.

But the leaders who can develop this foresight don't just survive external pressure—they use it to position their companies for futures their competitors can't yet see.

Your crisis isn't just something to endure. It offers an insight into what's to come.

The question is: do you have the foresight to prepare for tomorrow's business environment while everyone else is just trying to preserve yesterday's?