Craig Wallace Clip for Long-Term Strategic Planning Conference

But I think if you look at that COVID situation and then you look at some other things that have happened, some other shocks that have happened, like all of a sudden there's a ship stuck in the Suez Canal, right? War breaks out causing supply chain problems. There's a worldwide chip shortage, right? Which means cars suddenly aren't being produced and sold as they were. The bridge collapses in Baltimore, which is, you know, the way in for cars to enter into the United States, causing again disruption. And you start to hear this, this conversation now about the word resilience. And I think what this is, is companies taking a strategic look at their operations and saying, we know there's going to be more shocks, whether there's more pandemics, more supply chain disruption, more uncertainty in the world. So we've got to start looking strategically at how we design our organization how we design our supply chains, maybe where we introduce excess capacity options, more flexible options to deal with these shocks. And so I think in a way, yes, we've been almost reacting to them, but now organizations are starting to say, actually, we need to be more strategic and expect them to happen. So how can we be more strategic in, in how we structure ourselves and what we do to be able to withstand those shocks. And so in a way, it's created a whole new conversation around, let's say, longer-term strategy, because of course, some of these things take time to put in place. Right.

Let me challenge you there a little bit, because some of our audience may think, I hope I live in the world he lives in, because in the world that they're in, it's had the opposite effect. Which is that the habit of short-term thinking has led to more firefighting or continuation, and then a belief that another pandemic is going to come. So why even bother with strategy? Which also may say, why even bother treat people other than just assets for us to fight fires, that they're just there to come in, work in a panic, the latest panic, and then go home at the end of the day depleted. So there's some, there's some, some who are listening who would say, boy, I, I, this isn't coming fast enough, this change that Craig is talking about, because what we're seeing is a hangover. I guess, you know, it depends on the company that you're in, probably depends more, more on your management. Yeah, because I think this— tell me if I'm wrong— but this tendency to not involve people strategically has started during the pandemic, and then afterwards, in some companies, has only become worse.

I think always. Well, my real experience in, I would say, virtually all organizations that I've ever worked in or been in is people are heads down, stuck in the operations dealing with the fires, and don't have time to do anything else.