This last year, unlike any in a long time, has required us to lead without a firm plan. It has also required us to take forward activity into a very uncertain future. As one speaker noted at this event, and many agreed, it has required an approach of “inching across the ice”. This event provided us with an opportunity to reflect on what we have learnt and what we can take forward as we continue to lead through uncertainty.

The formal notion of managing uncertainty is relatively new. In the past people were uncomfortable about the perceived weaknesses you may expose if highlighting uncertainties of your organisation, preferring instead to take a crisis management approach. But crises and uncertainty are different, with the latter being more prolonged and changing and requiring a far less rigid approach.

Leading through uncertainty requires agility to respond to the external context. It needs trust and openness, including with staff. Collaboration is important, and strategic partners can help form your wider view of the landscape. This can include working with your perceived competitors where there is mutual benefit. Clearly resilience is also important, and following from that the need to check on staff wellbeing to ensure your approach to managing uncertainty is sustainable.

HM Treasury have done some work to help with modelling and navigating uncertainty, for example through The Aqua Book. When considering a model for approaching uncertainty, you need to factor in what the future challenges may be, consider what data you will use and then reflect on how the model outcomes will translate into the real world.

So what have we learnt over the past year in what has been a time of almost constant uncertainty?

Adaptability has been key. When making changes to plans we have to account for customer needs. These adaptions need to be made alongside other significant changes, an obvious one this year being the UK’s new relationship with the EU.

Communication has been vital, and as the workspace becomes more flexible improving communication to staff is all important. This includes managers  needing to adapt their approach to leading teams to ensure their leadership style is inclusive of all colleagues whatever their working pattern.

The new way of working has opened up more questions about how to be a diverse and inclusive organisation. There are going to be new questions about how we ensure equality of opportunity and progression irrespective of colleagues’ working patterns. This will require renewed confidence in leadership, with management at all levels communicating organisations’ cultures and opportunities to all staff.

This last year, and the uncertainty in which we operate, has tested the capabilities and culture of the organisations we lead. Previous investments in IT, data and digital services have for many meant the transition following the outset of the pandemic has been easier to manage. However, the transition has inevitably exposed some weaknesses, and it is incumbent on leaders to address these to ensure we are not exposed in the same way again.

One observation is that at the start of the pandemic we were faced with big decisions that seemed difficult but also obvious, and these were generally supported by boards, government departments and staff. The challenge now is how we assess these decisions with the benefit of hindsight, and also how we make perhaps much trickier decisions about the more long term uncertainty.

Going into the future, our staff and customers may be less forgiving of issues we haven’t addressed in the face of future uncertainty. Problems identified around our assets and capabilities need to be addressed therefore to mitigate against this future criticism.

Questions for example about how to use the office in the future and how and where to recruit new staff will require us to anticipate the future. These will have longer term implications and will likely not be received as sympathetically compared to more immediate decisions made in the face of the initial crisis. This challenge reflects that there is not one size fits all, and our organisations and their customers will each have very differing requirements needing differing solutions.

Preparing for uncertainty is clearly a challenge. Scenario planning can help test your systems, capabilities and assets, but don’t tend to reflect well when applied in real life situations. A hierarchal structure and consensus decision making can impede the need for swifter decisions in the face of uncertainty, and leaders may need to more frequently step in to address these blockages.

Finally, what has been the role of boards in supporting organisations lead through uncertainty?

ALB boards have played a pivotal role in supporting colleagues leading their organisations through uncertainty. A board shows its value during a crisis, and during this prolonged upheaval boards have generally been required to provide a support role to the executive.

Such challenges reemphasize the need to ensure you have the right people on your board, people who can commit sufficient time to the role and build working relationships with the executive. This has meant they have had to increase their focus on short term challenges, and a challenge going forward will be for chairs to direct discussions once again to the longer term strategic issues.

One such role for the board could be to take time to better understand uncertainty, and perhaps take more seriously the horizon scanning process. This may well be something all people within our organisations will have to start considering more to ensure we are best placed to navigate future uncertain times.

Thank you to Lesley Cowley OBE, Chair at DVLA, Companies House and National Archives, Professor Chris Dent, Turing Institute Researcher and University of Edinburgh, Marion Devine, Senior Human Capital Researcher, The Conference Board and Jim Harra, Permanent Secretary at HMRC, for joining the panel.