Be OK With Breaking Something If You Ever Expect Business To Evolve
Written for Chief Executive Magazine
Be OK With Breaking Something If You Ever Expect Business To Evolve
Notes for corporate leaders on the lessons borne of crisis and why constant and dramatic change on everything from operations to deal-making to culture is putting our best foot forward.
In this industry, after 30-plus years, one becomes accustomed to a degree of change onset by crises. On the heels of the most recent one, it’s clear our industry is under the microscope in a way it’s never been, not even after the 2008 financial crisis. I don’t want to go so far as to say that it’s under attack because of some bulge bracket players suffering from culture chaos, but it’s most certainly at a fork in the road as we learn to live and work in a world with Covid.
Leaders should assume change to be a given, whether or not the plates shift beneath our feet without warning, when we’re suddenly forced to question every method and every approach. We find ourselves asking: Should we go back to the way it was and once this is over, leave well enough alone? Should we rethink investment banking mores? Where do we go from here?
