For decades, strategy rested on a simple assumption: the world would stay stable enough to plan around. That assumption is now obsolete.
Markets today are being reshaped by forces that aren’t just disruptive—they’re foundational. Systems once built for predictability now generate volatility. Four converging realities define this new terrain:
- Rising prices
- Persistent supply chain disruptions
- Uncertainty as a chronic condition, not a temporary event
- Historic lows in trust—across institutions, including corporations
These aren’t passing storms. They signal a permanent shift. And they don’t call for tweaks—they demand reinvention. The old formula—scale for efficiency, consistency for trust—no longer works. Scale is brittle. Consistency is expected. And customers no longer equate sameness with trust or loyalty.
The next formula: proximity and resilience.
- Proximity to customers to uncover unmet and unrealized needs
- Proximity to local realities to avoid looking like a faceless monolith
- Proximity to risks and opportunities to move fast when it matters
- Resilience to absorb shocks, recover quickly, and learn from weak signals
- Resilience to adapt without waiting for permission
- Resilience to keep going when others falter
The Next Era
The next era of companies will look more like Barnes & Noble, Nucor Steel, and World Central Kitchen than like the current Fortune 50.
Barnes & Noble is staging a turnaround by empowering local stores. Managers choose their own books, redesign their interiors, and run local promotions. Headquarters listens closely, spotting trends like graphic novels and Japanese manga early. The result? They’re now opening more new stores than they’re closing.
“It’s not me who creates good bookshops out there. I simply trust the individuals within each store to create good bookshops. All I do is constantly encourage that.”
– James Daunt, CEO
Nucor Steel became America’s largest steel producer by doing the opposite of most large companies. It pushes power to the plant level. Each division runs autonomously. They invest in cutting-edge tech, but keep strategy radically simple. Their culture is equally flat: no bureaucracy, no perks for execs, no one flying first class. At one point, it had sales in excess of $3.6 billion, but just 22 people at headquarters.
“We chose decentralization to gain the innovation, speed, and flexibility that stem from operating like twenty-one smaller companies instead of as a monolithic corporation. We’re willing to live with the redundancies and ‘inefficiencies’ that go with that choice.”
– Ken Iverson, Former CEO
World Central Kitchen rushes into disasters while others are pulling back. Founded by chef José Andrés, it feeds people fast by tapping into existing local resources—kitchens, food trucks, grocery stores—and teaches communities how to cook for themselves. The secret to their speed? Adaptability and decentralization.
“You start delivering food, and in the process, you get information. It’s very important that your office is not full. World Central Kitchen is able to be quick because we are highly adaptable.
– Chef and Founder José Andrés
Different Design Decisions
The next generation of companies won’t just make different choices—they’ll be built differently. They’ll be embedded locally, acting less like distant corporations and more like trusted neighbors. They’ll push authority to the edge, enabling real-time decisions. They’ll run on minimum viable bureaucracy—just enough structure to align, never enough to stall. They’ll favor redundancy and flexibility over efficiency—because resilience is the real advantage. These aren’t upgrades. They’re structural overhauls. And they’re what it takes to survive—and lead—in an era of disorder and distrust.
The cost of not evolving is clear. Companies that cling to central control and brittle global supply chains will move too slowly, sit too far from the customer, and break too easily. They’ll be outpaced by more nimble, more local, more resilient competitors.
