Holy shit we’re in the soup again
January 29, 2026
Lessons from CEOs successfully navigating economic and political uncertainty, social upheaval and climate change
These are challenging times in which to run a business of any kind. In conversations with CEOs across sectors and geographies, the consistent message is of economic and political uncertainty, social upheaval and climate change.
Yet many of the CEOs I speak to are running robust businesses that are charting a successful path through these challenges.
And they are clear that the key underpinning to their successes is culture
Alan Murray, CEO of Fortune, has had the unique opportunity to observe organizational culture in some of the largest organizations on the planet through regular conversations with hundreds of CEOs. Alan told me about his reaction to the current challenging environment was “holy shit we're in the soup again and the same thing is going to happen. That businesses are going to have to focus on their short-term bottom line. To my surprise and pleasure, the exact opposite happened. I’ve probably done 60 big companies CEO interviews in the last six months. I heard the same thing that a clear purpose is both a moral choice and a business choice and that in today’s complex and competitive world culture is the key competitive advantage”.
His conclusion is clear; that “performance is affected by a strong culture and ... the ability to create value [by] getting people to work together in a collaborative and effective way and not be pulling in 20 different directions.”
That collaboration and alignment of energy starts with a clear understanding of who the organisation really is, what it believes, and where it is going. That direction or purpose must be set and lived from the very top. And it must be consistently applied, by every leader, in every decision and every communication.
People must understand why it matters to them. And see that the business genuinely acts on what it says. It is this consistent (and sometimes courageous) commitment that drives positive cultural, and consequent commercial, outcomes.
The data supports this, showing that where organizational direction is clear the impact on performance is significant. A May 2025 Contexis Performance Culture Index® measurement of a global technology business, for example, found that middle managers who had a clear sense of the organization’s strategic mission or purpose measured 90% higher goal clarity and 67% higher adaptability than colleagues who felt confused or sceptical. This key group was also 77% more committed to the company and 64% more likely to stay.
A clear purpose, acting as the context for everything the organization does is critical for agility in a volatile world. Yet many organisations we assess globally are muddled in their direction, confused in their communication and lacking in transparency, leaving employees hesitant, uncertain and fearful of change rather than clear and connected to it.
Clarity alone is not enough. As Alan Murray puts it, “to motivate great people, it really has to do with respect and trust.”
Central to this creation of trust is to create an environment where people are safe to fail. IKEA’s Jesper Brodin says “trust means also that you breed a culture where it’s okay to fail, where it’s okay to not be perfect and it’s easy to talk about learning from mistakes.”
Trust allows employees to focus on tasks that add value to the organisation. Without trust, each individual and each team will protect their own immediate interests to the long-term detriment of the entire system. By contrast, evidence from the Contexis Performance Culture Index® shows that employees who feel high levels of trust at work feel 50% more commitment, 60% more psychologically safety and 75% less anxiety.
To quote Jesper Brodin again “we have high trust so people throughout the organization make decisions; 170,000 people [and it] runs itself like an entrepreneurial business. We celebrate mistakes and learn fast. That is the energy of the company.”
A culture of absolute trust, where people feel safe to act, driven by a clear strategic purpose is the key to innovation, to respond to change, and a key driver of growth. Yet many organisations we assess persist with cultures of sanction and blame where people avoid acting for the good of the business – or speaking up to protect it – for fear of ridicule or blame.
But where a purpose or mission is clear and lived, in an environment of trust, employees at all levels will wish to take responsibility for achieving it. And that creates exceptional agility and ability to respond to market volatility and ambiguity.
IKEA’s Jesper Brodin saw this impact in action during COVID when IKEA had to close its retail estate and lost around 55,000 trading days. In common with most businesses at the time, it had no prepared response to this unfolding disaster. As CEO Jesper Brodin told me “there was no manual for this crisis.” Yet rather than freezing under uncertainty, the organisation responded with remarkable agility. “We were not like some other organizations waiting for the top to respond,” Jesper explained, “our people start to act. When we don’t know the instructions, we follow our common sense and our hearts.” What accounts for that flexibility and autonomy at IKEA is not strategy. But Values. Deeply embedded in its culture. Values that include Taking Responsibility and Leading by Example. And the behaviours they created were extraordinary. Across the business, people did not wait to be told. They felt safe to take immediate and radical action. Because they knew they could and should take responsibility and lead.
Without a very specific set of values, built on profound trust and fostering true self-responsibility, IKEA would not have weathered the pandemic without enormous cost. As Jesper Brodin reflects “we have high trust so people throughout the organization make decisions; I realized I employed 170,000 entrepreneurs in the business. That is the energy of the company.”
The takeaway lesson for CEOs is that empowering people and giving them agency to make decisions, against the framework of a clear and consistent purpose, is critical. Yet too many organisations fear giving their people autonomy and create cultures of hierarchy and dependency, rather than self-responsibility. But, in most markets, the pace of change means there simply isn’t the time anymore to persist with a culture of control.
According to Alan Murray, CEOs who seem to be getting this right are consistent and clear. Culture is the key competitive advantage.
But the evidence from our global measurement of organisations in 60 countries is that the culture that drives the best organisational results is not random. It is specific, designed, and exercised as a key commercial asset of the business.
It is a culture built on a clear and inspiring sense of who you are and where you are going. It is embedded in a culture of absolute trust, constantly nurtured. And it is activated by a culture of ownership where people at every level care, commit and act. Because it is theirs.
John Rosing sat down with Alan Murray and Jesper Brodin as part of the Leaders on Purpose CEO Study 2024 “Purpose in Action: Leading Business Change in a Volatile World.” The full Report can be downloaded at https://www.leadersonpurpose.com/2024-ceo-study
These are challenging times in which to run a business of any kind. In conversations with CEOs across sectors and geographies, the consistent message is of economic and political uncertainty, social upheaval and climate change.
Yet many of the CEOs I speak to are running robust businesses that are charting a successful path through these challenges.
And they are clear that the key underpinning to their successes is culture
Alan Murray, CEO of Fortune, has had the unique opportunity to observe organizational culture in some of the largest organizations on the planet through regular conversations with hundreds of CEOs. Alan told me about his reaction to the current challenging environment was “holy shit we're in the soup again and the same thing is going to happen. That businesses are going to have to focus on their short-term bottom line. To my surprise and pleasure, the exact opposite happened. I’ve probably done 60 big companies CEO interviews in the last six months. I heard the same thing that a clear purpose is both a moral choice and a business choice and that in today’s complex and competitive world culture is the key competitive advantage”.
His conclusion is clear; that “performance is affected by a strong culture and ... the ability to create value [by] getting people to work together in a collaborative and effective way and not be pulling in 20 different directions.”
Set the Context
That collaboration and alignment of energy starts with a clear understanding of who the organisation really is, what it believes, and where it is going. That direction or purpose must be set and lived from the very top. And it must be consistently applied, by every leader, in every decision and every communication.
People must understand why it matters to them. And see that the business genuinely acts on what it says. It is this consistent (and sometimes courageous) commitment that drives positive cultural, and consequent commercial, outcomes.
The data supports this, showing that where organizational direction is clear the impact on performance is significant. A May 2025 Contexis Performance Culture Index® measurement of a global technology business, for example, found that middle managers who had a clear sense of the organization’s strategic mission or purpose measured 90% higher goal clarity and 67% higher adaptability than colleagues who felt confused or sceptical. This key group was also 77% more committed to the company and 64% more likely to stay.
A clear purpose, acting as the context for everything the organization does is critical for agility in a volatile world. Yet many organisations we assess globally are muddled in their direction, confused in their communication and lacking in transparency, leaving employees hesitant, uncertain and fearful of change rather than clear and connected to it.
Work hard at trust. Because people need to feel safe to act in your best interests
Clarity alone is not enough. As Alan Murray puts it, “to motivate great people, it really has to do with respect and trust.”
Central to this creation of trust is to create an environment where people are safe to fail. IKEA’s Jesper Brodin says “trust means also that you breed a culture where it’s okay to fail, where it’s okay to not be perfect and it’s easy to talk about learning from mistakes.”
Trust allows employees to focus on tasks that add value to the organisation. Without trust, each individual and each team will protect their own immediate interests to the long-term detriment of the entire system. By contrast, evidence from the Contexis Performance Culture Index® shows that employees who feel high levels of trust at work feel 50% more commitment, 60% more psychologically safety and 75% less anxiety.
To quote Jesper Brodin again “we have high trust so people throughout the organization make decisions; 170,000 people [and it] runs itself like an entrepreneurial business. We celebrate mistakes and learn fast. That is the energy of the company.”
A culture of absolute trust, where people feel safe to act, driven by a clear strategic purpose is the key to innovation, to respond to change, and a key driver of growth. Yet many organisations we assess persist with cultures of sanction and blame where people avoid acting for the good of the business – or speaking up to protect it – for fear of ridicule or blame.
Organisations staffed by “owners” achieve extraordinary things
But where a purpose or mission is clear and lived, in an environment of trust, employees at all levels will wish to take responsibility for achieving it. And that creates exceptional agility and ability to respond to market volatility and ambiguity.
IKEA’s Jesper Brodin saw this impact in action during COVID when IKEA had to close its retail estate and lost around 55,000 trading days. In common with most businesses at the time, it had no prepared response to this unfolding disaster. As CEO Jesper Brodin told me “there was no manual for this crisis.” Yet rather than freezing under uncertainty, the organisation responded with remarkable agility. “We were not like some other organizations waiting for the top to respond,” Jesper explained, “our people start to act. When we don’t know the instructions, we follow our common sense and our hearts.” What accounts for that flexibility and autonomy at IKEA is not strategy. But Values. Deeply embedded in its culture. Values that include Taking Responsibility and Leading by Example. And the behaviours they created were extraordinary. Across the business, people did not wait to be told. They felt safe to take immediate and radical action. Because they knew they could and should take responsibility and lead.
Without a very specific set of values, built on profound trust and fostering true self-responsibility, IKEA would not have weathered the pandemic without enormous cost. As Jesper Brodin reflects “we have high trust so people throughout the organization make decisions; I realized I employed 170,000 entrepreneurs in the business. That is the energy of the company.”
The takeaway lesson for CEOs is that empowering people and giving them agency to make decisions, against the framework of a clear and consistent purpose, is critical. Yet too many organisations fear giving their people autonomy and create cultures of hierarchy and dependency, rather than self-responsibility. But, in most markets, the pace of change means there simply isn’t the time anymore to persist with a culture of control.
Specific, designed, and leveraged as a key commercial asset of the business
According to Alan Murray, CEOs who seem to be getting this right are consistent and clear. Culture is the key competitive advantage.
But the evidence from our global measurement of organisations in 60 countries is that the culture that drives the best organisational results is not random. It is specific, designed, and exercised as a key commercial asset of the business.
It is a culture built on a clear and inspiring sense of who you are and where you are going. It is embedded in a culture of absolute trust, constantly nurtured. And it is activated by a culture of ownership where people at every level care, commit and act. Because it is theirs.
John Rosing sat down with Alan Murray and Jesper Brodin as part of the Leaders on Purpose CEO Study 2024 “Purpose in Action: Leading Business Change in a Volatile World.” The full Report can be downloaded at https://www.leadersonpurpose.com/2024-ceo-study
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