Tariffs are announced, and then they change or move. Tensions get heated, and then somewhat resolved. Markets are volatile. Inflation remains stubbornly high. Consumer confidence falls due to uncertainty about what is next. Central banks say uncertainty is unusually high.

Markets hate bad news, but they hate uncertainty more. And we are living in an environment of heightened uncertainty, which manifests itself in consumer and customer behaviour as well. All these factors make the promising strategic plan you entered with this cycle now look challenged, if not completely off.

What does uncertainty mean for your growth strategy?

It’s a promising time to grow, if you are willing to reframe your view of uncertainty and adjust your strategic approach. It is not just our approach to growth strategy that must adjust in uncertainty, but our metrics of measurement as well.

Building a company that can thrive through uncertainty is a team sport, not an individual one. All leaders have a role to play as organisations navigate the growth loop from stabilising after a market shock, to resetting for the new reality, to thriving once more. This means new metrics matter, and these metrics are not meant to replace traditional metrics but provide additional insights into the movement to thriving.

1) Reduction of uncertainty

When presenting opportunities for investment, the first question CFOs ask is: “What is the return on investment (ROI)?” This is a sensible question for investments with known variables and timelines, but is not so useful when doing new things in uncertain environments.

CFOs should instead focus on identifying the key uncertainties in the market funnel of assumptions. They should work with the team to tease out every assumption in the model (for example, we can price with a 20% premium over competitors, or 25% of our existing customers will also buy our new solution line). Once identified, rank them from most (pretty much a guess) to least uncertain (very confident in). Then work with the leaders to test the most uncertain assumptions as quickly and cheaply as possible to reduce the overall uncertainty.

The CFO sees the most assumptions of anyone in the business – they should leverage that knowledge by sharing learnings of how testing is being conducted across the organisation. Being able to assess the uncertainty of assumptions and then reduce this uncertainty will further the organisation much more than ranking initiatives by ROI. 

2) Length of learning loops

Learning is the critical metric to measure, but too often organisations default to ‘activity’ metrics such as training courses conducted or participant evaluations. Instead, measure learning loops. Learning loops are specific, iterative cycles of forming hypotheses, testing, learning, understanding, analysing, applying and embedding various forms of knowledge.

Start with two of the organisation’s most critical strategic priorities and identify the critical learning loops within them (in other words, the areas where you most need to accelerate learning). This could be new key account signings or building partner relationships in new markets. Map them out and design ways to accelerate and shorten them. Then do the same for the other must-win battles until you have a ‘loop dashboard’.

3) Outcome achievement

A great CFO measures outcome achievement, not activity completion, and builds a team that knows how to measure results instead of effort. To execute strategy we do things like make plans, build training programmes and negotiate new warehouse space. These are great but they are not strategy.

These activities deliver progress and outputs: plans are completed, timelines are built and there is new warehouse space. To create value, we need outcomes. Outcomes are tangible results for the organisation: revenue, profit, cost saved, customer churn reduced and so on. Helping the team track this metric furthers the partnership with the CFO in allocating spend.

4) Amplified – not just saved – time

Many initiatives involve furthering automation, reducing costs and achieving efficiency. Most companies struggle to show the results, however, and when they do these are tracked in terms of hours saved. The real power metric is ‘amplified’ time. 

Consider a new digital platform, a touchless ordering portal or an AI-empowered search of previous requests for proposals. For these, measure not just saved time but how much the team member working with that system became more effective (for example, 30% more productive every hour). This is a multiplier.

Saved time is helpful but not valuable unless time is reallocated to more value-creating activities, or productivity is increased dramatically. Being able to show, track and continue to amplify time will further accelerate execution.

5) Decision-making robustness

An underlooked measure is the quality and speed at which decisions are made. While some decisions will take longer than others, ‘Thrive’ organisations have already codified critical aspects of decision making, such as where decision rights lie and what makes a good decision. This means, in execution, distributed leaders should be making better decisions, at faster speeds.

Being able to move with aligned speed is a competitive advantage. Being able to track and improve this metric is another power move of execution. CFOs should track if critical decisions have decision-making rights codified (an output), the speed at which decisions are made (an output), and the quality of the decisions (an outcome).

What gets measured gets improved. It’s a popular adage, often attributed to Peter Drucker, and it’s a good reminder to reset your performance tracking and resource-rewarding systems along with all the other changes you are making in the transition to thrive through uncertainty. By building your strategy around uncertainty – not simply adjusting for it – and embracing new metrics that matter, you can track progress towards your new performance pathway.

Rebecca Homkes is a high-growth strategy specialist and a lecturer at the London Business School Executive Education. This is an excerpt from her book Survive, Reset, Thrive: Leading Breakthrough Growth Strategy in Volatile Times, published by Kogan Page.