"Remember that the teams you grow in uncertainty are the ones that lead you in recovery." - Futurist Jim Carroll
Start building the team you’ll need tomorrow - today.
That's always been a priority for any organization, but it's probably even more important right now.
That's because most companies consider downsizing as the first instinctive reaction in a downturn. That's often the wrong thing to do because they will find themselves in a precarious position as they come out the other side. Don’t just protect your team. Prepare it. Don’t just retain your talent. Grow it!
The fact is, teams who lead tomorrow are being built right now.
Downturns are when truly great teams are built, not just maintained. Organizations that invest in people during volatility create their future competitive edge, because when the recovery hits - and it always does - the prepared teams move first. So start today. Launch the training. Run the stretch assignment which will challenge your team to do the extraordinary. Bet on someone’s potential. Fuel your people with purpose. Because the future won’t wait for you to catch up.
Why is this critical? Because we’ve entered a new talent era in which skills access is one of your most important success factors. That's a reality, downturn or no downturn. Here's why:
- knowledge is fragmenting. Careers are splintering into hyper-specialized niches.
- skills are degrading. The half-life of knowledge is collapsing
- talent is transient. Loyalty is low. Agility is everything.
- complexity is rising. You need the right skills—on demand, not just on payroll.
- experience is the edge. Teams that learn through doing adapt faster.
All of this means that you'll never have all the knowledge you need to get things done, downturn or not. You are in a constant war for the best talent, a perpetual race for skills. That war doesn't stop when the battlefield of a downturn begins. When others hit the "pause", successful organizations know that when things improve, having the right talent and teams in place will let them fly. So what do they do? Rather than cutting, they invest by pressing the "play" button:
- doubling down on learning – targeting the skills they’ll need next.
- expanding internal opportunities through mobility – giving stretch assignments and growth tracks.
- investing in experience – running fast-cycle innovation sprints to build skills through action.
- building trend-aligned capability – aligning training with what’s next, not what’s safe.
In doing this, they build a powerful currency - loyalty. All around them, their people see people see people being downsized and let go, while they remain stable. That matters - it's showing people they matter especially when times are tough.
Trust me, their loyalty will matter as conditions improve
Your next competitive advantage isn’t a product.
It’s a smarter, faster, future-ready team.
Because success in a high-velocity economy comes down to one thing: the people who are ready for it.
Futurist Jim Carroll has been speaking about the reality of the skills specialization trend since 1997 when he coined the phrase ‘nomadic workers’ in his book Surviving the Information Age.