McKinsey Classics | November 2023

How your company’s strategy can beat the odds by embracing uncertainty

In business, as in life, uncertainty abounds. And companies today face uncertainty in spades: climate risks, economic shocks, disruptive technologies. Yet even when confronted with this volatile reality, companies still craft strategies that account for just one version of the future—and then hope for the best. A successful strategy heads off uncertainty at the pass by embracing the notion of probability.

Knowing your odds of success before you launch a strategy can go a long way to ensuring how well you execute it. That starts with three key buckets: the capital you start off with, the trends your industry is facing, and the big strategic moves you plan to take. Benchmarking in these areas against the best-performing companies can help you more accurately assess your probability—and increase the odds that your strategy will succeed.

“Uncertainty is the very reason we need strategy,” write the authors of this 2018 classic, and uncertainty isn’t going away anytime soon. To learn how to maximize your odds with certainty and secure your strategy’s success, read Chris Bradley and Sven Smit’s “How to confront uncertainty in your strategy.”

— Drew Holzfeind, editor, Chicago