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| | Brought to you by Alex Panas, global leader of industries, & Axel Karlsson, global leader of functional practices and growth platforms
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| | | | America’s 250th birthday is a year away, which provides an opportunity not only to reflect on the country’s history but also to ponder its future. In that spirit, McKinsey has published America at 250, a series of essays on the country’s possibilities in a new era of geopolitical change, technological evolution, and other complexities. Underpinning these ideas are lessons on leadership that McKinsey has cultivated from our nearly 100 years of working with leaders in business and government. This week, we look at ways that executives can better understand the evolving global landscape and help both their businesses and employees prosper as the next chapter of America’s history unfolds.
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| | | Current geopolitical disruptions are producing one of the greatest levels of peacetime uncertainty for American business. They are also creating an urgent need for executives to understand how US government policies may affect the major drivers of geopolitical change—so they can steer their organizations toward growth. McKinsey’s Matt Watters, Shubham Singhal, and Zoe Fox outline ten drivers of change for trade, economics, and security: for example, tariffs, import and export controls, foreign-investment restrictions, and multilateral cooperation. Some of the US policy shifts in these areas “encourage a rewiring of the industrial base for national security or reindustrialization, while others are meant to build leverage in negotiations,” the authors say. “Understanding the distinction can ensure long-term realignment of corporate investments and operations with government policies, instead of mere tactical, near-term moves to mitigate risks.” They suggest that leaders build upon these insights by taking three actions to create long-term value: identifying opportunities to accelerate growth, optimizing core operations, and developing new geopolitical capabilities and strategies. | | |
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| Improving Americans’ holistic health—that is, their mental, physical, spiritual, and social well-being—will be critical to helping them be more productive in the workplace. In an interview with McKinsey’s Erica Coe and Kana Enomoto, former US Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy says that support for mental health should be considered “a medical civil right.” He stresses that healthcare providers and educators should place more emphasis on the prevention of mental health problems. “Businesses are talking about giving kids coping, resilience, and problem-solving tools—not as an extracurricular activity but as core to education,” Kennedy says. “If you know history, numeracy, and literacy but cannot identify and regulate counterproductive thinking patterns and behaviors, then you’ll have difficulty managing stress and avoiding burnout in the workplace.”
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| | | Lead by looking toward the future. | | | | | — Edited by Eric Quiñones, senior editor, New York
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