Eight reliable lessons for unreliable times

Executive overview

When crises hit, most companies freeze. But the best leaders move faster, listen harder, and stay anchored to their mission. Reid Hoffman and leading CEOs share eight lessons from 2020's chaos—tested principles that work in any unstable moment.

Smart speed beats perfect caution.

Move faster than you think you can

Crisis demands decisiveness over deliberation. Speed is essential to scaling, and twice as critical in a crisis. Empower your team to make decisions without approval delays—a few minor errors cost far less than missed opportunities.

The legendary Skunk Works at Lockheed Martin built a jet prototype in 143 days during WWII by collapsing decision cycles. Engineers worked cheek-by-jowl with fabricators, moving from sketch to tangible part in hours, not weeks. GM's Mary Barra echoed this during COVID: "I don't want to go back to the way it was before. We did things so quickly without bureaucracy."

The key: let your team move at full speed. If decisions sometimes go sideways, fix them fast—that's still faster than waiting for perfect alignment.

Create your own trajectory

Don't react to crises; lead the way forward. Leaders who set their own course through trouble stay at the wheel instead of bracing for impact.

Ellen Coleman at DuPont faced the 2008 financial crisis with a bold move: mandate that each senior leader cut 50% of their leadership ranks. The ask was nearly impossible—that's the point. It forced creative rethinking instead of token squeezing. DuPont emerged with a leaner, faster structure.

Get specific about what winning looks like. Vague goals ("better than today") lead nowhere. Precise outcomes let you pivot fast when reality doesn't match your hypothesis. When Jonah Peretti saw Buzzfeed's ad revenue crater during the pandemic despite audience spikes, he pivoted: partner with traditional retailers to become their e-commerce arm. Walmart now sells recipes through Tasty. Same audience, new trajectory.

Repeat your message relentlessly

Views think they've communicated plenty. They haven't. Your team is only beginning to absorb your message once you're tired of repeating it.

Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn's former CEO, credits David Gergen's wisdom: repeat yourself "until you get sick of hearing yourself say it." Boring to you? It's brand new to them. Hans Vestberg at Verizon broadcasts daily noontime webcasts to 30,000–70,000 employees, same message, always: "Here's what's happening. Here's why it matters." That repetition is what creates alignment in chaos.

Listen more

Being decisive doesn't mean being casual. Seek advice from beyond your inner circle, especially people who challenge you.

Brian Cornell at Target learned this fast. Early COVID guidance said sanitize surfaces. Months later, science showed aerosol spread mattered more. Target stayed in dialogue with health experts, pivoting protocols as knowledge evolved. They kept being "really good students."

Rashad Robinson showed Airbnb how bias had leaked into their code—hosts were canceling stays based on guest photos. Airbnb didn't hire lawyers; they put engineers on the problem. When Silicon Valley companies assign engineering talent to fixing a social problem, they're serious.

Stand for something

Brands with strong opinions cut through noise. In a chaotic moment, taking a clear stand is good business and good citizenship.

Nike stood with Colin Kaepernick for their 30th-anniversary Just Do It campaign, knowing their core fans would love them for it. Colleen D'Courcy at Wieden & Kennedy: "When we stood with Kaepernick, some people hated us, but our people remembered who we were."

Baratunde Thurston frames this as corporate citizenship—an active verb. Companies have power and should use it to invest in relationships, acknowledge interdependence, and work on behalf of the many, not just themselves. Good corporate citizens end up making good businesses.

Work differently

Don't abandon what worked before; give it a new shape. Remote work, hybrid schedules, and reimagined spaces aren't temporary fixes—they're the future.

Eva Muskowitz at Success Academy moved 45,000 K-12 students to remote in days, deploying Chromebooks and negotiating free broadband for low-income families. "Remote 2.0" now includes virtual field studies, daily science, art, and music—not worksheets and parent workarounds.

Drew Houston at Dropbox calls their approach Virtual First: focused solo work happens at home; offices become collaborative convening spaces (Dropbox Studios). He put it perfectly: "While the floorboards are up, let's really think about how we want this to look when we nail it back down."

Find your true north in the mission

Your mission isn't a wall poster—it's how you behave under pressure. When the path forward isn't clear, your mission is your compass.

Susan Wojcicki at YouTube faced impossible trade-offs: take down content that spreads disinformation, but don't kill free speech. Returning to YouTube's core mission—democratize broadcasting—clarified the choice. Democracy needs guardrails. YouTube hired thousands of content reviewers and adjusted algorithms to cut conspiracy distribution. The company backed its values with engineers and resources.

Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell at Spelman College responded to police violence against her students by doubling down on Spelman's mission: open difficult conversations about equity, anti-racism, health disparities. "The research we've assembled, the books we've written—finally those narratives are going to be heard."

Lead with empathy

Every solution starts with human-to-human connection. Sarah Fryer, CEO of Nextdoor, grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, watching her parents (a mill manager and a nurse) sit at the kitchen table with neighbors of all backgrounds in crisis.

General Stanley McChrystal adds: empathy isn't sympathy. You can't make the hill smaller or the pack lighter, but you can tell your team the truth and face the challenge together. That's leadership.

As the hosts in the lightning round put it: "We're realizing that we have to all come together, and the least of these has to be helped. In the end, we are all just so very human. It's going to be our collective humanity that gets us through this."