During the pandemic, we wrote about something that felt pretty remarkable in real time. Faced with sudden, existential disruption, organisations moved at a pace that previously felt impossible. Decisions that would have taken months were made in days, and processes that felt immovable were redesigned overnight. Assumption we held were also challenged, because they had to be.
At the time, we asked: how do we bottle this mindset? Now, several years on, it feels like a worthwhile question to revisit. The urgency has eased, but volatility hasn't disappeared. Economic uncertainty, technological acceleration, AI adoption, geopolitical shifts, and workforce expectations continue to reshape how organisations operate. And yet, for many leaders, the quality of thinking and action that characterised the pandemic response has faded.
Fighting against the return of autopilot
Most organisations are no longer in emergency mode, which is of course a good thing. But there’s always a danger that in more stable conditions, a dangerous habit can be allowed to creep in: autopilot.
Over time, systems re-solidify and processes regain weight. The language of “why not?” can give way to “why?” This isn’t necessarily a failure of leadership either. It’s just a human response to stabilising conditions. We consolidate what works and protect it.
The problem is that in doing so, we often re-import the assumptions we proved we could overcome. The same leaders who once said "we have no choice but to make this work" can find themselves a year later saying "that would be too disruptive." The same teams who adapted in days can gradually become more cautious again. Simply because conditions that made bold action feel necessary have changed.
Assumptions as the invisible constraint
One of the biggest constraints on innovation in most organisations is the assumptions that have become invisible through familiarity. These are assumptions that form slowly and embed themselves into culture, governance, KPIs, and informal norms until they stop being debated and start being treated as reality. For example: “We can't do that here”, “That's not how we work”, “That's too ambitious.”
Individually, these beliefs or habits may be reasonable, but together they create a ceiling on what gets attempted.
The pandemic exposed how many of these beliefs were situational rather than purely structural They reflected what we'd previously been willing to try instead of what was actually possible. The opportunity now is to surface them deliberately, without waiting for crisis to do it for us.
From reactive to designed breakthrough
Looking back honestly, what enabled rapid progress during the pandemic? Priorities were clear and trade-offs were explicit. Experimentation was forced upon us and the people closest to the problem were trusted to make calls without waiting for approval from above. In many organisations, people were also aligned behind a shared outcome in a way that day-to-day business rarely demands.
None of these are exclusive to crisis conditions though. They are design choices that genuinely high-performing organisations make consistently, regardless of external pressure. In crisis, leaders are forced to make them. In more stable conditions, they have to choose to. That distinction matters enormously, because if breakthrough thinking is a design choice rather than a crisis response, the question for every leadership team is simply: are we making it?
Four practices for sustaining breakthrough thinking
1. Re-expose assumptions regularly
Ask in leadership meetings: what are we treating as fixed that might not be? What evidence actually supports that belief? Creating space for those questions (and making it safe to raise them) gradually dismantles the ceiling that assumptions create.
2. Codify what worked
Many organisations never formally captured what made their pandemic-era agility possible. If decision-making sped up, why? If collaboration improved, what enabled that? Without deliberate reflection, memory distorts. We remember the outcomes but forget the conditions that made them possible, which makes them far harder to recreate.
3. Align incentives with ambition
If leaders say they want bold thinking but continue to reward predictability and error-avoidance, people will default to caution. Breakthrough requires visible evidence that intelligent risk-taking is genuinely valued, not just espoused.
4. Declare what you're committed to
During a crisis, commitment is obvious and shared. In calmer conditions, it has to be articulated more. When leaders publicly commit to a bold future and remove the implicit fallback options, the atmosphere around that commitment shifts. What once felt optional starts to feel real and people respond to that differently.
The breakthrough muscle
One of the most important revelations from the pandemic era is simply that organisations are capable of far more than they typically attempt. The speed, coordination, and willingness to challenge long-held rules didn't disappear when the crisis eased.
We've already proven what's possible under pressure. The question now is whether we're willing to choose that level of commitment without being forced, and what kind of organisations we build if we do.
If you're navigating ongoing volatility and want to re-activate the breakthrough capability you know your organisation has, get in touch.