Narrator: In December 2019, while most of the world was unaware of the storm gathering in Wuhan, China, Rick Ambrose, the head of Lockheed Martin Space, sensed a profound threat. The early signals he was receiving, both from internal world news summaries and informal conversations with colleagues in Asia, suggested the novel coronavirus was far more dangerous than official reports indicated. He couldn't risk leaving the future to fate. He immediately tasked his head of operations with paying "150 percent attention" to the situation, and they began preparing for the worst. Within a week, long before any lockdowns in the US, they were ordering computer monitors for home offices and retooling to manufacture PPE. When the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, Lockheed Martin Space was already prepared. They didn't miss a beat, successfully launching ten satellites that year and positioning the division to thrive.

This wasn't luck; it was a new kind of organizational competence. In their book, Competing in the New World of Work, authors Keith Ferrazzi, Kian Gohar, and Noel Weyrich argue that this ability, which they term "Radical Adaptability," is the single most important factor separating the best from the rest in our volatile, post-pandemic world. They provide a blueprint for how any organization can move beyond mere crisis response and build a sustainable model for continuous change.

Narrator: The authors assert that the foundation of an adaptable organization is not a top-down mandate, but a bottom-up culture of deep collaboration and inclusion. They introduce the concept of "co-elevation," where interdependent team members share accountability for one another's success and the team's mission. This isn't just about being nice; it's a high-return practice that unlocks innovation. The book points to the unlikely example of the Burning Man festival, where a diverse group of people build a temporary city in a harsh desert. The cofounder, Larry Harvey, noted, "Communities are not produced by sentiment or mere goodwill. They grow out of a shared struggle." The pandemic became a global shared struggle, forcing teams to collaborate in new ways.

A powerful business example of this is Fox Factory, a manufacturer of high-performance vehicle parts. In 2020, CEO Mike Dennison faced a perfect storm of challenges: the pandemic, wildfires, and supply chain disruptions. Instead of hunkering down, he brought his leadership team together and posed an audacious question: "What can we do to increase our growth by 30 percent?" By fostering a co-elevating environment where product line leaders broke out of their silos and reengineered the company's strategy together, Fox Factory achieved record sales and earnings. This demonstrates that when inclusion is prioritized—making every voice feel heard and valued—teams can transform crises into opportunities for unprecedented growth.

Narrator: Once a collaborative foundation is set, organizations need an engine to execute with speed and stamina. The authors advocate for "enterprise agile," a methodology that moves beyond the tech department to permeate the entire organization. It involves tasking small, autonomous teams with clear objectives, working in short "sprints," and iterating constantly. This approach shatters bureaucracy and accelerates innovation. For instance, when the pandemic hit, Target needed a way to manage store capacity to comply with health orders. Instead of a long, drawn-out process, an agile team was assembled on a Monday. By Thursday, they had a working prototype of a mobile app for store managers, developed through rapid, remote collaboration and direct feedback from in-store employees. The app was deployed without needing a single bureaucratic review, a feat that would have been impossible under their old model.

However, this high-speed approach can lead to burnout if not paired with a focus on team resilience. The book stresses that resilience isn't just an individual trait but a team responsibility. It's about creating behavioral norms of mutual support, compassion, and psychological safety. When Apple CEO Tim Cook reflected on his company's record-breaking performance in 2020, he credited team resilience, noting that "teams and colleagues have been leaning on and counting on each other more than in normal times." Leaders must actively diagnose their team's energy and cocreate solutions to stressors, as Laura Chambers did when she became CEO of the startup Willow. By holding virtual meetings to address burnout, her team developed "purple blocks"—uninterrupted time for deep work—and other solutions that sustained their energy and performance.

Narrator: In a world of constant change, waiting to react is a recipe for failure. The authors argue that leaders must develop "active foresight"—the ability to systematically scan for early signals of change and proactively plan for multiple future scenarios. This competency was perfectly embodied by the Lockheed Martin leadership at the start of the pandemic. Their foresight wasn't a lucky guess; it was the result of a deliberate process of detecting signals, assessing their potential impact, and acting before the crisis became overwhelming.

This process can be formalized. The book details how the San Jose Sharks hockey team, facing a total loss of ticket revenue when their season was suspended, used scenario planning to navigate the crisis. President Jonathan Becher tasked his team with developing detailed action plans for over thirty plausible futures, from a season with no fans to one with limited capacity. By focusing on the most likely scenarios, they developed a robust digital strategy that included streaming simulated games on Twitch and extending corporate sponsorships into the virtual world. This not only created a new revenue stream but also deepened fan engagement, turning a potential disaster into a strategic pivot. Foresight isn't about predicting the one true future; it's about preparing to act decisively no matter which future unfolds.

Narrator: To remain viable long-term, organizations must be willing to fundamentally rethink their business models and the structure of their workforce. The authors challenge leaders to avoid "marketing myopia," a term coined by Theodore Levitt to describe the failure of railroad companies who saw themselves in the railroad business, not the transportation business. To avoid this fate, companies must ask what business they are really in. General Motors, for example, is transitioning from a car company to a transportation platform company, investing billions to go all-electric.

This reinvention requires a new kind of workforce, one the authors call a "Lego Block Workforce." This involves deconstructing traditional jobs into tasks and asking three questions: What work needs to be done? Who will do it (full-time employees, gig workers, AI)? And where will it be done? This flexible approach allows companies to reconfigure talent quickly. When the pandemic closed its stores, Patagonia didn't furlough its retail staff. Instead, it reskilled them to handle the surge in online customer service requests, creating a more agile and resilient workforce ready for both in-person and online roles.

Underpinning all of this is the need for a supercharged purpose. A clear "why" acts as a north star, guiding decisions and inspiring stakeholders. Etsy's purpose to "keep commerce human" was its guide when it mobilized its sellers to produce face masks. Within weeks, they sold hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of masks, onboarded millions of new buyers, and provided a lifeline to small entrepreneurs. This wasn't just good PR; it was a purpose-driven action that aligned with their business model and created immense value for their entire ecosystem.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Competing in the New World of Work is that radical adaptability is not a temporary project or a crisis response plan; it is the new, permanent state of high-performing organizations. The pandemic did not create this new world, but it dramatically accelerated its arrival, collapsing a decade of change into a single year. The old ways of working—siloed, hierarchical, and slow—are no longer viable. Success now belongs to those who embrace a culture of co-elevation, operate with agile speed, look to the future with active foresight, and are anchored by a powerful, authentic purpose.

The book leaves us with a profound challenge. It asks us to look at our own organizations not as rigid, unchangeable structures, but as a collection of Lego blocks—people, processes, and technologies that can be reconfigured to meet any challenge and seize any opportunity. The critical question is no longer "How do we weather the next storm?" but rather, "How do we build an organization that is designed to thrive in the storm?"