Here’s the perfect solution to become immune to economic or political conditions
In my work advising some of the world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs, family business conglomerates and self-made billionaires, I see a recurring mindset that silently cripples performance. Just recently, I was in a conversation with the head of a major family business conglomerate. He spent an extraordinary amount of time talking about the latest unfavorable economic shift in his territory and the deteriorating political climate around him. It was as if these external forces had taken up permanent residence inside his head.
He spoke about interest rates, inflation, regulatory unpredictability, geopolitical tensions—everything outside of his control. And I remember thinking: This is the wrong mindset. Not because those issues don’t matter—they absolutely do. But because obsessing over them does nothing to improve the performance of a business. It simply drains mental focus, emotional bandwidth and strategic imagination.
The truth is simple: Economic and political conditions will always fluctuate. What determines your destiny is not the turbulence around you, but what you choose to focus on inside your business.
Becoming immune to external conditions is not a fantasy—it is a discipline. And it rests on powerful principles that I have seen again and again in the world’s most resilient, unstoppable companies. These principles apply whether you are building a billion-dollar business, steering a third-generation family conglomerate or leading a midmarket organization hungry for growth.
Solution No. 1: Realize that the only thing you can control is performance—Your own and your business’
You cannot control interest rates. You cannot control elections, political swings, regulatory shocks or market cycles.
But you can control your performance and the performance of your organization. The CEOs and owners who internalize this truth outperform the market over time—not because they’re lucky, but because they refuse to adopt a victim mindset.
Victim mindsets justify stagnation: “We can’t grow because the economy is bad.” Or “We can’t expand because the political climate is unstable.” Or “We can’t invest because competitors have an advantage.”
Winners think differently. They ask: “How do we improve performance regardless of external conditions?” And then they act relentlessly.
History is filled with companies that grew massively during recessions because they focused on internal mastery rather than external noise. The same is true for individuals: the business leaders who perform at a world-class level are those who prioritize behavior, execution, discipline and accountability—not excuses.
Solution No. 2: Stretch goals—Always reach beyond what you know how to achieve
The second solution is one of the most powerful performance drivers ever discovered: stretch goals. The idea was popularized by Jack Welch during his transformational years at General Electric. Welch realized that if you set goals you already know how to hit, you don’t change anything about the way you operate. You simply execute within your existing capabilities.
But the moment you set a goal that feels almost impossible—yet still theoretically achievable—something extraordinary happens: You innovate. You collaborate. You stretch your imagination. You unlock performance levels you never knew existed.
Stretch goals have reshaped entire economies. Japan’s economic miracle after World War II was fueled by a national culture of stretch goals—reaching far beyond what was previously possible and forcing industries to reinvent themselves. And the same dynamic applies in a business context.
A stretch goal is one where you say: “We have no idea how to get there—but we know it is possible if we evolve.” The best leaders create goals that scare them a little, excite them a lot and force the entire organization to grow. Companies that use stretch goals consistently outperform competitors, especially during economic downturns, because they push themselves beyond complacency.
Solution No. 3: What gets measured gets done
A fundamental pillar of performance improvement is measurement. What gets measured gets done. But here’s the problem: most companies measure poorly. In my work as global chair of the Tom Oliver Group, advising companies across continents and industries, I consistently see the same mistakes:
- They measure the wrong things.
- They don’t measure enough.
- They measure too infrequently.
- They measure in a way that produces reports instead of insight.
- They fail to keep measurement results close at hand to enable course corrections.
Many organizations do a form of “measurement window dressing”—they produce charts, dashboards and performance summaries, but none of it fundamentally changes behavior or execution.
One family business we advised was nearly a market leader, yet they measured performance once a year. Their industry required them to adjust monthly, sometimes weekly. Once a year was not only insufficient—it was dangerous. The moment they shifted to more frequent measurements, the business trajectory changed dramatically.
High-tech companies measure weekly, if not daily, because speed and iteration drive growth. Your business may not need that intensity, but it certainly needs more measurement than you’re currently doing.
If you want to improve performance, ask yourself: Are we measuring the drivers of performance or the by-products? Are we measuring frequently enough to adjust in real time? Are we acting on what we measure?
Solution No. 4: Ruthless feedback loops—The hard truth behind massive performance jumps
Measurement alone doesn’t improve performance. Feedback does. Ruthless feedback.
A feedback loop means:
1. Look at reality exactly as it is.
2. Stare at the bare facts without excuses or storytelling.
3. Ask: Did we perform as we planned?
4. If not, why not?
5. Identify the root cause.
6. Make the necessary changes.
7. Move toward the next goal with enhanced clarity.
This process is uncomfortable—sometimes painfully so. Companies often avoid it because it requires confronting failures, inefficiencies, incompetence and flawed assumptions.
But without ruthless feedback loops, nothing improves. The biggest breakthroughs I’ve seen in companies—including those already highly profitable—come from a willingness to dissect their failures with surgical precision.
Solution No. 5: Obsess over Planning and Cash
High-growth companies plan with rigor. They create multiple scenarios, contingency plans, resource plans, market plans. They adapt constantly based on feedback from measurements and customers. Planning keeps you intentional instead of reactive. It moves you from drifting to driving.
The second part is even more critical: Cash is oxygen. Businesses don’t die because the economy is bad—they die because they run out of cash. Even highly successful startups collapse during high-growth phases because they prioritize scale over cash flow.
Tom Oliver, a “global management guru” (Bloomberg), is the chair of The Tom Oliver Group, the trusted advisor and counselor to many of the world’s most influential family businesses, medium-sized enterprises, market leaders and global conglomerates. For more information and inquiries: TomOliverGroup.com or email Tom.Oliver@inquirer.com.ph.
