| Keep calm and carry on? This week, we look at an unsung virtue—calmness—and why it’s so important now. Plus, how US healthcare can save a quarter-trillion dollars, and Tech for Execs on the value of containers (no, not the shipping kind). | | | | | What, me worry? If you haven’t felt a pervasive feeling of calm while living and working through the COVID-19 pandemic, you’re in good company. Still, some among us have managed to maintain composure in this era of turmoil. What do they know—or how do they act—that sets them apart? | | Comfort zone. There are various ways to describe the positive characteristics that can buoy a person or an organization through uncertainty: flexibility, adaptability, resilience, agility, nimbleness. People who maintain calm amid such uncertainty reflect these positive mindsets; in essence, these folks are comfortable with discomfort. We’re used to thinking of problem solvers as quick to act and take charge. But what if being calm sets you up better for taking the right actions over the long term? | | Open minds. Early on in the pandemic, McKinsey analyzed six practices for helping leaders guide their organizations with calm and purpose. Among them was the ability to shift from an emotional and physical response to something we call integrative awareness. We’ve also written about the meta-skill of adaptability, which at its core allows people to view problems as learning opportunities—ones that can be approached with open-mindedness rather than reflexive responses. As we close the book on year two of this pandemic, and as the virus itself becomes endemic, these skills are as important as ever. | | The link between calmness and optimism. As the author April Rinne discusses in a recent interview with McKinsey, people who are working through uncertainty have to understand their fundamental relationship to change. “Do you come at it from a place of hope or fear?” says Rinne. “Do you see uncertainty as dangerous, or do you tend to see it as an adventure for your curiosity? What were you taught about these things growing up?” Rinne also notes that many people are realizing that the world they were told to expect doesn’t align with the world they are seeing today. That’s not a cause for alarm, she says, but it is a reason to practice getting comfortable with what we can’t control and figuring out what new skills are required. | | Reframing your fears. It’s understandable that many people have found themselves in a defensive crouch after all these months of crisis conditions. As Joanna Barsh, an expert on centered leadership, puts it in a recent McKinsey podcast: “The most important thing to do is to shift out of that into feeling safe and feeling that you have room to grow. How do you do that? This is really tough advice. You welcome fear.” Barsh suggests getting curious about fear—asking (calmly) how it serves you, and how it holds you back. “When you can see it in that way—that it was trying to help you, but it’s served its time, and it’s now limiting you—then you have the power to move past it.” | | |  | | OFF THE CHARTS | | European power markets: A surge in price volatility | | European power markets have entered a period of uncertainty, as prices—largely for natural gas and carbon—reach new highs. Intermittent renewable power, including wind and solar, will account for about 60 percent of total installed capacity in Europe in 2035, compared with about 35 percent in 2021. However, whether the pace at which renewables are rolled out will be sufficient remains unclear, highlighting the importance of developing resilient power-asset portfolios and managing risk. | | | | | | | | | | PODCAST | | For this executive, it’s always snack time | | Halloween may be over, but Blas Maquivar’s mission isn’t. As president of global emerging markets for Mars Wrigley, Maquivar is constantly thinking of ways to “expand the penetration and reach” of chocolate, gum, mints, and fruity confections across more than 130 countries. In this episode of the McKinsey on Consumer and Retail podcast, he talks about Mars Wrigley’s new digital initiatives, its competitive advantages in the battle for talent, and its strategy for expanding the treats and snacking category in emerging markets. | | | | | | | | TECH FOR EXECS | | The value of containers (no, not the shipping kind) | | Our experts serve up a periodic look at the technology concepts leaders need to understand to help their organizations grow and thrive in the digital age. | | What they are. These days, seeing the word “containers” likely produces a knot in many execs’ stomachs, as global supply-chain and shipping woes drag on. In the tech realm, however, containers bring a smile to developers’ faces and should delight business executives as well. That’s because these software packagers enable speedy application development and updates, flexibility, and efficiency for both IT systems and those managing them. Containers are, in fact, a bit like the ones used to ship goods in that they hold a valuable business asset—in this case, the components (code, configuration files, and so on) of a particular application, such as a consumer-facing banking app—and allow you to move it around (more on that later). | | Why we need them. In a few words: digitization and the move to the cloud. Most businesses are running dozens, if not hundreds, of internal and customer-facing applications, which are foundational to their business, in many cases serving as primary revenue drivers. As we know, the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated the shift to digital, and consumer expectations for easy-to-use, personalized digital apps are rising along with it, making speed-to-market and constant innovation critical to maintaining an edge over competitors. Containers also make an application portable—the app can easily be moved to and deployed on local hardware or in the cloud, and it can be moved from one type of cloud (private or public) to another, or from one public provider to another. | | What the benefits are. In addition to being portable, containers also allow technologists to push out any application updates in seconds because all of the application’s deployment mechanisms are baked in and automated. | | And they reduce cost by using IT resources more efficiently. While a virtual machine (or a physical one) typically runs just one application, many containerized applications can run on a machine (or in the cloud), putting more of a machine’s resources to use. Containers help developers work more efficiently as well. An application’s underpinnings can be held in several containers (known as a microservices approach to building applications), allowing developers to work on only what’s in a particular container without affecting the rest of the application. This enables developers to work more independently, making changes to one aspect of an application without worrying about affecting the rest of it. The result: less work required, less room for error, and speedy application fixes and updates. | | If having hundreds of containers sounds tricky to manage, worry not—Kubernetes, an open-source system created by Google, helps IT professionals manage containers and further optimizes their use. | | How to get containerized. There’s a good chance you already are. Check in with your IT professionals to find out. If they aren’t using them, encourage experimentation in a sandboxed environment. | | | — Edited by Barbara Tierney | | | Share this Tech For Execs |  |  |  | | | | | | BACKTALK | | Have feedback or other ideas? We’d love to hear from you. | | | | | Did you enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to colleagues and friends so they can subscribe too.
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