How Do You Find Clarity in Chaos?

Global headlines move at breakneck speed: tariffs spike overnight, alliances fracture, AI promises both abundance and upheaval. Leaders risk chasing every “firefly” and missing the larger pattern.

French historian Fernand Braudel argued that history unfolds in three cycles: the daily buzz, the paradigm shifts that stretch across decades, and the longue durée—the slow-moving bedrock of centuries.

What makes this moment unprecedented is that all three cycles are in upheaval at once. Fireflies flash faster than ever: trade wars, market volatility, political shocks. Paradigm shifts reshape decades: America’s pivot inward, the rise of AI, a strained world order. And even the longue durée—climate, demographic, and technological foundations once thought immovable—now trembles.

Analysts call it a “polycrisis” (McKinsey) or a “fragmenting world” (IMF). For leaders, this is no abstraction but a lived reality. Nowhere is the challenge sharper than in sectors like pharmaceuticals, where leadership means betting today on what healthcare will look like ten years from now, while reacting to shocks that can strike overnight. It means learning to navigate all three cycles simultaneously.

Fireflies: Daily Shocks

In any industry, fireflies flash constantly. Consider the sudden tariff hikes on imported materials during Trump’s trade wars. Overnight, costs skyrocket, supply chains waver, and leaders must decide: absorb the hit, pass it on to customers, or shift production. Add to those ever-changing regulations: one month paving the way for fast-track approvals, the next erecting new barriers.

The risk is exhaustion. Chasing every spark leads to tunnel vision and drains focus from long-term strategy.

The antidote is discipline. Smart leaders build dashboards that flag what truly matters, empower regional teams to respond locally, and maintain filters that separate the urgent from the important. As Peter Drucker reminded us: “The greatest danger in turbulence is not the turbulence itself, but to act with yesterday’s logic.”

Paradigm Shifts: Decades in Motion

Beneath the daily buzz, tectonic forces reshape the decades ahead.

Deglobalization forces companies to rethink where and how they produce. Do you invest billions in reshoring manufacturing to safeguard access to the American market? Or do you double down on alternative markets in Asia and Africa? And what happens when geopolitics demands access to drugs that aren’t profitable today but will be critical in times of pandemic or war?

AI compounds this uncertainty. In discovery and design, it promises to compress timelines and costs, but also raises thorny regulatory and ethical questions. In manufacturing, agentic AI could transform efficiency, but its early adoption carries both risk and reward. Leaders who wait for consensus will be too late; those who act early could gain a decisive edge.

In healthcare, Carmat, the world's first manufacturer of bioprosthetic hearts, using biomembranes to eliminate the need for anticoagulants, perfectly illustrates both the peril and promise of paradigm shifts. A breakthrough that works clinically—over 120 patients live with it—nonetheless faltered amid funding shortfalls, technical delays, and hesitant market uptake. Paradigm shifts demand courage to invest ahead of consensus, and resilience to endure the long valley of doubt.

The Longue Durée: Bedrock Under Tremor

The longest horizon, the longue durée, is the hardest to act on — yet it is where the future is truly decided.

For pharma, climate change is not an abstraction: it alters the spread of infectious diseases, reshapes patient needs, and disrupts ingredient sourcing. New pandemics will emerge, while demographic shifts — aging populations in the West, youthful growth in the South — will dictate where healthcare systems and therapies must evolve.

Even the very definition of medicine itself is changing. Antimicrobial resistance, regenerative therapies, AI-driven biology— from protein folding to digital twins of patients — point to a horizon where healthcare itself is transforming. This horizon moves too slowly for quarterly metrics, yet too broadly to ignore. Leaders must think as stewards, aligning strategy with forces larger than their tenure or even their companies.

Leading Across Time Horizons

The real test of leadership lies in integration: holding all three horizons in view without collapsing them into one and understanding how they are interconnected.

Fireflies demand discipline, the ability to delegate, filter, and contain. Paradigm shifts require resolve, the willingness to place bold bets ahead of consensus. The longue durée calls for stewardship, the humility to align with forces larger than the enterprise itself.

Leaders who unite these mindsets build not only agile organizations but courageous ones: responsive to shocks without being distracted, bold without being reckless, far-sighted without drifting into abstraction.

Final Thoughts: Turning Clarity into Success

Braudel’s lesson is timeless: history moves at different speeds, and today, all three are in upheaval.

Tariffs, regulations, and trade wars are the flashing fireflies. Deglobalization, AI, and geopolitical realignment are reshaping the decades. Climate change, demographics, and the very meaning of progress itself are shaking the foundations.

The leaders who will thrive are not those who chase every spark or cling to outdated models. They are those who discipline the fireflies, invest early in paradigm shifts, and act as stewards of the longue durée.

Clarity in chaos does not mean eliminating uncertainty. It means offering a vision that transcends time horizons — building organizations that are resilient today, relevant in the decades ahead, and responsible in the centuries to come.