The week in review

Coronavirus’ impact on careers and marketing was the subject of our two ‘Leading through the pandemic’ webinars this week.

In the first, Professor Herminia Ibarra looks at how you can use the crisis to take stock and reshape your career.

She suggests taking a test and learn career strategy for the lockdown. This liminal time is a fertile period for finding a fresh way forward in the uncertainty and she looks at new ways to get started as well as further develop a burgeoning career shift.

After all, when this is all over, will you want to return to business as usual (assuming that were even possible)?

In his webinar, Professor Rajesh Chandy shares insights from research on the forces driving markets during and after periods of great change. The companies he studied that managed to get out of distress focused on what their customers needed, not what their competitors were doing.

He urges leaders to visualise their future now: “This too shall pass. But the world we will emerge into will likely be a changed one.”

From the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s (IIE) Resilient Founders video series, health drink entrepreneur Anna Szymanowska MBA2018 talks about the importance of pivoting. She tells Jeff Skinner, the IIE’s Executive Director, how the crisis has forced her to rethink what she is doing and how her start-up is rising to the challenge. 

On Thursday, Professor Julian Birkinshaw dissected the difference between agility and resilience, and how they intersect with crisis planning. He provides a point by point transition programme for developing your company’s strategy.

In other news, growing income inequality and high CEO pay was on the agenda for the Centre for Corporate Governance (CCG). In a report from its event 'Market or racket – do we need a new approach to executive pay?', you can hear the latest thinking from Alex Edmans, Professor of Finance and Academic Director of the CCG, and read the insights from a panel of experts led by Dirk Jenter, Associate Professor of Finance at LSE.

And if anyone needed reminding, it is more important than ever to keep work and home life as separate as possible. Here London Business School Postdoctoral Research Associate Laura Giurge gives three tips for avoiding burnout during the lockdown.