Whether you are part of a team or a leader of an organisation or business, this book is intended to help you reflect on the lessons from the pandemic. The lessons apply to future challenges and crises, including climate change.

During the pandemic, the Key & Co network worked with businesses, both small and large, public and private, across numerous industries and around the world. We were often tasked with helping them overcome their most pressing issues while also being “flies on the wall” as we observed how CEOs and leadership teams came to terms with the pandemic crisis. As a result, we learnt the factors that allowed businesses and organisations to adapt, survive and emerge stronger, including effective leadership, purpose, innovation, agility, teamwork, decision-making, customer relationships, planning and resilience.

While the large global businesses were interesting, there was much more to learn from the experiences of smaller businesses and teams. These were the ones that were under the most extreme pressure. The ones that were pushed closest to the brink and therefore the ones that had to dig deepest to survive.

This book tells the story of ten of these. A baking company building an online training business, a European bank transforming itself through the crisis, a testing company growing from 0 to 1,300 employees in 18 months, a stand-up comedian, reliant on live venues, pivoting to writing books and Zoom gigs, a running club keeping training and racing, a whiskey distiller delivering product to consumers locked down, a global network, trapped in their home offices, a church leader becoming a beacon of hope with Zoom services, an elite rowing squad overcoming the constraints of lockdown to win their big race, the chaplains that worked tirelessly to support seafarers who kept the world moving.

I hope you find the book not only interesting and thought-provoking but that you also take some useful lessons from it as we all move on from the pandemic and face the next challenges.