Jamie Dimon’s ‘Skunk at the Party’ Sounds the Alarm on an Economic Downturn. Here Are His 8 Tips for Staying Focused in Times of Stress

JPMorganChase’s latest annual report talks Iran, inflation and more.

BY BRIAN CONTRERAS, STAFF WRITER @_B_CONTRERAS_

Jamie Dimon. Photo: Getty Images

It’s a tough time to be running a company—especially if that company is as complex and multifaceted as JPMorganChase.

What’s a business leader to do? Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive of the financial services behemoth, offered some insights into his gameplan on Monday morning with the release of his latest annual report to the shareholders.

The challenges facing JPMorganChase (and the rest of the American economy) are significant, Dimon concedes up top. They range from geopolitical headwinds—terrorism; growing tension with China; the wars in Ukraine and Iran—to economic turbulence. 

“A bad confluence of events generally causes various degrees of a recession, which is accompanied by high credit losses and volatile markets, lower asset prices and higher unemployment rates,” the bank CEO writes. “The skunk at the party—and it could happen in 2026—would be inflation slowly going up, as opposed to slowly going down. This alone could cause interest rates to rise and asset prices to drop.”

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Still, JPMorganChase has seen worse; Dimon notes early on in his shareholder letter that this year, as America celebrates its 250th anniversary, his company is nearly as old and will be celebrating the 227th.

How does a business make itself durable across the decades, even through waters as choppy as those we face now? Dimon, at least, attributes his own consistency over the last quarter-century to an octet of “Steadfast Principles Worth Repeating”:

Work that has real human impact, and a management team that understands the “enormous responsibility” they have to their shareholders

A “healthy and vibrant” corporate culture that takes care of its employees, customers and impacted communities—which need not be mutually exclusive with shareholder value

The use of the stock price in the long run (but not in the short term) as an indicator of progress

A consistency around “basic principles and strategies” that are embedded across the company and make everything else possible, from talent development to regulatory compliance to economic vitality

An awareness of the “extraordinary competition” they face and a realistic outlook on JPMorganChase’s strengths and weaknesses

A commitment to being “a source of strength” for clients and the countries in which they live, and as a “one of the guardians of the world’s financial systems”

A recognition that the American government is JPMorganChase’s de facto “silent partner,” creating the preconditions for the firm’s success—and a commitment to meeting the tax and regulatory obligations that come with being a U.S. company

A recognition of how its employees make everything the banking giant does possible

Also perhaps indicative of how Dimon approaches leadership? An excerpt from the Rudyard Kipling poem “If—” that the CEO quotes in his shareholder letter: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs.”

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