In highly volatile markets, a company's success or failure can often be attributed to luck. Managers cannot predict or control the timing, nature and magnitude of opportunities that turbulent markets present. The same holds true for threats. In such a competitive casino, you place your bets and hope for the best. It is better to be lucky than good.

For the past six years, I have studied more than 20 pairs of comparable companies in unpredictable industries such as telecommunications, airlines and software and how they responded differently to the same unforeseen threats and opportunities.

I found that the more successful companies were luckier, in the sense that time and time again, they responded more effectively to unexpected shifts in regulation, technology, competition, macroeconomics or other volatile factors. Such luck is too important to leave to chance.

The most successful companies exemplified "active waiting", an approach in unpredictable markets that anticipates and prepares for opportunities and threats that executives can neither fully predict nor control. A chief executive is sometimes likened to a ship's captain, peering into the horizon and setting a course.

In many markets, the future is foggy and finding a clear view nearly impossible. In the telecommunications industry, for example, shifting regulations; technological change; entry by non-traditional rivals such as Skype, and shifts in consumer preferences create a steady stream of unforeseen opportunities and threats. Demand for cars in China, for example, arose from the confluence of increased disposable income; government investment in infrastructure; rising middle-class aspirations; easy credit, and the demise of employer-provided housing near the workplace.

But all opportunities are not equal. In volatile markets, companies face countless small and mid-sized opportunities and the periodic golden opportunity - a chance to create value disproportionate to resources invested in a short period of time.

Golden opportunities include acquisition of a large competitor to gain global scale, such as the Royal Bank of Scotland's acquisition of NatWest; explosive demand in an emerging market such as China or India, or pioneering a new product or service such as the iPod.

Golden opportunities occur only when external circumstances throw open several windows of opportunity at the same time. Consider the opportunity for middleware - software that links a company's applications - which IBM converted into a billion-dollar business.

Several developments occurred at once: the internet created demand for software that could get applications to talk to one another; available technology was up to the task; early leaders such as NCR and Novell were distracted by other markets, and the paucity of venture capital funding prevented many start-ups chasing the same market.

Timing is everything in these circumstances. For example, had IBM entered the market a year or two earlier, customers' pain would have been less acute and the technology less developed. A few years later, and new entrants flush with venture capital cash might have established a lead.

Managers cannot predict or control golden opportunities. But they can prepare their companies to capitalise on them when they arrive. The trick lies not in heroic efforts during a golden opportunity, but in the quiet actions taken during periods of relative calm between the storms.

Keep the priorities clear: in unpredictable markets, managers often try to hedge against every possible contingency by running experiments and launching a flurry of initiatives. This is a big mistake.

Employees and managers are overwhelmed by multiple, often conflicting, priorities.

If they pursue too many priorities simultaneously, executives dissipate resources and hinder co-ordination across units.

Managers must exercise ruthless discipline in choosing a small number of objectives to pursue first, putting other valid concerns to one side for the time being. Equally important, they must decide what to stop doing to free up time, attention and resources to make sure the truly critical objectives are met.

Conduct reconnaissance into the future: prudent executives will take steps to investigate a foggy future. Firstly, they should send out probes in a few directions for opportunities rather than staking everything on a single way forward.

Secondly, when conducting reconnaissance, managers must remain alert to anomalies. Keep a reserve: during periods of calm, executives should build a warchest to deploy quickly when a golden opportunity emerges.

During periods of active waiting, executives must push through improvements - cutting costs, strengthening distribution, improving products.

Periodically, executives encounter an opportunity or threat so important it demands the firm's full focus. Declaring it the main effort creates a sense of urgency; focuses the organisation; prioritises resource allocation, and lays the groundwork for co-ordinated effort.

Yet many executives say that this was the most difficult decision they made. Playing it safe in the short term can prove hazardous in the long term. Companies that pass on every golden opportunity will find themselves eclipsed by players that can wait actively and strike decisively.

Don Sull is an associate professor of management practice at London Business School.