What is VUCA?
VUCA READY?The U.S. military recognized something was different in the early 1990s. While the rest of the world watched the fall of the Berlin Wall, they saw a new world order. It shifted its strategy and even coined a funny-sounding acronym to deal with what they anticipated would be a state of continuous disruption. They called it VUCA. Independently, each word describes an element of change that instills anxiety and agitation. As tempting as it is, you just can’t beat around the bush this time.
VUCA is the ultimate challenge leaders (and individuals) face today. While a pandemic, climate change, terrorism, technological disruption all independently loom large, the deeper threat is these four elements of change working collaboratively and synergistically, antagonistically and asynchronously. None of these VUCA elements act in a vacuum and therefore leaders can’t focus on complexity and ignore uncertainty or ambiguity.
The convergence of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity should demand a response that ignites passion and instills meaning and purpose, not fear. Executives of all organizations must change their approach toward leadership. Human Resources professionals must revamp people and workforce management. Individuals must retool their career paths and lifestyles.
We are living and will continue to live in a VUCA world. So what is VUCA?
Volatility is turbulence.
It’s the nature, speed, volume, and magnitude of change. We might have the knowledge and even be able to predict the outcome…but with volatility, you may not have the time to plan or react. The issue with volatility is simply the rate of change, one that is accelerating beyond our ability to keep up.
Uncertainty relates to the lack of predictability of issues and events.
Information about the past and present is less and less useful in anticipating the future. Uncertainty makes forecasting difficult and decision-making challenging. We might know quite a bit about the situation but we’re unsure what to do next.
Complexity represents the difficult-to-understand.
It encompasses the causes and mitigating factors involved in a problem brought about by an increasingly intertwined world. Complexity requires the need to make multiple key decisions that can impact and influence our options and outcomes. Each decision influences another in unintentional and unanticipated ways. Complexity clouds our judgment.
Ambiguity represents the world of unknown unknowns.
It is the haziness of reality and the mixed meanings of similar-but-different conditions that can lead to different outcomes. It makes it difficult to grasp the meaning of fast-moving, unclear, and complex events.
Contact Me about Adaptability Quotient