“There is nothing more certain and unchanging than uncertainty and change” – John F. Kennedy
For the foreseeable future, volatility and uncertainty appear to be the only two things we can count on.
As our government and business leaders begin contemplating how to restart the economy without further stoking the pandemic, we must also begin looking for new strategic planning frameworks that can help us navigate and succeed in this uncharted territory.
The past several months have illustrated something the US military has known and grappled with for over three decades: we live in a dangerous and unpredictable world, and yet we must be prepared to handle every scenario thrown at us.
Attempting to solve the dichotomy between unpredictability and the need for planning gets to the heart of a framework the U.S. Army developed in early 1990s. They coined the acronym VUCA to describe the new post-Cold War environment that we found ourselves in after the fall of the Berlin Wall:
- Volatile – The accelerating rate of change, without a clear or predictable trend or pattern
- Uncertain – The lack of predictability, frequently disruptive changes with unknown outcomes
- Complex – The interconnection and dependencies of many cause-and-effect forces
- Ambiguous – The strong potential for misreads, little clarity about what is “real” or “true”
With this description of their “new normal” VUCA operational environment, they developed frameworks and playbooks to allowed military leaders to plan for and effectively respond to any threats, with the right force, anywhere in the world. This new flexible approach to planning has enabled the Army to rapidly mix and match forces and adapt to a more complex and uncertain operational environment.
It should come as no surprise that this concept of VUCA has great non-military application as well.
If we add COVID-19 to the other significant drivers that exist in today’s global economy (including the transformational growth and impact of technology, globalization, and environmental change) you get a massive VUCA environment. When you consider that all these drivers are accelerating and converging simultaneously our challenge becomes clear.
We now live in a VUCA world, and no leader, organization, or industry is immune.
Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity all play a role in how business leaders must make decisions, solve problems, lead teams, mitigate risks, and innovate for change. They can also provide a strategic framework for leaders and businesses to plan, and make decisions.
If you embrace this basic VUCA framework, a playbook for turning VUCA to your advantage begins to emerge:
- We can counter volatility with vision.
- We can meet uncertainty with understanding.
- We can react to complexity with clarity.
- We can fight ambiguity with agility.
The biggest risk of a VUCA environment is that it can lead to inaction. People can become confused and overwhelmed by the turmoil and, as a result, rendered immobile. In a warfighting scenario those who sit still usually end up dead. To succeed we must take action.
In upcoming articles we’ll dig further into VUCA and how leaders can build out and execute the basic playbook above.
-Onward