It’s never been as chaotic as it is right now, and it will never be less chaotic in the future.
It’s sobering and it’s why we feel so unsettled in our jobs, our homes, our lives. We’re trying to develop long-term strategies when:
- There’s a Great Resignation and record-low unemployment
- AI can write a symphony and is crashing cars on the freeway
- The weather forecast is heatwaves and ice storms
This world is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.
VUCA is the acronym used by the US Army War College to put a name to the chaotic state of political affairs post-Cold War. It was developed mainly in the realm of military strategy. But now it encompasses the state of business, society, relationships, and individual growth now more than ever. Everyone — not just the Army — is going to have to become fluent in the VUCA world.
Most organizations have embraced an assumption that at least a few things are relatively stable. We can count on a certain amount of return in stable investments, we have a stable roster of talent to pull from, our clients’ priorities remain relatively stable. But now, we can’t even rely on the approximate price of a dozen eggs at the grocery store. The business world is VOLATILE. Challenges are immediate, unforeseen, and can pivot your trajectory 180° in the blink of an eye.
We’ve also collectively enjoyed a degree of certainty. Successful businesses have honed years of experience to develop their playbooks, so that even when challenges arise, they can refer to what has worked and what hasn’t in the past. The variables and how they interplay are understood. But now UNCERTAINTY permeates every part of the equation; new variables are introduced, eliminated, changed, and grow exponentially. As industries are disrupted, destroyed, and invented each day, nothing is for sure.
Because of all these ever-shifting variables, the world is also more COMPLEX than ever. This obviously manifests in the growth of technology — and how much unmet potential remains in the developments being incubated today. The interconnectedness of the global supply chain makes it more complex than ever, with many thousands of pieces to juggle.
The complex world has even changed the understanding of the complexity of being human. People’s brains haven’t suddenly evolved to be more complicated, but we now know the importance of incorporating our understanding of psychology into creating and maintaining successful organizations. The human brain is the most complex piece of technology to harness. And with the advancement of AI we’re asking new questions about what it means to be a mind and a self. How does our own complexity intersect with the world?
Above all, we don’t even know what we don’t know. AMBIGUITY permeates every relationship from those between governments, organizations, teams, and individuals. It’s harder to determine true causes and effects, let alone leveraging those causal relationships to your advantage. There are mixed and confusing messages being sent with every change and development.
So, what are we supposed to do about this volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity? The team behind the It’s VUCA documentary says: fight VUCA with VUCA. Stop trying to return to a status quo that doesn’t exist anymore. Build capacity to meet the demands of this new reality with vision, understanding, clarity, and agility.
Uniting behind a common VISION gives every member of a team a beacon to follow amidst volatility. Transparency from the top down allows each team member at CoBUILD to see the overarching goals of the organization beyond putting out the day-to-day fires. Vision is not a five-, ten-, or twenty-year plan — volatility turns plans into scrap paper at any given moment. Vision is identifying what we can accomplish based on what kind of people we are. We can’t guarantee that in ten years, we will have a specific number of clients, or even who our client base will be. But we can envision that in ten years, our ability to meet our clients’ needs in a way that allows everyone involved to succeed will have grown exponentially, because our team continues to work hard toward that vision every day.
So clearly, nobody at CoBUILD is a fortune teller or a psychic. The uncertainties of the world will continue to surprise us, but through UNDERSTANDING we gain more control of our response to the ever-changing environment. At CoBUILD, we approach understanding like a scientist would, gathering data, developing hypotheses, and testing everything we can. To crave certainty is to be nostalgic for an environment that doesn’t exist anymore; we can’t cling to old habits with the excuse “it’s what we’ve always done.” Understanding of the present and future requires an open-mindedness to being challenged, being wrong, and being adaptable to new truths as they emerge. Inviting understanding is getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. It requires a posture of humility (we might be wrong) and curiosity (we want to know more)?
CLARITY aligns the team’s vision with its understanding of the current situation, and ensures each member is on the same page. A team could all agree on a vision but have many different routes for getting there. Even as the path must shift due to volatility and complexity, it should be clear to everyone involved. To do this, CoBUILD focuses on the “why” just as much as the “what”. Every role has tasks to accomplish, but our approach to training and development emphasizes how each task fits into the larger purpose of the department, the project, and the organization. When team members understand how their piece fits into the puzzle, they can manage complex situations swiftly and effectively. Understanding the “why” beyond the “what” allows CoBUILD team members to sift through the myriad of options to find solutions that matter, and that are suited to the moment.
It might seem impossible to commit to a decision in an environment with so much ambiguity. That’s why a focus on AGILITY emphasizes the ability to pivot away from decisions that are no longer working while leaning toward new opportunities without fear. Agility requires quick and decisive action that is informed by understanding and prioritizes the vision, while providing clarity to everyone with a stake in that decision. CoBUILD’s agility allows us to stay relational — client needs can be volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous all at once! But agility is more than just flexibility. If teams are too flexible, they can bend until they break. If teams are agile, they can bend in the right direction and align solutions with the realities of the environment. And they do it without compromising the overarching vision. And we’ve found that the capacity for agility is the competitive advantage in a VUCA world.
Fighting VUCA with VUCA is how CoBUILD is working to meet the demands of our reality while shaping future leaders in our current team. Positive VUCA is how we navigate uncertain waters without obstinately dropping an anchor in any one spot. As a team, we know what to do when we remember who we are. We know where we’re going. Storms and obstacles are a given. We don’t expect smooth sailing. Deploying vision, understanding, clarity and agility is how we meet high standards for ourselves amidst the chaotic present and an even more chaotic future.
