The VUCA-Plus Environment
We will dwell briefly on the meaning to be assigned to each of the VUCA terms and then suggest how we might expand on VUCA. Complexity concerns the many elements and dynamic interaction among elements that have to be considered, while Volatility refers to the rate and shifting rate of change among the elements.
The other two terms have to do with epistemology (the way in which knowledge is acquired and reality is defined). Ambiguity concerns the assessment of both the evidence available regarding reality and the meaning assigned to this reality. The fourth term, Uncertainty, is about the stability of any assessment being made regarding reality. Does reality change over a short period of time? Why do an extensive assessment if our world is constantly shifting?
VUCA is deservedly becoming the coin-of-the-realm among contemporary organizational analysts. These four terms (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) clearly capture much of the dynamics swirling around in the perfect storm of contemporary organizational life.
We have offered a similar description of our current environment. However, our categories differ a bit and expand upon VUCA. We have identified four challenges: complexity, unpredictability (uncertainty), turbulence and contradiction. Two of these challenges align directly with VUCA, while the other two (turbulence and contradiction) expand on the VUCA environment. [i]
In describing Turbulence, we turn to a metaphor offered by Peter Vaill[ii], who suggests that we are living in a “white water” world. We have suggested that this white-water world represents a turbulent system.[iii] Furthermore, we have proposed that this white-water system incorporates four subsystems that are exemplified by the properties of a turbulent stream: (1) rapid change (flowing segment of the stream), (2) cyclical change (the stream’s whirlpools), (3) stability/non-change (the “stagnant” segment of the stream), and (4) chaos (the segment of a stream existing between the other three segments).
With regard to Contradiction, we have identified the frequent presence of contradictory constructions and interpretations of reality and the differing meaning assigning to the reality that is being constructed.[iv] We suggest that we are living and leading in a world of Irony and must make decisions that are contingent and subject to frequent review and modification. Obviously, Turbulence and Contradiction are strongly influenced by and tightly interweave with all four of the VUCA challenges. We will use the term VUCA-Plus with this expansion on the description of a VUCA environment.
Having identified the fundamental nature of the four VUCA terms, while adding two additional terms, we turn to the nature of organizational anxiety that is evoked in this VUCA-Plus environment. We then consider ways in which 21st Century organizations – and especially the leaders of these organizations—contain this anxiety and transform it (via something called “metabolism”) so that the anxiety might be managed effectively.[v] Finally, we identify several tools that can be used by these leaders in creating and maintaining these containers and transformational processes.
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