All four of these subsystems are operating in our current time of pandemic invasion. There is rapid change occurring as the virus rapidly spreads and communities throughout the world are massively impacted. Cyclical change is to be found in the patterned way that COVID-19 enters and spreads in a community—and tragically in the probable way in which the virus will return seasonally (until such time as there is virtually global immunity). We can find stability and non- change in the resistance to new norms and rules in virtually all societies. All of this leads to the growing presence of the fourth subsystem: Chaos. This is to be found not only in the inconsistent way we are each living our lives in response to the virus, but also in the way public policies are being formulated and revised in many countries.
Contradiction
Messages are being delivered all the time that are valid—but they often point in quite different directions.
Systemic impact: credible advice is being offered by people and institutions that can be trusted—but the advice is often inconsistent. The New Platonic Allegory of the Cave
Personal impact: must change our mind or at least be open to new perspectives and ideas.
Contradiction concerns the frequent presence of contradictory constructions and interpretations of reality and the differing meaning assigning to the reality that is being constructed. We must make decisions that take into account contradictory and polarizing values regarding thoughtful consideration and caring compassion; furthermore, these decisions are subject to frequent review and modification as we try to navigate a turbulent VUCA world.
Managing Anxiety
VUCA-Plus produces anxiety at both the individual and collective level. It seems that anxiety is quite contagious. One anxious person in an organization (or any group) can readily spread this anxiety to everyone else in the organization. In some ways this contagion is quite adaptive. When human beings were living on the African savannah, they were among the weakest and slowest creatures to populate this often threat-filled environment. It seems that we humans survived (and ultimately thrived) by working collaboratively via language and strong family and clan bonding. We all wanted to know if something was threatening one or more members of our group so that we could act together to fight or flee from the source of the threat. Anxiety served this purpose.
Anxiety as a Signal
Many years ago, Sigmund Freud wrote about the signal function of anxiety. At the time, he was pointing to the way in which anxiety alerts us to an important psychic reality: we are moving into dangerous territory regarding unconscious processes. We can expand on Freud’s analysis by considering the collective signaling function served by anxiety in warning us (as families or clans) about sources of danger that are real (such as predators, crop failure or the pending invasion of an adversarial clan)—or are anticipated or imagined.
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