An organization, especially with a multinational scope, faces a major structural reorganization
that contains significant functional changes and leadership challenges.
Facing the Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA)
are four leaders responsible for implementing a significant part of the
organizational change without losing strategic momentum.
Finding VUCA Prime
Like most organizations, the act of bringing in a high profile
external consulting firm eight months ago signaled to every executive in
the business unit that significant change was possible. Without
question, they each had their own story of what that would or should
entail. Seated around the table were four corporate leaders who knew
the nature and extent of the impending reorganization before it was
announced. Their task was to make it happen without losing focus,
momentum, and direction – to change horses at a full gallop over rough
terrain without falling off.
The conversation was at first intense, but not adversarial. Dave, my
client, led his colleagues in a lively dialogue that confirmed the key
volatilities, uncertainties, complexities, and ambiguities – VUCA – that
we had previously discussed. Increasing destabilization in any one of
the four VUCA elements could have a negative snowball effect, yet
stability was neither possible nor helpful.
In VUCA situations, the destabilizing events impact different parts
of the system differently. Actions that amplify (increase) the positive
and dampen (decrease) the negative help leaders harness the instability
and act their way forward, learning as they go. Identifying
and applying these two types of interventions is a major challenge and
opportunity for leaders in a VUCA world. Enter VUCA Prime – Vision,
Understanding, Clarity, and Agility. VUCA Prime is the contribution of
Bob Johansen,[i] emerging from his work with corporate, military,
non-profit, and government leaders as they navigated their VUCA
challenges. They suggest where and what to amplify and dampen within a
VUCA situation.
The forces of VUCA and VUCA Prime exist in dynamic equilibrium, and
leaders can balance the energy of either side with its complement. The
dynamic interplay of VUCA and VUCA Prime generates the energy that can
drive organizations to adapt, change, and evolve with the conditions of
their environment (the sum of the political, economic, social,
technological, and government/regulatory background). As the five of us
pondered what to do next from a leadership development perspective, we
began to see places within the current and new organization that needed
less Volatility and others that needed more Volatility. In both cases
Vision was a complementing force that we could work with. With the
group’s input, Dave and I designed a leadership development plan for the
executive team as part of the restructuring kick-off and the 2011
goal-setting and planning process. The exercises we used set the
conditions for the executive team to think and act in new ways.
Lessons for Leaders
Useful methods for weaving together the dynamic forces of VUCA and
VUCA Prime (the weaving is represented by the infinity symbol) include:
Volatility ∞ Vision: Future Back
- An exercise that views today from the perspective of the desired future and creates milestones for getting there
Uncertainty ∞ Understanding: Adaptive Change Model[ii]
- This model of change weaves together the transactional/doing aspects of change and the transformational/relational aspects of change
Complexity ∞ Clarity: Sense making
- A method of tuning in to weak signals in the environment, searching for what might be possible in order to act with informed sensibility
Ambiguity ∞ Agility: Safe Fail and Ritual Dissent
- An exercise that combines rapid prototyping of ideas and action with the practice of listening to the creative criticism it generates
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