Recently I was asked to say more about VUCA and VUCA prime. VUCA stands for Volatility, Anxiety, Complexity and Ambiguity and was identified/described by Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus in the 1980’s. It was a leadership theory used by the military, corporate leaders and consultants to describe “A world where volatility still had some rhythm. Where uncertainty could still be waited out. Where complexity had patterns, and ambiguity meant a choice between this or that. It was a framework for an unstable world that was, ironically, still manageable” – according to Kevin Krause*.
He suggests it is much worse now and describes BANI – Brittle, Anxious, Non-Linear and Incomprehensible as originally coined by futurist Jamais Cascio in 2018.
I gotta say, being a futurist like Benus, Nanus and Cascio must be a horrible occupation. You see what is coming and you try to help others get out of the way or take steps well ahead and most people ignore you. Even if they listen, they can’t or don’t make a plan to address the issues until it is too late.
Anyway, Krause says “BANI demands that leaders build resilient organizations, lower anxiety, embrace nonlinearity, and act decisively amid incomprehensibility.”
Johansen developed the antidote known as VUCA Prime. It requires the leader to build a vision, increase understanding of the factors causing the volatility, use clarity to simplify in order to combat complexity, and be agile to overcome the ambiguity. Make decisions faster without all the information once required before you would move. Read more here.
My take is that BANI and VUCA Prime work together. It starts with creating a desired target state and a compelling vision of the future that stakeholders can rally around. Great leadership does all of the steps described. It just has to be more strategic and agile in today’s world.
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