00:00:39Understanding VUCA in Modern Context
00:16:04Rethinking VUCA in Daily Life
00:30:15Navigating Complexity in a VUCA World
00:40:38Navigating VUCA in Different Industries
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
In this episode of Boundless Curiosity, hosts Brandon and Jason dive deep into the concept of VUCA – Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. Originating from the U.S. military’s strategic thinking in the late 20th century, VUCA has since become a In this episode of Boundless Curiosity, hosts Brandon and Jason dive into the concept of VUCA – Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. Originating from the U.S. military’s strategic thinking in the late 20th century, VUCA has since become a foundational framework for understanding the chaotic and rapidly changing landscape of modern business and leadership.
We touch on alternative frameworks like TUNA (Turbulent, Uncertain, Novel, Ambiguous) and BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, and Incomprehensible), questioning if military strategies truly fit the business world. Through personal anecdotes, including navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, we explore whether VUCA has become a crutch for poor management or if its relevance has waned over time. How does VUCA affect different sectors and personal lives?
Finally, we discuss the unique challenges brought by rapid technological advancements and global interconnectedness, and how leaders can balance quick execution with strategic reflection. Using examples from industries like healthcare and technology, we set the stage for our next episode, where we'll offer actionable insights on thriving in a VUCA environment.
English
United States
SHOW NOTES 🔗
TRANSCRIPT 🔗
WEBVTT
00:00:40.554 --> 00:00:45.204
Hey Jason, very excited to jump into a conversation today on VUCA.
00:00:45.204 --> 00:00:46.753
How are you doing today, my friend?
00:00:47.616 --> 00:00:48.238
Doing pretty well.
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How about you, Brandon?
00:00:49.490 --> 00:00:51.156
Yeah, everything's great, everything's great.
00:00:51.156 --> 00:00:57.795
Really been looking forward to the opportunity to hop on this call and have this conversation and also share it with our listeners.
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I agree, and I think this is going to be one of those foundational concepts is where it kind of come back and keep addressing and keep kind of bringing up throughout our time just talking about different topics.
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So absolutely, I think this is going to be a cool conversation.
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I agree Foundational, and I was thinking about kind of the flow of the podcast.
00:01:18.777 --> 00:01:23.379
Last time we spent some time talking about curiosity and why it's so important.
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But when we think about, part of the importance of curiosity is it's needed to operate in this VUCA environment.
00:01:30.753 --> 00:01:37.635
When I say VUCA, I imagine many of our listeners are familiar with this, this acronym V-U-C-A.
00:01:37.635 --> 00:01:44.650
When we say VUCA, that's what we're referring to, but kind of curious, when you hear VUCA, what do you think of Jason?
00:01:44.650 --> 00:01:48.718
It's a topic that we're familiar with, but it almost sounds like maybe a smoothie.
00:01:48.718 --> 00:01:52.794
I'm going to go have a VUCA smoothie.
00:01:52.794 --> 00:01:57.163
Or maybe it's the name of a robot, kind of like WALL-E, but VUCA instead.
00:01:57.163 --> 00:01:59.496
It's kind of a peculiar term.
00:02:00.157 --> 00:02:03.692
It is a peculiar term of a peculiar term.
00:02:03.692 --> 00:02:09.168
It is a peculiar term and actually what came up for me when you were talking about VUCA is it sounds a little bit like the name of University of Georgia's mascot.
00:02:09.168 --> 00:02:12.915
Isn't that like UGA or UGA, uga.
00:02:12.955 --> 00:02:16.483
Yeah, it is UGA, so it is a strange name.
00:02:16.483 --> 00:02:20.044
That could mean a lot of different things and maybe our listeners are already familiar with this.
00:02:20.044 --> 00:02:29.921
I feel like if you're in the adult development, human-centered development space, you probably know the term, but maybe many of our listeners do not necessarily know it so well.
00:02:32.073 --> 00:02:32.274
Yeah.
00:02:32.274 --> 00:02:43.304
So we thought we'd kick it off with just a little bit of history and context of this acronym, vuca, which stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
00:02:43.304 --> 00:03:19.819
And for those who haven't looked and sort of researched a little bit about like where it came from, it popped up in like the 1980s, 1990s and even though it's a big topic in leadership and organizational development now, it actually came out of the US military and as the US military was thinking about like what things were going to be like as a Cold War started to kind of cool down or maybe it's heat up, I don't know which one started to kind of run down a little bit and this weird stability that it provided started to break down.
00:03:19.819 --> 00:03:24.492
The US military coined this term and they were thinking about it in terms of like fighting the next war, like it wasn't to break down.
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The US military coined this term and they were thinking about it in terms of like fighting the next war, like it wasn't going to be, you know, two big conventional armies, like fighting like standing toe to toe.
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It was going to be something different.
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It would be little little things popping up, little conflicts popping up all over the place.
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Maybe the lines wouldn't be as clear as to whom the good guys and whom the bad guys were.
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So that's its origin and since then it has been kind of taken on by the business community and by academia and also leadership and organizational development as a way for businesses, for leaders, to think about the kind of challenges that they face now, for leaders to think about the kind of challenges that they face now.
00:04:05.637 --> 00:04:09.182
And I'm curious, brandon, first off, what would you add to that brief history of VUCA?
00:04:09.182 --> 00:04:15.594
And then, secondly, I'm curious where you first heard the term Jason.
00:04:15.694 --> 00:04:19.502
Fabulous rundown with really nothing to add from my perspective.
00:04:19.502 --> 00:04:39.144
I think I've shared with our listeners that I was in the Army circa around the early 2000s and, interestingly, I don't think that I heard the term while I was in the military, so it isn't something that's that pervasive, at least not in my experience.
00:04:39.144 --> 00:04:48.459
But I certainly feel like some of the things I encountered while I was in the military certainly fits the description of VUCA.
00:04:48.459 --> 00:04:53.975
I probably mentioned to our listeners that I deployed to Iraq twice in the early 2000s.
00:04:53.975 --> 00:05:09.701
So, as you're thinking about the war in Iraq, it being an unconventional war where we're looking more at an insurgency than a conventional ground force, some of this volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity certainly showed up.
00:05:10.182 --> 00:05:25.978
However, I don't think I was actually exposed to the term, not during my master's studies even, but when I started working on my PhD in organizational development, it was very much something that we were talking about.
00:05:25.978 --> 00:05:38.523
As we're thinking about how organizations operate, how leaders need to show up, the concept that we're in this VUCA milieu is very important to consider our approach.
00:05:38.523 --> 00:05:54.060
So that's where it's shown up for me and where I was exposed to it, and we can certainly spend some time talking about our personal experience with VUCA, whether that's individually or with organizations, but I'll stop there and maybe flip it back to you.
00:05:54.060 --> 00:05:58.036
I'm curious to hear where you were exposed to the concept as well.
00:05:58.697 --> 00:05:59.500
It's so funny.
00:05:59.500 --> 00:06:04.492
You were in the military, you were in the army and didn't hear it there.
00:06:04.492 --> 00:06:07.876
I was in the intelligence community and I didn't hear it there either.
00:06:07.876 --> 00:06:11.278
Junior officers sitting around coming up with this term.
00:06:11.278 --> 00:06:36.639
It was probably very senior officers sitting around at like a war college, like up in Carlisle or somewhere, like you know, thinking through the nature of the challenge and they could coining this acronym, which, which the military is is, is if they do one thing exceptionally well, it's coming up with acronym.
00:06:36.658 --> 00:06:37.641
So make sense.
00:06:37.641 --> 00:06:40.338
Spot on, yes, they are fabulous at that.
00:06:41.230 --> 00:06:49.716
But yeah, so I didn't hear it in the intelligence community, I heard it in in my my first like when I became a coach.
00:06:49.716 --> 00:07:04.064
So I went through Georgetown's university's coaching certification program and it was introduced to us early on in that program is kind of a foundational concept that leaders were going to be grappling with who we would then be coaching.
00:07:04.064 --> 00:07:24.194
And you know my reaction to it when I first heard it is that it just made sense right, like it captured, I think, what I had felt as a people manager over the years, as somebody who led teams, as somebody who was kind of that leader of leaders level who led teams, somebody who was kind of that leader of leaders level.
00:07:24.194 --> 00:07:26.838
You know the volatility and uncertainty absolutely made sense.
00:07:26.838 --> 00:07:30.545
I don't think I quite understood the complexity angle to it as well.
00:07:30.545 --> 00:07:45.877
I think that has kind of developed over the years and you know, I think that initial reaction is something that I'm curious from you, like when you first heard VUCA in your PhD program, like how did it land with you, the concept?
00:07:47.703 --> 00:08:11.975
I don't necessarily recall, jason, but it is a fantastic question and something I've really been grappling with in recent years is trying to not necessarily accept things at face value but really think critically about them and try and interpret them and make sense and meaning of them for myself, versus just wholesale accepting the concept.
00:08:11.975 --> 00:08:17.593
You talked about these different elements of VUCA and how maybe some resonated with you and some didn't.
00:08:17.593 --> 00:08:22.831
So I just want to call out, maybe for our listeners, each one of these elements in turn as we hear about them.
00:08:22.831 --> 00:08:30.473
So, thinking about volatility, I think about things being rapid and unpredictable, changing quickly.
00:08:31.014 --> 00:08:34.355
Uncertainty is very much in the same vein.
00:08:34.355 --> 00:08:35.915
It's very unpredictable.
00:08:35.915 --> 00:08:37.295
We don't know what's going to happen next.
00:08:37.295 --> 00:08:47.139
Complexity, a lot of interconnected parts and then ambiguity is maybe a lack of clarity about the future or what things mean.
00:08:47.139 --> 00:08:56.983
Now what occurs to me is that this VUCA concept, as you look at each of those individual elements, it's so all-encompassing.
00:08:56.983 --> 00:09:19.609
I can almost think of any phenomenon and fit it into one of those four categories, and I think maybe some of the strengths of VUCA is that it's so broad and encompassing, and maybe it's one of the limitations as well that I could almost take anything going on in the world and say, yep, that's VUCA and really put it into that categorization.
00:09:19.609 --> 00:09:27.275
So that's something that I'm sitting with as I think about VUCA how it's defined and how it serves us.
00:09:29.780 --> 00:09:41.519
You know, and I think you're getting at something really, really interesting here, and that's this idea that, like that, this is something, this is a term, this is a phenomenon that is like unique to our 21st century world.
00:09:41.519 --> 00:09:43.102
What's your take on that?
00:09:43.102 --> 00:09:51.058
Is VUCA something that's like that has just popped up in the late 80s and now we're like sitting with it, or is it like a longer, more enduring thing?
00:09:53.469 --> 00:10:02.211
Fascinating question and I lean towards VUCA maybe just being part of our human condition Throughout history.
00:10:02.211 --> 00:10:19.276
If you were to look at how humans have interacted, maybe if we were to go back in time to World Wars, for example, I would imagine you would talk to people during that time and they didn't have the verbiage VUCA, but it very much fit that description.
00:10:19.276 --> 00:10:31.733
Or a stock market crash, or we're trying to eradicate polio, for example, or even going back further in time where you have nations conquering other nations and there's war.
00:10:31.733 --> 00:10:35.382
Maybe the complexity piece doesn't fit as much.
00:10:35.382 --> 00:10:39.480
I feel like complexity might be something inherent in our times.
00:10:39.480 --> 00:10:48.886
I could make that argument, but I could also make the argument that anytime you are dealing with people, with humans, that is a complex phenomenon.
00:10:48.886 --> 00:10:55.541
There is no easy answer, easy solution to that and I'll just give a personal example for myself.
00:10:55.581 --> 00:11:00.279
When I think about VUCA, I feel like I'm very much in a VUCA season in my life.
00:11:00.279 --> 00:11:06.033
You know, jason, that my brother recently passed away after a years-long battle with cancer.
00:11:06.033 --> 00:11:08.498
But it was very sudden.
00:11:08.498 --> 00:11:12.754
We thought he had more time than what he had and he passed away very quickly.
00:11:12.754 --> 00:11:21.597
I was just sharing before we pressed record that I was in the ER this weekend because my wife was having a little bit of health challenges.
00:11:21.597 --> 00:11:26.565
I got into a fender bender this weekend while I was picking up some medication from the pharmacy.
00:11:26.565 --> 00:11:31.682
So it's just this everything unpredictable, ambiguous.
00:11:31.682 --> 00:11:38.969
Again, nothing related to our overarching societal phenomenons that are occurring.
00:11:38.969 --> 00:11:41.799
It's just part of my human existence right now.
00:11:41.799 --> 00:11:43.077
So I would say it's just part of my human existence right now.
00:11:43.077 --> 00:11:45.603
So I would say it's just part of being a person.
00:11:45.603 --> 00:11:48.006
But curious to hear if you think differently.
00:11:49.049 --> 00:11:58.775
You know, first of all, I appreciate you sharing a little bit of how it pops up in your life and I think I tend to agree.
00:11:58.775 --> 00:12:04.611
I think when I first heard the term, I was probably guilty of accepting it for what it was.
00:12:04.611 --> 00:12:06.015
You know, I felt like it described everything.
00:12:06.015 --> 00:12:13.010
I think you did a really nice job of kind of saying like wow, it is kind of like a kitchen sink term, right, like it does kind of capture all of these things.
00:12:13.010 --> 00:12:25.851
I think, the more that I've interacted with the term, I think it is, I think it like, I think we probably it resonates because we probably live in like a high VUCA time.
00:12:25.851 --> 00:13:00.777
And if I, if I were to think about like, maybe how it shows up, it maybe it's a little bit like the tide right when it comes in and there's a high tide and VUCA is like turned up really, really high and then it kind of recedes and and maybe those are times when we're in a little bit more of a stable state, a little bit more of a state of flow, um, I, I think our um, like our understanding of our times, probably like factor in as well and I think we like one of the reasons why I think now feels so disorienting as things are shifting so quickly.
00:13:00.777 --> 00:13:06.155
Um, you know, you never know what's going to happen.
00:13:06.155 --> 00:13:07.998
So I think that's my take now.
00:13:07.998 --> 00:13:21.197
The other thing that has kind of shifted for me as I think about VUCA is I've largely started thinking about VUCA as just complexity, because I think complexity captures.
00:13:21.197 --> 00:13:37.353
I think an inherent in complexity is volatility, uncertainty and ambiguity, and I, and so I, one of my interactions with VUCA is to drop three of the four letters and really focus on on, uh, complexity, um, I, I also.
00:13:37.353 --> 00:13:42.123
I also totally agree and resonate with what you said.
00:13:42.552 --> 00:13:47.679
One of the places I see VUCA popping up most is just in in interactions with people.
00:13:47.679 --> 00:13:53.215
You know you never know what's going on behind the scenes, like, for example, when we got on this call.
00:13:53.215 --> 00:14:04.820
You know, I knew about some of your, you know some of, like the, the, the VUCA that's been showing up for you, but I didn't know you got into Fender Bender, you know.
00:14:04.820 --> 00:14:09.225
I think that factors in anytime you're in like a high meaning conversation.
00:14:09.225 --> 00:14:27.122
I mean the other person in front of you has this completely different world that lives inside of them, that has all of these stories, that has all of these you know good things and these pieces of baggage that they carry along with them that subtly or not so subtly affect that conversation.
00:14:27.603 --> 00:15:00.527
And that's to me a really good example of how VUCA pops up just randomly, you know, and it's just an interaction with a person and you know, and so that's sort of how I've started thinking about VUCA, that's sort of how I've started thinking about VUCA very much embodied in the human experience by humans, and I think that makes it I think it's helpful for me to think of it that way, because that also lets me off the hook for thinking that there's an easy answer to the challenge I might be facing, especially if there's a person involved.
00:15:00.527 --> 00:15:13.032
And kind of, with that said, you've given us a couple examples of VUCA that you've seen a couple in your personal life, and you've hinted to a couple others.
00:15:13.032 --> 00:15:20.193
But are there any examples that kind of stand out as being helpful and illustrative around this concept?
00:15:22.175 --> 00:15:28.779
Well, I'll jump into some examples in a moment, but I do want to just pull the thread on a couple of things you highlighted there.
00:15:28.779 --> 00:15:56.280
Talk about complexity or ambiguity, but it doesn't quite have the same ring to it, I suppose, and I've been interested to hear other terms similar to VUCA I don't know if you've heard of this term BANI, b-a-n-i.
00:15:56.280 --> 00:16:05.602
Brittle, anxious, nonlinear and incomprehensible, so very much in the same vein as VUCA, just another fancy acronym.
00:16:05.602 --> 00:16:22.506
But the other one I came across and this was new to me was tuna, going back to this idea that maybe VUCA could be some type of smoothier food where we have tuna which is turbulent, uncertain, novel and ambiguous, and maybe we should shift the conversation and start talking about tuna instead of VUCA.
00:16:23.516 --> 00:16:25.022
I love a good tuna sandwich myself.
00:16:25.022 --> 00:16:26.240
I don't know how you feel about them.
00:16:27.195 --> 00:16:28.097
My wife loves tuna.
00:16:28.097 --> 00:16:29.822
I'm lukewarm on tuna.
00:16:29.822 --> 00:16:33.235
I like I love tuna when it comes to sushi or when I can grill it.
00:16:33.235 --> 00:16:37.003
So I'm on, I'm on board from from that perspective.
00:16:37.003 --> 00:16:42.125
Well, and it's so interesting too that like I mean like so just to kind of piggyback off where you're going there.
00:16:42.125 --> 00:17:01.055
You know, I think one of the ways that my thinking has changed on VUCA is that I'm a little suspect that a term that was coined by the US military for fighting wars could just be immediately applicable to business, and I'm like it's like okay, are we losing something in here?
00:17:01.055 --> 00:17:04.182
Is there something that we're not quite examining?
00:17:04.182 --> 00:17:07.528
It is interesting that VUCA wasn't enough right now.
00:17:07.528 --> 00:17:10.243
So we've got BANI and TUNA now to add to it.
00:17:10.243 --> 00:17:12.923
So there does seem to be something going on there.
00:17:12.923 --> 00:17:18.543
But thank you for bringing those into my awareness, because I'd heard of BANI but I hadn't heard of TUNA.
00:17:19.620 --> 00:17:21.474
Glad I could school you on something there, Jason.
00:17:21.474 --> 00:17:27.477
So I encourage you to drop TUNA into your future coaching conversations or maybe some of your facilitation.
00:17:27.477 --> 00:17:29.742
I think people would get a kick out of that.
00:17:29.762 --> 00:17:31.707
It sounds like a Tuna problem to me.
00:17:32.817 --> 00:17:33.638
This is all Tuna.
00:17:33.638 --> 00:17:39.356
This stinks like Tuna is what we could say about some of these challenges that we're faced with.
00:17:39.356 --> 00:18:02.862
To your point about whether this military term applies to our business world, whether this military term applies to our business world, I often am a little skeptical about some of the recommendations or books or podcasts or talks that look at SEAL, team 6 or Delta Force as a case study of how we need to apply leadership in the business world.
00:18:02.862 --> 00:18:14.604
While those things, those examples, are very exciting and glamorous, I do wonder to what extent it's applicable to what goes on in the business world.
00:18:14.604 --> 00:18:22.621
I think those are very unique, extreme examples and certainly we could probably learn a little bit from bits and pieces of those.
00:18:22.621 --> 00:18:31.766
But I don't know how well the context matches To your point of maybe it's high tide, low tide.
00:18:31.766 --> 00:18:34.763
See if I can get that out high tide, low tide.
00:18:34.763 --> 00:18:38.244
The term was introduced 40 years ago.
00:18:38.244 --> 00:18:43.683
Is it the case that 40 years later, we're still in the same VUCA environment?
00:18:43.683 --> 00:18:45.302
Is it still applicable?
00:18:45.302 --> 00:18:48.926
I'm not certain, but I do want to get back to your question.
00:18:48.926 --> 00:18:52.566
Don't want to ignore it around when I've really seen it show up in my life.
00:18:52.566 --> 00:18:54.018
I shared that.
00:18:54.259 --> 00:19:01.205
Personally, I'm going through some VUCA right now, and maybe that's just top of mind for me, because that's what's going on for me.
00:19:01.205 --> 00:19:03.984
I think in my personal life I'm seeing it right now.
00:19:03.984 --> 00:19:11.340
I think we could all point to COVID potentially as a very VUCA time for many of us.
00:19:11.340 --> 00:19:30.629
I was very fortunate to have a job that I could work from home, but my spouse at the time she was in health care, so she was going into the office or the hospital rather, and we didn't know could she be around the kids, what the future was going to look like in terms of whether we would get back to normal.
00:19:30.629 --> 00:19:33.015
So I think that was a very Bucca example.
00:19:33.015 --> 00:19:43.450
And then, lastly for me, of course, my experience within the military going to Iraq twice and doing my first deployment at a very young age.
00:19:43.450 --> 00:19:51.263
It just was not something I felt mentally prepared for and that probably exacerbated that VUCA experience for me.
00:19:51.363 --> 00:20:00.907
So I see it showing up quite a bit in different seasons of my life and I think people all individually experience this.
00:20:00.907 --> 00:20:05.619
Covid's an example where we're all experiencing it together.
00:20:05.619 --> 00:20:12.990
But you might be going through a very stable time in your life right now, jason, whereas I'm deeply experiencing VUCA.
00:20:12.990 --> 00:20:19.910
So while we talk about it as this broad social phenomenon that we're all working against.
00:20:19.910 --> 00:20:29.759
I don't know if that's true for everyone and I also don't know if that's true in every profession, certainly in those professions that are navigating complex market conditions.
00:20:29.759 --> 00:20:38.306
And if you're really in a position where you're working in the strategy of an organization I accomplish, there may not be as much VUCA showing up for me.
00:20:38.306 --> 00:20:55.883
So maybe we overestimate or over-exaggerate how it shows up for people.
00:20:55.883 --> 00:20:56.625
I don't know.
00:20:58.437 --> 00:21:06.560
No, I think you're going so first off, like when, like 40 years ago, like that makes it definitely makes me feel old when I think back about like when did it originate?
00:21:06.560 --> 00:21:30.668
Um, but um, I, I think you're, I think you're right that, like we need to be looking at, like, we need to be looking critically at the concept, because I think that, like, at some point, like it starts to become an excuse, um, and, and that's something that like, that um, like to me, like maybe it's an indication that, like it's indication that it's starting to outlive its usefulness.
00:21:30.668 --> 00:21:46.202
It's like, well, this is just VUCA, and what I mean by it can be an excuse is it can be an excuse for poor communication, it could be an excuse for changing the goalposts, it can be an excuse for poor project management.
00:21:46.202 --> 00:21:49.067
I mean different, different things that like go wrong.
00:21:49.067 --> 00:22:25.546
Like, yeah, it could be an example of VUCA, but it isn't necessarily let us off the hook for feel like and I certainly hope that I'm entering a little bit more of a stable point in my life, as you, as you know, you know, I left the federal government in about five years ago now and that kicked off a really high VUCA period of my life.
00:22:26.438 --> 00:22:28.755
We we moved from Virginia to Colorado.
00:22:28.755 --> 00:22:33.583
We moved my mom in with my sister in Colorado, covid happened.
00:22:33.583 --> 00:22:38.798
My mom passed away, not from COVID, but in the middle of that.
00:22:38.798 --> 00:22:41.984
We ended up moving back to Virginia.
00:22:41.984 --> 00:22:48.351
You know I took a position that turned out to be a really poor fit.
00:22:48.371 --> 00:22:59.659
There's also something incredibly unsettling about having other people pack up your stuff and moving long distances without the little things that are comfortable to you.
00:22:59.659 --> 00:23:04.163
Moving is an incredibly high VUCA experience high VUCA experience.
00:23:04.163 --> 00:23:21.517
But as we settled into our new house, a new position in a new company, it started to feel a little less VUCA.
00:23:21.517 --> 00:23:32.191
And I think one of the interesting things that I've noticed in me is that my personality is that when I feel like I'm settling in, I'll start to look for things to like, either move toward or to worry about.
00:23:32.191 --> 00:23:51.686
And at this point I'm really just trying to enjoy a period of relative stability and peace and happiness, without trying to predict or prevent something popping up that might disrupt that, because that's one of the things about VUCA is you can't, you can't do it.
00:23:51.686 --> 00:24:10.692
So that's one of the things I've been trying to do, as I've experienced, is just really trying to find the peace, trying to find the stability, trying to find a little bit of the flow amidst complexity of the flow amidst complexity.
00:24:10.975 --> 00:24:11.834
Thanks for sharing those examples, jason.
00:24:11.834 --> 00:24:22.817
That's really helpful and I really appreciate that you brought out this concept or this question or curiosity around.
00:24:22.817 --> 00:24:26.587
Can VUCA be a little bit of a crutch at times?
00:24:26.587 --> 00:24:28.864
Is it somewhat of an excuse?
00:24:28.864 --> 00:25:10.022
And I hate to or rather I don't want to come off as brash and just sweep under the rug the challenges that people face, the stress, the uncertainty of this tuna world that we're living in, or VUCA, whichever you want to refer to it as and I also do wonder if it has become, going back to this idea, that it's such a catch-all I can put almost anything into this VUCA categorization that if my project doesn't succeed, I might say to my leadership or my team well, of course, it didn't succeed.
00:25:10.154 --> 00:25:11.441
We're in this VUCA environment.
00:25:11.441 --> 00:25:23.464
I couldn't anticipate these things, or maybe I'm reluctant to make a decision and I'm very indecisive in the moment, and I might attribute it again to the VUCA environment that I'm faced with.
00:25:23.464 --> 00:25:51.866
So it leads to indecisiveness, it leads to not having a clear strategy, it leads to unclear communication and I think that is somewhat of a tightrope that you have to walk around, recognizing VUCA and the challenges that it might present, but also still being willing to take ownership, to take action, to develop a strategy, even if you do have to be adaptable in how you execute that strategy.
00:25:51.866 --> 00:26:06.526
So in some ways, I fear that the term is maybe becoming a little bit stale and maybe we need to move our thinking beyond VUCA or just think about it in more nuanced ways.
00:26:06.526 --> 00:26:20.674
And I remember having a conversation with you months ago maybe it's even a year now and you surfaced that, jason, that maybe VUCA isn't serving us anymore, maybe it has become stale, maybe we need to think of something differently.
00:26:20.674 --> 00:26:23.999
So I'm curious if you would share your thoughts around that.
00:26:29.547 --> 00:26:37.390
Yeah, that popped into my head because it's a term like VUCA, like it has its place and at some point we're not going to be talking about it anymore.
00:26:37.390 --> 00:26:43.633
And I think I was describing kind of like well, how do we move into, like a post-VUCA world?
00:26:43.633 --> 00:26:50.140
I'm not sure that that's the right phrasing and I'm not even sure that that's possible, especially like this conversation.
00:26:50.140 --> 00:26:53.633
I think it's baked into the human experience to some degree.
00:26:53.633 --> 00:27:02.126
But maybe how do we move into a time when the tide of VUCA is less than it is now, where we have a little bit more stability, a little bit more flow?
00:27:02.126 --> 00:27:08.207
I think you're getting at, you know, a couple of a couple of the things needed to navigate.
00:27:08.207 --> 00:27:12.980
You know a VUCA world and we're going to get into those in our next episode.
00:27:12.980 --> 00:27:20.246
But you said something I wanted to just highlight a little bit, and that's this idea of kind of walking a tightrope.
00:27:20.385 --> 00:27:25.121
When I think about complexity, I think oftentimes there isn't a clear answer.
00:27:25.121 --> 00:27:32.815
In fact, even worse, there are two possible answers, if not more, and they're in tension with each other.
00:27:32.815 --> 00:27:36.029
So if I choose one, I feel like it comes at the expense of the other.
00:27:36.029 --> 00:27:44.706
And so I think, like we're, oftentimes we're left holding a tension between two important things, and that's uncomfortable.
00:27:44.706 --> 00:27:48.830
You know, there's a lack of kind of clarity there.
00:27:48.830 --> 00:27:55.113
There's a persistence to the challenge of having to do that rather than just be able to make a decision and then putting it behind you.
00:27:55.113 --> 00:28:23.715
So, you know, I think like and I'm kind of going off of kind of straying a bit from where your question is but I think that to me some of the best parts of VUCA is that we named something that's part of the human experience and maybe that's made a little bit more like object right, like a little bit more like where we have a little bit more agency and capability and then start to work with it rather than being just subject to it.
00:28:23.715 --> 00:28:25.745
Right, then that's just kind of subject, object theory.
00:28:25.745 --> 00:28:28.032
That I'm sure we'll touch on at some point.
00:28:28.032 --> 00:28:30.246
I think that's that's one of the best pieces of it.
00:28:30.246 --> 00:28:43.707
I think it also raises some really interesting kind of human-centered ways of kind of working with it, and it probably has to do with things like you know, polarity management, like good communication, like listening, more things of that nature.
00:28:44.067 --> 00:28:55.798
I think, you know, another really good thing about it is that it has made me start to think about things that I'm attached to, because if I think about like well, why does VUCA exist?
00:28:55.798 --> 00:28:57.160
Right, like, why does this feel uncomfortable?
00:28:57.160 --> 00:29:00.770
It's probably because I'm attached to some sort of outcome.
00:29:00.770 --> 00:29:12.114
You know, I'm moving towards something or I want to prevent something, and that makes the feeling of like, volatility or any part of like the VUCA acronym that much more intense.
00:29:12.114 --> 00:29:16.351
And so, like, if I can think about like well, you know, are these things that are really important?
00:29:16.351 --> 00:29:22.293
Or if I can change my relationship to these things, then maybe I can start to manage VUCA a little bit more effectively.
00:29:23.061 --> 00:29:33.264
But you know, that's sort of that's some of my changing thinking, sort of that's some of my changing thinking.
00:29:33.264 --> 00:29:37.418
Um, and it's starting to get it kind of like, well, like, if it's it, you know it's a concept, it has its benefits, it has its flaws.
00:29:37.418 --> 00:29:40.084
I mean, we're kind of like taking it through its paces.
00:29:40.084 --> 00:29:42.710
Um, but like what do you?
00:29:42.710 --> 00:29:47.506
What do you think in terms of like, like, why it matters for leaders and organizations?
00:29:47.605 --> 00:30:07.853
now, Before I answer that, jason, you brought up the idea of subject and object and some of our listeners may be familiar with that, but would you just tell us a little bit more about that so our listeners can understand a little bit better what you mean by taking VUCA and making it object?
00:30:08.539 --> 00:30:16.031
Yeah, really good point and so like you could go really deep into this, but just like a quick overview of it is.
00:30:16.031 --> 00:30:48.801
The idea is that if we're not aware of some sort of dynamic that's at play in our life, when we do become aware of it and then we're able to sort of describe it and maybe even give it a name, then all of a sudden we go from being subject to it right Like it's a force that is acting on us and we don't understand what it is to it being an object that we can then start to work with a little bit more because of that awareness, like we have a little bit more choice with it, so we're not subject to it anymore, it's an object that we can work with.
00:30:48.801 --> 00:30:50.947
That's what I've heard it described.
00:30:50.947 --> 00:30:53.633
Have you heard it described differently, or would you add anything to that?
00:30:54.840 --> 00:31:05.974
That's a perfect description, jason, and the example that I like to use, or one that I've heard that I really appreciate, is an example of like a pair of glasses or a contact lens, for example.
00:31:05.974 --> 00:31:07.656
Have you heard that as an example?
00:31:08.400 --> 00:31:09.477
I think so, but maybe you can bring it out for example.
00:31:09.477 --> 00:31:10.398
Have you heard that as an example?
00:31:10.398 --> 00:31:10.806
I think so, but maybe you can bring it out for us.
00:31:11.259 --> 00:31:11.561
Yeah.
00:31:11.561 --> 00:31:21.297
So suppose you have a pair of glasses on and you don't even realize that you have the glasses on and everything you see in the world is filtered through your glasses.
00:31:21.297 --> 00:31:28.152
It is the paradigm through which you see the world, and VUCA might be similarly a paradigm that we're seeing the world through.
00:31:28.152 --> 00:31:30.276
It's important for us to recognize that we're seeing the world through.
00:31:30.276 --> 00:31:43.160
It's important for us to recognize that we're wearing those glasses, to be able to take them off and look at them and say, hey, here are these glasses that I'm wearing and everything I'm seeing in the world is filtered through these lenses.
00:31:43.160 --> 00:31:51.695
So, taking VUCA instead of a filter and recognizing or maybe it's still the filter, but you know the filters there, if that makes sense.
00:31:52.900 --> 00:31:57.802
Yeah, and when you're describing that, it made me a little bit of like, just like the idea of mindset Right and like what?
00:31:57.802 --> 00:32:03.374
Like what frame we bring into different interactions, conversations, parts of our lives.
00:32:05.480 --> 00:32:07.244
Absolutely Before.
00:32:07.244 --> 00:32:09.267
I before I asked you to explain that.
00:32:09.267 --> 00:32:33.961
You asked me how I see this showing up for leaders currently of time.
00:32:33.961 --> 00:32:35.647
I could also make the argument that we are in a very VUCA time frame.
00:32:35.647 --> 00:32:36.631
That is unique for a couple of different reasons.
00:32:36.631 --> 00:32:38.378
So I'm kind of making the argument for both sides.
00:32:38.378 --> 00:32:41.648
One I'm saying yeah, vuca, it's been around forever and there's nothing new here.
00:32:41.648 --> 00:32:42.551
It's kind of stale.
00:32:42.551 --> 00:33:00.849
But if I needed to make the argument for why things are so VUCA now, I could easily point to technology, for example AI, and how that's changing the world, and what it means to be a human in this age of AI and what the future of work is going to be, for example.
00:33:01.311 --> 00:33:12.455
I also think that in terms of complexity, we are probably in the most interconnected time that we have ever been in in the history of the world.
00:33:12.455 --> 00:33:20.149
The connections that we have through globalization, through the internet you think about a company that's manufacturing something.
00:33:20.149 --> 00:33:29.145
It's the case that those supplies and the labor might be pulled from different parts of the globe.
00:33:29.145 --> 00:33:37.776
So there is potentially a reality where we are now in a more VUCA state than we've ever been.
00:33:37.776 --> 00:33:43.393
So, as a leader, as I'm navigating relationships, as I'm thinking about strategies.
00:33:43.393 --> 00:33:45.427
I'm trying to solve problems.
00:33:45.427 --> 00:34:12.076
It would be important to take this concept of VUCA and be aware that it is something to name it, that we are navigating, that we are challenged by, but again, walking that tightrope of I'm not using it as a crutch, as an excuse for not achieving a strategy or setting goals or following through on actions, but instead just being able to scan the horizon and know it's something that needs to be considered.
00:34:15.023 --> 00:34:18.704
Yeah, I love where you went there, like what came up for me while you were talking.
00:34:19.608 --> 00:34:34.748
You know when you're talking about strategy and I think why I see it as mattering is that our kind of our go-to approach doesn't really work as well as other approaches when it comes to interacting with complexity it might.
00:34:34.808 --> 00:36:06.052
What I mean by go-to approach is, um, I see leaders moving really fast all the time and that's something that like that is is it's, it's rewarded, it's sometimes it's effective, um, but like, if we're always kind of go, go, go, we're always kind of looking to move from decision, decision, check things off the of our to-do list, then when it comes to complexity, that we're probably missing stuff and we're probably, um, we're probably not being as strategic, we're probably not being as creative, we're not probably not being as curious um, as we could be, and if we were able to kind of take a step back, do a little bit more in the way of reflecting, of investigating, of planning, of like iterating a little bit through the process, then my hypothesis is is it like in a VUCA environment that's gonna produce better results over the longterm and it's probably gonna produce different results than if we're just going a million miles an hour all the time, so I think that's one of the reasons why it matters to me questioning your ideas around the need to move quickly and accomplish things, because I could almost think of, in a VUCA environment, the need to execute quickly and something I do take away from the military is speed to execution that sometimes we can get, in this analysis, paralysis.
00:36:06.319 --> 00:36:21.765
So I don't know that I necessarily would have thought about VUCA as needing to be more circumspect in how we approach action, but I could certainly see that aspect of it at times needing to be more strategic.
00:36:21.765 --> 00:36:32.551
I land more with the adaptability needed to approach a VUCA environment so you can make all the strategy you want.
00:36:32.551 --> 00:36:42.324
And this idea and I don't know was it Eisenhower that a plan doesn't survive first contact with the enemy Was that an Eisenhower thing?
00:36:42.324 --> 00:36:46.561
And I think Ali or Tyson said everyone has a plan, so they get punched in the mouth.
00:36:46.561 --> 00:37:00.250
So there's all these variations around the importance of planning, but also, as you're executing, it may not be the case that everything goes according to plan, and I think that's especially true in a VUCA environment.
00:37:00.250 --> 00:37:02.106
Did I chop those quotes up, jason?
00:37:02.106 --> 00:37:03.405
Are you familiar with any of those?
00:37:04.481 --> 00:37:05.646
No, I'm definitely familiar with them.
00:37:05.646 --> 00:37:09.610
I don't remember who said that the survive first contact thing.
00:37:09.610 --> 00:37:14.623
I think it was Ali who said the punch in the mouth bit.
00:37:14.623 --> 00:37:19.067
But you know, I think like that adaptability is absolutely critical.
00:37:19.067 --> 00:38:05.693
And I'm not saying like go slow to go slow, although I think that's important sometimes but I think the ability to kind of like put something out there and then watch how it's being interacted with by the system and then to be able to take that feedback, create a new iteration of it and then put it back out there, I mean like you can think about it in terms of prototyping, but like you could also develop a decision-making strategy based on that as well, where it's a little bit more, a little bit more adaptable, a little bit more fluid, a little bit more like conversant with feedback, and I think that's one thing I see as important when it comes to dealing with VUCA.
00:38:08.040 --> 00:38:31.612
I love the way you phrase that, and I think about feedback loops, for example, in particular, as we're thinking about how we're approaching action not getting so determined to execute things the way we had thought about them or planned out initially, but instead, as you mentioned, knowing that things are VUCA, getting that feedback, knowing where we need to adapt.
00:38:31.612 --> 00:38:40.331
Maybe we need to challenge our assumptions, ways of thinking, ways of showing up, and that's not necessarily always easy.
00:38:40.331 --> 00:38:42.908
You do a lot of coaching conversations, jason.
00:38:42.908 --> 00:38:49.991
I'm curious to see or to hear from you when do you see VUCA showing up in those conversations?
00:38:49.991 --> 00:38:51.780
How are people challenged by this?
00:38:51.780 --> 00:38:54.507
What is your experience with it?
00:38:55.588 --> 00:38:57.252
Yeah, I mean it shows up all the time.
00:38:57.252 --> 00:39:32.864
I think it shows up most prominently in how people interact with other people you know, whether it's you know a difficulty in talking to like a boss or in having a difficult conversation with an employee that you know, those are very much like interacting with complexity, because not only are you are you having to navigate like a relationship with another person, but you also might be having to navigate your own not so helpful associations about like what navigating that means and what you're capable of in those moments.
00:39:32.864 --> 00:39:54.295
So that's very much how I see it and I also see it more on the business side as well, where you know people are, you know, having to go and people having to manage multiple, different, rapidly changing, you know projects or business lines or customers, and that puts you in a place.
00:39:54.295 --> 00:40:08.411
I think that puts a person in a place of you can again kind of match that increasing workload with more speed and more effort and that kind of opens the door to burnout over time.
00:40:08.411 --> 00:40:16.341
So I think it invites, especially in a coaching conversation, a little bit more reflection around like, well, how do you create a sustainable approach to this?
00:40:16.341 --> 00:40:23.625
And like, how do you integrate in some of the things that like might be the like all this work is going to be expensive.
00:40:23.625 --> 00:40:35.735
Like, for example, like your health, your wellbeing, your family, you know your downtime things that you're passionate about, like outside of work, well-being, your family, you know your downtime things that you're passionate about like outside of work, and so those are absolutely those are regular themes in coaching conversations.
00:40:37.099 --> 00:40:39.167
Fascinating, Jason, and two things you mentioned there.
00:40:39.167 --> 00:40:42.003
I want to pull the thread on, but I want to do it lightning round style.
00:40:42.003 --> 00:40:47.185
So I'm going to ask you two questions and I want to give, I want to hear the bottom line responses to these.
00:40:47.185 --> 00:40:53.705
And I know this is a challenge because many of these ideas, these concepts, these questions, they don't have easy answers.
00:40:53.705 --> 00:41:04.565
But we've talked about VUCA and we haven't necessarily talked about how it might impact different industries that people are working in.
00:41:04.565 --> 00:41:11.228
I would suspect many of our listeners are coming from different types of work, doing different types of things across the world.
00:41:11.228 --> 00:41:14.569
Is this something that is unique to specific industries?
00:41:14.569 --> 00:41:19.391
Do you see this expanding across all industries, or maybe something different entirely?
00:41:20.519 --> 00:41:32.266
I think it's expanding across all industries, and part of it is like the startup culture that we have now, where people are actively looking to disrupt industries and long stable industries are ripe for disruption.
00:41:32.266 --> 00:41:34.324
Was that lightning enough for you?
00:41:34.866 --> 00:41:45.070
Lightning, love it, and certainly technology would play into that as well, as we think about AI disrupting the type of work that we do and how we do it.
00:41:45.070 --> 00:41:56.779
I am on board with you and I would also make the case that maybe certain types of industries like if you're working in technology might be a little bit more VUCA than other industries.
00:41:56.779 --> 00:42:02.092
I do, or have consulted quite a bit in healthcare work and I see that as a very VUCA industry.
00:42:02.092 --> 00:42:04.139
So thank you for that lightning round response.
00:42:04.139 --> 00:42:05.442
Here's the second one for you.
00:42:05.442 --> 00:42:24.391
We've thrown out this idea that, as we are humans within the nature of being human, there is something about it that lends itself to VUCA, and we've talked about relationships being VUCA, and I don't want to just take that concept or that claim as at face value.
00:42:24.391 --> 00:42:30.632
Talk to me, jason, about what makes it so VUCA to be in relations with other people.
00:42:32.922 --> 00:42:35.565
Yeah, first off, very, very quickly.
00:42:35.565 --> 00:42:46.460
I think that time is a really big factor here and it's just the fact that all we can really know and understand is the current moment and then our recollection of the past.
00:42:46.460 --> 00:42:51.640
But time keeps unfolding into the future like we don't know what the hell is going to pop out Like.
00:42:51.640 --> 00:42:56.539
It's a very VUCA experience and that's very much baked into our experience as human beings.
00:42:56.539 --> 00:43:01.511
In fact, it's like it might be the frame that we're experiencing.
00:43:01.551 --> 00:43:12.570
But I think when it comes to relationship, you know, like to me, like it, it it comes to two, two completely different inner worlds trying to share some sort of space.
00:43:12.570 --> 00:43:16.744
And you know, sometimes those are really easy and natural.
00:43:16.744 --> 00:43:25.919
But oftentimes, when meaning is high, we have different opinions around how we navigate that and we may not even be comfortable voicing all of our opinions.
00:43:25.919 --> 00:43:42.707
So now the other person is sitting there with like a partial understanding of, like what's meaningful to us, that they're trying to work on, and yet oftentimes, if you're like me, you find yourself expecting them to know all of the different things that are important to you and then to act accordingly, and then that shifts over time.
00:43:42.707 --> 00:43:49.489
So I'm not the same person I was when I married my wife 22 years ago, but neither is she, and so that's to me.
00:43:49.489 --> 00:43:55.831
There's, and you could probably keep going and pulling all those threads here, but those are very much to me why relationships are buka.
00:43:56.701 --> 00:44:02.510
Jason, fabulous answer, and I will say you did not give me the lightning round response to that one.
00:44:02.510 --> 00:44:12.864
I will let it pass though, since it was such a great response and I love what you're drawing out here around these two inner worlds, I think was the wording you use.
00:44:12.864 --> 00:44:17.201
But the reality is that no two people see the world exactly the same.
00:44:17.201 --> 00:44:24.592
We each have our own experience with the world, and then we try and navigate and be interconnected and be in relationship with one another.
00:44:24.592 --> 00:44:32.123
With these two different ways of seeing the world, we bring our own personality, our own values, our own motives into those relationships.
00:44:32.123 --> 00:44:35.489
So I will say thumbs up to that, jason.
00:44:35.489 --> 00:44:41.708
You supported the claim that human relations are VUCA, so I appreciate you doing that.
00:44:41.708 --> 00:44:45.382
I know we're, we're getting, we're butting up against time.
00:44:45.382 --> 00:44:48.652
We we talked about trying to keep our episodes around 45 minutes.
00:44:48.652 --> 00:44:51.167
Curious, what's left unsaid here?
00:44:51.167 --> 00:44:52.543
What more do we need to say?
00:44:54.248 --> 00:44:54.590
Oh man.
00:44:54.590 --> 00:45:00.873
No, I definitely wanted to bring in time because I think it's just something that it's part of the frame.
00:45:00.873 --> 00:45:12.731
Right, it's such a part of the frame and we can't get away from it, and I think that it's one of the things that makes VUCA baked into the human experience is our relationship to time.
00:45:12.731 --> 00:45:16.585
But I don't know, that was the last thing I really wanted to say.
00:45:16.585 --> 00:45:17.107
What about you?
00:45:18.500 --> 00:45:29.873
There's probably so much more to say on this topic and I will share with the listeners that what we spent a lot of time doing today is what I will call admiring the problem.
00:45:29.893 --> 00:45:31.496
Hey, here's this VUCA thing that exists out here and it's so challenging.
00:45:31.496 --> 00:45:33.379
What we spent a lot of time doing today is what I will call admiring the problem.
00:45:33.379 --> 00:45:40.199
Hey, here's this VUCA thing that exists out here and it's so challenging and wow, isn't it difficult.
00:45:40.199 --> 00:45:52.420
But in keeping with our promise not to give easy answers, we really didn't give any type of answers around how you need to navigate a VUCA environment and we are doing this particular episode as a two-parter, this one part.
00:45:52.420 --> 00:46:12.539
Today we've really framed up what VUCA is, how we're experiencing it, the history of it, and in our next episode we want to spend some more time thinking about what do leaders need to, how do they need to approach and work in this VUCA environment to be successful and deliver outcomes?
00:46:12.539 --> 00:46:15.129
So that's coming up in our second episode.
00:46:15.129 --> 00:46:20.990
Really enjoyed the conversation today, jason, and looking forward to reconnecting in a couple of weeks.
00:46:21.792 --> 00:46:26.365
Yeah, same and yeah, and I love admiring problems, so hopefully we can keep doing that.
00:46:27.541 --> 00:46:29.789
It really is the key to being a consultant at time.
00:46:29.789 --> 00:46:31.326
Hey, here's this really cool problem.
00:46:31.326 --> 00:46:35.010
Let's talk about it and look at it from so many different angles.
00:46:35.010 --> 00:46:43.367
Trust me, jason, I could do this for hours on end, but do want to get a little more action oriented in our conversations.
00:46:43.367 --> 00:46:45.119
I will call out to our listeners.
00:46:45.119 --> 00:46:46.706
Would love to hear from you.
00:46:46.706 --> 00:46:48.460
We talked about last episode.
00:46:48.460 --> 00:46:53.105
You could always hit us up at boundlesscuriosityatoutlookcom.
00:46:53.105 --> 00:46:54.665
Would love to hear from you.
00:46:54.665 --> 00:46:59.649
Any feedback you have, any comments and until next time.
00:46:59.649 --> 00:47:05.239
It was great to chat with you, jason no-transcript.
00:00:40.554 --> 00:00:45.204
Hey Jason, very excited to jump into a conversation today on VUCA.
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How are you doing today, my friend?
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Doing pretty well.
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How about you, Brandon?
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Yeah, everything's great, everything's great.
00:00:51.156 --> 00:00:57.795
Really been looking forward to the opportunity to hop on this call and have this conversation and also share it with our listeners.
00:00:59.039 --> 00:01:09.930
I agree, and I think this is going to be one of those foundational concepts is where it kind of come back and keep addressing and keep kind of bringing up throughout our time just talking about different topics.
00:01:09.930 --> 00:01:12.596
So absolutely, I think this is going to be a cool conversation.
00:01:14.299 --> 00:01:18.777
I agree Foundational, and I was thinking about kind of the flow of the podcast.
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Last time we spent some time talking about curiosity and why it's so important.
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But when we think about, part of the importance of curiosity is it's needed to operate in this VUCA environment.
00:01:30.753 --> 00:01:37.635
When I say VUCA, I imagine many of our listeners are familiar with this, this acronym V-U-C-A.
00:01:37.635 --> 00:01:44.650
When we say VUCA, that's what we're referring to, but kind of curious, when you hear VUCA, what do you think of Jason?
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It's a topic that we're familiar with, but it almost sounds like maybe a smoothie.
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I'm going to go have a VUCA smoothie.
00:01:52.794 --> 00:01:57.163
Or maybe it's the name of a robot, kind of like WALL-E, but VUCA instead.
00:01:57.163 --> 00:01:59.496
It's kind of a peculiar term.
00:02:00.157 --> 00:02:03.692
It is a peculiar term of a peculiar term.
00:02:03.692 --> 00:02:09.168
It is a peculiar term and actually what came up for me when you were talking about VUCA is it sounds a little bit like the name of University of Georgia's mascot.
00:02:09.168 --> 00:02:12.915
Isn't that like UGA or UGA, uga.
00:02:12.955 --> 00:02:16.483
Yeah, it is UGA, so it is a strange name.
00:02:16.483 --> 00:02:20.044
That could mean a lot of different things and maybe our listeners are already familiar with this.
00:02:20.044 --> 00:02:29.921
I feel like if you're in the adult development, human-centered development space, you probably know the term, but maybe many of our listeners do not necessarily know it so well.
00:02:32.073 --> 00:02:32.274
Yeah.
00:02:32.274 --> 00:02:43.304
So we thought we'd kick it off with just a little bit of history and context of this acronym, vuca, which stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
00:02:43.304 --> 00:03:19.819
And for those who haven't looked and sort of researched a little bit about like where it came from, it popped up in like the 1980s, 1990s and even though it's a big topic in leadership and organizational development now, it actually came out of the US military and as the US military was thinking about like what things were going to be like as a Cold War started to kind of cool down or maybe it's heat up, I don't know which one started to kind of run down a little bit and this weird stability that it provided started to break down.
00:03:19.819 --> 00:03:24.492
The US military coined this term and they were thinking about it in terms of like fighting the next war, like it wasn't to break down.
00:03:24.492 --> 00:03:31.256
The US military coined this term and they were thinking about it in terms of like fighting the next war, like it wasn't going to be, you know, two big conventional armies, like fighting like standing toe to toe.
00:03:31.256 --> 00:03:32.300
It was going to be something different.
00:03:32.430 --> 00:03:36.822
It would be little little things popping up, little conflicts popping up all over the place.
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Maybe the lines wouldn't be as clear as to whom the good guys and whom the bad guys were.
00:03:42.082 --> 00:04:05.637
So that's its origin and since then it has been kind of taken on by the business community and by academia and also leadership and organizational development as a way for businesses, for leaders, to think about the kind of challenges that they face now, for leaders to think about the kind of challenges that they face now.
00:04:05.637 --> 00:04:09.182
And I'm curious, brandon, first off, what would you add to that brief history of VUCA?
00:04:09.182 --> 00:04:15.594
And then, secondly, I'm curious where you first heard the term Jason.
00:04:15.694 --> 00:04:19.502
Fabulous rundown with really nothing to add from my perspective.
00:04:19.502 --> 00:04:39.144
I think I've shared with our listeners that I was in the Army circa around the early 2000s and, interestingly, I don't think that I heard the term while I was in the military, so it isn't something that's that pervasive, at least not in my experience.
00:04:39.144 --> 00:04:48.459
But I certainly feel like some of the things I encountered while I was in the military certainly fits the description of VUCA.
00:04:48.459 --> 00:04:53.975
I probably mentioned to our listeners that I deployed to Iraq twice in the early 2000s.
00:04:53.975 --> 00:05:09.701
So, as you're thinking about the war in Iraq, it being an unconventional war where we're looking more at an insurgency than a conventional ground force, some of this volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity certainly showed up.
00:05:10.182 --> 00:05:25.978
However, I don't think I was actually exposed to the term, not during my master's studies even, but when I started working on my PhD in organizational development, it was very much something that we were talking about.
00:05:25.978 --> 00:05:38.523
As we're thinking about how organizations operate, how leaders need to show up, the concept that we're in this VUCA milieu is very important to consider our approach.
00:05:38.523 --> 00:05:54.060
So that's where it's shown up for me and where I was exposed to it, and we can certainly spend some time talking about our personal experience with VUCA, whether that's individually or with organizations, but I'll stop there and maybe flip it back to you.
00:05:54.060 --> 00:05:58.036
I'm curious to hear where you were exposed to the concept as well.
00:05:58.697 --> 00:05:59.500
It's so funny.
00:05:59.500 --> 00:06:04.492
You were in the military, you were in the army and didn't hear it there.
00:06:04.492 --> 00:06:07.876
I was in the intelligence community and I didn't hear it there either.
00:06:07.876 --> 00:06:11.278
Junior officers sitting around coming up with this term.
00:06:11.278 --> 00:06:36.639
It was probably very senior officers sitting around at like a war college, like up in Carlisle or somewhere, like you know, thinking through the nature of the challenge and they could coining this acronym, which, which the military is is, is if they do one thing exceptionally well, it's coming up with acronym.
00:06:36.658 --> 00:06:37.641
So make sense.
00:06:37.641 --> 00:06:40.338
Spot on, yes, they are fabulous at that.
00:06:41.230 --> 00:06:49.716
But yeah, so I didn't hear it in the intelligence community, I heard it in in my my first like when I became a coach.
00:06:49.716 --> 00:07:04.064
So I went through Georgetown's university's coaching certification program and it was introduced to us early on in that program is kind of a foundational concept that leaders were going to be grappling with who we would then be coaching.
00:07:04.064 --> 00:07:24.194
And you know my reaction to it when I first heard it is that it just made sense right, like it captured, I think, what I had felt as a people manager over the years, as somebody who led teams, as somebody who was kind of that leader of leaders level who led teams, somebody who was kind of that leader of leaders level.
00:07:24.194 --> 00:07:26.838
You know the volatility and uncertainty absolutely made sense.
00:07:26.838 --> 00:07:30.545
I don't think I quite understood the complexity angle to it as well.
00:07:30.545 --> 00:07:45.877
I think that has kind of developed over the years and you know, I think that initial reaction is something that I'm curious from you, like when you first heard VUCA in your PhD program, like how did it land with you, the concept?
00:07:47.703 --> 00:08:11.975
I don't necessarily recall, jason, but it is a fantastic question and something I've really been grappling with in recent years is trying to not necessarily accept things at face value but really think critically about them and try and interpret them and make sense and meaning of them for myself, versus just wholesale accepting the concept.
00:08:11.975 --> 00:08:17.593
You talked about these different elements of VUCA and how maybe some resonated with you and some didn't.
00:08:17.593 --> 00:08:22.831
So I just want to call out, maybe for our listeners, each one of these elements in turn as we hear about them.
00:08:22.831 --> 00:08:30.473
So, thinking about volatility, I think about things being rapid and unpredictable, changing quickly.
00:08:31.014 --> 00:08:34.355
Uncertainty is very much in the same vein.
00:08:34.355 --> 00:08:35.915
It's very unpredictable.
00:08:35.915 --> 00:08:37.295
We don't know what's going to happen next.
00:08:37.295 --> 00:08:47.139
Complexity, a lot of interconnected parts and then ambiguity is maybe a lack of clarity about the future or what things mean.
00:08:47.139 --> 00:08:56.983
Now what occurs to me is that this VUCA concept, as you look at each of those individual elements, it's so all-encompassing.
00:08:56.983 --> 00:09:19.609
I can almost think of any phenomenon and fit it into one of those four categories, and I think maybe some of the strengths of VUCA is that it's so broad and encompassing, and maybe it's one of the limitations as well that I could almost take anything going on in the world and say, yep, that's VUCA and really put it into that categorization.
00:09:19.609 --> 00:09:27.275
So that's something that I'm sitting with as I think about VUCA how it's defined and how it serves us.
00:09:29.780 --> 00:09:41.519
You know, and I think you're getting at something really, really interesting here, and that's this idea that, like that, this is something, this is a term, this is a phenomenon that is like unique to our 21st century world.
00:09:41.519 --> 00:09:43.102
What's your take on that?
00:09:43.102 --> 00:09:51.058
Is VUCA something that's like that has just popped up in the late 80s and now we're like sitting with it, or is it like a longer, more enduring thing?
00:09:53.469 --> 00:10:02.211
Fascinating question and I lean towards VUCA maybe just being part of our human condition Throughout history.
00:10:02.211 --> 00:10:19.276
If you were to look at how humans have interacted, maybe if we were to go back in time to World Wars, for example, I would imagine you would talk to people during that time and they didn't have the verbiage VUCA, but it very much fit that description.
00:10:19.276 --> 00:10:31.733
Or a stock market crash, or we're trying to eradicate polio, for example, or even going back further in time where you have nations conquering other nations and there's war.
00:10:31.733 --> 00:10:35.382
Maybe the complexity piece doesn't fit as much.
00:10:35.382 --> 00:10:39.480
I feel like complexity might be something inherent in our times.
00:10:39.480 --> 00:10:48.886
I could make that argument, but I could also make the argument that anytime you are dealing with people, with humans, that is a complex phenomenon.
00:10:48.886 --> 00:10:55.541
There is no easy answer, easy solution to that and I'll just give a personal example for myself.
00:10:55.581 --> 00:11:00.279
When I think about VUCA, I feel like I'm very much in a VUCA season in my life.
00:11:00.279 --> 00:11:06.033
You know, jason, that my brother recently passed away after a years-long battle with cancer.
00:11:06.033 --> 00:11:08.498
But it was very sudden.
00:11:08.498 --> 00:11:12.754
We thought he had more time than what he had and he passed away very quickly.
00:11:12.754 --> 00:11:21.597
I was just sharing before we pressed record that I was in the ER this weekend because my wife was having a little bit of health challenges.
00:11:21.597 --> 00:11:26.565
I got into a fender bender this weekend while I was picking up some medication from the pharmacy.
00:11:26.565 --> 00:11:31.682
So it's just this everything unpredictable, ambiguous.
00:11:31.682 --> 00:11:38.969
Again, nothing related to our overarching societal phenomenons that are occurring.
00:11:38.969 --> 00:11:41.799
It's just part of my human existence right now.
00:11:41.799 --> 00:11:43.077
So I would say it's just part of my human existence right now.
00:11:43.077 --> 00:11:45.603
So I would say it's just part of being a person.
00:11:45.603 --> 00:11:48.006
But curious to hear if you think differently.
00:11:49.049 --> 00:11:58.775
You know, first of all, I appreciate you sharing a little bit of how it pops up in your life and I think I tend to agree.
00:11:58.775 --> 00:12:04.611
I think when I first heard the term, I was probably guilty of accepting it for what it was.
00:12:04.611 --> 00:12:06.015
You know, I felt like it described everything.
00:12:06.015 --> 00:12:13.010
I think you did a really nice job of kind of saying like wow, it is kind of like a kitchen sink term, right, like it does kind of capture all of these things.
00:12:13.010 --> 00:12:25.851
I think, the more that I've interacted with the term, I think it is, I think it like, I think we probably it resonates because we probably live in like a high VUCA time.
00:12:25.851 --> 00:13:00.777
And if I, if I were to think about like, maybe how it shows up, it maybe it's a little bit like the tide right when it comes in and there's a high tide and VUCA is like turned up really, really high and then it kind of recedes and and maybe those are times when we're in a little bit more of a stable state, a little bit more of a state of flow, um, I, I think our um, like our understanding of our times, probably like factor in as well and I think we like one of the reasons why I think now feels so disorienting as things are shifting so quickly.
00:13:00.777 --> 00:13:06.155
Um, you know, you never know what's going to happen.
00:13:06.155 --> 00:13:07.998
So I think that's my take now.
00:13:07.998 --> 00:13:21.197
The other thing that has kind of shifted for me as I think about VUCA is I've largely started thinking about VUCA as just complexity, because I think complexity captures.
00:13:21.197 --> 00:13:37.353
I think an inherent in complexity is volatility, uncertainty and ambiguity, and I, and so I, one of my interactions with VUCA is to drop three of the four letters and really focus on on, uh, complexity, um, I, I also.
00:13:37.353 --> 00:13:42.123
I also totally agree and resonate with what you said.
00:13:42.552 --> 00:13:47.679
One of the places I see VUCA popping up most is just in in interactions with people.
00:13:47.679 --> 00:13:53.215
You know you never know what's going on behind the scenes, like, for example, when we got on this call.
00:13:53.215 --> 00:14:04.820
You know, I knew about some of your, you know some of, like the, the, the VUCA that's been showing up for you, but I didn't know you got into Fender Bender, you know.
00:14:04.820 --> 00:14:09.225
I think that factors in anytime you're in like a high meaning conversation.
00:14:09.225 --> 00:14:27.122
I mean the other person in front of you has this completely different world that lives inside of them, that has all of these stories, that has all of these you know good things and these pieces of baggage that they carry along with them that subtly or not so subtly affect that conversation.
00:14:27.603 --> 00:15:00.527
And that's to me a really good example of how VUCA pops up just randomly, you know, and it's just an interaction with a person and you know, and so that's sort of how I've started thinking about VUCA, that's sort of how I've started thinking about VUCA very much embodied in the human experience by humans, and I think that makes it I think it's helpful for me to think of it that way, because that also lets me off the hook for thinking that there's an easy answer to the challenge I might be facing, especially if there's a person involved.
00:15:00.527 --> 00:15:13.032
And kind of, with that said, you've given us a couple examples of VUCA that you've seen a couple in your personal life, and you've hinted to a couple others.
00:15:13.032 --> 00:15:20.193
But are there any examples that kind of stand out as being helpful and illustrative around this concept?
00:15:22.175 --> 00:15:28.779
Well, I'll jump into some examples in a moment, but I do want to just pull the thread on a couple of things you highlighted there.
00:15:28.779 --> 00:15:56.280
Talk about complexity or ambiguity, but it doesn't quite have the same ring to it, I suppose, and I've been interested to hear other terms similar to VUCA I don't know if you've heard of this term BANI, b-a-n-i.
00:15:56.280 --> 00:16:05.602
Brittle, anxious, nonlinear and incomprehensible, so very much in the same vein as VUCA, just another fancy acronym.
00:16:05.602 --> 00:16:22.506
But the other one I came across and this was new to me was tuna, going back to this idea that maybe VUCA could be some type of smoothier food where we have tuna which is turbulent, uncertain, novel and ambiguous, and maybe we should shift the conversation and start talking about tuna instead of VUCA.
00:16:23.516 --> 00:16:25.022
I love a good tuna sandwich myself.
00:16:25.022 --> 00:16:26.240
I don't know how you feel about them.
00:16:27.195 --> 00:16:28.097
My wife loves tuna.
00:16:28.097 --> 00:16:29.822
I'm lukewarm on tuna.
00:16:29.822 --> 00:16:33.235
I like I love tuna when it comes to sushi or when I can grill it.
00:16:33.235 --> 00:16:37.003
So I'm on, I'm on board from from that perspective.
00:16:37.003 --> 00:16:42.125
Well, and it's so interesting too that like I mean like so just to kind of piggyback off where you're going there.
00:16:42.125 --> 00:17:01.055
You know, I think one of the ways that my thinking has changed on VUCA is that I'm a little suspect that a term that was coined by the US military for fighting wars could just be immediately applicable to business, and I'm like it's like okay, are we losing something in here?
00:17:01.055 --> 00:17:04.182
Is there something that we're not quite examining?
00:17:04.182 --> 00:17:07.528
It is interesting that VUCA wasn't enough right now.
00:17:07.528 --> 00:17:10.243
So we've got BANI and TUNA now to add to it.
00:17:10.243 --> 00:17:12.923
So there does seem to be something going on there.
00:17:12.923 --> 00:17:18.543
But thank you for bringing those into my awareness, because I'd heard of BANI but I hadn't heard of TUNA.
00:17:19.620 --> 00:17:21.474
Glad I could school you on something there, Jason.
00:17:21.474 --> 00:17:27.477
So I encourage you to drop TUNA into your future coaching conversations or maybe some of your facilitation.
00:17:27.477 --> 00:17:29.742
I think people would get a kick out of that.
00:17:29.762 --> 00:17:31.707
It sounds like a Tuna problem to me.
00:17:32.817 --> 00:17:33.638
This is all Tuna.
00:17:33.638 --> 00:17:39.356
This stinks like Tuna is what we could say about some of these challenges that we're faced with.
00:17:39.356 --> 00:18:02.862
To your point about whether this military term applies to our business world, whether this military term applies to our business world, I often am a little skeptical about some of the recommendations or books or podcasts or talks that look at SEAL, team 6 or Delta Force as a case study of how we need to apply leadership in the business world.
00:18:02.862 --> 00:18:14.604
While those things, those examples, are very exciting and glamorous, I do wonder to what extent it's applicable to what goes on in the business world.
00:18:14.604 --> 00:18:22.621
I think those are very unique, extreme examples and certainly we could probably learn a little bit from bits and pieces of those.
00:18:22.621 --> 00:18:31.766
But I don't know how well the context matches To your point of maybe it's high tide, low tide.
00:18:31.766 --> 00:18:34.763
See if I can get that out high tide, low tide.
00:18:34.763 --> 00:18:38.244
The term was introduced 40 years ago.
00:18:38.244 --> 00:18:43.683
Is it the case that 40 years later, we're still in the same VUCA environment?
00:18:43.683 --> 00:18:45.302
Is it still applicable?
00:18:45.302 --> 00:18:48.926
I'm not certain, but I do want to get back to your question.
00:18:48.926 --> 00:18:52.566
Don't want to ignore it around when I've really seen it show up in my life.
00:18:52.566 --> 00:18:54.018
I shared that.
00:18:54.259 --> 00:19:01.205
Personally, I'm going through some VUCA right now, and maybe that's just top of mind for me, because that's what's going on for me.
00:19:01.205 --> 00:19:03.984
I think in my personal life I'm seeing it right now.
00:19:03.984 --> 00:19:11.340
I think we could all point to COVID potentially as a very VUCA time for many of us.
00:19:11.340 --> 00:19:30.629
I was very fortunate to have a job that I could work from home, but my spouse at the time she was in health care, so she was going into the office or the hospital rather, and we didn't know could she be around the kids, what the future was going to look like in terms of whether we would get back to normal.
00:19:30.629 --> 00:19:33.015
So I think that was a very Bucca example.
00:19:33.015 --> 00:19:43.450
And then, lastly for me, of course, my experience within the military going to Iraq twice and doing my first deployment at a very young age.
00:19:43.450 --> 00:19:51.263
It just was not something I felt mentally prepared for and that probably exacerbated that VUCA experience for me.
00:19:51.363 --> 00:20:00.907
So I see it showing up quite a bit in different seasons of my life and I think people all individually experience this.
00:20:00.907 --> 00:20:05.619
Covid's an example where we're all experiencing it together.
00:20:05.619 --> 00:20:12.990
But you might be going through a very stable time in your life right now, jason, whereas I'm deeply experiencing VUCA.
00:20:12.990 --> 00:20:19.910
So while we talk about it as this broad social phenomenon that we're all working against.
00:20:19.910 --> 00:20:29.759
I don't know if that's true for everyone and I also don't know if that's true in every profession, certainly in those professions that are navigating complex market conditions.
00:20:29.759 --> 00:20:38.306
And if you're really in a position where you're working in the strategy of an organization I accomplish, there may not be as much VUCA showing up for me.
00:20:38.306 --> 00:20:55.883
So maybe we overestimate or over-exaggerate how it shows up for people.
00:20:55.883 --> 00:20:56.625
I don't know.
00:20:58.437 --> 00:21:06.560
No, I think you're going so first off, like when, like 40 years ago, like that makes it definitely makes me feel old when I think back about like when did it originate?
00:21:06.560 --> 00:21:30.668
Um, but um, I, I think you're, I think you're right that, like we need to be looking at, like, we need to be looking critically at the concept, because I think that, like, at some point, like it starts to become an excuse, um, and, and that's something that like, that um, like to me, like maybe it's an indication that, like it's indication that it's starting to outlive its usefulness.
00:21:30.668 --> 00:21:46.202
It's like, well, this is just VUCA, and what I mean by it can be an excuse is it can be an excuse for poor communication, it could be an excuse for changing the goalposts, it can be an excuse for poor project management.
00:21:46.202 --> 00:21:49.067
I mean different, different things that like go wrong.
00:21:49.067 --> 00:22:25.546
Like, yeah, it could be an example of VUCA, but it isn't necessarily let us off the hook for feel like and I certainly hope that I'm entering a little bit more of a stable point in my life, as you, as you know, you know, I left the federal government in about five years ago now and that kicked off a really high VUCA period of my life.
00:22:26.438 --> 00:22:28.755
We we moved from Virginia to Colorado.
00:22:28.755 --> 00:22:33.583
We moved my mom in with my sister in Colorado, covid happened.
00:22:33.583 --> 00:22:38.798
My mom passed away, not from COVID, but in the middle of that.
00:22:38.798 --> 00:22:41.984
We ended up moving back to Virginia.
00:22:41.984 --> 00:22:48.351
You know I took a position that turned out to be a really poor fit.
00:22:48.371 --> 00:22:59.659
There's also something incredibly unsettling about having other people pack up your stuff and moving long distances without the little things that are comfortable to you.
00:22:59.659 --> 00:23:04.163
Moving is an incredibly high VUCA experience high VUCA experience.
00:23:04.163 --> 00:23:21.517
But as we settled into our new house, a new position in a new company, it started to feel a little less VUCA.
00:23:21.517 --> 00:23:32.191
And I think one of the interesting things that I've noticed in me is that my personality is that when I feel like I'm settling in, I'll start to look for things to like, either move toward or to worry about.
00:23:32.191 --> 00:23:51.686
And at this point I'm really just trying to enjoy a period of relative stability and peace and happiness, without trying to predict or prevent something popping up that might disrupt that, because that's one of the things about VUCA is you can't, you can't do it.
00:23:51.686 --> 00:24:10.692
So that's one of the things I've been trying to do, as I've experienced, is just really trying to find the peace, trying to find the stability, trying to find a little bit of the flow amidst complexity of the flow amidst complexity.
00:24:10.975 --> 00:24:11.834
Thanks for sharing those examples, jason.
00:24:11.834 --> 00:24:22.817
That's really helpful and I really appreciate that you brought out this concept or this question or curiosity around.
00:24:22.817 --> 00:24:26.587
Can VUCA be a little bit of a crutch at times?
00:24:26.587 --> 00:24:28.864
Is it somewhat of an excuse?
00:24:28.864 --> 00:25:10.022
And I hate to or rather I don't want to come off as brash and just sweep under the rug the challenges that people face, the stress, the uncertainty of this tuna world that we're living in, or VUCA, whichever you want to refer to it as and I also do wonder if it has become, going back to this idea, that it's such a catch-all I can put almost anything into this VUCA categorization that if my project doesn't succeed, I might say to my leadership or my team well, of course, it didn't succeed.
00:25:10.154 --> 00:25:11.441
We're in this VUCA environment.
00:25:11.441 --> 00:25:23.464
I couldn't anticipate these things, or maybe I'm reluctant to make a decision and I'm very indecisive in the moment, and I might attribute it again to the VUCA environment that I'm faced with.
00:25:23.464 --> 00:25:51.866
So it leads to indecisiveness, it leads to not having a clear strategy, it leads to unclear communication and I think that is somewhat of a tightrope that you have to walk around, recognizing VUCA and the challenges that it might present, but also still being willing to take ownership, to take action, to develop a strategy, even if you do have to be adaptable in how you execute that strategy.
00:25:51.866 --> 00:26:06.526
So in some ways, I fear that the term is maybe becoming a little bit stale and maybe we need to move our thinking beyond VUCA or just think about it in more nuanced ways.
00:26:06.526 --> 00:26:20.674
And I remember having a conversation with you months ago maybe it's even a year now and you surfaced that, jason, that maybe VUCA isn't serving us anymore, maybe it has become stale, maybe we need to think of something differently.
00:26:20.674 --> 00:26:23.999
So I'm curious if you would share your thoughts around that.
00:26:29.547 --> 00:26:37.390
Yeah, that popped into my head because it's a term like VUCA, like it has its place and at some point we're not going to be talking about it anymore.
00:26:37.390 --> 00:26:43.633
And I think I was describing kind of like well, how do we move into, like a post-VUCA world?
00:26:43.633 --> 00:26:50.140
I'm not sure that that's the right phrasing and I'm not even sure that that's possible, especially like this conversation.
00:26:50.140 --> 00:26:53.633
I think it's baked into the human experience to some degree.
00:26:53.633 --> 00:27:02.126
But maybe how do we move into a time when the tide of VUCA is less than it is now, where we have a little bit more stability, a little bit more flow?
00:27:02.126 --> 00:27:08.207
I think you're getting at, you know, a couple of a couple of the things needed to navigate.
00:27:08.207 --> 00:27:12.980
You know a VUCA world and we're going to get into those in our next episode.
00:27:12.980 --> 00:27:20.246
But you said something I wanted to just highlight a little bit, and that's this idea of kind of walking a tightrope.
00:27:20.385 --> 00:27:25.121
When I think about complexity, I think oftentimes there isn't a clear answer.
00:27:25.121 --> 00:27:32.815
In fact, even worse, there are two possible answers, if not more, and they're in tension with each other.
00:27:32.815 --> 00:27:36.029
So if I choose one, I feel like it comes at the expense of the other.
00:27:36.029 --> 00:27:44.706
And so I think, like we're, oftentimes we're left holding a tension between two important things, and that's uncomfortable.
00:27:44.706 --> 00:27:48.830
You know, there's a lack of kind of clarity there.
00:27:48.830 --> 00:27:55.113
There's a persistence to the challenge of having to do that rather than just be able to make a decision and then putting it behind you.
00:27:55.113 --> 00:28:23.715
So, you know, I think like and I'm kind of going off of kind of straying a bit from where your question is but I think that to me some of the best parts of VUCA is that we named something that's part of the human experience and maybe that's made a little bit more like object right, like a little bit more like where we have a little bit more agency and capability and then start to work with it rather than being just subject to it.
00:28:23.715 --> 00:28:25.745
Right, then that's just kind of subject, object theory.
00:28:25.745 --> 00:28:28.032
That I'm sure we'll touch on at some point.
00:28:28.032 --> 00:28:30.246
I think that's that's one of the best pieces of it.
00:28:30.246 --> 00:28:43.707
I think it also raises some really interesting kind of human-centered ways of kind of working with it, and it probably has to do with things like you know, polarity management, like good communication, like listening, more things of that nature.
00:28:44.067 --> 00:28:55.798
I think, you know, another really good thing about it is that it has made me start to think about things that I'm attached to, because if I think about like well, why does VUCA exist?
00:28:55.798 --> 00:28:57.160
Right, like, why does this feel uncomfortable?
00:28:57.160 --> 00:29:00.770
It's probably because I'm attached to some sort of outcome.
00:29:00.770 --> 00:29:12.114
You know, I'm moving towards something or I want to prevent something, and that makes the feeling of like, volatility or any part of like the VUCA acronym that much more intense.
00:29:12.114 --> 00:29:16.351
And so, like, if I can think about like well, you know, are these things that are really important?
00:29:16.351 --> 00:29:22.293
Or if I can change my relationship to these things, then maybe I can start to manage VUCA a little bit more effectively.
00:29:23.061 --> 00:29:33.264
But you know, that's sort of that's some of my changing thinking, sort of that's some of my changing thinking.
00:29:33.264 --> 00:29:37.418
Um, and it's starting to get it kind of like, well, like, if it's it, you know it's a concept, it has its benefits, it has its flaws.
00:29:37.418 --> 00:29:40.084
I mean, we're kind of like taking it through its paces.
00:29:40.084 --> 00:29:42.710
Um, but like what do you?
00:29:42.710 --> 00:29:47.506
What do you think in terms of like, like, why it matters for leaders and organizations?
00:29:47.605 --> 00:30:07.853
now, Before I answer that, jason, you brought up the idea of subject and object and some of our listeners may be familiar with that, but would you just tell us a little bit more about that so our listeners can understand a little bit better what you mean by taking VUCA and making it object?
00:30:08.539 --> 00:30:16.031
Yeah, really good point and so like you could go really deep into this, but just like a quick overview of it is.
00:30:16.031 --> 00:30:48.801
The idea is that if we're not aware of some sort of dynamic that's at play in our life, when we do become aware of it and then we're able to sort of describe it and maybe even give it a name, then all of a sudden we go from being subject to it right Like it's a force that is acting on us and we don't understand what it is to it being an object that we can then start to work with a little bit more because of that awareness, like we have a little bit more choice with it, so we're not subject to it anymore, it's an object that we can work with.
00:30:48.801 --> 00:30:50.947
That's what I've heard it described.
00:30:50.947 --> 00:30:53.633
Have you heard it described differently, or would you add anything to that?
00:30:54.840 --> 00:31:05.974
That's a perfect description, jason, and the example that I like to use, or one that I've heard that I really appreciate, is an example of like a pair of glasses or a contact lens, for example.
00:31:05.974 --> 00:31:07.656
Have you heard that as an example?
00:31:08.400 --> 00:31:09.477
I think so, but maybe you can bring it out for example.
00:31:09.477 --> 00:31:10.398
Have you heard that as an example?
00:31:10.398 --> 00:31:10.806
I think so, but maybe you can bring it out for us.
00:31:11.259 --> 00:31:11.561
Yeah.
00:31:11.561 --> 00:31:21.297
So suppose you have a pair of glasses on and you don't even realize that you have the glasses on and everything you see in the world is filtered through your glasses.
00:31:21.297 --> 00:31:28.152
It is the paradigm through which you see the world, and VUCA might be similarly a paradigm that we're seeing the world through.
00:31:28.152 --> 00:31:30.276
It's important for us to recognize that we're seeing the world through.
00:31:30.276 --> 00:31:43.160
It's important for us to recognize that we're wearing those glasses, to be able to take them off and look at them and say, hey, here are these glasses that I'm wearing and everything I'm seeing in the world is filtered through these lenses.
00:31:43.160 --> 00:31:51.695
So, taking VUCA instead of a filter and recognizing or maybe it's still the filter, but you know the filters there, if that makes sense.
00:31:52.900 --> 00:31:57.802
Yeah, and when you're describing that, it made me a little bit of like, just like the idea of mindset Right and like what?
00:31:57.802 --> 00:32:03.374
Like what frame we bring into different interactions, conversations, parts of our lives.
00:32:05.480 --> 00:32:07.244
Absolutely Before.
00:32:07.244 --> 00:32:09.267
I before I asked you to explain that.
00:32:09.267 --> 00:32:33.961
You asked me how I see this showing up for leaders currently of time.
00:32:33.961 --> 00:32:35.647
I could also make the argument that we are in a very VUCA time frame.
00:32:35.647 --> 00:32:36.631
That is unique for a couple of different reasons.
00:32:36.631 --> 00:32:38.378
So I'm kind of making the argument for both sides.
00:32:38.378 --> 00:32:41.648
One I'm saying yeah, vuca, it's been around forever and there's nothing new here.
00:32:41.648 --> 00:32:42.551
It's kind of stale.
00:32:42.551 --> 00:33:00.849
But if I needed to make the argument for why things are so VUCA now, I could easily point to technology, for example AI, and how that's changing the world, and what it means to be a human in this age of AI and what the future of work is going to be, for example.
00:33:01.311 --> 00:33:12.455
I also think that in terms of complexity, we are probably in the most interconnected time that we have ever been in in the history of the world.
00:33:12.455 --> 00:33:20.149
The connections that we have through globalization, through the internet you think about a company that's manufacturing something.
00:33:20.149 --> 00:33:29.145
It's the case that those supplies and the labor might be pulled from different parts of the globe.
00:33:29.145 --> 00:33:37.776
So there is potentially a reality where we are now in a more VUCA state than we've ever been.
00:33:37.776 --> 00:33:43.393
So, as a leader, as I'm navigating relationships, as I'm thinking about strategies.
00:33:43.393 --> 00:33:45.427
I'm trying to solve problems.
00:33:45.427 --> 00:34:12.076
It would be important to take this concept of VUCA and be aware that it is something to name it, that we are navigating, that we are challenged by, but again, walking that tightrope of I'm not using it as a crutch, as an excuse for not achieving a strategy or setting goals or following through on actions, but instead just being able to scan the horizon and know it's something that needs to be considered.
00:34:15.023 --> 00:34:18.704
Yeah, I love where you went there, like what came up for me while you were talking.
00:34:19.608 --> 00:34:34.748
You know when you're talking about strategy and I think why I see it as mattering is that our kind of our go-to approach doesn't really work as well as other approaches when it comes to interacting with complexity it might.
00:34:34.808 --> 00:36:06.052
What I mean by go-to approach is, um, I see leaders moving really fast all the time and that's something that like that is is it's, it's rewarded, it's sometimes it's effective, um, but like, if we're always kind of go, go, go, we're always kind of looking to move from decision, decision, check things off the of our to-do list, then when it comes to complexity, that we're probably missing stuff and we're probably, um, we're probably not being as strategic, we're probably not being as creative, we're not probably not being as curious um, as we could be, and if we were able to kind of take a step back, do a little bit more in the way of reflecting, of investigating, of planning, of like iterating a little bit through the process, then my hypothesis is is it like in a VUCA environment that's gonna produce better results over the longterm and it's probably gonna produce different results than if we're just going a million miles an hour all the time, so I think that's one of the reasons why it matters to me questioning your ideas around the need to move quickly and accomplish things, because I could almost think of, in a VUCA environment, the need to execute quickly and something I do take away from the military is speed to execution that sometimes we can get, in this analysis, paralysis.
00:36:06.319 --> 00:36:21.765
So I don't know that I necessarily would have thought about VUCA as needing to be more circumspect in how we approach action, but I could certainly see that aspect of it at times needing to be more strategic.
00:36:21.765 --> 00:36:32.551
I land more with the adaptability needed to approach a VUCA environment so you can make all the strategy you want.
00:36:32.551 --> 00:36:42.324
And this idea and I don't know was it Eisenhower that a plan doesn't survive first contact with the enemy Was that an Eisenhower thing?
00:36:42.324 --> 00:36:46.561
And I think Ali or Tyson said everyone has a plan, so they get punched in the mouth.
00:36:46.561 --> 00:37:00.250
So there's all these variations around the importance of planning, but also, as you're executing, it may not be the case that everything goes according to plan, and I think that's especially true in a VUCA environment.
00:37:00.250 --> 00:37:02.106
Did I chop those quotes up, jason?
00:37:02.106 --> 00:37:03.405
Are you familiar with any of those?
00:37:04.481 --> 00:37:05.646
No, I'm definitely familiar with them.
00:37:05.646 --> 00:37:09.610
I don't remember who said that the survive first contact thing.
00:37:09.610 --> 00:37:14.623
I think it was Ali who said the punch in the mouth bit.
00:37:14.623 --> 00:37:19.067
But you know, I think like that adaptability is absolutely critical.
00:37:19.067 --> 00:38:05.693
And I'm not saying like go slow to go slow, although I think that's important sometimes but I think the ability to kind of like put something out there and then watch how it's being interacted with by the system and then to be able to take that feedback, create a new iteration of it and then put it back out there, I mean like you can think about it in terms of prototyping, but like you could also develop a decision-making strategy based on that as well, where it's a little bit more, a little bit more adaptable, a little bit more fluid, a little bit more like conversant with feedback, and I think that's one thing I see as important when it comes to dealing with VUCA.
00:38:08.040 --> 00:38:31.612
I love the way you phrase that, and I think about feedback loops, for example, in particular, as we're thinking about how we're approaching action not getting so determined to execute things the way we had thought about them or planned out initially, but instead, as you mentioned, knowing that things are VUCA, getting that feedback, knowing where we need to adapt.
00:38:31.612 --> 00:38:40.331
Maybe we need to challenge our assumptions, ways of thinking, ways of showing up, and that's not necessarily always easy.
00:38:40.331 --> 00:38:42.908
You do a lot of coaching conversations, jason.
00:38:42.908 --> 00:38:49.991
I'm curious to see or to hear from you when do you see VUCA showing up in those conversations?
00:38:49.991 --> 00:38:51.780
How are people challenged by this?
00:38:51.780 --> 00:38:54.507
What is your experience with it?
00:38:55.588 --> 00:38:57.252
Yeah, I mean it shows up all the time.
00:38:57.252 --> 00:39:32.864
I think it shows up most prominently in how people interact with other people you know, whether it's you know a difficulty in talking to like a boss or in having a difficult conversation with an employee that you know, those are very much like interacting with complexity, because not only are you are you having to navigate like a relationship with another person, but you also might be having to navigate your own not so helpful associations about like what navigating that means and what you're capable of in those moments.
00:39:32.864 --> 00:39:54.295
So that's very much how I see it and I also see it more on the business side as well, where you know people are, you know, having to go and people having to manage multiple, different, rapidly changing, you know projects or business lines or customers, and that puts you in a place.
00:39:54.295 --> 00:40:08.411
I think that puts a person in a place of you can again kind of match that increasing workload with more speed and more effort and that kind of opens the door to burnout over time.
00:40:08.411 --> 00:40:16.341
So I think it invites, especially in a coaching conversation, a little bit more reflection around like, well, how do you create a sustainable approach to this?
00:40:16.341 --> 00:40:23.625
And like, how do you integrate in some of the things that like might be the like all this work is going to be expensive.
00:40:23.625 --> 00:40:35.735
Like, for example, like your health, your wellbeing, your family, you know your downtime things that you're passionate about, like outside of work, well-being, your family, you know your downtime things that you're passionate about like outside of work, and so those are absolutely those are regular themes in coaching conversations.
00:40:37.099 --> 00:40:39.167
Fascinating, Jason, and two things you mentioned there.
00:40:39.167 --> 00:40:42.003
I want to pull the thread on, but I want to do it lightning round style.
00:40:42.003 --> 00:40:47.185
So I'm going to ask you two questions and I want to give, I want to hear the bottom line responses to these.
00:40:47.185 --> 00:40:53.705
And I know this is a challenge because many of these ideas, these concepts, these questions, they don't have easy answers.
00:40:53.705 --> 00:41:04.565
But we've talked about VUCA and we haven't necessarily talked about how it might impact different industries that people are working in.
00:41:04.565 --> 00:41:11.228
I would suspect many of our listeners are coming from different types of work, doing different types of things across the world.
00:41:11.228 --> 00:41:14.569
Is this something that is unique to specific industries?
00:41:14.569 --> 00:41:19.391
Do you see this expanding across all industries, or maybe something different entirely?
00:41:20.519 --> 00:41:32.266
I think it's expanding across all industries, and part of it is like the startup culture that we have now, where people are actively looking to disrupt industries and long stable industries are ripe for disruption.
00:41:32.266 --> 00:41:34.324
Was that lightning enough for you?
00:41:34.866 --> 00:41:45.070
Lightning, love it, and certainly technology would play into that as well, as we think about AI disrupting the type of work that we do and how we do it.
00:41:45.070 --> 00:41:56.779
I am on board with you and I would also make the case that maybe certain types of industries like if you're working in technology might be a little bit more VUCA than other industries.
00:41:56.779 --> 00:42:02.092
I do, or have consulted quite a bit in healthcare work and I see that as a very VUCA industry.
00:42:02.092 --> 00:42:04.139
So thank you for that lightning round response.
00:42:04.139 --> 00:42:05.442
Here's the second one for you.
00:42:05.442 --> 00:42:24.391
We've thrown out this idea that, as we are humans within the nature of being human, there is something about it that lends itself to VUCA, and we've talked about relationships being VUCA, and I don't want to just take that concept or that claim as at face value.
00:42:24.391 --> 00:42:30.632
Talk to me, jason, about what makes it so VUCA to be in relations with other people.
00:42:32.922 --> 00:42:35.565
Yeah, first off, very, very quickly.
00:42:35.565 --> 00:42:46.460
I think that time is a really big factor here and it's just the fact that all we can really know and understand is the current moment and then our recollection of the past.
00:42:46.460 --> 00:42:51.640
But time keeps unfolding into the future like we don't know what the hell is going to pop out Like.
00:42:51.640 --> 00:42:56.539
It's a very VUCA experience and that's very much baked into our experience as human beings.
00:42:56.539 --> 00:43:01.511
In fact, it's like it might be the frame that we're experiencing.
00:43:01.551 --> 00:43:12.570
But I think when it comes to relationship, you know, like to me, like it, it it comes to two, two completely different inner worlds trying to share some sort of space.
00:43:12.570 --> 00:43:16.744
And you know, sometimes those are really easy and natural.
00:43:16.744 --> 00:43:25.919
But oftentimes, when meaning is high, we have different opinions around how we navigate that and we may not even be comfortable voicing all of our opinions.
00:43:25.919 --> 00:43:42.707
So now the other person is sitting there with like a partial understanding of, like what's meaningful to us, that they're trying to work on, and yet oftentimes, if you're like me, you find yourself expecting them to know all of the different things that are important to you and then to act accordingly, and then that shifts over time.
00:43:42.707 --> 00:43:49.489
So I'm not the same person I was when I married my wife 22 years ago, but neither is she, and so that's to me.
00:43:49.489 --> 00:43:55.831
There's, and you could probably keep going and pulling all those threads here, but those are very much to me why relationships are buka.
00:43:56.701 --> 00:44:02.510
Jason, fabulous answer, and I will say you did not give me the lightning round response to that one.
00:44:02.510 --> 00:44:12.864
I will let it pass though, since it was such a great response and I love what you're drawing out here around these two inner worlds, I think was the wording you use.
00:44:12.864 --> 00:44:17.201
But the reality is that no two people see the world exactly the same.
00:44:17.201 --> 00:44:24.592
We each have our own experience with the world, and then we try and navigate and be interconnected and be in relationship with one another.
00:44:24.592 --> 00:44:32.123
With these two different ways of seeing the world, we bring our own personality, our own values, our own motives into those relationships.
00:44:32.123 --> 00:44:35.489
So I will say thumbs up to that, jason.
00:44:35.489 --> 00:44:41.708
You supported the claim that human relations are VUCA, so I appreciate you doing that.
00:44:41.708 --> 00:44:45.382
I know we're, we're getting, we're butting up against time.
00:44:45.382 --> 00:44:48.652
We we talked about trying to keep our episodes around 45 minutes.
00:44:48.652 --> 00:44:51.167
Curious, what's left unsaid here?
00:44:51.167 --> 00:44:52.543
What more do we need to say?
00:44:54.248 --> 00:44:54.590
Oh man.
00:44:54.590 --> 00:45:00.873
No, I definitely wanted to bring in time because I think it's just something that it's part of the frame.
00:45:00.873 --> 00:45:12.731
Right, it's such a part of the frame and we can't get away from it, and I think that it's one of the things that makes VUCA baked into the human experience is our relationship to time.
00:45:12.731 --> 00:45:16.585
But I don't know, that was the last thing I really wanted to say.
00:45:16.585 --> 00:45:17.107
What about you?
00:45:18.500 --> 00:45:29.873
There's probably so much more to say on this topic and I will share with the listeners that what we spent a lot of time doing today is what I will call admiring the problem.
00:45:29.893 --> 00:45:31.496
Hey, here's this VUCA thing that exists out here and it's so challenging.
00:45:31.496 --> 00:45:33.379
What we spent a lot of time doing today is what I will call admiring the problem.
00:45:33.379 --> 00:45:40.199
Hey, here's this VUCA thing that exists out here and it's so challenging and wow, isn't it difficult.
00:45:40.199 --> 00:45:52.420
But in keeping with our promise not to give easy answers, we really didn't give any type of answers around how you need to navigate a VUCA environment and we are doing this particular episode as a two-parter, this one part.
00:45:52.420 --> 00:46:12.539
Today we've really framed up what VUCA is, how we're experiencing it, the history of it, and in our next episode we want to spend some more time thinking about what do leaders need to, how do they need to approach and work in this VUCA environment to be successful and deliver outcomes?
00:46:12.539 --> 00:46:15.129
So that's coming up in our second episode.
00:46:15.129 --> 00:46:20.990
Really enjoyed the conversation today, jason, and looking forward to reconnecting in a couple of weeks.
00:46:21.792 --> 00:46:26.365
Yeah, same and yeah, and I love admiring problems, so hopefully we can keep doing that.
00:46:27.541 --> 00:46:29.789
It really is the key to being a consultant at time.
00:46:29.789 --> 00:46:31.326
Hey, here's this really cool problem.
00:46:31.326 --> 00:46:35.010
Let's talk about it and look at it from so many different angles.
00:46:35.010 --> 00:46:43.367
Trust me, jason, I could do this for hours on end, but do want to get a little more action oriented in our conversations.
00:46:43.367 --> 00:46:45.119
I will call out to our listeners.
00:46:45.119 --> 00:46:46.706
Would love to hear from you.
00:46:46.706 --> 00:46:48.460
We talked about last episode.
00:46:48.460 --> 00:46:53.105
You could always hit us up at boundlesscuriosityatoutlookcom.
00:46:53.105 --> 00:46:54.665
Would love to hear from you.
00:46:54.665 --> 00:46:59.649
Any feedback you have, any comments and until next time.
00:46:59.649 --> 00:47:05.239
It was great to chat with you, jason no-transcript.
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