V.U.C.A. Is A 4-Letter word, sort of by Rachel Digiammarino

I'm curious how many of you are familiar with the acronym V.U.C.A.? It stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. I've referenced it in a number of blog posts in the past couple of years, and I've even been prone to incorporate it into performance reviews to provide additional context when coaching employees where emotional intelligence is or should be a focus. When feeling nostalgic for "simpler" times, I've tended to recall the 90's version of my professional self as a "people person," as a "multi-tasker" in the 2000's, and currently a "change agent" on flight 63 to VUCA-land. 

As I began to search for some new blog material, I found myself drawn to re-explore the elements of V.U.C.A., likely because of its utter pervasiveness. In some respects, it feels like the symptoms of V.U.C.A. are now treated as the status quo. While some industries are more at the forefront and others lag behind, I even see the impact on small town government, rural schools/school districts, and small, local businesses that make up a large portion of our beautiful state of Vermont. 

With the expansion of technology and a greater sense of interconnectedness as well as competition that fuels higher expectations, it may be extremely difficult to ignore the realities of V.U.C.A. that appear in different forms in different facets of our professional and personal lives. That said, we don't have to relinquish all control. In the words of Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl:

​"When we can no longer change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."

While it is very difficult to imagine things worse than the horrors of wartime conflict, we may still encounter challenges in our lives that test our limits (of comfort, experience, problem-solving, endurance, sanity, health, etc.). The strategy we choose to lead with in this mental game of perseverance might very well be the key to overcoming V.U.C.A. demands and their toll. 

Colin Shaw, Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, published an article in 2013 on LinkedIn entitled "Dealing with Ambiguity: The New Business Imperative." Within his concise (and not the least bit dated) post, he laid out these 10 essential tips I find well-worth repeating:

1. Suppress your urge to control things. People like to feel in control of their businesses. Often, this results in stress when ambiguity enters the scene. The business world is getting more complex not less and therefore you need to suppress to let go of the notion that you are ‘controlling everything’.
2. Learn to act without the complete picture. In an ambiguous world you will never have all the information you need for absolute certainty. Don’t wait for that final bit of hard data that will tell you what to do because it may never come. Get all the information available, make the best decision you can and act on it.
3. Understand that some of your decisions will be wrong. Now that you made the best decision you can, realize that it might be wrong. But sometimes a wrong decision is better than no decision. Ambiguity means sometimes you will make the wrong decision. Don't let that put you off. Being a good business person is about making more right decisions than you do wrong. Get comfortable with making mistakes by looking at them as learning opportunities.
4. Work on your flexibility. Be willing to change course as more information comes to light. Don't let pride delay you from correcting your course. Ambiguity can reveal facts at any time that are going to affect your best decision. Be willing to accept these gifts and incorporate them into your direction and make the necessary changes.
5. Learn to deal with uncertainty. To deal with ambiguity you need to be comfortable with uncertainty. My natural urge is to control everything, but I can’t. So I cope with this by being prepared for what I can.
6. Realize there is not a defined plan you need to follow. Make your peace with the fact that there is no defined ‘right and wrong’. As I told my client who wanted a handbook that gave them all the answers, it isn’t that simple. In my world, there is no recipe book to follow for improving the Customer Experience.
7. Be confident in yourself and your abilities. Part of learning to deal with uncertainty is to have confidence in your ability to respond to what you can’t control. Confidence is a huge asset to a person in business and life in general. The best article on confident people I have ever read is ‘9 Qualities of Truly Confident People’, by Dharmesh Shah. Dharmesh says that confident people are not afraid to take a stand, are good listeners, avoid the spotlight, ask for help and aren’t afraid to be wrong. They also avoid putting others down and own their mistakes. Having these qualities will help you adapt and respond to a market you can’t control, whose future is ambiguous.
8. Listen to your voice. People talk about their ‘guts’ or ‘making a gut decision’. What you attribute to your gut is really your subconscious looking at inputs from around your world. Our processing power is powered 95% from our subconscious, or your brain looking at information ‘offline’, processing it and then telling you what to do. Therefore, listen to it. This is the wealth of your knowledge speaking in a small voice. Listen to the voice.
9. Listen to advice. At Beyond Philosophy we use a phrase ‘None of us are as clever as all of us’. Do you think that because you are the boss you have all the best answers? You don’t. Be comfortable with people being more clever than you and use this as a resource. Surround yourself with good people and remember you have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Listen to what your people say. Weigh up their concerns. Embrace the people who look at the world differently because it’s always great to get a contrary view or a view from outside the box as it can be the answer or half way to the answer. Also, don’t steal their ideas. Give them credit so they will carry on giving you lots of great new ideas going forward.
10. Learn to deal with your stress. Even if you do all of these things, ambiguity can still cause stress, as the world is uncertain. Learn to manage this stress by having outlets to relieve your stress. When you are relaxed you are far more able to respond to problems and challenges with successful solutions. Investing some time in cultivating a relaxed state of mind is important to your leadership skills.

​In my continuous effort to become wiser (since "older" is inevitable), some days I feel like I've got the upper-hand on V.U.C.A. and other days I feel like it has me over a barrel. And that's when I (try to) roll........