VUCA: Let's Understand VUCA with a Story

Once upon a time there was this person Rolio who was an Average person but he wanted to become a Great warrior.

So he started learning from a Master Samurai about the fight & some tips on weapons, etc.

Master Samurai trained him well and within a span of 6 years he became a good fighter and started winning competitions around his villages

One day he heard about the challenge being planned in a nearby village and he thought of participating in the competition.

He prepared himself well and then went to the competition.

On the first day he did well and could come up as a winner for all his fights.

One second day the same thing followed and he started feeling confident and sure of his winning this competition.

However on the third day of the competition, things changed.

The opponent for the third day was a Ninja, a different kind of fighter who was making moves unknown to Rolio and was able to carry out moves much faster than Rolio could comprehend.

This made Rolio helpless and he was not able to think about how to fight this fight.

As Rolio was unable to predict the action of the Ninja and Ninja’s moves, he could not think about winning, and hence the outcome of the war was Uncertain.

As Rolio was neither able to plan the outcome of the war and nor he could make meaning of what is going on, there was little he could do to project the outcome of the war.

This made things Ambiguous.

Third day was tough for Rolio and fight went on but Rolio was beaten brutally by the Ninja.

Later that night Rolio called for his Mentor for help and guidance.

When Mentor came and listened to the full details, he asked Rolio the following questions

1.   “What did he observe about the Ninja”

2.   “ What Method he was trying to use to combat Ninja”

 3.   “What did he learn from his fight so far “

When he heard the response of Rolio, he asked Rolio to pay attention to the Ninja on the next day.

He told Rolio Not only to observe Ninja’s moves, but also observe his eyes , his body posture, his thinking pattern etc.

On the Fourth day of the fight as told by his Mentor, Rolio paid attention to the Ninja greatly.

He started observing him in details and he noticed that there were too many moving parts in the act of Ninja.

Ninja used to breathe differently, his eye movement was different, he would make a sound before the attack which also differed for different moves.

He was moving differently, making different sounds and making different attacks to confuse Rolio and this made the situation Volatile.

All this made it difficult for Rolio to understand Ninja’s move as Ninja linked various moves together which made the fight Complex one to win

And Now to win this fight, there has to be a different mindset.

During the break-in fight, Rolio started thinking about the observations of Ninja and his learnings.

He realized that for this fight and to combat Ninja he required good strategies.

 And that all his learnings till now has been of no.

 His mentor could read his thought and he came to him and said the following

“ Now that you have understood some of the moves of Ninja, start thinking about how you could learn from him and combat him in such a way to make this fight a memorable one if not a winning one “

“Start Adapting to his fighting style, Clarify his complex moves in your mind, Understand his moves, and what typical sound/body posture will mean to you about next move from Ninja.

Now go to fight with a clear mindset that despite the outcome it shall be fight worth watching and eventfully you may bring victory to you”

Our Takeaways

The situation changes at a very fast pace, at different magnitude- it is a Volatile Situation

You are not sure of the outcome of your actions because of unknown situations at hand- you are in an Ambiguous Situation.

You are not sure of the outcome of your actions but you do understand the situation.

 However you are not sure how you shall lead through it or you don’t have any predictability tool or reference in place- you are in an Uncertain Situation.

 The situation you are handling has many variables (moving parts)- You are in Complex Situations.

 For example, the impact on business from internal and external stakeholders due to their behavior changes.

  And this change could be the outcome of an external event such as COVID impact where everybody is under locked down.

If You would like to know more about VUCA and how you can optimize your business to take advantage of the VUCA world.

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