Leading in the 'Vuca' world

'Vuca" is an acronym first coined by the military and widely embraced by businesses to describe conditions of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. The ability to deal with Vuca has become a key litmus test for many organisations and their leaders.

How ready are most organisations to cope with the Vuca World? Not very. Why? Because most organisations are designed with the following characteristics:

static organisational structure,

clear guidelines for communication flow,

systematic processes to handle normal work flow,

clear roles and responsibilities for each person,

required skill sets fixed for the above conditions,

sound judgement based on enough information with a reasonable timeframe to act.

Many of the above sound like desirable attributes for organisation to have, but in a Vuca world, conventional structures and procedures cannot always keep pace. What are the implications for leaders?

Information flow does not sufficiently reflect all that is happening in the real world;

Priority-setting is not up to date;

Lack of sufficient information means poor judgements get made;

Selling the idea of change to stakeholders is hard;

The organisation is reactive, too slow to respond to change;

People become confused.

How can a leader navigate a team toward a Vuca world? Start with the right mindset that mistakes are part of the process. We cannot avoid mistakes but we can minimise them. When a mistake happens, focus on how to make it right, not who to blame.

Learn to ask the right questions of the right people. What is the right question? Who are the people we need to ask?

Select an appropriate leadership style -- either Command and Control or Engage and Inspire -- in accordance with the situation. In the right context, each style can work well. A leader needs to have very good self-awareness in order to know which style to use, even if it's one he's not comfortable with, in a given situation.

Once you have the right mindset, here are some other tips:

1. Manage with intensity. In the book Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty, author Ram Charan wrote: "Leaders must deploy management intensity: a deep immersion in the operational details of the business and the outside world combined with hands-on involvement and follow-through. ... It's not enough to sit in your office, read reports and issue directives. You need a granular understanding of what is happening outside, with customers, and in your own operations.

"Plans and progress must be revisited almost daily. Big-picture, longer-term, strategic-level thinking cannot be abandoned, but every leader has to be involved, visible, and in daily communication." Once, you're hands-on, the next step will be meeting priorities.

2. Prioritise more frequently. This will depend a lot on the nature of your business. But in general, you need to assess situations more frequently and then set priorities aligned with the prevailing environment. Then, communicate those priorities in a timely fashion to all stakeholders.

3. Facilitate the communication flow. Don't communicate "as usual". In the Vuca world, you have to constantly remind people to be alert for critical of information flows. Whenever you finish a plan, before you implement it ask yourself: "What will the information flow of this plan be like?" "How do we ensure that the information reaches the recipients at the right time?" "What could go wrong with the information flow of this plan?"

4. Exercise sound judgement with calculated risk. Sound judgement in a Vuca world means making the appropriate judgement with limited information at the right time. In the book Work Smarts: What CEOs Say You Need to Know to Get Ahead, author Betty Liu quotes Martin Sorrell, the CEO of WPP Plc, as saying: "A bad decision on Monday is better than a good decision on Friday." Calculated risk implies that you anticipate some mistakes from your decision. Hence, you also have anticipated how to make corrections quickly when mistakes occur.

5. Ignite your team to embrace the Vuca world. This is probably the most difficult part for a leader. Why? Because we are creatures of habit. We do things the way we used to until we are on autopilot. Working in the Vuca world means we have to let go several old ways of working.

How do successful leaders do it? They communicate frequently about the Vuca world. They don't just do a "drive-by" and leave it for people to remember. People might hear, but how many really understand and remember? Communication about change has to be planned and repeated until it becomes a mantra inside the organisation.

Successful leaders also inspire A Players to engage more. They push the B Players to leave their comfort zone. They demand the C Players start contributing more.

Leading in the Vuca world requires new mindset and new actions. Do these things well and you will prevail.