We share these 6 recommendations for leaders in the VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous). They are taken from this Harvard Business Review article – https://lnkd.in/e8iFH3Bk
What strategies does the article recommend? (with some additions of my own)
1. Be comfortable with not knowing. In a variable, changing environment with new knowledge being generated every day, we must move from “I know everything” to “I am going to learn.”
2. Distinguish between the complicated and the complex. There is a big difference between the two, and as Goldratt said, a system is complex if we do not know the relationship between its parts. The recommendation is to treat the adaptive approach like Lean Startup or PDCA with constant validations and review loops.
3. Put perfectionism aside. Seeking to have the exact figure or the optimal model is a waste of effort… when we achieve it (if we achieve it) the variables have already changed again. “It is better to be approximately right than perfectly wrong,” a phrase we heard from Carol Ptak in all her talks.
4. Resist oversimplifications and quick conclusions. Trust your intuition, but do not rush; it is vital to understand the problem well before making a decision. At this point, I highly recommend studying Goldratt’s thought processes.
5. Do not go it alone. Involve your team, allow for differences, and analyze the problem from different angles.
6. Step away from the problem for a moment. As the author of the book The Adaptive Leader suggests (I have attached the link at the end) – at times, we must step back a bit, get in a helicopter, and view it from several meters high, re-validating the assumptions with which the problem is analyzed.
Leaders cannot control the level of complexity, change, uncertainty… but they must learn quickly and adapt. The one who adapts first has a better chance of success!
Link to the book Adaptive Leadership: https://lnkd.in/eVmpk39P
