VUCA
It is the State of the Universe
VUCA is:
Volatility - The tendency for things to change quickly and unpredictably.
Uncertainty - The quality or state of being unknown, incomplete, not having certain knowledge, or being indefinite or indeterminate.
Complexity - The quality or state of being part of a whole made up of numerous, complicated, interconnected, interdependent, and interrelated parts.
Ambiguity - The quality of being perceived in two or more possible interpretations, by multiple observers from multiple perspectives.
VUCA is the constant state of the Universe.
It never goes away.
It always was, is and will be!
When we accept VUCA as the normal state of things we are empowered to thrive!
Still need to be convinced?
Take a look at the recent images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
Pay particular attention to this “deep field” picture.
Imagine looking up into the night sky and examining an area the relative size of a grain of sand at arm’s length.
What did the JWST find?
Thousands of galaxies that are billions of light years away.
Many we never knew existed.
Go back to the “U” in VUCA.
Uncertainty.
We don’t know what we don’t know.
We need to be open and agile enough to adapt when what we don’t know all of a sudden (“V,” Volatility- quickly changing without warning) becomes known.
We also need to remember that oftentimes it’s not what we don’t know that gets us.
It’s usually what we are absolutely positive of and emotionally committed to that turns out not to be true.
(We have to thank Mark Twain or Will Rogers for that wisdom, it’s attributed to them both).
In our own environments we are dealing with people, ideas and things, hopefully in that order, that are not billions of light years away.
They’re here.
But does that make it any less uncertain or complex (“C,” Complexity- intricate connections within a whole seen and unseen)?
No.
The possibilities here are also of an exponential number of possibilities.
Maintaining an open and dynamic Orientation helps us anticipate those possibilities, even the ones that we don’t yet know about.
That’s how we thrive in VUCA!
Take a closer look at all the images from JWST.
See the VUCA, it’s absolutely amazing!
And then remind yourself that it’s the natural state of the Universe.
When we accept it, we can thrive!
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Love this. Just found you from Andy Moss’s note.
Interesting read.
I like the VUCA aspect. I used to participate with IARPA and that was how they would approach issues.