A CUP OF VUCACHINO IS THE NEW FLAVOUR IN BUSINESS-TOWN… THE TASTE IS NEW, MAKING NEW LIKES AND DEMANDING NEW PROPORTIONS LIKE EVERY “NEW THING” IN BUSINESS-TOWN… EVERY BUSINESS CAN ASK FOR A SHARE OF VUCACHINO, SAVOURING THE NEW FLAVOUR WILL THOUGH NEED, AGILE CREATIVE MINDS…
Look around you and you will notice that we today live in a truly global village. It’s a village defined by no boundaries and even if there are any, they are seamless ones. These boundaries are also invisible, creating a challenge for organizational culture make-up as well as for communities and society at large. We have been witness to many tides of change and have always welcomed change as it has brought dynamism to the world that we live in and helped us do business and build our futures. Many a times, we have borrowed and acknowledged terms defined by the defence services which have always been known for their “preparedness for change”. Our present “VUCA” world term was also coined by the US Army, War College. They had anticipated well ahead of time that the winds of change had picked up speed and would bring with it volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Even Nicholas Taleb, a Lebanese American scholar said a few years back that we are surrounded in this age and stage by many “Black-Swans”, events and incidents that are difficult to predict because they are the low probability outliers; with the past providing hardly any if not no reliable precedence. And yet these Black-Swan events have a huge and profound impact. They change the way our world is and thus the world we do business and live in. Today we are all living in our small mini VUCA villages, part of the bigger Global VUCA village with Black Swans all around us, whom we cannot proactively see and thus ward off or prepare in advance.
Change and dynamism have acted as catalysts to propel our thinking enabling us to have a vision which can absorb the volatility like a sponge, assisting us by making our minds agile to decipher all kinds of ambiguity in the present multi-coloured, uncertain times. It makes us proactively look through the uncertain complex times and makes us learn the art to be patient and composed to see the clarity of ways. Every second of the larger minute we live and operate in this Global village, we keep sculpting our future which sometimes may almost be at a tangent to the earlier known paths and ways. On one such occasion when the VUCA world said hello to the internet world, how well did we know that the way the world will know communication will change forever. It changed forever but yes we too accepted it as a change, making us feel as if we were drifting to newer vibrant times. Companies felt enthused and sceptical as with this new age magic, a local sitting anywhere in the Global village could still interact and do business with other “Globally located local villages”.
“Snowden and Sandbridge’s model” of tolerance versus complexity in 2004 also emphasizes the same, stating that the VUCA times are here to stay and will bring social complexity along with it. Our talent in this changing, challenging “VUCA – Black Swan business village” also now needs to be made of a new mould. A mould made of fine granulated mix of a mind lens with a greater aperture, adaptability and flexibility to operate across cultures and multi-country regulations, in almost real-time. Proactive readiness of “our talent” is the only key to open the Lock of future business needs. The “War of Talent” is already a reality of the present times, and it will only increase demand as time goes by but only for the “agile, progressive, development oriented Talent”. Only those companies that are able to attract and develop “VUCA – Savvy” talent will have a competitive advantage for building business success stories. “VUCA Savvy” talent needs to be identified young in their lives within an organization. Once spotted, it should be steered through multiple facets to have the ability to capitalize on local strengths and global opportunities. Focus is needed to continuously nurture and groom an army of “VUCA – Savvy” early-spotted talent. This talent – pool is the only short and long term compounding fixed deposit which every company can depend on. This will also give time to explore and scan the best suited strategic directions to be taken in line with the company’s vision and maintain the growth continuum.
“If the rate of change inside your firm is slower… than the rate of change occurring outside your firm, … your end is in sight… Jack Welch’s philosophy
In this kaleidoscopic world of change, the locus of control for companies and talent development has to only be intrinsic. A greater demand will be from the thought leaders driving this internal growth aligned with an exponential external change. They will only be able to succeed if they are believers and followers of “adaptive and enabling leadership styles”. “VUCA – Savvy” talent needs to continuously have a purpose to be driven by the speedy winds of change and only if every company anchors in intrinsic values, will they be able to maintain agility to walk in unison with the company’s value talk and value belief.
While some still think that the VUCA world is seasonal, many other companies have come to believe that this changing world is here to stay and are converting VUCA elements to become an advantage and a catalyst for transformation. Change will demand new factors to be valued by all, be collaborative, display resilience and walk towards holistic systems thinking. Learning organizations are the ones which will survive and excel because of their adaptive quality towards business and talent development needs. Ability to understand the “opportunity cost” at the nick of business time will make risk taking productive as that will be a prerequisite which will enable much-needed futuristic scalability. In VUCA world, executives need to prepare and shift from ‘dealing with ambiguity’ as a competence to ‘living in and dealing with confusion’ as a capability.
Author Information:
Diptii Das is the Head-HR, South Asia at Aramex International. She is an alumnus of TISS, Mumbai Batch of 2002-04.
