Some Strategies for Complexity:

Complexity, by definition, cannot be managed.  Complicated can, yes – but not complexity.  The best we can do is acknowledge it, and then try to look at it in smaller chunks, evaluating each one independently, before then putting those chunks back together to form larger entities that must also be evaluated.  This requires people who…

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Some Strategies for Uncertainty and Ambiguity: 

One frequent challenge is people who are unwilling to say “I don’t know” or “I was wrong”.  If people can’t own what they don’t know or their mistakes, then the focus becomes on protecting – either my ignorance or my error – without regard for the impact to the organization.  When that’s the case, there’s…

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Some Strategies for Volatility

Volatility can be minimized by open-minded scenario planning, serious succession planning, and ensuring more than one person has a working knowledge of all things critical and important. While these won’t stop an external VUCA event, such as someone getting hit by a bus, they will certainly go a long way toward reducing the impact of…

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Organizational VUCA

VUCA shows up in organizations from two different sources – external and internal – and it is worthwhile to know the difference.  Some examples of external VUCA include:  the state of the global economy, the actions the government is taking to try to manage the market, what our competitors are doing, and even environmental occurrences. …

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VUCA and the VIRUS

In response to this coronavirus pandemic, we took the work we were already doing with some of our collaborators (Carol Mase and Tom Roy) and distilled it into the basics, which we are offering as a PDF.

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Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend (a TED Talk)

Ted talks – Kelly_McGonigal:  How_to_make_stress_your_friend Stress. It makes your heart pound, your breathing quicken and your forehead sweat. But while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new research suggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case. Psychologist Kelly McGonigal urges us to see…

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