Blog

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

Preparing for Change Flowchart

Answering the 17 questions contained in our Preparing for Change Flowchart will assist you in preparing to address or navigate the potential pitfalls associated with an intentional change initiative.  It...

Preparing for Successful Change

Check out our paper on "Preparing for Successful Change."  Implementing a change initiative is more than a simple technical fix for your problems. Instead, it's a significant shift in the...

Your Communications May Not Be Communicating

Your Communications May Not Be Communicating - Have you ever been in an organization where communication was not an issue? If so, you're the exception rather than the rule. Large...

Navigating Change for Success

"Navigating Change for Success" is a collaborative white paper Don Johnston and Cindy Weeks co-authored that was presented at the MEMO conference in Ontario Canada in 2010.  In this VUCA...

It’s a VUCA World

Denise Caron's "It's a VUCA World" is a colorful and creative powerpoint presentation on VUCA - what it means, where it shows up, ways to respond. http://www.slideshare.net/dcaron/its-a-vuca-world-cips-cio-march-5-2009-draft

Understanding the VUCA World

"Understanding the VUCA World," a video with Bob Johansen and David Small.  Bob Johansen, from The Institute For the Future, is the creator of VUCA prime.  In this short video...

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...

Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce (a TED Talk)

Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce - Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell gets inside the food industry's pursuit of the perfect spaghetti sauce - and makes a larger argument about the...

Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story (a TED Talk)

Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story - Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her...

Ken Robinson says Schools Kill Creativity (a TED Talk)

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity - Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.  Creativity expert...