The term VUCA, popularized by the US Army War College after the fall of the Berlin Wall, was a trendy managerial phrase before COVID brought the term into frequent mainstream media usage.
Volatility
Uncertainty
Complexity
Ambiguity
It’s certainly an apt way to describe the rollercoaster – or perpetual fog – of the past 2 years.
And, as this map from Google Trends shows, there are few countries that haven’t searched for this term. Somewhat ironically, my former homeland of Zimbabwe ranks in the top 3 countries searching for a meaning for VUCA.
Global searches for VUCA since January 2019
This week a passionate Twitter conversation between Tom Peters, Mark Crowley, FIRED Leadership (Paul McCarthy) and several others brought VUCA – and more specifically the Ambiguity phrase - into sharp focus and sharper reflection.
Tom, in his classic unambiguous style, was railing against the popular term “Authentic Leadership” and the wisdom of having to put a qualifier like authentic in front of the word leadership. His tongue-in-cheek recommendation was to replace leadership with “give-a-fuck-ism” which would be more useful and easier to define. Amusingly, based on the number of searches for “authentic leadership”, it would appear that many of his American countrymen would applaud exorcising that phrase from common vernacular.
Global searches for “Authentic Leadership” since January 2019
Of the 4 dimensions above, Ambiguity strikes me as one that we have slightly (or infinitely) more agency and control over. Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity has, in my somewhat reductionist view, a high degree of external factors and external players driving them.
Oil prices. Supply chains. Climate events. Political upheavals. Web3.0. Sovereignty of the Taiwan Straits. Vaxxers and Anti-Vaxxers. Fans of Neil Diamond and those with no musical appreciation.
These are volatile, uncertain, and complex topics.
Which got me thinking.
How much Ambiguity do we create for ourselves and for our people?
How much does Ambiguity impede our ability to move forward in a cogent fashion?
How much Ambiguity is actually self-inflicted?
Take a moment’s pause and look around your organization, at your recent communications and your leadership actions and ask could this be increasing, or reducing, ambiguity for our colleagues?
In the immortal words of Josh Bernoff (a must follow is his daily Without Bullshit blog) how many weasel words are used in your internal communications, your sales discussions, or Press Releases? Take an audit and then do everything humanly possible to exorcise them from your vernacular. This delicious post from Hubspot gives you a few easy starters.
The other classic in organizational culture is the heady, evocative, stirring – and dangerously ambiguous – terms we put into our organizational values. Terms like Trust, Integrity, Safety, Innovation that probably have as many personal definitions and interpretations as you have employees.
Please, in the name of all that is good and holy, if you’re doing a Corporate Values exercise then remove some stress from the harried lives of your colleagues by being explicitly and unambiguously clear about the associated behavioursyou want to see them exhibit. Define those behaviours in the context of your organization, and your strategy, so there’s no mistaking your intent and your expectations. Cheap shot but think about how broadly (mis)interpreted the Wells Fargo value of “what’s right for customers” and Volkswagen’s value of “integrity” were in the past several years.
The eloquent Ron Tite has a simple mantra - start with what you want people to DO, then move on to what you want to SAY. That probably bears constant (daily?) reiteration.
But we live in a highly nuanced, rapidly evolving and fluid world Hilton, I hear you say.
I’ve got two teenagers so trust me I know, and feel, your legitimate pain.
I’ve worked inside environments, and with colleagues, who wildly misinterpreted the lessons in Kim Scott’s book “Radical Candour” seeing it as open season on napalming their colleagues under the guise of “I was just being candid”. So, yes, I do understand the gaping chasm and potential toxicity that creating zero ambiguity might unlock.
I can also empathise with anyone writing or conversing in a language like English with its multiple layers of meaning, context, and interpretation. Spend 30 minutes on Twitter if you want to see how outraged total strangers can get over a single misplaced term or an auto-correct on your 140 characters.
However, as we are all still embroiled in the Sturm und Drang of Covid (and oil prices, supply chain, climate change events, etc. etc.) consider areas of influence and control you do have over the ambiguity in your organization.
With abject zeal, make it a mission to remove it from your organization and from your culture.
Remove it from how you communicate.
Remove it from how you set expectations of yourself and your colleagues.
Remove it from how you deal with clients, partners, the media and yes, even how you deal with your competitors.
Consider removing ambiguity as a great unlock of your people and a great unleash of their potential…versus a contributing factor in their Great Resignation.
We may have scant agency and authority over volatility, uncertainty, and complexity but we could get to a place where we have less, or even no, ambiguity.
To that I say “VUC YEAH!!”
Note – if you’re wondering how you might remove or reduce this inside your culture, I suggest starting here.