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VUCA is an acronym – first used in 1987, drawing on the leadership theories of
Warren Bennis Warren Gamaliel Bennis (March 8, 1925 – July 31, 2014) was an American scholar, organizational consultant and author, widely regarded as a pioneer of the contemporary field of Leadership studies.Burt Nanus – to describe or to reflect on the volatility,
uncertainty Uncertainty refers to epistemic situations involving imperfect or unknown information. It applies to predictions of future events, to physical measurements that are already made, or to the unknown. Uncertainty arises in partially observable or ...
,
complexity Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interaction, interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to nonlinearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence. The term is generall ...
and
ambiguity Ambiguity is the type of meaning in which a phrase, statement or resolution is not explicitly defined, making several interpretations plausible. A common aspect of ambiguity is uncertainty. It is thus an attribute of any idea or statement ...
of general conditions and situations. The
U.S. Army War College The United States Army War College (USAWC) is a U.S. Army educational institution in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on the 500-acre (2 km2) campus of the historic Carlisle Barracks. It provides graduate-level instruction to senior military officer ...
introduced the concept of VUCA to describe the more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous multilateral world perceived as resulting from the end of the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
. More frequent use and discussion of the term "VUCA" began from 2002 and derives from this acronym from military education. It has subsequently taken root in emerging ideas in
strategic leadership Strategic leadership is the ability to influence others to voluntarily make decisions that enhance the prospects for the organization's long-term success while maintaining short-term financial stability. Different leadership approaches impact the ...
that apply in a wide range of
organization An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from ...
s, from for-profit
corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...
s to
education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
.


Meaning

The deeper meaning of each element of VUCA serves to enhance the strategic significance of VUCA foresight and insight as well as the
behaviour Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as wel ...
of groups and individuals in organizations. It discusses systemic failures and behavioural failures, which are characteristic of organisational failure. * V = Volatility: the nature and dynamics of change, and the nature and speed of change forces and change catalysts. * U = Uncertainty: the lack of
predictability Predictability is the degree to which a correct prediction or forecast of a system's state can be made, either qualitatively or quantitatively. Predictability and causality Causal determinism has a strong relationship with predictability. Perf ...
, the prospects for surprise, and the sense of awareness and understanding of issues and events. * C = Complexity: the multiplex of forces, the confounding of issues, no cause-and-effect chain and confusion that surrounds organization. * A = Ambiguity: the haziness of reality, the potential for misreads, and the mixed meanings of conditions; cause-and-effect confusion. These elements present the context in which organizations view their current and future state. They present boundaries for
planning Planning is the process of thinking regarding the activities required to achieve a desired goal. Planning is based on foresight, the fundamental capacity for mental time travel. The evolution of forethought, the capacity to think ahead, is consi ...
and policy management. They come together in ways that either confound decisions or sharpen the capacity to look ahead, plan ahead, and move ahead. VUCA sets the stage for managing and leading. The particular meaning and relevance of VUCA often relates to how people view the conditions under which they make decisions, plan forward, manage risks, foster change and solve problems. In general, the premises of VUCA tend to shape an organization's capacity to: #Anticipate the Issues that Shape #Understand the Consequences of Issues and Actions #Appreciate the Interdependence of Variables #Prepare for Alternative Realities and Challenges #Interpret and Address Relevant Opportunities For most contemporary organizations – business, the military, education, government and others – VUCA is a practical code for awareness and readiness. Beyond the simple acronym is a body of knowledge that deals with learning models for VUCA preparedness, anticipation, evolution and intervention.


Themes

Failure in itself may not be a catastrophe, but failure to learn from failure definitely is. It is not enough to train leaders in core competencies without identifying the key factors that inhibit their using the resilience and adaptability that are vital in order to distinguish potential leaders from mediocre managers. Anticipating change as a result of VUCA is one outcome of resilient leadership. The capacity of individuals and organizations to deal with VUCA can be measured with a number of engagement themes: #Knowledge Management and Sense-Making #Planning and Readiness Considerations #Process Management and Resource Systems #Functional Responsiveness and Impact Models #Recovery Systems and Forward Practices #Systemic failures #Behavioural failures At some level, the capacity for VUCA management and leadership hinges on enterprise value systems, assumptions and natural goals. A "prepared and resolved" enterprise is engaged with a strategic agenda that is aware of and empowered by VUCA forces. The capacity for VUCA leadership in strategic and operating terms depends on a well-developed mindset for gauging the technical, social, political, market and economic realities of the environment in which people work. Working with deeper smarts about the elements of VUCA may be a driver for survival and
sustainability Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...
in an otherwise complicated world.
Psychometrics Psychometrics is a field of study within psychology concerned with the theory and technique of measurement. Psychometrics generally refers to specialized fields within psychology and education devoted to testing, measurement, assessment, and ...
which measure fluid intelligence by tracking information processing when faced with unfamiliar, dynamic and vague data can predict cognitive performance in VUCA environments.


Social Categorization


Volatility

Volatility is the V component of VUCA. This refers to the different situational social-categorization of people due to specific traits or reactions that stand out during that particular situation. When people react/act based on a specific situation, there is a possibility that the public categorizes them into a different group than they were in a previous situation. These people might respond differently to individual situations due to social or environmental cues. The idea that situational occurrences cause certain social categorization is known as volatility and is one of the main aspects of the self-categorization theory. Sociologists use volatility to understand better how stereotypes and social-categorization is impacted based on the situation at hand as well as any outside forces that may lead people to perceive others differently. Volatility is the changing dynamic of social-categorization in a set of environmental situations. The dynamic can change due to any shift in a situation, whether it is social, technical, biological or anything of the like. Studies have been conducted, but it has proven difficult to find the specific component that causes the change in situational social-categorization. There are two separate components that connect people to social identities. The first social cue is normative fit. This describes the degree that a person relates to the stereotypes and norms that others associate with their specific identity. For example, when a Hispanic woman is cleaning the house, most of the time, people connect gender stereotypes with this situation, while her ethnicity is not concerned, but when this same woman eats an enchilada, ethnicity stereotypes surface while her gender is not concerned. The second social cue is comparative fit. This is when a specific characteristic or trait of a person is prominent in certain situations when compared to other people. For example, as mentioned by Bodenhausen and Peery, when there is one woman in a room full of men. She sticks out because she is the only one of her gender compared to many others of the opposite gender. However, all of the men are clumped together because they do not have any specific traits that stands out among the rest of them. Comparative fit shows that people categorize others based on the comparative social context. In a certain situation, specific characteristics are made obvious due to the fact that others around that individual do not possess that characteristic. However, in other situations, this characteristic may be the norm and would not be a key characteristic in the categorization process. People can also be less criticizing of the same person during different situations. For example, when looking at an African American man on the street of a low-income neighborhood and when looking at the same man inside a school of a high-income neighborhood, people will be less judgmental when seeing him in the school. Nothing else has changed about this man, other than his location. When individuals are spotted in certain social contexts, the basic-level categories are forgotten and the more partial categories are brought to light. This really helps to describe the problems of situational social-categorization and how stereotypes can shift the perspectives of those around an individual.


Uncertainty

Uncertainty in the VUCA framework is almost just as it sounds: when the availability or predictability of information in events is unknown. Uncertainty often occurs in volatile environments that are complex in structure involving unanticipated interactions that are significant in uncertainty. Uncertainty may occur in the intention to imply causation or correlation between the events of a social perceiver and a target. Situations where there is either a lack of information to prove why a perception is in occurrence or informational availability but lack of causation are where uncertainty is salient. The uncertainty component of the framework serves as a grey area and is compensated by the use of social categorization and/or stereotypes. Social categorization can be described as a collection of people that have no interaction but tend to share similar characteristics with one another. People have a tendency to engage in social categorization, especially when there is a lack of information surrounding the event. Literature suggests that there are default categories that tend to be assumed in the absence of any clear data when referring to someone's gender or race in the essence of a discussion. Often individuals associate the use of general references (e.g. people, they, them, a group) with the male gender, meaning people = male. This instance often occurs when there is not enough information to clearly distinguish someone's gender. For example, when discussing a written piece of information most people will assume the author is a male. If an author's name is not available (lack of information) it is difficult to determine the gender of the author through the context of whatever was written. People will automatically label the author as a male without having any prior basis of gender, placing the author in a social category. This social categorization happens in this example, but people will also assume someone is a male if the gender is not known in many other situations as well. Social categorization occurs in the realm of not only gender but also race. Default assumptions can be made, like in gender, to the race of an individual or a group of people based on prior known stereotypes. For example, race-occupation combinations such as a basketball player or a golf player will receive race assumptions. Without any information of the individual's race, a basketball player will be assumed to be black and a golf player will be assumed to be white. This is based upon stereotypes because of the majority of race in each sport tend to be dominated by a single race, but in reality, there are other races within each sport.


Complexity

Complexity is the “C” component of VUCA, that refers to the interconnectivity and interdependence of multiple components in a system. When conducting research, complexity is a component that scholars have to keep in mind. The results of a deliberately controlled environment are unexpected because of the non-linear interaction and interdependencies within different groups and categories. In a sociological aspect, the VUCA framework is utilized in research to understand social perception in the real world and how that plays into social categorization as well as stereotypes. Galen V Bodenhausen and Destiny Peery's article Social Categorization and Stereotyping In vivo: The VUCA Challenge, focused on researching how social categories impacted the process of social cognition and perception. The strategy used to conduct the research is to manipulate or isolate a single identity of a target while keeping all other identities constant. This method creates clear results of how a specific identity in a social category can change one's perception of other identities, thus creating stereotypes. There are problems with categorizing an individual's social identity due to the complexity of an individual's background. This research fails to address the complexity of the real-world and the results from this highlighted an even great picture about social categorization and stereotyping. Complexity adds many layers of different components to an individual's identity and creates challenges for sociologists trying to examine social categories. In the real world, people are far more complex compared to a modified social environment. Individuals identify with more than one social category, which opens the door to a deeper discovery about stereotyping. Results from research conducted by Bodenhausen reveals that there are certain identities that are more dominant than others. Perceivers who recognize these specific identities latch on to it and associate their preconceived notion of such identity and make initial assumptions about the individuals and hence stereotypes are created. On the other hand, perceivers who share some of the identities with the target become more open-minded. They also take into consideration more than one social identity at the same time and this is also known as cross-categorization effects. Some social categories are embedded in a larger categorical structure, which makes that subcategory even more crucial and outstanding to perceivers. Research on cross-categorization reveals that different types of categories can be activated in the mind of the social perceiver, which causes both positive and negative effects. A positive outcome is that perceivers are more open-minded despite other social stereotypes. They have more motivation to think deeply about the target and see past the most dominant social category. Bodenhausen also acknowledges that cross-categorization effects lead to social invisibility. Some types of cross-over identities may lessen the noticeability of other identities, which may cause targets to be subjected to “intersectional invisibility,” where neither social identities have a distinct component and are overlooked.


Ambiguity

Ambiguity is the “A” component of VUCA. This refers to when the general meaning of something is unclear even when an appropriate amount of information is provided. Many get confused about the meaning of ambiguity. It is similar to the idea of uncertainty but they have different factors. Uncertainty is when relevant information is unavailable and unknown, and ambiguity where relevant information is available but the overall meaning is still unknown. Both uncertainty and ambiguity exist in our culture today. Sociologists use ambiguity to determine how and why an answer has been developed. Sociologists focus on details such as if there was enough information present, and did the subject have the full amount of knowledge necessary to make a decision. and why did he/she come to their specific answer. Ambiguity leads to people assuming an answer, and many times this leads assuming ones race, gender, and can even lead to class stereotypes. If a person has some information but still doesn't have the overall answer, the person starts to assume his/her own answer based on the relevant information he/she already possesses. For example, as mentioned by Bodenhausen we may occasionally encounter people who are sufficiently androgynous to make it difficult to ascertain their gender, and at least one study suggests that with brief exposure, androgynous individuals can sometimes be miscategorized on the basis of gender-atypical features (very long hair, for a man, or very short hair, for a woman. Overall, ambiguity leads to the categorization of many. For example, it may lead to assuming one's sexual orientation. Unless a person is open about their own sexual orientation, people will automatically assume that they are heterosexual. But if a man possesses feminine qualities or a female possesses masculine qualities then they might be portrayed as either gay or lesbian. Ambiguity leads to the categorization of people without further important details that could lead to untrue conclusions. Sociologists believe that ambiguity can lead to race stereotypes and discrimination. In a study done in South Africa by three sociologists, they had white citizens of South Africa look at pictures of racially mixed faces and they had to decide whether these faces were European or African. Because these test subjects were all white they had a hard problem defining these mixed-race faces as European and deemed them all to be African. The reason they did this is because of ambiguity. The information that was available was the skin tone of the people in the pictures and the facial qualities they possessed, with this information the test subjects had all of that information available but still did not know the answer for sure. They overall assumed because they did not look exactly like them, then they could not be European.


Responses and Revisions

Levent Işıklıgöz (academic) offered The "C" of VUCA to be changed from Complexity to Chaos, arguing that it is more suitable according to our era. This is still discussed in sociology society. Bill George, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, argues that VUCA calls for a leadership response which he calls VUCA 2.0: Vision, Understanding, Courage and Adaptability. Ali Aslan Gümüsay adds paradox to the acronym calling it VUCA + paradox and VUCAP.


See also

*
Antifragile (disambiguation) Antifragility is a property of systems in which they benefit from shocks. Antifragile or Anti-fragile may refer to: * ''Antifragile'' (book), a 2012 book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb * ''Antifragile'' (EP), 2022 extended play record by Le Ssera ...
*
Cynefin framework The Cynefin framework ( ) is a conceptual framework used to aid decision-making. Created in 1999 by Dave Snowden when he worked for IBM Global Services, it has been described as a " sense-making device". ''Cynefin'' is a Welsh word for ''habitat' ...
*
Fear, uncertainty, and doubt Fear, uncertainty and doubt (often shortened to FUD) is a propaganda tactic used in sales, marketing, public relations, politics, polling and cults. FUD is generally a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or ...
(FUD) *
Global Simplicity Index Simplicity is the state or quality of being simple. Something easy to understand or explain seems simple, in contrast to something complicated. Alternatively, as Herbert A. Simon suggests, something is simple or complex depending on the way we ch ...
*
Goldilocks process The Goldilocks principle is named by analogy to the children's story " The Three Bears", in which a young girl named Goldilocks tastes three different bowls of porridge and finds she prefers porridge that is neither too hot nor too cold, but has ...
*
Innovation butterfly The innovation butterfly is a metaphor that describes how seemingly minor perturbations (disturbances or changes) to project plans in a system connecting markets, demand, product features, and a firm's capabilities can steer the project, or an enti ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity And Ambiguity Business models