managing with vuca: breaking the corporate addiction to luck and hope
TRANSCRIPT
Managing With VUCA: Breaking The Corporate Addiction To Luck & HopeEVOLVED MANAG EMENT PR ACT ICES TO T HR IVE IN CO NT E MPOR A RY B USINE SS E NVIR O NMENTS
Agenda
• VUCA – The times, they are a changin’
• The tools and skills that pay the bills
• White Light
• Fortes Fortuna Adiuvat
It’s not your “Daddy’s corporate environment” anymore
Rules of “Daddy’s corporate environment”
Grow shareholder value through autonomous,
rigid and industrialized corporate structure.
Success is obtained by avoiding complexity and
focusing on repeatable events.
Long term, strategic thinking distracts from short
term success.
Great leadership avoids non-linear,
interdisciplinary approaches to obstacles.
With size comes power and control – “we’re too
big to fail.”
Has the business environment really changed?
Industrial Era Digital Era Social Era
800 lb Gorillas Rule
Low level of “inter-connected” industry and societies
High level of control over your environment
Slowly Evolving Future – High predictability
Accelerating level of “inter-connected” industry and societies
Moderate level of control over your environment
Moderately Evolving Future – Reasonable predictability
High level of “inter-connected” industry and societies
Minimum level of control over your environment
Rapidly Evolving Future – Minimum predictability
Business Environment Characteristics
800 lb Gorillas Endangered ??
Yes, it fundamentally has!
Industrial Era Digital Era Social Era
800 lb Gorillas Rule
TRADITIONAL STRATEGY• Self-Centered strategy matters most• Size equates to control• Stability is the goal for growth• Sustainable market dominance is possible• Centralized control of everything
MODERN STRATEGY• Pretty much the same thing…..with a few modifications• Outsource to lowest operational cost• Expand market channels to include website• 5 step sales cycle….ask a few questions• Create a workflow or value chain model
SOCIAL STRATEGY•Network based strategy matters most• Network interaction equates to understanding• Agility is the key to growth• Sustainable market loyalty is possible• Collaborative and integrated engagement of everything
800 lb Gorillas Endangered ??
Institutional value and power
is primary objective
Collaborative innovation is
primary objective
Can you feel it……………..?
Things change and happen so fast…..
Seemingly with no warning….
VUCA - Reality of contemporary business environments
•V olatile
•U ncertain
•C omplex
•A mbiguous
What does VUCA have to do with it?
A rapidly evolving, dynamic, chaotic, complex business environment is the norm rather than the exception.
IT ’ S NOT J UST A B UZ Z WO R D – O R A “ NE W AG E ” FE E L ING
Our technological and economic systems have also become dependent on networks of enormous complexity. This has made their behavior increasingly difficult to reason about, and increasingly risky to tinker with. It has made them susceptible to disruptions that spread through the underlying network structures, sometimes turning localized breakdowns into cascading failures or financial crises.
Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning about a Highly Connected World. Pg 1– David Easley and Jon Kleinberg. Cambridge University Press 2010
It is an evolution of our own making
A rapidly evolving, dynamic, chaotic, complex business environment is the norm rather than the exception.
THAT’S NOT THE PROBLEM
THAT’S THE PROBLEMThe fundamentals of business leadership and corporate strategy haven’t evolved at the same pace – creating a gap between social behavior and business practices.
Industrial Era
Digital Era
Social Era
This gap is filled by HOPE and LUCK
Evolve or become endangered…..
MANAGEMeasure
Monitor
Industrial Era
Digital Era
Social Era
MEASURE
MONITORManage
To drive out reliance on HOPE and LUCK you need management skills of pattern recognition, sense making and collaborative continuous improvement.
MANAGEMeasure
Monitor
Industrial Era
Digital Era
Social Era
MEASURE
MONITORManage
Fusion of evolved skills, tools and processes
THE EVOLVED LEADER
FORESIGHT
Pattern Recognition
Futuristic
Ideation
Environmental Scanning
Network Weaving
Game Modeling
SKILLS
INSIGHT
Big Data Analytics
Computational Modeling
Market Behavior Modeling
Chaos & Complex Theory Models
Open Innovation Platforms
TOOLS
THE EVOLVED ORGANIZATION
ACTION
Clear Strategic Goal
Organization Behavioral Management
Collaborative Network Structure
Engagement With Complexity
Multi-Strategy-Strategy
PROCESSES
“He may be mad, but there’s method in his madness. There nearly always is method in madness. It’s what drives men mad, being methodical.”
- G.K. Chesterton
Organizational InventorySet of analytical metrics designed to establish two primary points:• Serve as indicators for organization’s strategic and tactical alignment and balance with the market’s behavioral patterns•Performance baseline to measure and correlate strategies to improvements
Market Behavioral InventorySet of analytical metrics designed to establish two primary points:
• Behavioral Modeling and Mapping of profiles and stakeholder ecosystem within marketplace• Establish behavioral driven guidance program to calibrate strategic initiatives
Scope and Requirements for Evolution Balanced by economic and organizational realities:
• Phased or modular program that transitions to Social Era applicable management tools and processes• Deploys monitoring processes and analytics to drive the creation of a situational awareness picture
Continual Feedback and RecalibrationContinual assessment to increase confidence levels:
• Continual Improvement Programs to transition from reactive to proactive organizations• Increase confidence levels in monitoring and sensing skills, tools and processes
Is that the end of the tunnel, or an oncoming train?
AT THIS MOMENT OF TRUTH, JUST HOW MUCH HOPE AND LUCK IS INVOLVED WITH YOUR STRATEGY?
Leadership is about putting the organization or team in the best position to be successful.
ARE YOU ON THE RIGHT TRACK?
“You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things, so that all of the small things go in the right direction.”
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
- Alvin Toffler
Fortes Fortuna Adiuvat
FORTUNE FAVORS THE BOLD
Hope is a wonderful human element and luck is a great thing to have.
You just don’t want to have them as a key component of your strategy.
Change is never a simple and easy thing to do.
Change though is constant in life, and things have fundamentally changed.
Complexity is traditionally an uncomfortable thing to absorb.
Simplicity though, lies just on the other side of complexity.
THERE IS HELP OUT THERE. WE’RE HERE FOR YOU. WE CAN HELP YOU BREAK THE ADDICTION.
Acknowledgments
Harvard Business Review – Blog Network: Nilofer Merchant http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/02/rules_for_the_social_era.html
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/09/traditional_strategy_is_dead_w.html
DUKE – The Fuqua School of Business:http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/programs/other_programs/executive_education/advanced_management/vuca_video
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Cornell University: David Easley and Jon Kleinberg – Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning About a Highly Connected World
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks -book/
K. H-S
Google Imagery
Audio: http://trainweb.org/mdamtrak199/trainsounds.html
About
I believe the value from traditional principles related to analyzing market or social environments is becoming extremely limited. Current and emerging issues facing the world today are more complex and dynamic in nature than in decades past. Traditional, simple, and historic demographic based data isn't sophisticated enough to properly quantify the characteristics of these more complex and dynamic market and social environments. This results in failed or stalled attempts to introduce needed innovations into the marketplace which in turn is often mistakenly characterized as ineffective. However, the innovation isn't necessarily ineffective, rather the business strategies and tactics deployed to deliver the innovation to the marketplace may be fundamentally flawed. An increased level of complexity requires a similar increase in sophistication to measure, monitor and manage.
Why
Business Strategist and Solution Engineer with a background in Communications Studies: Issue Management & Behavioral Studies. 15+ years experience in developing and deploying the principles presented. Always open to connecting and collaborating with those “in the know” on building a smarter planet.
Contactwww.linkedin.com/in/dsypnieski/www.davidsypnieski.com/blog/ www.davidsypnieski.comwww.slideshare.net/davidsypwww.ted.com/profiles/1689287