The World of Tomorrow

Future – People are always intrigued by it and would love to know more about it. This can be seen by the demand for horoscopes in newspapers or at the tarot card reader counter at a fair. In our entire endeavor to know more about future, we always bank upon others to tell us about it. We are more interested in a tarot reader predicting how our health or career would be in the future, than determining it ourselves. Can we make our own future?

I have been doing my own research about how future world would be and what Leadership skills are required to be successful in the future. As part of my research, I came across a company, “Institute for the Future” that creates 10 year forecasts on how the world will be. Dr. Bob Johansen, Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for the Future, along with John Ryan, President of CCL (Creative Center of Leadership)  has written a book “Leaders make the Future” and discussed the Leadership skills that are required in tomorrow’s Leaders. I’d like to share my learning with you. I’ll present this in 3 part series. This blog focuses on the nature of the world that we live in (inspired by the work done by Dr. Bob Johansen). Part 2 would focus on sharing 10 leadership skills for the future as listed by Dr. Bob Johansen. Part 3 would be my perspectives on what we should be doing today to equip ourselves to scale up to these leadership skills.

We are living in a VUCA world. VUCA is a term coined at the US Army War College, which is a graduate school for Generals-to-be in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguous and this is how the US army college describes the current world for which it must prepare the military leaders. It is no different for Organizations and Leaders. Let us look at these a little more in detail:

·         Volatility – We are living in a world that is changing at a rapid pace. Nature and dynamics of these changes along with the speed of change is creating volatility in the world.

·         Uncertainty – There is lack of predictability and high possibility for surprise. There is limited sense of awareness and understanding of issues and events happening around us. We are operating in a world where we are unclear about present situation and future outcomes.

·         Complexity – With multiple forces at play, there is constant chaos and confusion that surround an organization. A Leader is faced with multiplicity of decision factors. Due to the rapid change in the world, there are an increasing number of forces that are outside the control of the Leader that are influencing his/her world.

·         Ambiguous – There is lack of clarity about meaning of an event. With constant change, there is confusion about the reality. What is real today may not be tomorrow. There is high potential for misreading of the situations. It is very difficult to predict cause-and-effect relationship as with so much change, cause and effect could always be confusing.

Rapid technological changes, increasing global interconnections, climate change, population growth, global age and income disparities are combining to create a highly volatile and unpredictable terrain. In the VUCA world, one has to be prepared to respond to low-probability but high-impact events caused by extreme weather conditions (example – ash clouds disrupting aviation sector in Europe, Tsunami significantly impacting Japanese economy and supply chain of the world), rapid political shifts (example – Stalemate in Indian political scenario and lack of progress on reforms; constant change in stance of Samajwadi party on FDI in retail; Recent elections in Greece and threatening impact on European economy), or major infrastructure failures. Organizations and Leaders must accept uncertainty as inevitable.

We are moving from a world of problems (which demanded speed, analysis and elimination of uncertainty to solve) to a world of dilemmas (which demand patience, sense-making and an engagement with uncertainty). We are faced with dilemmas that are unsolvable, complex and often messy, threatening, confusing and laden with puzzling choices. These require different leadership attributes to address them. Leaders must learn to thrive in the space between judging too soon (classic mistake of the problem-solver) and deciding too late (classic mistake of the academic).

However, I’d agree with Bob Johansen that VUCA is a state of mind. While a Leader could be confused with the Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguous, another Leader could make the future by seeing a new VUCA (Vision, Understanding, Clarity and Agility). Let us look at these in more particular:

·         Vision – From Volatility around us, a Leader could create a vision. It is an intent that seeks to CREATE the future. The Leader is not following the directions of the forecast but is willing to create his/her own future. She has a clear intent, clear direction for her actions.

·         Understanding – Leader has to stop, look and listen. In the face of uncertainty, listening and understanding can help Leader discover new ways of thinking and acting.

·         Clarity – Leader has to make sense of the chaos. The VUCA world rewards clarity because people are so confused that they grasp anything that helps them make sense out of chaos.

·         Agility – With rapid change around us, Leaders cannot make multi-year plan and rest. With changing world, Leader has to be agile. She has to leverage her networks to be able to get things done quickly as against depending upon hierarchies. VUCA world severely punishes the rigidity and brittleness of hierarchies.

Hence, while VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguous) world could be threatening, at the same time, it gives Leaders opportunities to thrive in it through the new VUCA (Vision, Understanding, Clarity and Agility). Leaders cannot predict the future but they must make sense of it in order to thrive. That’s the ultimate paradox of Leaders.

As a Leader, you have the ability to make your own world of tomorrow. The question is not how capable you are to the task, as given the orientation is towards the future, all of us are equally capable. The question is how willing are you to the task? How willing are you to make your own future? As Alvin Toffler said “The illiterate of 21^st century will not be those who cannot read & write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn”