VUCA (Volatile, Uncertainty, Complex and Ambiguous) world is fast emerging and we can already see many indications of it in the present. We need to address the VUCA world through our own VUCA – Vision, Understanding, Clarity and Agility. Bob Johansen’s 10 Leadership skills for a Leader to be successful in VUCA world are as follows: Maker Instinct, Clarity, Dilemma flipping, Immersive Learning ability, Bio-Empathy, Constructive Depolarizing, Quiet Transparency, Rapid Prototyping, Smart Mob Organizing, and Commons Creating.
We covered the first five of these Leadership skills in the last article. Let us dive into the remaining five Leadership skills. These points are covered at a high level due to paucity of space. However, I am available in person, for any detailed discussions.
Constructive Depolarizing: The VUCA world will be a polarized world. Many people will be so confused by the VUCA world that they will demand simple solutions – even when there is no simplicity and no solution. Constructive Depolarizing is the ability to calm tense situations where differences dominate and communication has broken down – bringing people from divergent cultures toward constructive engagement. Polarization could lead to conflict between groups, as there is no right way and it is difficult to convince people on data, as data would not exist (or too much data to make any sense). In such situations, it is imperative for Leaders to calm the situation (addressing the tense environment and conflict). They should ensure that they do not take any sides, empathize with people involved and slowly work with these groups to build a constructive dialogue that could move things forward. This is very different than the way a Leader operates today where he/she could take positions and convince people on the rationale. In a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous world, such rationale may not work. Leaders who are gifted with skill for constructive depolarizing are able to look beyond differences and identify the qualities that bring communities together.
Quite Transparency: Quiet transparency is the ability to be open and authentic about what matters to you – without advertising yourself. We are coming to the end of rock-star leadership, where leaders are self-advertising and self-centered. In VUCA world, we need leaders who are strong and confident but do not crave for celebrity status. We need Leaders who do the right things, be transparent about it and yet do not self-advertise. In today’s world of social media, people will learn about you even if you do not advertise yourself. Tomorrows preferred Leadership style would be a strong, confident yet humble leader.
Rapid Prototyping: Ability to create quickly early versions of innovations , with the expectation that later success will require early failures. Rapid prototyping is the ability to fail early, fail often, and fail cheaply. With the uncertainty of the VUCA world, the only way to make the future is rapid prototype your way toward it. When you start on a new project, learn to build prototypes on first day. Future designs will be based on prototypes (Design thinking propagates rapid prototyping – a concept that I’ll cover in a future blog). And as we progress on the project and with discussions from various communities, the design/prototype will evolve to emerge into a better product/outcome. If we follow the traditional approach, failure rate would be high and such failures would be costly to organizations.
Smart mob organizing: Ability to exploit your inner drive to build and grow things, as well as connect with others in the making. The idea of aggregating groups of people for a cause, change or movement and aggregating through social media or multiple media is called Smart Mob organizing. In VUCA world, Leader should be able to tap into the potential of the larger number of people by leveraging them through social media towards a common goal. We already see many examples of the role of social media in smart mob organizing. Few examples are Arab uprising and Occupy Wallstreet – both have drawn significant attention across the world and the former having a significant impact on the governments across Middle East. Key aspect is the speed at which both the information and movement spread across geographies – enabling to build the momentum and spreading the message/updates.
Commons Creating: Commons Creating is the ultimate leadership skill in VUCA world. Where Smart Mobs tend to be ad-hoc, Commons are sustainable over a period of time. It is the ability of Leader to bring disparate people/groups/communities to work together to create a shared asset that is profitable, productive and socially constructive. Few examples of Commons Creating are Eric Whitacre’s virtual choir, Innovation through crowdsourcing and buying power through GroupOn. Let us examine these a little more:
Eric Whitacre is an American Grammy award winning composer and conductor. One day, he received a link from his friend that has a YouTube video. This video was recorded by a fan of Eric Whitacre, singing a composition of his and dedicating the song/video to him. This threw up a light bulb for Eric and he decided to have a virtual choir sing his composition. He uploaded a silent (and subsequently with piano music) and asked people across the world to upload their videos, singing to his orchestration. With the number of videos that have been submitted, he could create a virtual choir with 185 singers featuring 12 countries. He got ambitious and moved on to virtual choir 2.0 project and this time, it featured 2000+ voices from 58 countries; and recently released virtual choir 3.0 (in April 2012) featured 2945 people from 73 different countries. This virtual choir has enabled people from different countries/races/age groups/religions come together to sing as one single group and provided them an opportunity to connect with each other. This platform also has given rise to the hopes of many people who wanted to be a singer but could not get an opportunity. You could watch Choir 3.0 – ‘Water Night’ on YouTube at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3rRaL-Czxw
Groupon is a deal-of-the-day website that features discounted gift certificates usable at local or national companies in United States, Europe, Asia and South America. It was launched in 2008 with first market in Chicago. Groupon leverages the power of web to bring together disparate consumers to amalgamate into a buying power that could negotiate with vendors. The business model creates a win-win-win situation – win for the buyer as they are able to get the deal at a great discount; win for the vendor as it guarantees the quantum of customers before the deal becomes active (and hence saving on upfront marketing costs) and finally to Groupon who makes money in the process. This would not have been possible without the power of web. Once again, a classic example of Commons Creating, - bringing together disparate parties towards a profitable/productive motive.
It is important for Leaders to build on these Leadership skills to be successful in VUCA world. However, what does it take to build these skills? What changes in the mindset have to be made? How would you negotiate this journey?
