V.U.C.A.

This weekend I talked with my kids, with whom I share a passion for writing, about how little I have written lately. Then Matías, my oldest son, told me what he is doing: writing a set number of words every day, about anything, but writing. What he does is meet a daily quota.

So I’m going to start doing that: write, write, write every day. It’s the only way I’m going to fall back in love with this thing I like so much. I think what happened to me is something my daughter Javiera pointed out: after publishing my book I was left with a feeling of having to live up to expectations, which are really only my own. An unnecessary self-imposed demand that takes all the charm out of having a blog.

So I’m going to follow my kids’ advice and go back to writing more often, about anything, about whatever comes out.

To start, I’m going to tell you about an acronym that comes from the military world but that entered the vocabulary of management and leadership in the nineties.

In English the original acronym is V.U.C.A.: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity.

In Spanish I translate it as V.I.C.A.: Volatilidad, Incerteza, Complejidad y Ambigüedad.

The idea is that an organization’s deep understanding of these four elements helps improve the vision (the foresight) behind the strategy of a company, or a team.

Let’s look at each term of the acronym:

- Volatility has to do with the nature and dynamics of change, the nature of the speed of the forces that drive change, and the study of the catalysts of those changes.

- Uncertainty is about the lack of ability to predict, to anticipate or forecast surprise events, and the sense of awareness and understanding of the events and happenings around us.

- Complexity, something we have talked about before. The multiplicity of forces, the tangle of issues, the chaos that surrounds the organization.

- Ambiguity, the haziness of reality, the potential for misunderstandings, the mixed meanings of conditions, the confusion between cause and effect.

These four elements make up the context in which organizations see their current and future state. They represent the boundaries for planning and for policy management. They show up in ways that muddle decisions or reduce the ability to look ahead, to plan and to move forward.

In a way these are the four pillars of the stage on which we have to manage and lead. Only if we are aware that they exist can we prepare to anticipate, intervene and evolve.

(Photo: “Salto al vacío del colirrojo tizón”, by Ferrán Pestaña, taken from here and used under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license)