Each week, I’m featuring excerpts from a chapter of my leadership book When the Curveballs Keep Coming: A Leadership Playbook for an Uncertain World to provide insights that can help all leaders adjust to these times of unrelenting uncertainty.
Last week, we outlined the three big shifts every leader needs to make, and why success in an uncertain world looks very different in the world in which we’ve been accustomed to leading.
This week, we’ll outline “Your Journey to Readiness” and take a look at the sometimes uncomfortable (but totally worth it!) adventure ahead.
The journey to readiness won’t be easy or feel natural. It will require a commitment to do the work of self-examination, to give up the belief that we have the answers or that we can rely on past experience to create our future. It will feel scary. You might want to turn away, to return to the status quo, believing that the worst is behind you. That would be the easy, reasonable path to take; to go back to relying on what is comfortable and known, what worked for you in a more certain world.
No question, uncertainty can put us on the defense, making us avoid risk instead of embracing opportunity. But uncertainty can also be a gift if, instead, you open up and look at challenges from a place of “what can be,” not a place of resignation.
We call this state of mind that sees possibility instead of loss VUCA Ready™. You might already be familiar with the term “VUCA,” which originally stood for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. It’s a military and management concept used to describe any challenging or difficult situation. And while that can aptly describe our current environment of unrelenting uncertainty, we believe that there is a more fitting, more positive way to approach this that will enable leaders to successfully navigate this environment.
VUCA Ready™ includes Volatile and Uncertain from the original definition, acknowledging the changing and uncertain environment we are operating in—but then adds Capacity and Achievement. This important change focuses on the importance of building capacity in ourselves and our teams—and discovering what we can achieve through a possibilities mindset.
VUCA Ready™ is a “state,” a powerful approach to leading in uncertain times, a new mindset and leadership benchmark that provides the foundation for today’s leaders to normalize the unexpected and tackle whatever is thrown at them.
You will see this possibilities mindset in the “Curveball” at the end of Chapter Five, where you will learn how Meg Bear, Chief Product Officer at SAP Success Factors, successfully guided her team through SAP’s Reinvent strategy, where she had to navigate a changing market and changing organization against the backdrop of the pandemic.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little peek into Chapter 5 of my leadership book When the Curveballs Keep Coming: A Leadership Playbook for an Uncertain World. Next week we’ll move on the second section of my book and outline your steps to becoming VUCA Ready.
What you see here is just a “bite-size” sample of the leadership lessons and practical tips that I outline in my book. Buy your copy now at Amazon or Barnes and Noble or go to bobbielaporte.com/curveballs for more information about corporate bulk discounts.
#readyforcurveballs