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Conclusion
Making Your Peace with the VUCA World

This Conclusion draws out lessons for leaders, lessons for moving from the book to implementation. I use stories of leadership to sort out how you can use the Foresight to Insight to Action Cycle in a practical way to get there early and compete. These stories pull together the core ideas in the book, but they also suggest approaches you might take as a leader.

I start with a personal story about an unlikely leader.

When the Seattle Mariners still played baseball at the Kingdome in Seattle, I took my young son there for our annual baseball trip. At our first game, I was impressed with a peanut vendor named Rick. He dazzled me with behind-the-back, on-target peanut bag tosses up and down the long rows of seats. He didn’t just toss peanuts; he trick-tossed the peanuts.

Rick smiled his way up and down the aisles, trading jokes about peanuts and life in general. Rick seemed to be something of a folk hero in that stadium. I asked around and learned that Rick had been featured on television showing off his long throws and pinpoint accuracy. Local fans recognized him in and out of uniform, inside and outside the stadium. Kids asked for his autograph.

I found out that before Rick became a peanut vendor, he had been a basketball point guard and a football quarterback. In these sports, he learned to sense people at his periphery and sting them with no-look passes from any angle. Now, he throws softball-sized bags of warm peanuts for a living—a much better living than most peanut vendors make. Rick had made himself into a leader, a very special peanut experience provider.

I tracked down Rick the peanut vendor before our next game and learned more about him. I gave Rick $10 for a $4 bag of peanuts and asked him to throw the bag behind his back to my son from about fifty feet away down a crowded row of fans. My son was up to the challenge, and he caught the peanuts—to the great relief of the frightened lady sitting next to him. We got a bargain when I spent $10 for that bag of peanuts.

When I was a kid, my parents taught me that it didn’t matter what I did for a living as long as I was able to do whatever I did very well. My dad used to say: “If you end up being a ditch digger, be a great ditch digger.” My mom’s motto is “I’ll bloom where I’m planted,” which conveys a similar sentiment. Rick the peanut vendor figured out how to bloom in a job that few people lust after: hawking peanuts at baseball games. This remarkable peanut pitcher reminded me of my parents’ wisdom regarding how to make the best out of a life situation. I hope my son learned that night in Seattle what I had learned from my parents years before. We will never forget that night at the ballgame, and most of our memory is about the peanut vendor, not about the game. Rick the peanut vendor seems to make some money too: my $6 tip was not the largest that he received that night.

Rick had the foresight to see that he was in a very limiting job if he followed the standard instructions for peanut vending, but he had the insight to figure out a way to win anyway by redefining and adding to the role—building on his own skills. He decided that he could rebag his peanuts to a size that was easier to throw with accuracy. He figured out how to heat the peanuts, so he could charge more for them. He realized that people who go to ballgames are open to experiences—especially if the experience involves giving a treat to a kid. Rick figured out a way to add to the fan experience with his own skills, for a price. His actions reflect both his foresight and his insight: he still sells peanuts, but he also sells experiences. The peanuts are still a product, but the experience is seeing him throw the peanuts to you or to others in exotic ways. The value of the experience is more than price of the product.¹ Rethinking of product, service, and experience can work well if you are able to stretch the system but still stay within the limits of your particular capabilities and not overstep your bounds.

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Interestingly, Seattle is also home to the fish throwers at the Pike Place Market, near the water in downtown Seattle. The fish throwers work together to pick up each fish and throw it with great drama to a fish catcher (the really hard part) before it is finally wrapped up for the customer. The routine process of purchasing fish is transformed into an experience where crowds gather around to watch the excitement of fish throwing. And, of course, a fish that has been thrown costs more than a fish that has not. Whether throwing fish or throwing peanuts, there is value in entertaining experiences. What will they throw next in Seattle?

In a grassroots economy with empowered and networked people, expect more people like Rick the peanut vendor and the fish throwers from Pike Place Market. Leaders will create new experiences, new ways to turn boring jobs into more interesting and higher paying ones. Rick figured out how to win in what many would think of as a no-win job. Looking ten years ahead, the mix of jobs will include many at the low end of the spectrum, jobs that few people will crave. But the winners will be those who turn boring jobs into interesting and profitable ones. Of course, some jobs are hopeless in this regard, but most are not. Leadership opportunities are hidden in strange places.

Leaders of organizations face the same kind of challenge as Rick the peanut vendor. Leaders need the foresight to anticipate external future forces that might affect their own organizations and their own jobs. Leaders need the insight to figure out unusual ways to extend their own job descriptions, using the unique skills that each leader brings to his or her role. And leaders need to act in ways that allow them to have an impact and learn from their experiences. Rick learned what tricks drew the largest tips. Leaders need to do something similar in the much wider and unstructured world of leadership in the flexible firm.

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I got to spend an afternoon with Peter Drucker in his living room, late in his long and rich life. We were meeting with A. G. Lafley, and the focus of the discussion was on organizations. Peter Drucker commented that afternoon that most large organizations focus in performance reviews on weaknesses, not strengths. Thus, “people don’t usually understand what they’re good at, even though they do understand their weaknesses.” Rick the peanut vendor has a very good sense of what he is good at, although I doubt that he had a manager to help him discover his strengths. Managers need to look at what people have done successfully and weave together the unusual strengths of each person. And organizations, of course, are the combination of all the personal strengths and weaknesses of their people. As we departed, Peter Drucker left us with one final thought that has never left me: “Great managers help eccentric people produce.”²

I believe that each person is eccentric in his or her own way. There is no simple moral equation for leadership in a world of dilemmas, and I think that is good news.

LEARNING FROM AMBIGUITY

Frank Stockton’s short story “The Lady or the Tiger?” is a tale of dilemmas and ambiguity.³

Seek out and read this story carefully. It is a story that teaches us to live with dilemmas, to enjoy the uncertainty of life and engage with it. Hollywood endings almost always seek to draw everything together at the end. Hollywood endings play well with problem solvers. The real world is not a world of clean endings, however. We need to learn to live with ambiguous outcomes. We all need to read and create more stories like “The Lady or the Tiger?”

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DISCIPLINES OF READINESS

Action is not just about doing, it is about being prepared to do. The most effective action will come from a state of readiness, and foresight helps create readiness. We all need to accept uncertainty, not avoid it or pretend that it is not there. Strategy and plans are great, but surprises should be assumed. If you get there early, you are more likely to be prepared for a threat, an opportunity, or a mix of both.

In aikido and other martial arts, mental preparation is the most important quality a practitioner can have. Attacks are unpredictable; hence, being ready for an attack means being comfortable not knowing what the attack will be or from which direction it may come. Mental preparation means being in a state of relaxed anticipation, with what the masters call “soft eyes” or “centered attention,” a kind of unfocused awareness. Novices often put all their attention on the weapon they face. A weapon by itself does nothing, however: it is inert, mere matter. The intent of the person holding a weapon is far more important and dangerous than the weapon itself, but the intent is hidden. Attack first? Retreat? A dilemma, certainly.

A great aikido instructor named Terry Dobson used the example of a man in a bar who suddenly knocks the drink out of another patron’s hand. The man who has lost his drink is naturally angry, and his instinct is to respond. But what if the first man knew the drink was poisoned? He didn’t have time to give warning, only to knock away the dangerous drink. What is an appropriate response from the person who had been holding the drink? Certainly not throwing a punch at a man who just saved your life! What skill does the empty-handed former drink holder need in that moment? It would be helpful if he understood how to protect himself while managing the situation, by redirecting aggression and rendering it harmless to both. This may mean immobilizing the other man until he has had time to calm down, or at least trying to figure out why the drink had been knocked out of his hand. Quick judgment in situations like this is dangerous, but so is deciding too late to act if you are indeed being attacked.

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HINTS AND HOWS

Below I have summarized some key leadership lessons from this book. I frame them as hints, since I don’t believe this is a time for absolutes or packaged answers. I believe that these hints are true, but you will experience variations in your own world. I’ve also included some suggestions regarding how to bring these hints to life in your own organization.

HINT: Nurture your own sensing and sensemaking abilities. Sensing is the critical leadership skill for the future. For sensing to occur, you need an open mind that resists premature judgment.

HOW: Explore provocative futures and learn how to prepare. The VUCA world rewards readiness.

HINT: Be clear without being simplistic. The VUCA world rewards clarity, but clarity should not be achieved by oversimplifying truth.

HOW: Be clear about your strategic intent but flexible in terms of how your team might execute your strategy. Your people need the agility and organizational slack to respond and adapt to the environment in which they are working — all within the context of the leader’s strategic intent.

HINT: Be flexibly firm. Flexibility does not mean being free to do anything you want, anytime, anyplace. Be firm on values as well as intent but flexible within those frames.

HOW: Develop your own virtual persona, your voice of leadership through multiple media. Collaborate well in a variety of media, with your own style for in-person and online engagement.

HINT: Be confident and humble. Leadership confidence will still be important in anytime, anyplace workspaces, but the indicators of power will be different than in the old days, as will the potential for control. You also need the ability to pause and reflect, to slow down and listen.

HOW: Communicate, but listen more than you speak.

HINT: Create a mood of high conflict and high respect. Encourage a culture of high conflict around content, strategy, and alternatives—but high respect for individuals. Kindness toward individual people is always possible, even in the midst of conflict.⁴

HOW: Communicate the ground rules for dialogue and engagement within the team. Provide opportunities for full debate of ideas, leading to the best decision possible and buy-in once the decision is made. Acknowledge differences, but pull together when a decision is made.⁵

HINT: Nurture a culture of urgent patience.⁶ Maintain a delicate balance between urgency and patience. When things get too comfortable, introduce urgency. When things get too hectic or people are striving too hard, ease off and encourage patience.

HOW: Sense where your team members are and decide what they need, at each given time, to be high performing. Focus on recognizing what each person needs for peak performance, not on coddling people. Great leaders can make things look easy, but flexing is tough work—with a fun element on the good days.

HINT: Use organic language and avoid mechanical metaphors. Avoid the mechanical metaphors of problem solvers and use organic metaphors, which are much more accurate and expressive for a world of dilemmas.

HOW: Check your language as you create new strategy and innovations. Pick the right words to describe a possible future, and they will help draw you toward that future; pick the wrong words, and you will fight them as you go. The next decade will see a gradual shift from the language of engineering to that of the life sciences.

In the United States, we are now tending dangerously toward highly polarized points of view—with many leaders stuck in problem-solving polarities. One pole is characterized by a vapid optimism that the United States will win out, optimism that is independent of global crises, global warming, or global criticism. True believers trust vaguely that all our problems will be solved, with little idea how that might happen. There are no set, fixed, or obvious answers. But many people want and some people need absolutes.

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Another polarized view is characterized by corrosive pessimism that varies only on a relative cynicism scale. For these counter advocates, our dilemmas cannot be addressed successfully—no matter what we do.

Leaders need to get beyond either/or perceptions. We are already in a both/and world. We need hope, but it must be a flexible hope that engages in the dilemmas all around us. Hope can be vitalizing. Hope can be resolute. Hope can accept the tough road that lies ahead, while holding to the promise. Our industrial culture is rooted in problem solving, but there is no need to be stuck there. We can win—and others can also win—in a world of dilemmas.

The future will be laced with dilemmas, some of which will look like problems that can be solved—especially to problem solvers. Recall that the way of the problem solver is to consider many options, pick the two best, choose a solution, and run—with the expectation that one will be evaluated by how fast he or she runs. The future world, however, will be dominated by dilemmas. There will be no place to run. Although it is impossible to predict, it is relatively easy to provoke. The more constructive the provocation, the more likely that you can create a strategy that allows you to get there early.

I think future sensing, strategy, humility, and a sense of humor should all go together. “I don’t know” is the only honest response in some situations, and it is perfectly acceptable, as long as you don’t walk away in a huff after you say it. “I don’t know” can be the starting point for a constructive conversation about what you can do within the constraints of what you know and don’t know. Humility is engaging; arrogance is not.

PUTTING FORESIGHT, INSIGHT, AND ACTION TOGETHER

The Foresight to Insight to Action Cycle is fueled by visionary foresight and clear insight, but it creates value through action. Leaders need to sense and understand the future context for the decisions they make in the present. Hope is assumed in the cycle, a hope that things can always be better—and in some cases they have to get better if we are to survive. The hope is based on a belief that preparing your mind with thoughts about the future will provide value when it comes time to make a decision in the present.

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Leadership requires a discipline of sensing, but it also requires the ability to understand and make sense out of what you are gathering. Foresight is of limited value by itself, but it is extremely valuable if it stimulates insight about what to do—given the pattern of future forces you are seeing.

The Foresight to Insight to Action Cycle, when applied in a disciplined and consistent way, helps leaders become comfortable being uncomfortable. Discomfort can lead to fear, and fear begets more fear. Expectations and preparedness lead to a feeling of comfortable discomfort, a sense of centered readiness.

Some aspects of the VUCA world are not optional. We all must learn to make peace with vulnerability, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity in our personal lives. When tragedy hits, we are challenged to respond. We all need our own vision, understanding, clarity, and agility if we are to succeed.

Typically, there will be no single best path. In fact, the best leaders will resist when they are shown only one path. If you see only one option, you must be missing something. If everyone agrees, you all must be leaving something out. Great leaders will want to consider multiple paths and multiple options. We must learn that our focused problem-solving skills still have value in limited situations, but the real challenges are the dilemmas that cannot be solved, that won’t go away.

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The hospital room of the future is being prototyped and tested with musicians, doctors and other caregivers, and patients. Chip Davis and the leaders of Alegent are in listening mode, to understand what might be possible and to create a holistic healing experience that works for patients.

Creative efforts like this are practical attempts to engage with a chaotic world and make peace with it. Following are some rules of thumb to follow as you figure out how to make your peace with your own VUCA world:

Volatility yields to vision. Vision does not have to be grand, but it works best if it is compelling. In the face of volatility, people need a sense of direction, and leaders have a chance to provide intentionality and purpose. The vision in Chip Davis’s hospital room of the future is of ambient natural and music therapy to speed the healing process and make it more enjoyable. It doesn’t take much foresight to see that hospitals are not very pleasant places to be for the foreseeable future. Also, patients in modern hospitals are likely to be more and more disconnected from nature. Chip Davis combines high-tech methods of audio recording with natural sounds. His vision is to reunite patients with nature in the context of a modern hospital.

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Uncertainty yields to understanding. Listening is the first step to achieving understanding. Chip Davis did his best to design the hospital room of the future, but then he stepped back and let people use it and tell him what they thought. He developed trust and used field experience as a way of gaining additional insight. Authentic gestures of trust demonstrate understanding and allow for ongoing relationships. In the later stages of his career, my dad had a few vending machines in a factory, machines that he bought and serviced himself. At holiday time, he set the vending machines so that they would dispense free drinks as a gift for the factory workers who bought his products all year long. In many years of doing this, the number of drinks given away never surpassed the number usually sold during a comparable period. His gesture of trust was rewarded by customers who did not take advantage of his good will — even though they could have easily done so, since nobody was watching the machines. Leaders need to listen, understand, and act in ways that show trust in their workers and their customers. That trust is likely to be rewarded, and it will be even more valued in times of great uncertainty.

Complexity yields to clarity. Framing a message is critical, as we learn again and again in the world of politics. Framing is a first step toward clarity, and clarity is so important for people who have exceeded their own personal thresholds for complexity and understanding. The insight for Chip Davis was realizing that natural sounds could speed the healing process, as well as make it more pleasant. This vision is, for most people, both attractive and believable. Chip Davis’s explorations of ambient therapy for healing are still in the early stages of development, so they cannot yet be stated with great clarity. In a few years, with greater experience, a clear compelling statement will be possible. Most people long for clarity, but clarity is elusive.

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Ambiguity yields to agility. Even after an action plan is decided on, it must be carried out with flexibility. The experience of the real world will shape what actually happens and what should happen in response.

Dealing with the VUCA world requires time to reflect, and taking time to do that is not easy in a time-starved world. Most leaders experience time as a deficit, not an asset. If you get there early, you earn more flexibility. Getting there early is not about more rushing around; it’s about more wisdom. We need time to consider our options, time to understand. We must, as hard as it is, reconsider how we experience time. It’s not just about time; it’s about timing.

Leadership will be defined by how we “take time” or “make time” to reflect and understand what’s going on around us. In today’s corporations, few people feel that they have time to reflect. Reflection is demanded, however, to think through your options and strategies, as well as to refocus on those core values that should not be flexed.

Like “The Lady or the Tiger?” this book will end by leaving the responsibility for action up to you, the reader, to make your own peace with the VUCA world. Getting there early, the Foresight to Insight to Action Cycle, and the creative combination of vision, understanding, clarity, and agility can help leaders resolve the continuing challenge that opened this book, the tension between judging too soon and deciding too late.