There are several well-known military acronyms that have entered the civilian vernacular. FUBAR is likely the most famous, with FARP and BOHICA following closely behind (worth a Google if you’re unfamiliar with any of them). One that is less well-known but highly important, is VUCA. Coined in the late 1980s, VUCA stands for: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. For those in leadership, these are the well-known disruptors of work life. When the landscape is changing rapidly, data is either overwhelming or insufficient, processes are overly complicated, and trends are difficult to spot, leading a team can feel like a rollercoaster ride. The U.S. Military, specifically the Army War College, has been studying this for many years, and recently, Angus Fletcher, Thomas L. Gaines, Brittany Loney at Harvard Business Review took the research one step further. Working with the U.S. Army Special Operations, these three developed brain-training exercises for leaders to be better equipped during uncertain or volatile times.
The first challenge for leaders in uncertain times is managing data. More data does not mean better decision making. When the road is rocky, an overabundance of data leads to “passivity, mission creep, and hesitation”, according to the authors. They recommend targeting “exceptional information”, or that which is the exception to the rule. Interestingly, in the age of AI we are in, this ability is particular to the human brain. Computers have no ability to weed out the exceptional information during data overwhelm.
The second recommendation is to forego active listening, and embrace active questioning. Of course, active listening still has it’s place in times of smooth sailing, but in rough waters, delay asking the Why. Focus instead on the who, what, when, where and how. Recently the designers of these brain training tools worked with a Fortune 50 company that was losing talent. When asked why they were leaving, these employees always responded the same way: money. Upping the retention offers had no effect, however, so they had to look elsewhere. When they started asking deeper questions about employee’s overall satisfaction in life, they were able to make retention offers that really struck home, and employees stuck around.
Third, don’t plan; instead, be a planner. President Eisenhower once told an audience that “The reason it is so important to plan is to keep yourselves steeped in the character of the problem that you may one day be called upon to solve.” The actual solutions that Eisenhower and others came up during his military tenure ended up being useless. But the process of planning kept them so on target that they were truly ready for anything.
Fourth, use “Emotion Reset” when fear or anger arise. Although these are often considered to be “negative emotions”, from an evolutionary standpoint they kept humans alive by allowing the flight or fight response to activate in our bodies and brains. With the emotion reset technique, leaders are asked to recall a time when either fear or anger arose, and to remember what they did. The idea is to send our brains the message: “You’ve done this before”. This will immediately take us out of the flight or fight response, making it possible for rational thought and calm decision making to prevail.
Since none of us can predict the future, these tools have the potential to greatly assist leadership through volatile times. Do yourself a favor and read the full article here, then send it to all the other leaders you know.
