The document discusses the evolution of management practices necessary to thrive in the rapidly changing VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) business environment. It contrasts traditional corporate strategies with modern approaches that emphasize agility, collaboration, and understanding of network dynamics. Emphasizing the need for skills in pattern recognition and collaborative improvement, it argues against relying on luck and hope as primary components of business strategy.

1. Managing With VUCA:
Breaking The Corporate
Addiction To Luck & Hope
EVOLVED MA NAG E ME NT PR ACT ICES TO T HR IVE IN
CO NT E MP OR A RY B USINE SS E NVI R O NMENTS

2. Agenda
• VUCA – The times, they are a changin’
• The tools and skills that pay the bills
• White Light
• Fortes Fortuna Adiuvat

3. It’s not your “Daddy’s corporate environment” anymore

4. Rules of “Daddy’s corporate environment”
Grow shareholder value through autonomous,
rigid and industrialized corporate structure.
Success is obtained by avoiding complexity and
focusing on repeatable events.
Long term, strategic thinking distracts from short
term success.
Great leadership avoids non-linear,
interdisciplinary approaches to obstacles.
With size comes power and control – “we’re too
big to fail.”

5. Has the business environment really changed?
Industrial Era Digital Era Social Era
800 lb Gorillas Rule 800 lb Gorillas Endangered ??
Business Environment Characteristics
Low level of “inter-connected” industry and Accelerating level of “inter-connected” High level of “inter-connected” industry and
societies industry and societies societies
High level of control over your environment Moderate level of control over your Minimum level of control over your
environment environment
Slowly Evolving Future – High predictability
Moderately Evolving Future – Reasonable Rapidly Evolving Future – Minimum
predictability predictability

6. Yes, it fundamentally has!
Industrial Era Digital Era Social Era
800 lb Gorillas Rule 800 lb Gorillas Endangered ??
TRADITIONAL STRATEGY MODERN STRATEGY SOCIAL STRATEGY
• Self-Centered strategy matters most • Pretty much the same thing…..with a few modifications •Network based strategy matters most
• Size equates to control • Outsource to lowest operational cost • Network interaction equates to understanding
• Stability is the goal for growth • Expand market channels to include website • Agility is the key to growth
• Sustainable market dominance is possible • 5 step sales cycle….ask a few questions • Sustainable market loyalty is possible
• Centralized control of everything • Create a workflow or value chain model • Collaborative and integrated engagement of everything
Institutional value and power Collaborative innovation is
is primary objective primary objective

7. Can you feel it……………..?
Things change and happen so fast…..
Seemingly with no warning….

8. VUCA - Reality of contemporary business environments
•V olatile
•U ncertain
•C omplex
•A mbiguous

9. What does VUCA have to do with it?
I T ’ S NOT J UST A B U Z Z WO R D – O R A “ NE W AG E ” F E E L I NG
A rapidly evolving, dynamic, chaotic, complex business
environment is the norm rather than the exception.

10. It is an evolution of our own making
Our technological and economic systems have also
become dependent on networks of enormous complexity.
This has made their behavior increasingly difficult to
reason about, and increasingly risky to tinker with. It has
made them susceptible to disruptions that spread
through the underlying network structures, sometimes
turning localized breakdowns into cascading failures or
financial crises.
Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning about a Highly Connected World. Pg 1– David
Easley and Jon Kleinberg. Cambridge University Press 2010

11. A rapidly evolving,
dynamic, chaotic, complex
business environment is
the norm rather than the
exception.
THAT’S NOT THE PROBLEM
THAT’S THE PROBLEM
The fundamentals of business leadership
and corporate strategy haven’t evolved at
the same pace – creating a gap between
social behavior and business practices.

12. This gap is filled by HOPE and LUCK
Social Era
Digital Era
Industrial Era

13. Evolve or become endangered…..
MEASURE
MONITOR
Manage
MANAGE Social Era
Measure
Monitor
Digital Era
Industrial Era

14. To drive out reliance on HOPE and LUCK you need management
skills of pattern recognition, sense making and collaborative
continuous improvement.
MEASURE
MANAGE MONITOR
Measure
Manage
Monitor
Social Era
Digital Era
Industrial Era

15. Fusion of evolved skills, tools and processes
Pattern Recognition
SKILLS
Futuristic
Ideation
Environmental Scanning
Network Weaving
FORESIGHT
Game Modeling
Clear Strategic Goal Big Data Analytics
PROCESSES THE EVOLVED LEADER TOOLS
Organization Behavioral Management Computational Modeling
Collaborative Network Structure THE EVOLVED ORGANIZATION Market Behavior Modeling
Engagement With Complexity Chaos & Complex Theory Models
Multi-Strategy-Strategy Open Innovation Platforms
ACTION INSIGHT

16. “He may be mad, but there’s method in his madness. There nearly always is
method in madness. It’s what drives men mad, being methodical.”
- G.K. Chesterton
Organizational Inventory
Set of analytical metrics designed to establish two
primary points:
• Serve as indicators for organization’s strategic and Scope and Requirements for Continual Feedback and
tactical alignment and balance with the market’s
behavioral patterns Evolution Recalibration
•Performance baseline to measure and correlate Balanced by economic and organizational Continual assessment to increase
strategies to improvements realities: confidence levels:
• Phased or modular program that • Continual Improvement Programs
transitions to Social Era applicable to transition from reactive to
Market Behavioral Inventory management tools and processes proactive organizations
Set of analytical metrics designed to establish two • Deploys monitoring processes and • Increase confidence levels in
primary points: analytics to drive the creation of a monitoring and sensing skills, tools
situational awareness picture and processes
• Behavioral Modeling and Mapping of profiles and
stakeholder ecosystem within marketplace
• Establish behavioral driven guidance program to
calibrate strategic initiatives

17. Is that the end of
the tunnel, or an
oncoming train?
AT THIS MOMENT OF TRUTH, JUST
HOW MUCH HOPE AND LUCK IS
INVOLVED WITH YOUR
STRATEGY?
Leadership is about putting the organization or team in the
best position to be successful.
ARE YOU ON THE RIGHT TRACK?

18. “You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing
small things, so that all of the small things go in the right
direction.”
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who
cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn,
unlearn, and relearn.”
- Alvin Toffler

19. Fortes Fortuna Adiuvat
FORTUNE FAVORS THE BOLD
Hope is a wonderful human element
and luck is a great thing to have.
You just don’t want to have them as
a key component of your strategy.

20. Change is never a simple and easy thing to do.
Change though is constant in life, and
things have fundamentally changed.

21. Complexity is traditionally
an uncomfortable thing to
absorb.
Simplicity though, lies
just on the other side of
complexity.

22. Acknowledgments
THERE IS HELP OUT THERE. WE’RE HERE FOR
YOU. WE CAN HELP YOU BREAK THE
ADDICTION.
Harvard Business Review – Blog Network: Nilofer Merchant
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/02/rules_for_the_social_era.html
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/09/traditional_strategy_is_dead_w.html
DUKE – The Fuqua School of Business:
http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/programs/other_programs/executive_education/advanced_management/vuca_video
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Cornell University: David Easley and Jon Kleinberg – Networks, Crowds, and
Markets: Reasoning About a Highly Connected World
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks -book/
K. H-S
Google Imagery
Audio: http://trainweb.org/mdamtrak199/trainsounds.html

23. About Business Strategist and Solution Engineer with a background in Communications Studies: Issue
Management & Behavioral Studies. 15+ years experience in developing and deploying the principles
presented. Always open to connecting and collaborating with those “in the know” on building a smarter
planet.
Why I believe the value from traditional principles related to analyzing market or social environments is
becoming extremely limited. Current and emerging issues facing the world today are more complex and
dynamic in nature than in decades past. Traditional, simple, and historic demographic based data isn't
sophisticated enough to properly quantify the characteristics of these more complex and dynamic market
and social environments. This results in failed or stalled attempts to introduce needed innovations into the
marketplace which in turn is often mistakenly characterized as ineffective. However, the innovation isn't
necessarily ineffective, rather the business strategies and tactics deployed to deliver the innovation to the
marketplace may be fundamentally flawed. An increased level of complexity requires a similar increase in
sophistication to measure, monitor and manage.
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