APM webinar hosted by Abdul Moiz from the South East Branch on 13 February 2024. Speaker Mounina Tounkara Explore VUCA's impact on project management in our webinar. Navigate volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, equipping project managers with strategies for resilient leadership. This webinar was held on 13 February 2024. In our dynamic and ever-evolving world, the enduring art of leadership gains a fresh perspective through the revered traditions of African leadership. This webinar served as a bridge, connecting the ancient wisdom of African values such as Humanness, Courage, Respect, and Orality with the challenges faced in today's volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment. We delved into how these time-honored principles, as demonstrated in traditions like those of the Dogon people and the Kurukan Fuga constitution, offer essential strategies for navigating the complexities of our modern era, which includes adapting to rapid technological changes and addressing global crises. This session invited project leaders, project professionals and project management students to integrate the timeless wisdom of African leadership into contemporary project and program management, fostering resilience and adaptability in diverse settings. https://youtu.be/LIQPm8LSQvQ https://www.apm.org.uk/news/time-honored-wisdom-african-teachings-for-vuca-leaders-webinar/

1. Time-Honoured Wisdom: African Teachings for
VUCA Leaders:
Presented by
Mounina TOUNKARA

2. Plan
VUCA
2 Pillars of
African
leadership
Kurugan
Fuga
Charter
Lessons
learned

3. VUCA World
• Unpredictability is the new
norm
• Unemployment and skill
shortages coexist
• The line between employment
and entrepreneurship blurs
• Yesterday's competitors can
become tomorrow's partners.

4. VUCA
Complexity
➢ Cause and effect are replaced by
interdependence.
➢ having too many elements in motion to
track or understand alone, necessitating
swift decision-making.
Uncertainty
➢ The present is difficult to understand, and the
future is impossible to predict.
➢ unexpected being expected and
considered normal. Outcomes can only
be understood in hindsight.
Ambiguity
➢ Opposite occur simultaneously, creating
confusion.
➢ Multiple viewpoints and an abundance of
information that makes things unclear.
Volatility
➢ Speed and scale at which change occurs.
➢ Rapid, ephemeral changes of
indeterminate duration, making it
increasingly difficult to stay updated and
leading to more frequent
reassessments.

5. volatility
uncertainty
complexity
ambiguity
The VUCA world
VUCA world?

6. stability
certainty
simplicity
clarity
SC² vs
VUCA
Opposite of the VUCA perception

7. volatility
uncertainty
complexity
ambiguity
The VUCA world
Leadership Skills For VUCA:
VUCA is Life
Creativity
&
Resilience
Humility &
assurance
Curiosity &
Reflexivity
Collaboration
& Collective
wisdom

9. This highlights the idea that
Leadership can be defined from
various perspectives.
We will delve into African
leadership, focusing on the
leaders of the Sacred Kingship of
Antiquity and the Middle Ages,
who laid the foundations of
power and authority in Africa
and the world.

10. African
Leadership
Temporal
Spiritual

11. Temporal
Temporal
Humanness
Respect
Courage
Orality
These values guided Ancient African leaders in building empires and kingdoms that stood for centuries.

12. Temporal
Temporal
Respect
Orality

14. • In ancient Africa, spoken words carry as
much weight as written ones.
• Being human in the ancient African
context means honouring your word, thus
Your credibility depends on how well you
honor what you said.

16. • In the African viewpoint, once words are
spoken, they take on a life of their own beyond
anyone's control. No word is spoken without
reason, and in this culture of oral tradition, it is
understood that words do not simply disappear;
rather, they "remain as visible as the tracks of a
path one has made."
• In some cases, words can even become the
source of conflicts.

19. Spiritual
Temporal
Sacrifice
Hogon = "ombilic"= "cordon ombilical"
= axis that connects heaven and earth

20. African leadership
Religious

21. Transformative ERA
• Disruptive technologies, such as artificial
intelligence, the internet of things, and Blockchain,
Along with global forces like climate change and
diversity, are reshaping our lives, workplaces, and
communities at an unprecedented pace.
• What was once unquestioned just months ago is no
longer valid, especially in a post-COVID world.
• Emerging technologies like LLM and Generative AI
Applications render specific skill sets obsolete.
• The democratisation of global knowledge ensures
access is no longer limited to the privileged few.

22. World leaders
• Balancing being professional
and Human
• Treating all individuals equally
prevents injustice
• Respecting Oral commitments
as well as written ones.

23. Balancing being
professional and
Human.

24. Treating all individuals
equally prevents injustice
• disregarding hierarchical positions, origin,
background, and social status.

25. Respecting Oral commitments
as well as written ones.
• “He who doesn't know a grave's coldness,
doesn't give the dead their respect.”

26. Lessons learned
• As Leader
• Psychological Safety for Truthtellers
• Conflict resolution system
• Responsibility for others
• Leadership Values:
• Humanness
• Respect
• Orality

27. Resilience in VUCA
• In our VUCA world, resilience can be
attained only collectively.
• Individualism is possible only when
services and institutions are working
normally. Otherwise, we will have to
focus on each other in total solidarity.