Why VUCA Is (Mostly) A Myth
“Imagine, if you will, a factory as clean, spacious and continuously operating as a hydroelectric plant. The production floor is barren of men,” Fortune magazine declared in its November 1946 issue. Soon the world entered a new world of mass production and mass retail. Then came a green revolution, a space race, genomics, computers, the Internet and now artificial intelligence.
Today it’s become an article of faith that everything moves faster. Business pundits tell us that we’re living in a VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous). These are taken as basic truths that are beyond questioning or reproach. Yet are things actually moving any faster than in earlier eras? The evidence is surprisingly scarce.
The inescapable truth is that some things move faster today and others move slower. We don’t have — nor should we want — more change today than before. We need to be more thoughtful about change, more deliberate about the ones we undertake and more tenacious in our pursuit of them. We should aim to have less disruption and more progress.
An Era Of Industrial Stability
Since Jack Welch took over GE in the 1980s, the management ethos has been taken over by a cult of disruption. Pundits say we must “innovate or die.” Managers feel pressure to launch new initiatives, to pivot and then pivot…
