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How’s your world—your VUCA world, that is?

VUCA stands for volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, a term coined by the US Army War College in the weeks before September 11, 2001. It’s a popular phrase with Bob Johansen, a distinguished fellow and former president of Institute for the Future.

According to Dr. Johansen, who shared his 2020 forecast at the Association of Change Management Professionals global conference  this week, our VUCA world is not going away. In fact it’s just going to spin faster during the next decade.

In his talk “External Future Forces That Will Disrupt the Practice of Change Management,” Dr. Johansen noted that VUCA is not necessarily doom and gloom. While VUCA can provide threats, it also can offer opportunities, especially if you translate VUCA as “vision, understanding, clarity and agility.”

As for his two big 2022 predictions for organizational change agents, they are:

1. “The digital natives (now 16 years or younger) will create new practices to make change through gaming.” (The other key phrase besides gaming in this sentence is “make.” Dr. Johansen predicts that a culture of makers will drive the next generation of change. And as a result, leaders need to show the “maker instinct” trait.)

2. “Reciprocity-based innovation will focus on the economic, social and psychological value of reciprocity.” (Two important traits for leaders are smart-mob organizing and commons creating. Think Creative Commons.)

Dr. Johansen challenged the 825 of us in attendance to figure out how to help people and organizations adapt to these changes and others. To do this, we should watch our terms and our questions.

For example, one of the questions we should ask is not, “What’s new?” but “What’s ready to take off?” Quoting author William Gibson, who coined the term “cyberspace,” Dr. Johansen said Gibson was absolutely right when he said “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.”

Both gaming and reciprocity-based innovation are popular in some circles now. If you use or are familiar with Dropbox, Evernote, Doodle or any of the other cloud-based tools that offer free basic levels, you know about reciprocity-based innovation. The companies and others like them are giving away free services and products in the faith that they will get back even more in return.

As for games, their value is that “they present obstacles we volunteer to overcome” Dr. Johansen explained. Gaming experiences are a powerful way to learn.

In thinking about terms, Dr. Johansen observed that change management is an outdated term. Nobody wants to be managed anymore. And change is everywhere all the time.

Yes! But what is that new term?

As I continue to mull that over, I will commit to these three actions to help myself and others better adapt to our ever evolving VUCA world:

• Get fit. According to Dr. Johansen, this is the age of the corporate athlete. We need to be organizationally, mentally and physically fit, which supports what Tony Schwartz has been advising with The Energy Project.

• Do peripheral learning to enhance peripheral vision. To look for people, insights and resources that will help us fine-tune and invigorate our ways of working, we need exposure to things outside our regular stomping grounds. This means hanging out with people from different disciplines than our own and becoming aware of what they’re doing and thinking. Breaking out of our echo chamber is more important than ever.

• Refresh language frequently. This involves more than updating our obsolete language, as I recently wrote about. It’s also tracking signals to see what people are thinking and talking about, and making sure you’re using words, symbols and visuals that resonate with them.

For example, the phrase “executive presentation skills” is so last century. Instead, people want leaders with conversation skills. These leaders—and others too—need to convey complex ideas simply, not simplistically, and listen to what we say.

What other actions do we need to take? And can you help me find a more up-to-date, accurate phrase for “change management”?

Individuals with a “considerate” communication style like hugging and gentle handshakes, according to HRDQ’s “What’s My Communication Style?” assessment.

That statement often causes a cringe, including with yours truly, when I deliver the results of this assessment to the participants of my Strategic Action Group. Hugging and wimpy handshakes seem out of place in business.

Instead, those of us who are considerate in how we deal with others prefer to think of ourselves as good listeners, good counselors and trustworthy, especially considering that we value relationships—which HRDQ also acknowledges.

In fact, HRDQ says “considerate people value warm, personal relationships.”

Hugging aside, I’m now wondering if my personal work relationships could be considered extreme, compared with other consultants and their approaches.

For example, I identify my ideal clients as individuals, not organizations, although the organizations they work for is also important to me. And many of my clients are interconnected, although not necessarily interrelated.

Take one of my oldest associations, which is with Planned Parenthood.  Contraception wasn’t as controversial 20 years ago when I started working with them, although they were still a lightning rod with some people and organizations.

So I expected I would self-select out of any potential client assignments with those who either objected to Planned Parenthood’s views or who considered Planned Parenthood too controversial.

Interestingly enough, the opposite has happened. The connections grew closer and tighter. When a client with whom I had worked with before brought me into her new firm, she confirmed that the retired chairman of the board was the husband of Planned Parenthood’s general counsel, whom I knew. We all definitely shared the same values!

Soon after this client acquired another consulting firm, and asked me to help with the integration of the two firms. This involved another Planned Parenthood person—a managing consultant of the acquired firm who had served as Planned Parenthood’s board chairman a few years earlier.

It was thanks to her strong facilitation and group dynamic skills that I ended up working for Planned Parenthood. The board chairman who followed this managing consultant was an Ob/Gyn. Over his career, he had put his life on the line to protect women’s reproductive rights and health but was very nervous about conducting board meetings. He asked the staff if they could find him support, which is how I got involved.

His passion for Planned Parenthood and its cause is one of the reasons I’m still involved. (See Win with resiliency about Planned Parenthood’s response to the recent Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure funding challenges.)

But that’s not the extent of my tight client connections. While in Portland last weekend at Planned Parenthood’s annual meeting, another client, who’s a friend on Facebook, got me hooked on “Draw Something,” the hit online game.

Between drawing and meeting, I explored the town with my husband who was able to join me on this trip. We wanted to bring back a memento for our dog Gustav, yet we had to shop carefully because two of my other clients have showered him with his favorite type of toys this past year, as pictured above.

Is there a downside to this considerate communication style? HRDQ does say that considerate people “tend to avoid change and prefer to do what is comfortable.”

Yet as a change coach and consultant, I say my behavior supports my philosophy about change. The way I connect with individuals and build relationships reinforces these principles, which permeate my work:

• Individuals change, which causes organizations to change, which is why change initiatives need to focus on individuals.

• Individuals are mammals, not machines, which means we’re warm-blooded social creatures. We all also exhibit both rational and emotional sides, which is why the case for change needs to appeal to both.

• Individuals respond best to the Platinum Rule, which is about being treated the way THEY want to be treated.

Focusing on individuals also makes work more interesting, enjoyable and rewarding.

What do you think?

Please keep telling stories in your organization, especially when you want to influence people to change and take action. If you’re not, please start.

Stories are a compact way to communicate vividly, practically and persuasively. You can quickly capture people’s attention, illustrate abstract principles in action and appeal to emotions.

Neuroscience research continues to reinforce the power of stories. Story lines trigger the release of chemicals in our brain as if we were in the shoes of the story’s characters and experiencing their same emotions, based on research conducted by Michael Gazzaniga, Professor of Psychology and the Director for the SAGE Center for the Study of Mind at the University of California Santa Barbara, and others.

In storytelling, the worlds of fact and fiction can clash though.

Just take the recent ruckus about Mike Daisey and his one-man theatrical show, “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.”  Besides performing it at various theaters, Daisey was a guest on the popular radio program This American Life this past January.

The show’s host Ira Glass gave an eloquent apology for misleading listeners due to the story’s many fabrications. Glass then promised to run a special show outlining the controversy.

Two professional worlds collided—theater and journalism—in this situation. Theater—especially performance art, which is Daisey’s genre—believes a good story trumps facts. It’s as if the facts serve as a launching pad to soar into the atmosphere to say whatever you want.

By contrast, journalism is grounded in facts that editors and fact checkers can confirm. The story needs to be accurate first, illustrative second.

Corporate storytelling is more like journalistic stories than performance art. At least that’s my perspective (and bias?) based on my experiences and my Northwestern University education. (Interestingly, Northwestern is known for both its journalism and theater programs.)

With corporate storytelling, you want stories to be factual so they demonstrate the point you want to make. The facts make the story more believable and therefore more credible.

Three helpful hints for credible stories are:

1. Use your personal experiences as the foundation for your stories. If you were in the middle of the action, the story is more compelling.

For example, when I talk about the Gramercy Park steam pipe explosion in New York City, I start the story when I learned that my apartment building was ground zero of the blast. The initial explosion and four-hour, 18-story steam shower that killed three people are not part of my story since I wasn’t home when it happened.

2. Stick with one set of experiences per story. Avoid amalgamations.

The steam pipe explosion, in which my neighbors and I were locked out of our apartments for almost six months while asbestos abatement experts cleaned the building, provides a number of potential plots. I stick with one story line. Nor do I fuse my neighbors’ stories into mine.

3. Then craft your story to illustrate a point that you want to make that will resonate with your audience, or the individuals with whom you’re working. Strive to keep it simple and emphasize one point.

When I talk with communication professionals, I caution about trotting out the usual spokespeople just because they’re trained to talk—especially if they lack credibility on the issue and skimp on preparation.

For example, at the first meeting with residents after the explosion, Con Ed’s PR person said she knew we residents were concerned about the dangers of airborne asbestos exposure. So she brought a company doctor to talk to us.

The doctor then got up and said he was a doctor of waste management, rather than a medical doctor as the PR person had led us to believe.

After we booed him off the stage, the PR person’s boss deviated from the company script. To his credit, he recognized that he had to repair relations with the audience. He reassured us that the company would spend whatever was needed to help us recover—which made this a multi-million dollar meeting for Con Ed.

When I speak with executives, I emphasize the importance of getting out in front of the issue rather than holding back several days.

More than 20 years after this incident, I can still mine rich stories about how Con Ed’s leaders kept blowing opportunities to deal with this group of customers in a respectful manner.

But are the stories’ facts always a true account of what transpired?

A group of NeuroLeadership coaches recently discussed the phenomenon of storytelling, especially in light of how our memories change with new experiences.

Maybe it’s more accurate to say our stories’ facts are our interpretation of the facts as we experienced them. Or to say it another way, we’re telling stories within the story of our lives, such as plays within plays.

Nonetheless, as long as we’re not fabricating the truth, we can tap our imperfect memories to share an experience that effectively educates and entertains others.

What’s your story?

When’s the last time you used a pager, liquid paper or an overhead projector?

Probably sometime last century unless you’re an assistant manager of a pizza parlor in Oak Ridge, TN.

When I expressed amazement at seeing a bottle of Wite Out® next to the phone, he explained that the store computer is older than he is and too clunky and unreliable to use. So he does his weekly schedules by hand. When he requires a do-over, he turns to the liquid paper rather than the backspace key the rest of us use.

Nothing wrong with embracing old technology that works.

What is problematic is sticking with outdated language that no longer fits current situations.

We throw out dated technology faster than we stop using obsolete language. For example, some oldie but goody phrases still heard around offices include “broken record,” “cc” or “carbon copy” and “memo.”

Why is that? Maybe we’re obsessed with SOS (shiny object syndrome) and reach for the newest and fastest technological toys so fast we neglect to update our vocabulary. Or, we’re lazy about our language. Or we may like to cling to the comfortable, not recognizing that times are changing and our colleagues and customers have different points of view and new, more descriptive terms for what they’re experiencing. Who knows?

Yet, our antiquated language and concepts can contribute to confusion and friction in the workplace, especially among generations. Take these three examples:

1. Career ladder vs. web. Many leaders still talk about career development in terms of moving up. Ladders, paths and promotions are in their vocabulary as well as the descriptions of their career development programs.

Yet, employees—especially those younger than 40—are talking about a different type of directional movement. They express interest in having challenging experiences, taking lateral moves and making an impact. Their perspective is more accurate, especially in an era of slow growth and flattening of organizations.

Recent research on career management practices conducted by Edie Goldberg PhD and presented at a New Talent Management Network–San Francisco Bay Area Group meeting showed a gap between how employers describe their career development program and what actually happens. In her study of 34 Fortune 500 companies, 68% reported significantly fewer opportunities for advancement now. Yet only a third had developed strategies for addressing and describing the new reality.

2. Recognize the leader vs. give a shout out to the team. In many of the group and team conference calls and webinars I participate in, members regularly say “hi” to the leader by name and address their comments to him or her throughout the call, without acknowledging everyone else.

It’s as if we’re on an old-fashioned telephone party line where we’re listening in on one-on-one conversations between two people, waiting for our turn to jump in and start our one-on-one dialogue with the leader. Discussion is missing or minimal—maybe because it could be messy because we don’t have visual cues or other body language to watch. Nonetheless, if feels as if we’re stuck in the old “expert/idiot model” even though we really should be in a peer-to-peer situation where we can benefit from the smart mob.

3. Convoluted jargon vs. simple language. All too often our workplace communication, especially emails, PowerPoint presentations and reports, resemble TV remote controls. They’re chock full of excess buttons (words), TLAs (three letter abbreviations), and unclear directions. (What are you supposed to push when?) Instead, we should use Apple’s products as a model for our communication. Apple has clean designs, intuitive controls and easy methods for listening, viewing and creating.

Like Apple, we need to think about our “users’ experiences.” If we want to inspire people and encourage them to take action, we need to step in their shoes and think about how they’ll respond to our communication. Being clear, concise and compelling is the best way to reach them. It’s respectful, especially when we’re all starved for time, working under tight deadlines and dealing with an abundance of data.

Hmm. Maybe we should bring liquid paper back. We can white out all the extra, unneeded matter. But that wouldn’t look all that credible.

So how about refreshing our language? What do you think?