How to thrive in a VUCA World?

Today, we live in a VUCA world, which stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity, raised to the third power. That is because of current changes over the world, such as social, business, financial and economic, technological, cultural, and educational changes. We are welcoming the Digital Era in a very accelerated way.

“We are not living an Era of Change but a Change of Era”. Pope Francis.

The customer has changed: the digital consumer is more connected and more informed; behave in a new way; it is more demanding, difficult to get a Wow effect; they well expect the brands’ attributes are the same as their expectations, and they are like cyborgs – which means technology dependent. Thus, as the customers have changed, companies have to as well.

Under these circumstances, the market is currently divided between two different kind of companies: the makers, the ones that have already moved forward with it; and the watchers, the ones that stay in the comfort zone yet and watch the wave overpass them – if you continue doing the same as always, you will drop behind.

So, how can we digitalize our company and live in an out-of-control world?

A company is digitally transformed by understanding, listening, and acting, going for a leadership role – leaders must learn to be agile. But the main issue is that if we want to be makers, we should know when it is going to happen. As it is impossible, unless anticipating the change is a must-do – to take advantage, it is necessary to design and train different scenarios. In other words, companies will develop agility learning by doing.

This anticipation will let companies prepare for every situation that comes. How to prepare? Changing their culture and getting a cyclical scheme mindset: know, analyze, anticipate, innovate, repeat. But what does matter is to be flexible.

On balance, every company can be a maker, and it is just about thinking in digital: the company’s ethos and communication, customer experience, organizational model, people, technology, processes, and innovation.

The whole world is changing. If you have not already done so, what are you waiting for?