Connections matter, always

There is no way businesses can prosper in these volatile times, let alone survive, without a networked world.

- Gary Peacock

Is a networked world the new paradigm in management?

Some managers would say no, nothing has changed in my business; My answer is yes, we must have a networked world. What makes me say this?

Are you experiencing a VUCA world?

Many people toss around the term VUCA, they think the world is more ‘complex’ because it is VUCA. This is lazy thinking because each element—Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguous—affects different organisations to a greater or lesser degree.

VUCA merges four distinct types of challenges that demand four distinct types of responses. - Nathan Bennett and James Lemoine

Here are VUCA challenges and your suggested responses.

Adapted from:

‘What VUCA Really Means for You’, Nathan Bennett and G. James Lemoine, Harvard Business Review, January-February 2014, p27

‘What a difference a word makes: Understanding threats to performance in a VUCA world’, Nathan Bennett and G James Lemoine, Business Horizons (2014) p57, 311-317

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I suggest all responses would be more effective by creating responses not from one organisation, but from a network of organisations. So, that is one reason a networked world is the new paradigm in management.