Moving from VUCA to a RUPTured world

Until now, our world has always been referred to as the VUCA World, a world of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. VUCA is an acronym drawing from the leadership theories of Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus. However, taking inputs from a renowned strategic trainer, Captain Raghu Raman, who is also an armed forces veteran, the world is now become a RUPTured world. RUPT standing for Rapid, Uncertain, Paradoxical and Tangled. 

The world, which was earlier complicated, has now turned more complex. Covid has come as a wakeup shock. This world has learnt huge lessons from the Covid experience, most of them good and positive, yet some negative and selfish as well. The most important takeaway for all will be inculcating the humility to re-learn. And to re-start with the spirit of a Start Up. And while doing so, the new breed of leaders must realise that while performance is mandatory, if we cannot periodically disconnect, we cannot lead. 

Creating a culture of burnout is opposite to creating a culture of sustainable creativity. This mentality would need to be introduced as a leadership and performance-enhancing mentality, starting from schools. As the world will continue with the remote working model, user experience with intelligent automation has become even more critical. Organisations are, and will continue to realise more and more the value of cloud. 

The Op-ex model, which leads to cost effective solutions, is becoming more prominent. In order to attain scalability in business, Uniformity, Simplicity and Standardisation will become the key. More localisation of production is likely to happen, beginning with critical items like medicines, communication equipment, and likely to extend to food and dairy supply. These will become essential areas of economic and national security. 

Needless to say, localisation may drive up costs. But some amount of localisation is here to stay for a few years. The socially responsible organisations during Covid will turn out to be better brands, and without realising, may have invested well in intangible marketing of their organisations as brands.

According to Ariana Huffington, the most important key word coming out of the Covid experience is the word resilience.

Resilience is often spoken about in terms of navigating or simply getting through challenges. But the key part of resilience is not about bouncing back, it is about bouncing forward. It is about using adversity as a catalyst to get better and become stronger.

Resilience allows us to tap into deeper resources in ourselves we did not even know we had, not just to overcome the obstacles but to be transformed by them.

Key takeaways

• Resilience is often spoken about in terms of navigating or getting through challenges. 
• The key part of resilience is not about bouncing back, it is about bouncing forward. 
• Resilience is about using adversity as a catalyst to become stronger.
• Creating a culture of burnout is opposite to creating a culture of sustainable creativity
• According to Ariana Huffington, the most important word coming out of the Covid experience is the word resilience.