What the US Marines Know about VUCA That Business and HR Don’t 17 APRIL 2015

Daniel Mitchell Talent, Learning & Diversity Leader, Asia-Pacific Singapore

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What we’ll discuss today

1. Origins of VUCA in a post Cold War world

2. VUCA – what does it mean?

3. My story

4. VUCA and the Marines – it’s one acronym of four distinct parts, and why that matters

5. Incorporation of VUCA into leadership, development and performance culture – don’t be faddish

6. Lessons for leaders and HR - Aim for the 70% solution - Organize according to the Rule of Three - Seeking and not fearing input – a strong culture can override fear - Staying close to the front lines – CEOs measuring the customer experience? Yes! - Build authority throughout the hierarchy - Avoiding Groupthink – breaking the mold with sourcing, hiring and on-boarding - Learning from failures and successes – the AAR - Underinvest in training at your peril - Breaking the stranglehold of the 3-year plan

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The end of the Cold War, therefore, brings not an end to threats, but rather a diffusion of them: one can no longer plausibly point to a single source of danger, as one could throughout most of that conflict, but dangers there still will be. The architects of containment, when they confronted the struggle between democracy and totalitarianism in 1947, knew which side they were on; the post-Cold War geopolitical cartography, however, provides no comparable clarity. In one sense, this represents progress. The very absence of clear and present danger testifies to American success in so balancing power during the past four and a half decades that totalitarianism, at least in the forms we have considered threatening throughout most of this century, is now defunct. But, in another sense, the new competition between the forces of integration and fragmentation presents us with difficult choices, precisely because it is by no means as clear as it was during the Cold War which tendency we should want to see prevail.

3 13 July 2015 Toward the Post-Cold War World by John Lewis Gaddis www.foreignaffairs.com, Spring 1991 Issue

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The end of the Cold War, therefore, brings not an end to threats, but rather a diffusion of them: one can no longer plausibly point to a single source of danger, as one could throughout most of that conflict, but dangers there still will be. The architects of containment, when they confronted the struggle between democracy and totalitarianism in 1947, knew which side they were on; the post-Cold War geopolitical cartography, however, provides no comparable clarity. In one sense, this represents progress. The very absence of clear and present danger testifies to American success in so balancing power during the past four and a half decades that totalitarianism, at least in the forms we have considered threatening throughout most of this century, is now defunct. But, in another sense, the new competition between the forces of integration and fragmentation presents us with difficult choices, precisely because it is by no means as clear as it was during the Cold War which tendency we should want to see prevail.

4 13 July 2015 Toward the Post-Cold War World by John Lewis Gaddis www.foreignaffairs.com, Spring 1991 Issue

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The end of the Cold War, therefore, brings not an end to threats, but rather a diffusion of them: one can no longer plausibly point to a single source of danger, as one could throughout most of that conflict, but dangers there still will be. The architects of containment, when they confronted the struggle between democracy and totalitarianism in 1947, knew which side they were on; the post-Cold War geopolitical cartography, however, provides no comparable clarity. In one sense, this represents progress. The very absence of clear and present danger testifies to American success in so balancing power during the past four and a half decades that totalitarianism, at least in the forms we have considered threatening throughout most of this century, is now defunct. But, in another sense, the new competition between the forces of integration and fragmentation presents us with difficult choices, precisely because it is by no means as clear as it was during the Cold War which tendency we should want to see prevail.

5 13 July 2015 Toward the Post-Cold War World by John Lewis Gaddis www.foreignaffairs.com, Spring 1991 Issue

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VUCA

6 13 July 2015 What VUCA Really Means for You Nathan Bennett & G. James Lemoine Harvard Business Review, January–February 2014 Issue

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My story

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My story

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My story

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My story

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VUCA and the Marines

“You cannot control your environment. Do not try to control your environment. Instead, understand your environment, including its terrain, risks, fluidity, and opportunities. Assess, then execute, and correct as you go.”

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Understanding VUCA conceptually isn’t the hard part.

The hard part is figuring out how to operate in an environment where one or more elements of VUCA is a near

constant.

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VUCA isn’t a fad.

It’s our reality.

The lesson: don’t inflict Cold-War solutions on a 21st century problem.

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LESSONS FOR LEADERS AND HR

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Aim for the 70% solution It's better to decide quickly on an imperfect plan than to roll out a perfect plan when it's too late. Everyone is always looking for perfect truth. Even if you find it, the other guy is up to something. So by the time you execute it, your truth isn't perfect anymore. When time is of the essence, Marines act as soon as they have a plan with a good chance of working. Indecisiveness is worse than making a mediocre decision. A mediocre decision swiftly rendered and executed at least stands a chance. If your decision-making loop is more streamlined than your enemy's, then you set the pace and course of the battle.

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Organize according to the rule of three Especially in times of stress

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Organize according to the rule of three Especially in times of stress

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Organize according to the rule of three Especially in times of stress

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Organize according to the rule of three Especially in times of stress

www.fastcompany.com

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Seeking and not fearing input A strong culture can override fear

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Staying close to the front lines CEOs measuring the customer experience? Yes!

www.unboxedthoughts.com

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Build authority throughout the hierarchy More VUCA should drive decisions down, NOT up

www.unboxedthoughts.com

Train &

Glorify

Manage by end state and intent

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Avoiding Groupthink Breaking the mold with sourcing, hiring and on-boarding

www.imageshack.com

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Learning from failures and successes The After-Action Review

“Amid the high risk and uncertainty of combat, shared experience-especially lessons hard-earned should be promulgated laterally as quickly as possible so that the learning curve of the entire organization is elevated by the creativity or misfortune of the individual units.”

http://www.tecom.marines.mil/Units/Directorates/MCCLL.aspx

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Underinvest in training at your peril But focus on three key areas

Corps Business - The 30 Management Principles of the U.S. Marines (by David Freedman)

Make training realistic

Cross-train

Train for certainty;

educate for uncertainty

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Breaking the stranglehold of the 3-year plan

www.imageshack.com

“It's better to have a few options that can be easily adapted to changing situations than to try to make specific plans for every contingency.” ~ Corps Business - The 30 Management Principles of the U.S. Marines (by David Freedman)

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Any Questions?

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