The world is more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) than ever. How can organizations respond effectively? This isn’t just a shift from one direction to another, calling for a new strategic plan. No, it’s about constant change that requires organizations to strategize continuously.
Traditional top-down organizations find it hard to move quickly. For one, they struggle to transmit signals from the frontline up the hierarchy, so a lot of relevant data never reaches decision-makers. And with so many decisions to make, and those decisions concentrated in fewer hands, it’s difficult to move fast enough.
An organization in a VUCA environment needs to digest more information and make more choices than a steep hierarchy can cope with. It’s distributed sense-making and decision-making that unlock the rapid adaptation that VUCA requires.
Here’s what this looks like from an employee experience perspective. For frontline practitioners, working in a VUCA-ready organization feels very different.
- Employees own outcomes.
With more decisions made at the frontline, employees take on more authority in flatter organizations. This brings greater responsibility and stronger accountability. - Employees have more context.
Decentralized decisions risk that one group steers left while the other steers right. To ensure coherence across the organization, employees need a richer picture of strategic context, to make informed choices that’ll fit with their peers, even without micromanagement. - Employees share more information & ask more questions.
Frontline employees observe a lot. They’re constantly exposed to signals from vendors, clients, partners and competitors. With additional context, employees can triage and selectively escalate those signals that need to inform overall strategy-setting by senior leadership. They need mechanisms to share information and ask questions. - Employees get more feedback and grow more quickly.
Frontline strategic involvement means the feedback employees get is extremely high-value. The faster we get employees from 3/10 to 8/10, the more value we get: With such strategic roles, the stakes of their performance are amplified. Employees need a growth mindset about themselves, and managers need a growth mindset about employees as well. - Employees get recognized and rewarded for the value they contribute.
These employees receive fair wages, with benefits and a healthy work-life balance. Retention becomes increasingly important as employees deliver greater strategic value, and the decreased performance of overworked employees becomes too costly.
The ideal (and unlikely!) VUCA-ready employee
To this point, you might have been reading and nodding along, thinking that all of this sounds sensible and reasonable. You might feel differently for the rest of the article.
When employees actually behave in these VUCA-ready ways, organizational leaders can become irritated and upset. These employees grind against the current organizational structure and culture: They’re calibrated for the future, while the organization is grappling with the present.
If you examine the criteria described above closely, then you may notice that they closely align with what Gen Z is seeking: greater authority, more context, increased input on strategic direction, greater openness to their ideas and greater recognition for their contributions.
The narrative about Gen Z is that they’re difficult to work with. Maybe that narrative is wrong. Maybe a context of constant change and adaptation is hard to work with, and Gen Z is just the most visible focus where that tension gets felt. Or, as Jeff Blum put it: “If your company is losing Gen Z talent, the problem isn’t them — it’s you.”
The ZEO
Gen Z works to live, not the other way around. They work smarter, measuring contributions not by hours worked but by value delivered, complementing the transformative leadership of VUCA-ready organizations.
In a VUCA-ready organization, Gen Z is empowered as “ZEOs.” No longer assigned mundane tasks without oversight of business objectives, these ZEOs are empowered to deliver measurable business value by developing innovative initiatives that can transform the organization’s business.
As organizations continue to explore AI platforms, a VUCA-ready culture empowers tech-savvy Gen Z employees. They’ll contribute to building the future of your business — but only if position them to do so!
3 simple actions for leaders to get started
- Look for early-warning signs.
As the pace speeds up, you might reach for more data, causing more discussions to end in non-decisions. The context shifts before you’ve committed and followed through, so you change more slowly as the world changes more quickly. - Get lean about what you need to choose confidently.
To address indecision while containing risk, jot down the 3–4 most important things that will determine the success of a decision. Then be hyper-targeted in gathering that evidence. - Be ruthless about which choices need to be yours.
The fastest way to make lots of decisions is to delegate. Two tools to consider: Strategic choice chartering guides others’ decisions, and the responsibility ladder clarifies what authorities you’re delegating and how those will be managed.
Once you start doing these, you should notice a clear increase in the quality and speed of your decisions. You will also likely see a younger part of your team begin to outperform expectations. This is the opportunity that Gen Z — and VUCA — are calling on you to seize.
Mark Beal is an assistant professor of professional practice and communication at the Rutgers University School of Communication and Information. He has authored four books on Generation Z including “ZEO: Introducing Gen Z, The New Generation of Leaders.”
Brooke Struck, Ph.D., is the founder and principal Facilitator at Converge, where he accompanies organizations through strategic & cultural transformations. He is also an instructor with the Desaultels Faculty of Management at McGill University, where he teaches strategy and leadership in their executive MBA program. His thought leadership has been featured in prominent outlets such as Forbes, The Huffington Post and The Globe & Mail.
Illustration credit: btiger
