The VUCA concept as a concept for expressing instability, disorder, chaos and instability
We live in a time of deep instability and crisis, transition to digital development of society, which is influenced by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which requires a reboot of civilisation, which requires the search for innovative approaches to its implementation.
Modern civilisation, caused by the global and paradigmatic crisis, needs to reboot its worldview, as it is facing global challenges and is experiencing a crisis of the basic principles and values of the entire world order. As man and nature were opposed to each other, nature was widely connected to market relations, which gave rise to a new dependence on it and deepened the contradictions in the human-nature-society-technology system, leading to a loss of control over technology and instability.
The COVID-19 pandemic has proved to be a trigger for post-traumatic stress disorder caused by the experience of psychological trauma and severe negative processes – state, economic, educational, and personal – that have led to an era of turbulence. Global challenges have emerged due to the deep interconnectedness of humanity, which has united due to the emergence of common problems of survival at the global level, which showed that humanity is not ready to solve these problems, united, although not ready for the challenges posed by civilisation. Despite the fact that a universal community has been born, it is not ready for the challenges of our time, as there are no effective ways and mechanisms to manage global problems, so everyone will have to live in a WUKA world that has gone out of balance and turned into an unbalanced force.
However, due to systemic crises, humanity will be forced to come to systemic innovations. The VUCA concept, which was born out of the crisis of modern society, has led to a ‘risk society’ as a consequence of modern civilisation. The VUCA concept is associated with the instability of society and is derived from the acronym of the English words: 1) volatility; 2) uncertainty; 3) complexity; 4) ambiguity, in which tasks are difficult to predict. The VUCA concept is a concept of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, called ‘lifelong learning’. And to survive in this world, you need to be dynamic, able to quickly adapt and adjust to the requirements of this world.
The modern concept of VUCA in the context of instability is based on the theory of complex systems, which is based on AGILE-methodology and AGILE-philosophy, also called agile-methodology and agile-philosophy (agile software development, agile – proven, flexible), which represent a complexity methodology applied to the analysis of complex systems of digital development of the world.
The VUCA concept includes a set of different methods, techniques and a generalisation of different approaches to software development of a set of values based on the principles in the adopted Agile Software Development Manifesto and capable of analysing the complexity of systems, their purpose, the need to identify their functions, place and role in modern society. These principles, methods and approaches can lead to changes at all stages of improving specific action algorithms and flexible management tools in the context of process management, where the AGILE methodology acts as a system of new values.
The AGILE methodology applies to many areas of activity, including the digital paradigm of economics and management, including Scrum – the ‘structure’ approach and Kanban – the ‘balance approach’, which are used in the organisation’s innovation activities, contributing to the creation of an innovative product, increasing the share of digital products and services, as well as new forms of business based on digital technologies (digital economy).
Synergistic analysis methods include the theory of self-organising open systems that find themselves in points of disequilibrium, uncertainty, bifurcation (bifurcation), stochasticity of information (lack of information), and system drift, which results in a change of priorities. General scientific methods – analysis and synthesis, conceptualisation, abstraction; the law of unity and struggle of opposites, since without struggle there is no development. To analyse the VUCA concept, the SySt methodology was used as a methodology for the process of developing awareness and change towards stability.
The complexity is based on the restructuring of the system at the structural and functional level in order to prevent or mitigate crisis and instability, increase the number of innovations, their adoption and technology transfer as a tool for implementing innovative activities, reform the management system using AGILE methodology, restructure people’s minds and develop a new system of values.
- Volatility (instability, fluidity, instability, volatility), which is based on a situation that changes rapidly and unpredictably, making it impossible to imagine the future situation or plan your actions. The state of instability includes the state of the system, which characterises unstable situations and unpredictable changes in terms of speed, nature, volume, dynamics in volatile markets, many factors in fast-moving circumstances affect decision-making, when it is very difficult to predict, as the world has become global and everything is changing very quickly. For each problem, you need to find a strong solution and be able to survive in this creative chaos. However, a systematic strategic alignment can lead to stability, but this requires flexibility, a high level of consciousness and self-esteem, a clear mind, and awareness of one’s own constructions and deconstructions.
- Uncertainty, which is based on disruptive changes that make it difficult to predict the future. Uncertainty means the lack of information to predict the consequences and plan the necessary actions in the context of COVID-19. The World Uncertainty Index (WUI) has been introduced, which is related to the situation of instability and macroeconomic indicators based on the volatility of key financial and economic variables, stock market, risks, lower GDP growth, economic and political instability, covering 143 countries with a population of almost 2 billion people
- Complexity means that a set of facts, causes and factors that are difficult to understand contribute to the emergence of an increasing number of problems and contradictions, and lead to the collapse of complex systems. Complexity is the complexity that results in a set of facts, causes and factors that are difficult to understand and contribute to the emergence of an increasing number of problems.
Complex systems are systems that consist of a huge variety of parts that have the ability to generate new qualities, which are manifested in the spontaneous formation of temporal, spatial and functional structures. Complex systems include self-organisation, nonlinear dynamics, turbulence theory, synergetics, dynamical systems, instabilities, and stochastic systems. These are problems of irreducible complexity of human civilisation. Today, China demonstrates stability in governance. Other countries are entering the supranational level and looking for their niches There is a reformatting of the world (deglobalisation or slooglobalisation – slowdown) in the context of instability, uncertainty, turbulence, chaos, risks, so managers must master the entire volume of information, advanced creative technologies to survive the coronavirus pandemic, which requires overcoming information entropy (a measure of uncertainty, chaos, disorder).
- Ambiguity (ambiguity, ambiguity, uncertainty, doubt, ambiguity), which leads to the fact that it is difficult to answer the questions ‘who, what, when and why’, which is our reality, since nothing is stable. Humanity must recognise the changes that it can control, but for now it is determined by the lack of a clear understanding of the rules of the game, the need to adapt to everything that happens, to develop creativity, communication, critical thinking, as it is difficult to answer the questions ‘who, what, when and why’. Perhaps, before the pandemic, people did not pay attention and did not see the threat to the economic balance, which led to the chaos that followed as a result of rapid unpredictable changes that had been accumulating for many years as a result of the crisis, chaos, and unpredictability of events.
Instability, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity – a state of threat, lack of government change, lack of changes in the constitutional order, rules of the game (S. Huntington), lack of structural and structured changes (D. Searing), lack of balance of political forces (J. Leavely), which also affect the state of small and medium-sized businesses and the stability of organisations.
The modern concept of VUCA demonstrates the changes and the winner is the one who is mobile, flexible, ready for changes and uses creative approaches, as there has been a paradigm shift, the world has become different. The crisis is an important time for change and to rebuild the world using new strategies and new thinking, as new problems cannot be solved by old methods. The conditions of the digital economy have come to be defined as a destructive environment if not rebuilt. We need to find tools to break through the digital technological landmines, to live in chaos means to be flexible and able to survive in the conditions of fluidity and complexity of life.
How to survive in a mode of uncertainty, when today’s world is characterised by a high level of variability, the emergence of an increasing number of complex problems and situations: treat change as a normal phenomenon, as new conditions demonstrate new opportunities; develop a flexible model of managerial thinking; be flexible to rapid changes, be able to solve unpredictable problems; use the competitive advantages of your organisation.
Humanity wants to live in a stable world, and the opposite of the VUCA concept is the SPOD concept, where S stands for sustainable. P (predictable); O (ordinary); D (definite). This instability of civilisation has been caused by the fact that it has reached the planetary limits and almost exceeded them, when civilisation is no longer able to provide the entire population with all the fruits of civilisation – food, clean water, clean air.
Today, global evolutionary changes are taking place as a result of the destructive impact of industrial enterprises on nature, as everything has changed – the climate, accelerating greenhouse effect, changes in biodiversity, oxidation in the oceans, loss of stable equilibrium – so we need to move
– from destruction to regeneration of the planet – without collapse, without global wars:
– to enhance boundary stability, for which we need to pass the ‘bifurcation point’ of the XXI century, realising the scale of the crisis, the need to restructure consciousness on the basis of the noosphere and mind, the formation of society as a collective cooperation, the formation of a new Anthropocene as the anthropological foundations of humanity;
– to reach the post-crisis development, to find the point of transition (fracture, inflection) that will return us to a sustainable world without disasters, but to do so, we need to overcome this bifurcation point;
– civilisation needs to be rebooted through the search for an evolutionary attractor, restructuring of consciousness and culture, and new approaches to the interaction between humans and nature:
– formation of noospheric thinking to break through into a new future – ‘humanity-technosphere-biosphere’:
– cooperation on a universal basis as a new culture of existence and thinking is needed to learn how to survive in the VUCA-world;
– to move from sustainable development to regenerative development and economy, to live within the framework of nature-based development;
– to form an eco-regenerative future as a polyphonic picture of the present, using agro-ecological solutions;
– to develop organic-ecosystem thinking and a new ethical system of values.
As a result of these actions, a non-linear future will be formed, which should find answers to global evolutionary crises, in which new patterns of behaviour, new congruence with complexity, transition to a congruently responsible restoration of human subjectivity, which should become an actor in creating its future, and this requires a new education system that will form the relevant specialists.