Tag Archives: VUCA

Why VUCA is a Myth

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Why VUCA is a Myth

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

“Imagine, if you will, a factory as clean, spacious and continuously operating as a hydroelectric plant. The production floor is barren of men,” Fortune magazine declared in its November 1946 issue. Soon the world entered a new world of mass production and mass retail. Then came a green revolution, a space race, genomics, computers, the Internet and now artificial intelligence.

Today it’s become an article of faith that everything moves faster. Business pundits tell us that we’re living in a VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous). These are taken as basic truths that are beyond questioning or reproach. Yet are things actually moving any faster than in earlier eras? The evidence is surprisingly scarce.

The inescapable truth is that some things move faster today and others move slower. We don’t have—nor should we want—more change today than before. We need to be more thoughtful about change, more deliberate about the ones we undertake and more tenacious in our pursuit of them. We should aim to have less disruption and more progress.

An Era of Industrial Stability

Since Jack Welch took over GE in the 1980s, the management ethos has been taken over by a cult of disruption. Pundits say we must “innovate or die.” Managers feel pressure to launch new initiatives, to pivot and then pivot again, because the competition has become so rabid that “only the paranoid survive.”

The data, however, tell a very different story. A report from the OECD found that markets, especially in the United States, have become more concentrated and less competitive, with less churn among industry leaders. The number of young firms have decreased markedly as well, falling from roughly half of the total number of companies in 1982 to one third in 2013.

A comprehensive 2019 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found two correlated, but countervailing trends: the rise of “superstar” firms and the fall of labor’s share of GDP. Essentially, the typical industry has fewer, but larger players. Their increased bargaining power leads to more profits, but lower wages.

With all of the hype around things like artificial intelligence, this may seem hard to believe. However, once you start to think about where you actually spend your money, food, shelter healthcare, travel and so on the reality sets in that most of the economy involves atoms and not bits and, if you do a bit more research, you’ll find that those industries are, for the most part, less competitive.

The truth is that we don’t really disrupt industries anymore. We disrupt people. Economic data shows that for most Americans, real wages have hardly budged since 1964. Income and wealth inequality remain at historic highs. Anxiety and depression, already at epidemic levels, worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Limits Of Digital Dominance

Over the past several decades, innovation has become largely synonymous with digital technology. When the topic of innovation comes up, somebody usually points to a company like Apple, Google or Facebook rather than, say, a car company, a hotel or a restaurant. Today, seven out of the ten most valuable companies in the world are digital firms.

This is largely because of two forces converging. The first is Moore’s Law, the exponential doubling of the number of transistors we have been able to cram onto a silicon wafer. Yet our ability to do that is coming up against the constraints of physics. Advancement in conventional chips has already slowed and, at some point, it will stop altogether.

The other force driving the digital economy has been increasing returns. As the economist W. Brian Arthur explained in a 1996 article in Harvard Business Review, certain conditions, such as high upfront investment, negligible marginal costs and network effects, lead to “winner take all markets where the fastest firm reaps incredible benefits.

Yet consider that information and communication technologies only make up about 6% of GDP value added in advanced economies and you begin to see the problem. The Silicon Valley model simply doesn’t work outside of software and consumer gadgets. In industries that have a low tolerance for failure, such as manufacturing and healthcare, you can’t simply move fast and break things because you’ll likely break something important.

Moving Slow To Go Fast

When Covid hit in the winter of 2020, it was a mysterious disease with no known cure. Yet in a mere matter of months vaccines were developed and being tested. By the end of the year two firms, Pfizer and Moderna received emergency authorization and people started getting their shots. Given that before Covid it took more than a decade to develop and test a vaccine, this was almost unheard of speed.

Yet look a little closer and it becomes clear that the real story is somewhat different. Katalin Karikó, published her first paper on the mRNA technology used to make the vaccines in 1990. She wasn’t able to win grants to fund her work and, in 1995, was told that she could either direct her energies in a different way, or be demoted. She took the demotion, worked through it and, a decade later, began to see some success.

Today, of course, mRNA technology is moving very quickly. Funding is flooding into labs to potentially cure or prevent a wide range of diseases, from cancer to malaria, vastly more efficiently than anything we’ve ever seen before. There are similar slow moving revolutions underway in quantum computing, drug and materials discovery and other things.

There’s nothing usual about any of this. It’s long been known that technology follows an s-curve pattern, starting slowly, then hitting an exponential phase in which it moves very quickly before leveling off again. For example, after penicillin became commercially available in 1945, we entered a golden age of antibiotics and scientists quickly uncovered dozens of compounds that could fight infection, before things slowed to a crawl.

At any given time, there are many s-curves going on at once. Some are just beginning to crawl, others speeding up and still others slowing down. Pointing out the ones that are speeding up and ignoring everything else that’s going on may be exciting, but it’s not the way to get the best results.

Rethinking The Change Gospel

It’s no accident that VUCA is a military term. The ever-present mantra that we are living in a time of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity makes corporate executives feel like swashbuckling heroes. The truth is that there is very little evidence that is the case and a veritable mountain to the contrary.

There is also evidence that all the hype around change is doing real damage. Leaders conjure up dramatic images of “burning platforms” to justify launching ambitious initiatives, which rarely succeed. These failures then are given as confirmation for how dire the need for change really is and more initiatives are launched with similar results.

That is the change gospel. Transformation has, all too often, become an end in itself rather than a means to an end. We end up pivoting so much that we end up right where we started. The problem with cheerleading change is that it puts the cart before the horse. People don’t embrace change because you came up with a fancy slogan, they adopt what they find meaningful, that creates genuine value to their lives and their work.

We need to have more reverence for the mundane and ordinary. When you look at previous eras in which more genuine transformation took place and far more economic value was produced, there was much less talk about disruption and much more focus on improving the human condition.

The truth is that we’re not really disrupting industries anymore as much as we are disrupting ourselves and fairy tales and living in a VUCA era will not change those basic facts. We need to think less about disruption and more about tackling grand challenges that will impact the world in significant ways. Innovation should serve people, not the other way around.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

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Making Decisions in Uncertainty

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This 25-Year-Old Tool Actually Works

Making Decisions in Uncertainty

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

Just as we got used to VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) futurists now claim “the world is BANI now.”  BANI (brittle, anxious, nonlinear, incomprehensible) is much worse than VUCA and reflects “the fractured, unpredictable state of the modern world.”

Not to get too Gen X on the futurists who coined and are spreading this term but…shut up.

Is the world fractured and unpredictable? Yes.

Does it feel brittle? Are we more anxious than ever? Are things changing at exponential speed, requiring nonlinear responses? Does the world feel incomprehensible? Yes, to all.

Naming a problem is the first step in solving it. The second step is falling in love with the problem so that we become laser focused on solving it. BANI does the first but fails at the second. It wallows in the problem without proposing a path forward. And as the sign says, “Ain’t nobody got time for this.”

(Re)Introducing the Cynefin Framework

The Cynefin framework recognizes that leadership and problem-solving must be contextual to be effective. Using the Welsh word for “habitat,” the framework is a tool to understand and name the context of a situation and identify the approaches best suited for managing or solving the situation.

It’s grounded in the idea that every context – situation, challenge, problem, opportunity – exists somewhere on a spectrum between Ordered and Unordered. At the Ordered end of the spectrum, cause and affect are obvious and immediate and the path forward is based on objective, immutable facts. Unordered contexts, however, have no obvious or immediate relationship between cause and effect and moving forward requires people to recognize patterns as they emerge.

Both VUCA and BANI point out the obvious – we’re spending more time on the Unordered end of the spectrum than ever. Unlike the acronyms, Cynefin helps leaders decide and act.

Five Contexts, Five Ways Forward

The Cynefin framework identifies five contexts, each with its own best practices for making decisions and progress.

On the Ordered end of the spectrum:

  • Simple contexts are characterized by stability and obvious and undisputed right answers. Here, patterns repeat, and events are consistent. This is where leaders rely on best practices to inform decisions and delegation, and direct communication to move their teams forward.
  • Complicated contexts have many possible right answers and the relationship between cause and effect isn’t known but can be discovered. Here, leaders need to rely on diverse expertise and be particularly attuned to conflicting advice and novel ideas to avoid making decisions based on outdated experience.

On the Unordered end of the spectrum:

  • Complex contexts are filled with unknown unknowns, many competing ideas, and unpredictable cause and effects. The most effective leadership approach in this context is one that is deeply uncomfortable for most leaders but familiar to innovators – letting patterns emerge. Using small-scale experiments and high levels of collaboration, diversity, and dissent, leaders can accelerate pattern-recognition and place smart bets.
  • Chaos are contexts fraught with tension. There are no right answers or clear cause and effect. There are too many decisions to make and not enough time. Here, leaders often freeze or make big bold decisions. Neither is wise. Instead, leaders need to think like emergency responders and rapidly response to re-establish order where possible to bring the situation into a Complex state, rather than trying to solve everything at once.

The final context is Disorder. Here leaders argue, multiple perspectives fight for dominance, and the organization is divided into fractions. Resolution requires breaking the context down into smaller parts that fit one of the four previous contexts and addressing them accordingly.

The Only Way Out is Through

Our VUCA/BANI world isn’t going to get any simpler or easier. And fighting it, freezing, or fleeing isn’t going to solve anything. Organizations need leaders with the courage to move forward and the wisdom and flexibility to do so in a way that is contextually appropriate. Cynefin is their map.

Image credit: Pexels

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Four Deadly Business Myths

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Four Deadly Business Myths

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

The unicorn is perhaps unique among myths in that the creature doesn’t appear in the mythology of any culture. The ancient Greeks, for all of their centaurs, hydras and medusae, never had any stories of unicorns, they simply thought that some existed somewhere. Of course, nobody had ever seen one, but they believed others had.

Beliefs are amazing things. We don’t need any evidence or rational basis to believe something to be true. In fact, research has shown that, when confronted with scientific evidence which conflicts with preexisting views, people tend to question the objectivity of the research rather than revisit their beliefs. Also, as Sam Arbesman has explained, our notions of the facts themselves change over time.

George Soros and others have noted that information has a reflexive quality. We can’t possibly verify every proposition, so we tend to take cues from those around us, especially when they are reinforced by authority figures, like consultants and media personalities. Over time, the zeitgeist diverges further from reality and myths evolve into established doctrine.

Myth #1: We Live In A VUCA Business Environment

Today it seems that every business pundit is talking about how we operate in a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world. It’s not hard to see the attraction. Conjuring almost apocalyptic images of continuous industrial disruption creates demand for consulting and advisory services. It’s easier to sell aspirin than vitamins.

The data, however, tell a different story. In fact, a report from the OECD found that markets, especially in the United States, have become more concentrated and less competitive, with less churn among industry leaders. The number of young firms have decreased markedly as well, falling from roughly half of the total number of companies in 1982 to one third in 2013.

Today, in part because of lax antitrust enforcement over the past few decades, businesses have become less disruptive, less competitive and less dynamic, while our economy has become less innovative and less productive. The fact that the reality is in such stark contrast to the rhetoric, is more than worrying, it should be a flashing red light.

The truth is that we don’t really disrupt industries anymore. We disrupt people. Economic data shows that for most Americans, real wages have hardly budged since 1964. Income and wealth inequality remain at historic highs. Anxiety and depression, already at epidemic levels, worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The recent great resignation, when people began leaving their jobs in droves, helps tell this story. Should anyone be surprised? We’ve been working longer hours, constantly tethered to the office even as we work remotely, under increasing levels of stress. Yes, things change. They always have and always will. We need to adapt, but all of the VUCA talk is killing us.

Myth #2: Empathy Is Absolution

Another favorite buzzword today is empathy. It is often paired with compassion in the context of creating a more beneficial workplace. That is, of course, a reasonable and worthy objective. As noted above, there’s far too much talk about disruption and uncertainty and not nearly enough about stability and well-being.

Still, the one-dimensional use of empathy is misleading. When seen only through the lens of making others more comfortable, it seems like a “nice to have,” rather than a valuable competency and an important source of competitive advantage. It’s much easier to see the advantage of imposing your will, rather than internalizing the perspectives of others.

One thing I learned living overseas for 15 years is that it is incredibly important to understand how people around you think, especially if you don’t agree with them and, as is sometimes the case, find their point of view morally reprehensible. In fact, learning more about how others think can make you a more effective leader, negotiator and manager.

Empathy is not absolution. You can internalize the ideas of others and still vehemently disagree. There is a reason that Special Forces are trained to understand the cultures in which they will operate and it isn’t because it makes them nicer people. It’s because it makes them more lethal operators.

Learning that not everyone thinks alike is one of life’s most valuable lessons. Yes, coercion is often a viable strategy in the short-term. But to build something that lasts, it’s much better if people do things for their own reasons, even if those reasons are different than yours. To achieve that, you have to understand their motivations.

Myth #3: Diversity Equity And Inclusion Is About Enforcing Rules

In recent years corporate America has pushed to implement policies for diversity, equity and inclusion. The Society for Human Resource Management even offers a diversity toolkit on its website firms can adopt, complete with guidelines, best practices and even form letters.

Many organizations have incorporated diversity awareness training for employees to learn about things like unconscious bias, microaggressions and cultural awareness. There are often strict codes of conduct with serious repercussions for violations. Those who step out of line can be terminated and see their careers derailed.

Unfortunately, these efforts can backfire, especially if diversity efforts rely to heavily on a disciplinary regime. As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein pointed out long ago, strict rules-based approaches are problematic because they inevitably lead to logical contradictions. What starts out as a well-meaning effort can quickly become a capricious workplace dominated by fear.

Cultural competency is much better understood as a set of skills than a set of rules. While the prospect of getting fired for saying the wrong thing can be chilling, who wouldn’t want to be a more effective communicator, able to collaborate more effectively with colleagues who have different viewpoints, skills and perspectives?

To bring about real transformation, you need to attract. You can’t bully or overpower. Promoting inclusion should be about understanding, not intimidation.

Myth #4: People Are Best Motivated Through Carrots And Sticks

One of the things we’ve noticed when we advise organizations on transformation initiatives is that executives tend to default towards incentive structures. They quickly conjure up a Rube Goldberg-like system of bonuses and penalties designed to incentivize people to exhibit the desired behaviors. This is almost always a mistake.

If you feel the need to bribe and bully people to get what you want, you are signaling from the outset that there is something undesirable about what you’re asking for. In fact, we’ve known for decades that financial incentives often prove to be problematic.

Instead of trying to get people to do what you want, you’re much better off identifying people who want what you want and empowering them to succeed. As they prosper, they can bring others in who can attract others still. That’s how you build a movement that people feel a sense of ownership of, rather than mandate that they feel subjugated by.

The trick is that you always want to start with a majority, even if it’s three people in a room of five. The biggest influence on what we do and think is what the people around us do and think. That’s why it’s always easy to expand a majority out, but as soon as you are in the minority, you will feel immediate pushback.

We need to stop trying to engineer behavior, as if humans are assemblages of buttons and levers that we push and pull to get the results we want. Effective leaders are more like gardeners, nurturing, growing and shaping the ecosystems in which they operate, uniting others with a sense of shared identity and shared purpose.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credits: Unsplash

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Psychological Safety: The Foundation of a Thriving and Innovative Culture

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Psychological Safety: The Foundation of a Thriving and Innovative Culture

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

In a world defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), the old rules of leadership no longer apply. For too long, we have celebrated organizational cultures built on a foundation of intense competition, relentless efficiency, and a drive for individual brilliance. The implicit message was simple: success belongs to the most competent, the most certain, and the most productive. As a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I am here to argue that this approach is fundamentally flawed. The most resilient, innovative, and high-performing teams are not the ones with the most talent, but the ones with the most trust. Their secret weapon is a concept known as **psychological safety**, the shared belief that the team is a safe place for taking interpersonal risks.

Psychological safety is not about being “nice” or creating a “safe space” for mediocrity. It’s about building a foundation of trust where people feel safe enough to be vulnerable. It’s the feeling that you can admit a mistake, ask a “stupid” question, or challenge the status quo without fear of being ridiculed, shamed, or punished. This is a crucial distinction. When psychological safety is absent, our natural human instinct to self-preserve kicks in. We self-censor, we withhold critical information, and we stick to the known, a recipe for stagnation and eventual failure. But when it’s present, something magical happens: individual intelligence transforms into collective genius. Teams learn faster, innovate more freely, and adapt to change with a level of agility that is impossible in a fear-based environment.

The Business Case for Safety: Why Trust is Your Greatest Asset

The argument for psychological safety isn’t just a philosophical one; it’s a strategic imperative with a clear business case. Research from a wide range of fields—from organizational psychology to neuroscience—confirms its power. In a landmark study, Google’s “Project Aristotle,” researchers set out to find the secret to the company’s most effective teams. They analyzed everything from individual skills to personality types, but the data revealed a surprising truth: the single most important factor was not talent, but psychological safety. This finding cemented psychological safety as the ultimate foundation for high-performance.

When psychological safety is high, a team can:

  • Embrace a Learning Mindset: Mistakes are seen as data points for learning, not failures to be punished. This enables rapid iteration and a “fail-fast” culture.
  • Unlock Creativity and Innovation: When people are free from the fear of looking foolish, they are more likely to share unconventional ideas, leading to genuine breakthroughs.
  • Improve Problem-Solving: Team members are more likely to speak up about potential problems, raise red flags, and engage in constructive conflict, allowing the team to address issues before they become crises.
  • Increase Employee Engagement and Retention: People want to work in an environment where they feel valued, respected, and safe. A culture of psychological safety fosters deep loyalty and reduces turnover.

“Talent gets you on the field, but psychological safety is what allows you to win the game.”

Case Study 1: Pixar’s “Braintrust” – A Masterclass in Candor and Trust

The Challenge:

In the high-stakes world of animated filmmaking, a single creative misstep can lead to a disastrous flop. For Pixar, the challenge was to create a mechanism for frank, honest, and even brutal feedback on films in progress without crushing the creative spirit of the director and their team. A typical corporate review process would be too political and hierarchical for the level of candid feedback needed.

The Psychological Safety Solution:

Pixar’s solution was the **Braintrust**, an exclusive group of the company’s most accomplished directors and storytellers. This wasn’t a formal committee; it was a culture built on psychological safety. The core rules of the Braintrust are simple yet powerful: a director is never obligated to act on the feedback, and the group’s purpose is to help the film succeed, not to assert power. The feedback is always on the work, never the person. This deep, shared belief that everyone is there to help and that no one is judging personal worth allowed for a level of open, candid criticism that is almost unheard of in other creative industries. Directors could present their half-finished, deeply flawed films and receive honest input without fear of professional harm.

The Result:

The Braintrust is a key reason for Pixar’s long-term, unprecedented creative success. It is a living testament to the power of psychological safety. By building an environment where candor and vulnerability were not just tolerated but celebrated, Pixar created a collective intelligence that consistently elevated the quality of every film. They proved that honest feedback, delivered with a foundation of trust, is the ultimate driver of creative excellence.

Case Study 2: The Boeing 737 MAX Crisis – The Catastrophic Cost of Silence

The Challenge:

In the years leading up to the two fatal crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX, the company was under immense pressure to compete with Airbus and deliver a new, fuel-efficient aircraft on an aggressive timeline. Internally, a culture of cost-cutting and a rigid, top-down hierarchy created a fear-based environment. Engineers and employees were aware of potential issues with the new flight control software (MCAS), but they felt unable to raise their concerns.

The Psychological Safety Failure:

In this culture of fear, with an emphasis on meeting deadlines at all costs, employees chose silence over speaking up. A damning report by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee found that a lack of psychological safety prevented whistleblowers from coming forward. Engineers felt that raising safety concerns would not only fall on deaf ears but could also lead to retaliation or professional damage. Instead of a collaborative problem-solving approach, the culture fostered a dangerous “don’t ask, don’t tell” mentality. The very people who could have prevented the tragedy were silenced by an environment that prioritized speed and cost over human lives.

The Result:

The absence of psychological safety at Boeing led to one of the most devastating corporate crises in modern history. The two fatal crashes killed 346 people and resulted in a massive financial and reputational blow. The case of the 737 MAX serves as a powerful cautionary tale, demonstrating that a lack of psychological safety is not just a cultural problem; it is a critical strategic risk with potentially catastrophic consequences. It’s a stark reminder that when people are afraid to speak up, the cost can be measured in both lives and livelihoods.

Conclusion: The Ultimate Foundation for Innovation

Psychological safety is not a “nice-to-have” or a buzzword from a corporate retreat. It is the ultimate foundation for building teams that are resilient, adaptable, and ready for anything. It is the soil in which innovation grows, where creativity flourishes, and where people are empowered to be their best, most authentic selves. As leaders, our most important job is not to have all the answers, but to create the environment where our teams feel safe enough to find them together.

In a world of constant change, the ability to learn and evolve is paramount. And learning only happens when we are willing to admit what we don’t know, to experiment without fear of failure, and to speak our minds without fear of judgment. The future belongs to the psychologically safe. Let’s start building it, one conversation and one act of vulnerability at a time.

Extra Extra: Because innovation is all about change, Braden Kelley’s human-centered change methodology and tools are the best way to plan and execute the changes necessary to support your innovation and transformation efforts — all while literally getting everyone all on the same page for change. Find out more about the methodology and tools, including the book Charting Change by following the link. Be sure and download the TEN FREE TOOLS while you’re here.

Image credit: Pexels

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Leadership When the Heat is On

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Leadership When the Heat is On

GUEST POST from Robert B. Tucker

Three years ago, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, was a comedian with a young family and a popular television show. Today he moves around in bunkers, rallying his battered nation, and inspiring people the world over with his conviction.

Leaders like Zelensky fit a certain pattern. Often just ordinary people, they get thrust into a vortex. Yet they rise and shine when all about there is chaos. The moment of crisis becomes a moment of truth. It brings out strengths they never knew they had, and never needed before. It galvanizes others to do the same.

I don’t mean to be alarmist, but in the VUCA world (volatile-uncertain-complex-ambiguous) we are facing, it’s a matter of time before you face a crisis. It might already have arrived in the form of a pandemic, or a war, or an insurrection. But it might show up as a wildfire, hurricane, or other natural disaster, made worse by a heating up climate. It could be a sudden health challenge. It might be an existential threat to the organization you lead.

The question is: How will you rise up to meet that crisis? How will you lead? And what can you do right now today to prepare? Recently I gained insight into these questions from an educational leader in North Carolina.

In the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, Dr. Andrew Smith was serving as the chief strategy planning officer for the Rowan-Salisbury School System in Salisbury, North Carolina, 44 miles north of Charlotte. It was his task to help his fellow leaders deal with a multi-pronged crisis, with dimensions that none had ever experienced before.

“For the first month, we were making poor decisions left and right,” Smith told me in a recent zoom interview. “They were all very much emotionally driven and reactive. I told the team: ‘We can’t move forward because all we do is talk about what ifs’.”

With his strategy and business-school background, Smith brought a different perspective to public education. He had long observed that schools were woefully unprepared to make dramatic changes in service delivery and business model. Suddenly Covid 19 had made that a necessity, as parents, teachers, stakeholders and the kids themselves faced an existential health and safety threat that demanded action. What to do?

Smith’s first move may have been his most critical. He requested permission from his boss to take two days out to clear his head, come up with an approach. During his mini- sabbatical, he came across notes from a risk management and contingency planning course he’d taken at Wake Forest University. A chart from the course gave him the insights he needed to lead during a difficult period.

Back at the office, and with the full support of his boss, superintendent Dr. Lynn Moody, Smith convened the district’s leadership crisis team. He challenged the group to write down everything they were worried about: “Every scenario for the next six months that’s causing you heartburn,” is the way he described it to me.

They wrote them all down. Doing so had a clarifying effect. Next, Smith led the group in winnowing down the bulky list to focus in on 13 “most likely” scenarios. “They quite frankly scared the hell out of us,” Smith recalls. We realized we needed to really think through them.”

Smith used a risk analysis tool he’d learned at Wake Forest to assign variables to each of the likeliest scenarios. The team assigned a probability that each scenario might come to pass and recorded it on the “Y” axis. They assigned a probability of impact on the organization to the “X” axis. In this way, the impact represented the district’s ability and current infrastructure to address the scenario. Based on the probability and likely impact on the kids, and on all stakeholders, they created a Risk Analysis Index graph to help them visualize the highest risk scenarios, and to surface the most likely scenarios.

As events unfolded, the top three most likely scenarios were amazingly accurate predictors of what would transpire. Because they monitored the news and were in constant touch with the Governor’s office on the issue of school closings/re-openings, they were able to forecast one of the parameters with greater precision.

“We ranked at a 95 percent chance of happening that schools would be closed for the remaining school year for students and staff,” said Smith. “In April 2020, barely a month into the crisis, the team realized “we should stop worrying about returning to in person and start worrying about next school year because we’re already behind the game here.”

Another key to the team’s leadership through a fast-changing healthcare and social crisis was its willingness to do research. To inform their decisions, the team conducted daily, sometimes hourly media monitoring research into what other organizations were doing to confront the crisis.

Denmark’s approach to reopening its schools was particularly innovative. Their strategy included staggering arrival and departure times, requiring students to wash their hands every two hours, disinfecting surfaces twice daily, and splitting students into smaller groups. They reorganizing classrooms so that desks were at least six feet apart. Outside education, the team examined business models for reopening to triangulate best practices for bringing students back into schools; including examining Disney’s model.

For each of the most likely scenarios, the team built a contingency plan, ready to go into effect: If X happens, we’ll be ready to do this, this and this. The tools of contingency planning literature was helpful in their thinking through a range of eventualities. Public schools were in the harsh light of second guessing and criticism for missing important developments. So as part of his facilitation role, Smith urged the team to revisit core values and focus on those that would come into play with the execution of each plan. The goal was to create a shared vision for how best to institute re-entry plans, and communicate both the vision and the game-plan to stakeholders to build trust and ensure buy-in, and constantly seek feedback through focus groups to gauge community and parent reaction.

The plan needed to take into consideration the overall probability, impact, and risk of various scenarios, to ensure the continuity of learning and overall strength of the organization. It needed not only to ensure the health and safety of students, but also teachers, staff and the general public. It needed to honor and serve the students, families and employees, and address the inequities that exist among students’ access to content and instruction during school closure period.

And it needed to meet challenge with a spirit of innovation.

This article originally appeared in Forbes
Image credit: Pixabay

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