VUCA, BANI, RUPT or TUNA
Where do the terms “VUCA” and “BANI” come from? And who knows “RUPT” and “TUNA”?
With all the diversity of these acronyms, my assessment in advance:
Regardless how to name it – it needs any translation , substitution and creation that supplies orientation and allows organizations and leadership to do more of what is appropriate!
It would be wrong and unwise to send the terms and the ideas behind them into competition with each other. Rather, it is value-adding to think the respective statements and positions together and to understand them as a further support for a world that is moving forward, which means, at no point, "exception to a rule" anymore. That would be very naive and more wishful thinking than realism.
Let´s have a glance at some common terms:
Best known: The acronym VUCA
The artificial word VUCA, founded in the 1980s by Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus, is made up of the four terms volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
VUCA describes the changing environment and their challenges.
In this VUCA world, especially in the age of digitalization and AI, leaders and managers need to act differently according to the radical and ongoing changes and disruptions. Conventional leadership methods are reaching their limits. Organizations can and must adapt to this new setting. These necessities have become immovable realities in a world where multi-crisis scenarios and the parallelity of events have become “The New Normal”. The term VUCA aims to make the ever less comprehensible comprehensible. It includes the description of the changed framework conditions under which decisions have to be made today. It is an environment in which information no longer has any predictive significance, because framework conditions change very quickly and disruptively, coalitions of interests are becoming more and more complex and even irrational, and motivations are constantly changing. (Where does VUCA come from?)
The artificial word BANI
In the meantime, there are discussions about the term VUCA being replaced by the artificial word BANI, which stands for Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear, Incomprehensible, and goes back to Jamais Caisco from the "Institute for the Future" in Palo Alto. In 2020, under the title "Facing the Age of Chaos" (https://ageofbani.com/), he presented it as a "meaningful logic" that replaces VUCA, which he sees as outdated. According to his reasoning, VUCA describes the present and thus has an insistent effect. BANI names the future, whose chaos character must be accepted, and thus makes it more accessible.
If VUCA helps to grasp the phenomena of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity and to relate them to one's own context, BANI helps to better understand and locate their effects and what they do to individuals and organizations.
And that's what it's all about:
Grasping the degree to which you are affected and addressing the needs that go along with that. This is the basis for solutions, that are ultimately what it is really all about. What is required is to use existing skills, to train context competence and to develop relevant competencies that meet the demands of self-responsibility, self-efficacy, resilience and sustainability.
Do you already know RUPT?
The Center for Creative Leadership (ccl.org) in the USA uses RUPT as a proxy for Rapid, Unpredictable, Paradoxical, Tangled. If you look up how the term VUCA came to be another acronym that is so popular, especially in the U.S., it comes down to the fact that this is partly due to the still anticipated military origins of the term and partly because VUCA does not seem to capture either what organizations and their leaders experience or how they get through it. Considering that the term VUCA, as mentioned at the beginning, goes back to two economists (Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus) and the American military only brought it to use, it is really relevant to better understand the actual use of the original thought model.
After all, there is also a positive translation for RUPT that includes attitudes and approaches: Reality, Understanding (synonymous as in Bob Johansen´s VUCA Prime), Possibilities, Transparency.
... and there is also TUNA!
To make the list of common paraphrases of the challenges of the 21st century a bit more complete, let's mention TUNA. Here, the four letters stand for Turbulent-Uncertain-Novel-Ambiguous. In 2016, this acronym is used in an executive education program at Oxford University instead of the more familiar VUCA.
But either ways - it's always about the same problem: The external environment changes rapidly and unpredictably, challenging companies and their stakeholders that what worked yesterday won't work anymore tomorrow and the day after. Therefore, acceptance for a dynamically changing world, the deciciveness for searching suitable answers, and the willingness to think anew and “with no box” are needed!
Let´s get back to the roots: VUCA Positive Prime
Bob Johansen found his translation for VUCA in 2007: Vision, Understanding, Clarity, Adaptability. So, what could be more obvious than to opt for the positive connotation of the four letters? In the concept of the VUKA Facilitator® we do it and enjoy a growing community that surfs the VUKA waves together with us and sets its sails to the winds of VUCA, BANI, RUPT and TUNA.
(Contribution by Waltraud Glaeser)