VUCA was introduced by the U.S. Army War College to describe the more Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous multilateral world which resulted from the end of the Cold War. The common usage of the term VUCA began in the 1990s and derives from military vocabulary. It has been subsequently used in emerging ideas in strategic leadership that apply in a wide range of organisations, including everything from for-profit corporations to education. VUCA is moving into the business environment, which includes, of course, insurance and financial services.
It is fairly safe to say that we live in interesting times. More than that, we live in rapidly changing times. All Change Management professionals and Project Management Office teams are asking themselves the same questions. How can we keep pace with rapid business transformation, tectonic shifts in the economic and finance environment (starting in the UK post Brexit) and almost bewildering societal change? These questions all came up at a recent breakfast seminar I led where our panel of change management experts and audience of insurance sector participants discussed the complexities of solving tame, crisis and wicked problems and the VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) approach for general conditions and solutions.