The VUCA Age

Yesterday, I visited one of the financial institutions at Wangdue to do some domestic transactions. It took me with a surprise for taking almost an hour to observe one man’s job getting done. The service was at damn snail’s pace.  

That waiting hour was adequate to heat my temper chamber. So, I resorted to giving my token to a man sitting next to me and drove towards Khuruthang to continue the work. Eventually, it was done.

I realized that the public services next to the doorsteps are seldom unpredictable and inadequate in exercising their functional duties.

But more than anything else, amidst the myriads of questions that cropped up, I kept wondering if our financial institutions or public institutions for that matter were aware of that VUCA factor in the world of work.

The credit for the etymology of this VUCA acronym goes to the U.S. Army War College. But today, this military vocabulary is extensively employed in the fields of business conglomerates and educational enterprises due to its strategic insight and concept for managing the present and concerning the future. 

Image Courtesy: Click LINK

VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity.

Volatility stands for an unpredictable pattern and dynamics of change in terms of its nature, speed, volume and magnitude. As the world gets exposed to increasingly faster growth of globalization, digitalization and commercialization each day, it pushes our world of work further into more complex settings. Under such a systematically volatile system, change is thus, an inevitable but certain outcome. The rate of change today is much faster and different than ever before. Accordingly, reinventing a working system with a strategic vision that is resilient, dynamic and adaptable has to be in place to answer such problems.

In a move to build such flexible and malleable systems, organizations have to look beyond in finding a new approach to optimize their productivity. Critical to the success of steering its productivity exponentially for any business is giving equivalent efforts in considering customer feedback and understanding available competitors in the business market. When there is a lack of clarity or lapses in understanding such complex systems, organizations are undoubtedly doomed to fail miserably.

This is predictable in our systems which are complexly formed of people from diverse backgrounds, education, culture and beliefs that are intensely interconnected and interdependent. The organizations that cater to such diversity have to focus on surrendering any ineffectual strategies to emphasize creating enabling conditions to boom their business. There is no room for that traditional belief or complacency characteristics of assuming their business to be doing OK without having a clear sense of such complexity. In an attempt to thrive the success of the organization, the network of chaos that maximizes the likelihood of creating public nuisances and curtails the general progress of the institutions has to be sorted out neatly.  

Such an act of understanding the cause and effect relationships, and being open to conceptualizing threats and opportunities can clear the ambiguous path of the institution. When such vagueness is resolved, so many contextual events can flow in place. Designing an improved but newer and faster way of delivering service after welcoming every public outcry will only upsurge the number of customers by leaps and bounds.      

It is crucial in the business world to accept customer satisfaction as the cause of the success of any organization. But the VUCA concept is more so important in preparing the entity to respond to the fast changing environment and drive for the change.

But it depends on how we buffer the effect of such changing landscapes in the complexly fast emerging world.  

 “Back in 1958, a company could expect to stay on the list for 61 years. These days, the average is just 18 years”

Antonio Regalado MIT Technology Review

Effective Communication

Communication is one central human phenomenon that takes place daily in our life. We communicate to exchange our thoughts and ideas with the purpose of transmitting the information.

But how successful we are in transferring the message across to the audience would be gauged by how capable we are in communicating effectively.

Having the right skill on how best one can explain their ideas and thoughts while making others understand can make a sea of differences in synchronizing workflow in the system, deciphering problems, making wise decisions, building positive rapports, and decorating one’s career besides creating a civilized society. This merits the fact that effective communication is also a process that involves hearing what isn’t being said.    

For teachers, effective communication is more so important than any other life skill. How they architect the future of our generations and engineer the construction of knowledge in the otherwise misconstrued compartment of a child’s neuron, largely rests on the pivot of effective communication.

A highly proficient and competent teacher never fails to calculate listening, reading and writing as other major elements of the effective communication equation. But more than these things, body language takes a lion's share in being an effective communication constituent. The transferal of knowledge, skills and values are only productive when all these components function as one system of effective communication.

The recent professional development course entitled “English for Effective Communication Training” by the Ministry of Education for the teachers throughout the nation only warrants such significant magnificence. Such professional crusade can at best, inspire the educators to be more reflective in teaching while at least, can assist them to grow some characteristics of an effective communicator. 

“… You cannot tell children to be strong if you are not strong yourself. If you don’t know anything about the subject you are teaching how much of it are you going to give to your students, you cannot give what you do not have…”

– His Majesty King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck

Drukpa TsheZhi

Every fourth day of the six month in the Lunar calendar is observed as the First Sermon of Lord Buddha.

Natively known as Drukpa Tshe Zhi, it is regarded as one of the most sacred and auspicious days in the Buddhist calendar. It is on this day that the Buddha Shakyamuni, gave the first sermon regarding the Middle Path and the doctrine of the “Four Noble Truths” (བདེན་པ་བཞི), spiritually revered as Turning the Wheel of Dharma (Choe Khor Duechen). 

The First Sermon of Lord Buddha       Image courtesy: Click LINK

Bhutan celebrates the day by paying visits to the holy sites such as temples and monasteries, offer prayers and butter lamps, chant the religious mantras and receive blessings from the religious figures, relics and murals (thongdrels). Any noble and virtuous deeds steered on this day is believed to multiple thousand times and a person will earn all the merits and blessings in manifolds.

Some 2500 years ago at Deer Park, Sarnath in India, the Lord Buddha has given a religious discourse to the five ascetics who were his former companions about The Four Noble Truths which are:

1. སྡུག་བསྔལ་གྱི་བདེན་པ། Life is full of suffering:

2. ཀུན་འབྱུང་གྱི་བདེན་པ། There is a cause to suffering.

3. འགོག་པའི་བདེན་པ། There is an end to suffering.

4. ལམ་གྱི་བདེན་པ། The end to suffering is contained in the eightfold path. 

1. སྡུག་བསྔལ་གྱི་བདེན་པ། Life is full of suffering

Buddha said that life is full of suffering. Birth, ageing, sickness and death are all suffering. Pain and grief, lamentation and agony, despair and misery are suffering. Separation of emotions, detachment from the beloveds and dissociations from the pleasant is suffering. Not getting what you desire is suffering.  

       

2. ཀུན་འབྱུང་གྱི་བདེན་པ། There is a cause to suffering.

Buddha said that all suffering is caused by desire. Craving for sensual pleasures, delight and lust is what causes sufferings.

3. འགོག་པའི་བདེན་པ། There is an end to suffering.

Buddha said that the end to suffering is to cease our desire and thirst, renounce or relinquish and detach completely from worldly desires.     

4. ལམ་གྱི་བདེན་པ། The end to suffering is contained in the eightfold path.

Buddha said that the noble truth of the way that will lead to cease the suffering is following the Eightfold Path. The Eightfold path is:

Right View

Right Intention

Right Speech

Right Action

Right Livelihood

Right Effort

Right Mindfulness and

Right Concentration.

 

Eightfold Path       Image courtesy: Click LINK

Buddhist narration has it that as soon as the sermon of the Lord Buddha concluded, the five ascetics got enlightenment. It is due to this spiritual magnificence that Bhutanese who are Buddhist since times immemorial get to remind and realize the fundamental teachings of the Lord Buddha on this very day.    

“Three things cannot hide for long: the moon, the sun and the truth”

Lord Buddha

Of Superstitions and Faiths

That ‘excessive credulous belief in considering something is true or will occur’ and a ‘belief in devotion or trust’ exists across the globe. But for all those cultural credulity and belief, a very transparent line of variations subsists in a sense that all are irrationally rational.

However, some ‘irrational beliefs’ as one may call them are sometimes genetic and territorial in nature. So, what one belief firmly may sound ridiculous to the other, which in turn qualifies to be a substance enough to ignite a tsunami of laughter.

Late recently, a lady from Shillong chortled after the valediction of the International Conference we attended together at Sherubtse College when I said, “May you have a rebirth in my country” in response to her recurrent would-be-missing-the-tranquillity-and-serenity of my country avowal.  

Wheel of life in Buddhism.                           

As much as it sounded derisive for my spiritual belief by this lady from the ‘Scotland of the East’, factually, rebirth doctrine is one instrumental string of belief that helms one’s faith in Buddhism. Buddhists, in general, have this ancient and historical belief in the blood that virtuous and pious deeds during our current existence will result in a swift rebirth, better than the present human realm due to one’s karmic action. We believe in that ‘environmental result’ where the present wealthy and the prosperous are the desired outcomes of relinquishing the material possessions in their previous life and have therefore offered to others in need. The poor and unhealthy at present are simply the otherwise.

In the same vein, most of the beliefs in Buddhism are mostly intertwined with logical extractions. Dreams that are grotesquely odd and mysterious are often considered a bad omen or premonitions, thus demanding suitable spiritual interventions to pacify them. Days and dates in the lunar calendar are programmed with the astrological interpretations of being auspicious and promising or inauspicious and ominous. The choice of colour of the new car, wedding dates and roofing of the newly constructed structures to name a few, are never free of such transcendent interpretations. That ‘spiritual connectivity allowing us to show reverence to nature as life-bearing identity grounds our belief to further ennoble it.   

These age-old beliefs and interpretations have withstood the storm of globalization. So for me, as long as that psychological and psychosomatic well being is taken care of, the beliefs embedded with the principles of Buddhism shall never shrink from the amulet of my mind.

“Superstition is the religion of feeble minds”           Edmund Burke