News
Creating success from a crisis
- 18 May 2020
- Posted by: benjamin.taylor
- Category: PSTA
Chief Executive Benjamin Taylor in the Municipal Journal
COVID-19 has been described as a ‘black swan’ event. It’s certainly dramatic, unprecedented, potentially overwhelming and likely to bring sweeping changes in the short- and long-term. But it is not a black swan event.
It has also been described as the essence, the apotheosis, of the management talk about a world that is ‘VUCA’ (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous). But it is not as complex as we think.
None of this diminishes the challenges or the impact. It seems clear now that we have had the earthquake. Now comes the tsunami and what will be many subsequent waves of disruption, pain, cost and, tragically, death. Each of these waves might also trigger massive changes in our systems.
But let’s be clear – the basic learning about COVID-19 was already available to us from a series of well-rehearsed scenario plans and exercises over the last 20 years or more.
It’s not a black swan event because it was easy to predict, and the probability was calculable. And while we might argue that the ramifications meet the VUCA definition (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) – or, more realistically, Rafael Ramirez’s TUNA alternative (turbulent, uncertain, novel, and ambiguous) – the challenges facing us right now are technical and about expertise, volume, scale, planning and acting.
Either way, the we must capture the learning now in order to act more effectively so we can be better prepared for the truly complex ramifications for the future.
Continues in source: https://www.themj.co.uk/Creating-success-from-a-crisis/217434
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