A considered answer to VUCA
VUCA Prime and reframing complex problems.
- Level
- Bitesize
- Learning time
- 1 hour 15 minutes
- Where
- VUCA, Uncertainty and Complexity
- Price
- £39
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion
Overview and Outcomes.
Overview
If VUCA is the diagnosis, Bob Johansen's VUCA Prime is the prescription: vision for volatility, understanding for uncertainty, clarity for complexity and agility for ambiguity. This module clears away common misreadings, unpacks each pairing in practice, and explores the tension between holding a vision and staying agile, summed up as the plan can flex while the direction holds. Ørsted's shift from fossil fuels to offshore wind illustrates it. How you frame a problem decides which solutions you can even see, and whom you invite to find them. This introductory module contrasts inherited and chosen frames, offers three opening questions from Avanti's client work, and introduces Toby Lowe's Human Learning Systems approach to public service complexity. It sets out ways to test a frame, including restating a problem five ways, and the common ways reframing goes wrong.
What you'll develop
In this Bitesize, you will develop the ability to:
- Describe the four VUCA Prime pairings and explain why they run alongside each other rather than as sequential steps.
- Distinguish the plan flexing from the direction changing, and use that distinction to balance vision with agility.
- Apply a personal VUCA Prime checklist to your own behaviour, choosing the paired response for the dominant condition in a live situation.
- Distinguish an inherited frame from a chosen frame and explain how framing shapes both the solutions considered and the people involved.
- Describe the three Human Learning Systems principles and identify the conventional default each one is written against.
The Modules.
1 hour 15 minutes of learning.
- 09VUCA Prime: A Leader's Response FrameworkIf VUCA is the diagnosis, Bob Johansen's VUCA Prime is the prescription: vision for volatility, understanding for uncertainty, clarity for complexity and agility for ambiguity. This module clears away common misreadings, unpacks each pairing in practice, and explores the tension between holding a vision and staying agile, summed up as the plan can flex while the direction holds. Ørsted's shift from fossil fuels to offshore wind illustrates it.39 min
- 10Framing and Reframing Complex ProblemsHow you frame a problem decides which solutions you can even see, and whom you invite to find them. This introductory module contrasts inherited and chosen frames, offers three opening questions from Avanti's client work, and introduces Toby Lowe's Human Learning Systems approach to public service complexity. It sets out ways to test a frame, including restating a problem five ways, and the common ways reframing goes wrong.37 min
Keep going.
Part of the VUCA, Uncertainty and Complexity topic, also sold whole as Clear heads in a complex world.
Go deeper, and pay only the difference
- You are hereBitesize, 1 hour 15 minutes, £39
- Next stepFocus, Responding with confidence, 2 hours 30 minutes, £69. Already own the Bitesize? You pay £30.
- Explore, Acting with confidence, 4 hours, £129. Already own the Bitesize? You pay £90.
- The whole topicImmerse, Clear heads in a complex world, 8 hours, £249. Already own the Bitesize? You pay £210.
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Prices per person. Read the full terms
Other Bitesize in the VUCA, Uncertainty and Complexity topic
- Naming the world we lead inCynefin framework and complexity for leaders1 hour 30 minutes£39
- Wicked, not just difficultWicked problems, uncertainty and risk1 hour 15 minutes£39
- Probe, sense, respondSensemaking in complex systems with Cynefin1 hour 15 minutes£39
- Seeing round cornersScenario planning and strategic foresight1 hour 15 minutes£39
- Living systems, real casesComplex adaptive systems and case studies1 hour 15 minutes£39