Rapid VUCA Business Redesign Using Polymath Power
Long Established Large Corporate Structures Under Siege by External Factors
What happens when a Pandemic happens, and humans respond?
VUCA!
The new business normal includes only a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous environment (VUCA). Business decisions that have traditionally been made slowly, now need to be made on an accelerated timeline. Organizations that are habituated to make decisions through methodical process may not be comfortable or capable of making quick choices and their corporate survival may be at risk.
Go Beyond the Limits of Corporate Hierarchy Design
Large company processes, culture and systems grew up slowly to support business operations within a predictable external climate.
Most organizations have formed hierarchical management structures and corporate cultures that primarily empower specialized individuals (monomaths) to thrive surrounded by well-defined corporate process.
But that’s not what we need to do right now - we need to very quickly cut through the complexity and re-design and adapt - and quickly. We don’t have the benefit of process to provide guidance right now.
Four Steps to Rapid Business Design
In order to survive and later thrive, business re-invention at a pace not previously seen needs to be performed. Leverage the power of the thought-styles in this four-step process for corporate reinvention. This process is an accelerated version of the enterprise innovation process described by Christine Kapp in the “Soft Factors Enabling Innovation” chapter in the Apple Academic Press Book - Ecosystems and Technology.
Hunker Down - Preserve Cash and Human Capital
Use your FInancial Specialists and Line Managers to identify how to preserve cash and minimize cash outflow while preserving your human capital.
Identify the generalists and strategists in your ranks that can help you think outside the box for immediate innovation. These may not be your line managers or current leaders
Evaluate Your Business Architecture - Identify Core Business lines and offerings
Leverage your Best Creative Senior Leaders - they will not be specialists
Leverage Your Polymaths for additional ‘out of the box’ thinking capacity
Do not use your specialized line managers
Re-Design Your Business Architecture - Define the new key interactions with your customers, seasonality and offerings
Continue to leverage Your Polymaths
Continue to leverage your Best Creative Senior Leaders
Have your specialized line managers assess and assist with defining operational gaps
The New Normal - Back to your regular process and your newly designed company
Specialized Managers in their operational roles
Find a way to keep your Polymaths engaged for continuous innovation.
Next Steps - Cosmic Teamwork
DataPsy previously identified some tips & techniques to help you find your generalists in “Recruiting: Finding the Elusive Polymath”. If you are not a generalist, the process may be difficult because of the “One-Way Mirror”. If you need help with your leader evaluation process, contact DataPsy here: We leverage a combination of assessment-based techniques and our innate talent to help you re-form your VUCA team for business innovation success.
DataPsy consultants are serial entrepreneurs that are adept at building businesses from the ground up, If your business is struggling to re-start in the current economy, consider learning about the power of Cosmic Teamwork. We will help you identify the polymaths in your people portfolio who will power your re-invention and re-design your business by leveraging the building blocks you already have in place. It's time to eliminate bureaucracy, extra process and re-create agility. The Cosmic Teamwork approach leverages human “thought-styles” as building blocks for corporation reinvention Call (407) 847-8861 for an assessment today!
Use All Your Polymaths to Spark Your Next Innovative Success
VUCA Teams
So how do you build a functional team in a VUCA environment situation? First, pick your team leadership and associated process. Second, pick your specialists carefully to match your team leadership to avoid gaps.
Volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments come in all shapes and sizes. The acronym VUCA was created in order to describe a post cold-war world after the 1990’s.
Volatile - accelerating rate of change
Uncertainty - lack of predictability
Complexity - interconnectedness, cause-and-effect forces
Ambiguity - high probability of mis-reads and misunderstandings
VUCA does not have to be huge either - it just has to have all four criteria. In fact, in the information technology industry, a complex system integration project requiring multiple technologies, vendors and staffing companies can create an environment that can be described as VUCA.
Suppose that you are creating an integrated criminal justice system that moves data between disparate vendor systems. Now imagine that each vendor producing each of the integrated systems uses a different approach to their projects. This is a complex, volatile, uncertain and ambiguous environment. Not only are there technology differences, but there are process and approach differences as well. Throw in an offshore vendor with a strict contract limiting what they can and can’t o and you definitely have a VUCA environment.
So how do you build a functional team in a VUCA environment situation? Most people start by looking for specialists in each discipline and throw them together into a team and hope the combination of people works out. But there are two simple steps that can help improve your probability of success. First, pick your team leadership and associated process. Second, pick your specialists carefully to match your team leadership to avoid gaps.
Team Leadership / Architects / Analysts
Best Method: Leverage A Polymath
The best way to create forward momentum on a team in a VUCA environment is to recognize that you need at least one individual in leadership role that is a broad thinker, a forward thinker, someone deeply familiar with multiple disciplines on a team, a dot connector, or someone that thrives in complexity and breaks it down into simple terms. This is a Polymath
Alternate Method: Leverage a Monomath
If you put a Monomath in a leadership role in a VUCA environment, then you will need to augment the team with enough other monomaths plus a defined process to get a result. Collaboration will be needed. You might want to also consider eliminating polymaths on this team unless they are extraordinarily patient because they will quickly become frustrated with the slow pace and the methodical tedious process (from their perspective). A collaborative process can be slow, especially with a large number of contributors to the planning process.
Team Contributors / Individual Contributors
On a VUCA team you will also need a series of specialists for each skill needed on the project. These people are going to thrive in the raw details of one aspect of a project. Pick these people carefully because you will need them to define the detail and be able to communicate those details to a Polymath to aid in adding the context around the detail.
The One Way Mirror - Communication Conflict
In general, a polymath looking at a monomath looks through a one-way mirror. This ultimately creates communication conflict
The One-Way Mirror of Perceptions
In general, a polymath looking at a monomath looks through a one-way mirror.
On a simplistic level, if what a monomath “knows about” is a subset of the things that a polymath “knows about”, then the monomath can only understand the part of a polymath that is contained within the monomaths’ context.
Because of this, a monomath looking at a polymath sees their own reflection.
A Monomath Sees their reflection in the one-way mirror
Communication Conflict
This one-way mirror creates two types of communication conflict.
First, the monomath can perceive the polymath as being “bossy” or “not making sense” when they talk.
Second, the polymath can perceive the monomath as “not seeing all the angles” and rapidly become frustrated with the need to explain in great detail.
How to Overcome the One-Way Mirror?
There are a few simple steps that a person with either type of thought-style can take to achieve more effective communication.
Polymaths talking to Monomaths can slow down and explain their thought process steps of how a particular conclusion was reached. Because Polymaths are making use of knowledge very efficiently, it is easy for them to forget that others do not have the same knowledge and have not made the same connections between disparate thoughts.
A Polymaths way of being can be interpreted by others as the false consensus effect leading to judgement of the Polymath by a Monomat as “egotistical”
Monomaths working with Polymaths can work on being tolerant of the fact that that Polymaths may have connected some dots that the monomath does not know exists. Instead of labeling the polymath as ‘intimidating’, ‘arrogant’, or ‘bossy’, the monomath can simply ask the polymath to explain the thought process steps.
A Monomath’s inability to understand a Polymath could be due to the availability heuristic in that we make judgement based only on the information we have available at hand.
Additional Soft-Factors
There are other factors that can ease this communication challenge, such as emotional intelligence (high IQ), and the level of trust that the Monomath provides to others. And for the Polymath, compassion, patience and the ability to gently influence is important.
When the compassionate (high E.Q.) Monomath listens to a Polymath speak, that Monomath has gained an understanding that the Polymath sees and perceives things across multiple disciplines, space and time that the Monomath cannot see, and so they listen with patience and trust.
When a Polymath is explaining a future state without slowing down enough to explain the steps to a non-compassionate (low E.Q. or low-trust) Monomath – that Monomath will say things to a Polymath such as “stop being negative” , “why are you operating on so many levels at once”, and “why are you so bossy”