Welcome to the State of VUCA, aka Our New Normal

• NOW WATCHING: Debate between former President Trump and President Biden
• BREAKING NEWS: Assassination attempt against former President Trump
• BREAKING NEWS: President Biden announces he will not seek reelection
• LATEST UPDATE: Democratic party rally around a new candidate in record time
• BREAKING NEWS: Rocket kills 12 Druze children playing soccer
• BREAKING NEWS: Assassinations of #2 of Hezbollah and head of political wing of Hamas

All of those major events occurred in a span of 33 days, coinciding with Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas, Ukraine’s ongoing war with Russia, a landmark election in the U.K., the warmest days ever in the history of our planet and countless other major events.

We are in a state of VUCA — volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity — a concept coined by the U.S. Army College in 1987 and popularized by the leadership theories of Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus. In short, the term describes the current state of our world.

Yet, as coach and facilitator Robin Sawan stated in 2020, “[w]hile VUCA may be the latest buzzword, this constant evolution is not really anything new. Businesses have been facing bold, dramatic change in their specific industries for many years.”

The difference today is not change itself but the pace of change. In part because of the advent of new technologies — and we are still learning the true impact of many of them — the change is happening not year to year but day-to-day or even second-to-second. Human beings are not built to observe, process and adapt this fast.

What, if anything, does this have to do with philanthropy?

Instead of reacting to emergencies and then waiting to “get back to normal,” we must recognize that we are living in a new normal. There is no going back. We need to embrace VUCA, understanding we will experience different degrees of it at different times, and prepare ourselves to navigate effectively through the most acute VUCA moments.

read the full piece at ejewish Philanthropy