Leadership In An Uncertain World: Why C-Levels Need To Con nually Ques on

Leadership in an uncertain world: WHY C-LEVELS NEED TO CONTINUALLY QUESTION

There have been few business contexts in living memory more challenging than the early moments of the pandemic. Keeping the wheels turning on a globalised economic system whilst borders are closing and national health regulations are confounding businesses, this is the archetypal VUCA environment. What do these kinds of changing new-world contexts, characterised by extreme Vola lity, Uncertainty, Complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) mean for leadership and strategy? And what effect does this have on the role of skills and creden als? The compe ve world of business has, necessarily, always been an arms race. Leaders need to adapt and overcome obstacles, keeping pace with their compe tors as well as human development. Change is not new, says Marco Mances , former Research and Development Director at IMD Business School for 10 years. “What is diff erent is that the pace of change, the immediacy, the extent of impact and the number of factors to be taken into account have dras cally increased,” Mances explains.

What does this imply for execu ve managers?

As a consequence of technological advancement, the business world has far higher complexity than it once did. Business leaders face uncertainty as a result of changing poli cal and regulatory contexts, vola lity as a consequence of fl ee ng commodi es prices and shifting markets, and ambiguity due to the emergence of unprecedented situa ons — Brexit, the pandemic, or the trade war between the US and China being recent examples. Mances argues that this should not lead to despair or the denouncement of norms in strategy and leadership: on the contrary, “strategic thinking becomes an impera ve […] Leadership becomes crucial.” Strategy must be far more frequently assessed in the VUCA environment. And it must be developed and evaluated by far more astute leaders who are capable of “taking a though ul posi on and ar cula ng an agile strategy” in the face of complica ng factors. In a world that is increasingly diffi cult to understand or predict, there is a second leadership func on that is also essen al, Mances says: the leader’s capacity to maximise the poten al of those under their charge. “Decreasing employees’ anxiety in the face of change by proving that challenges can become opportunities is going to be a cri cal enabler of peak performance and a compe ve advantage,” Mances insists.

Responding to the VUCA world with Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility

One way that leaders can prepare for VUCA environments is by heading off the factors at play, and by counteracting the quali es that make them challenging. According to Bob Johansen, a dis nguished fellow at the think tank Ins tute for the Future, effective VUCA

leaders harness vision, use understanding across the structure, create clarity for their team, and leverage agility to stay on point. Leaders with certainty of vision, of where they want the organisa on to be in the future, be er navigate vola lity through future-proof decision making. By understanding events from the perspective of all levels of the team or structure, collabora ng and viewing the problem from diff erent angles, leaders can counter uncertainty with mul -dimensional models. At IE Business School , Execu ve Educa on they make a point of teaching execu ves about these par cular skills; they typically use the Three Horizon approach to encourage execu ves to see their own businesses through the eyes of visionaries, the eyes of entrepreneurs and those of a manager having to deal with the short term issues. These different perspec ves o en generate relevant future scenarios for execu ves to develop specifi c strategies. Complexity can be tackled through deliberate eff ort and commitment of resources to disentangle the throng of data and fi nd clarity. When faced with acute ambiguity, teams must have the agility to pivot on short no ce. While these strategies help execu ves to tackle VUCA situa ons, there is also considerable need to foster a learning mindset.

The need for lifelong learning

The emergence of the Vuca environment as the norm creates an impera ve for execu ves to con nually develop additional expertise. A recent McKinsey survey found that 87 percent of execu ve respondents either are experiencing skill gaps in their workforce as a result of changing market needs, or expect to experience them in less than fi ve years. Nick van Dam is the Chief Learning Officer at IE University, Director for the IE Center for Corporate Learning Innova on, and a former CLO and HR Executive at McKinsey & Company. Over 30 years of business experience has led him to consider individual lifelong learning as one of the most crucial prac ces in the modern business environment. Van Dam and his colleagues believe that considerable changes need to be made to the business educa on model to align it more fully with trends in the real world. At IE University, students experience the Liquid Learning model which makes use of mul ple methodologies and platforms, virtual and physical, immersing students in a host of technologies and learning environments. Whether they a end in-person or remotely, IE students are exposed to the latest innova ons in ar fi cial intelligence, analy cs, gamifi ca on, simulators, and communication technology, readying them at a me when these innova ons are just star ng to make their mark on the workplace. “Building a workforce of such lifelong learners is cri cal for organiza ons to respond to a changing business environment. To ensure they have the required skills and talent, companies must create a learning-for-all culture in which people are encouraged and inspired to con nue learning new skills,” Van Dam and his colleagues write. Changes to the world demand new approaches to career planning as well. Technological developments and shi s in society stand to drama cally alter the workplace of the future. Learning must, therefore, align with these workplace needs. "While this mode of learning has long been in our future, the COVID-19 pandemic has made the transi on more urgent. It has shown us that universi es must embrace ‘liquid modernity’ — so they can not only meet any crisis that arises, but also prepare students for varied careers over their long working lives," Van Dam explains. Not only will jobs be lost to automa on, Van Dam says, others will change as a consequence, and new jobs will emerge. Crucially, professionals need to be prepared to acquire skills outside their current wheelhouse. As ac ve lifespans increase, it might be quite ordinary for a person to work into their seven es, changing professional area repeatedly. What this means is that executives will need a drastic change of mindset. Due to the rapid and con nual change in working prac ces, it will no longer be about acquiring deep knowledge in one par cular fi eld, followed by a career spent developing fi eld-specifi c competencies. Van Dam suggests that changes to the future of work will mean that individuals need to have mul ple areas of deep knowledge over their life me, combined with a broad spectrum of competencies. Inevitably, this demands that we all become lifelong learners in order to constantly upgrade our skills and keep up with the adapta ons made in business: in fact, this will become a crucial success factor. At the same me, so skills, such as emo onal intelligence and communica on, will increasingly weigh on a professional’s value to teams and projects downstream in their career. As such, learning must refl ect this trend. “The future of learning is liquid. It’s all about the richness of the experience: curricular and extracurricular, social and individual, global and local, […] cogni ve and emo onal,” Van Dam insists.

The Business of Educa on:

HOW LEARNING IS MORE CORPORATE THAN EVER

With the situa on surrounding the current pandemic, the substan al cost of university education is highlighted as protests continue over their decision to remain the full price despite much of the face to face academic curriculum going to an online system. More ques ons are being asked as to exactly where the money is going and how the perception of educa on is changing from an environment based on academia into a self-mo vated corporate environment. The unfortunate fact however, is that despite popular understanding, public higher educa on has been shi ing rapidly more corporate for a long me. As educa on develops and society has inherently become smarter due to the new innova ons and technologies made available, universi es have sought to grow in order to match such demand yet being purely government funded, they have been forced to fi nd a way to cover these rising costs. This has meant great cost cutting measures, most of which have involved devaluing and depriving the student body through the reduc on of staff numbers, lowering yearly departmental budgets and commi ng to a strategy of massification which has seen a substan al rise in the number of students in a me when supplies are limited. Such is this despera on, that the University and College Admissions Service reported a 3.5% increase in yearly admissions despite the current climate, whilst pres gious ins tu ons such as the University of Manchester saw their admissions acceptance rate soar from 42% to over 59% in just one year. This ini a ve has meant that they gain £9250 in fees from every additional acceptance with a clear focus on using the students as consumers rather than scholars. In order to adopt this type of revenue progression, this has also meant the crea on of new posi ons of power in order to oversee the increased number of students and led to the money gained and also saved shi ing from a focus on educa on and achievement, to instead a culture of performance

targets, results and improved efficiency with more new hires than ever in departments being lifelong business or marke ng professionals, in direct contrast with the tradi onal structure. Policy advancement is also a factor outside the campus too with heavy strategic marke ng and promo onal campaigns being heavily funded despite the concerns. In the new year when applications are submitted, as well as on A-Level results day there is now a minefi eld of prime me television adverts, online banners/pop ups and even billboards li ered as ins tu on a er ins tu on competes to fi ll every available admission slot, knowing just one new student from every timeslot allows them to recoup the expenditure. Such heavy corporate strategy has been seen in its American origins to result in a system that eats millions with the only returns being derisory graduation rates, crushing student debt crippling the next generation and o en even unappealing qualifica ons that have given no real education of value to the student and instead will just leave them with an expensive piece of paper they will never use. Such dangerous precedents are commonplace as a result of the con nued fi nancial focuses of education and opens up the European con nent to the risk of some universi es becoming privately educating bodies who can set their own rates for admission and slowly destroy the sector, especially considering the impact it would have on a system where very few such organisa ons exist. This monetisation and categorisa on of students as customers is not even the main focus of how companies can profit from universities, in fact they do it through the opportuni es aff orded to them by universi es fi nancial frailty and the opportuni es this presents. Universi es no longer focus on research and development of individual fi elds or their expansions of campuses for their own learning and growth opportuni es but instead off er these as a way to allow businesses to profi t from their clear advancements versus current knowledge. Companies now are a clearly ac ve part of the education system, with their wider integra on within learning meaning that they no longer need to fund their own research due to their abili es to form long term partnerships with ins tu ons that exchange knowledge for funding and backing via NDA agreements. Not only this, but the student customers are also a resource as educated employees who only further the service provided in return for the off ering of basic salaries and even funding for master’s or doctorate degrees that specialise in using this educa onal opportunity to further the corporate knowledge that the business aims to gain. Ongoing opportunity has meant that while previously unimaginable, land on campus universi es and local areas surrounding city ins tutions has become prime locations for hotels and other private enterprises to a empt to monopolise the ins tu on by being located on university land, a trend heavily featured with brands such as Costa Coffee and local convenience stores bringing o en premium pricing strategies in an a empt to mone se educa on and take every student penny possible. In some cases, there is old accommoda on blocks or car parks that become redeveloped as the desire to make profit overruns the natural focus, especially considering the increase in cases of brand-new centres of educa on cos ng mul millions, subsequently being sponsored or giving priority to private hire opportuni es and forcing student classes to relocate in the name of corporate greed. The scope of such, provides educa on with a new image of being a very profi table and exci ng venture for anyone who has the money and capital to provide a posi ve associa on, while allowing to outsource and re-establish the meaning of university educa on. Educa on is no longer focused on primarily providing a student educa on, but instead using this service in the most fi nancially rewarding way possible even if it comes as a detriment to their core competency. The opportunity creates provides some incredible career development to those in certain fi elds, but for most they experience a rising number of fellow students alongside a decline in both the quality and availability of good teaching that is detrimental to their university experience. The corporate intent of universities is not purely self-mo vated, with the government funding being inadequate to allow them to provide everything they off er and so they must rely on the acquisi on of student fee payers and contribu ng private funding to con nue opera ons. Universi es are clearly now a business venture that needs corporate assistance to survive, and with no change on the horizon, there is no signs of this doing anything but evolving any time soon while increasing the threat of possible, eventual priva sa on.