00:09

Well, hello and welcome to the HRDQ-U podcast. My name is Sarah, and I will be your host today of our podcast. And we will be taking a  deeper dive into a recent webinar we had with Judith Cardenas, who’s online with us today about A New Approach to Coaching Leaders in a Volatile, Uncertain, Chaotic, and Ambiguous World.

00:34

We had a lot of great questions come from this webinar and we’re looking forward to just look a little bit further into those questions that we had. So hello, Judith, thanks for joining us today. Hi, Sarah, thanks for inviting me. I’m excited to be here today. And if you could just let us know a little bit about who you are, let the audience know where you come from, a little bit about your background before we kind of jump into the material.

00:57

Sure. So I’m Judith Cardenas and  I am the CEO of a small consulting firm called Strategies by Design. And we work with organizations around the world to really help build innovation capability and agility capability  so that they can thrive in times of uncertainty and volatility, which is hence why I actually just love the topic of the webinar.

01:19

So we work with organizations to help them move faster and create services of products that really speak to the customers that they’re serving. So we’ve been in business for about 10 years plus years, and we’re just excited about the future. Well, great. Well, thanks for sharing that with everybody. And  if you could let us know too, a little bit about a brief synopsis of what the webinar was about, just an overview for any of our  audience who did not attend that event.

01:47

so that they can have a little bit of a background before we get into the questions today. Sure. So many of us have heard of VUCA. VUCA is not an uncommon term. It was actually coined, I believe, in 2012, maybe 2014, maybe earlier. But it really categorizes a set of criteria which leaders often face, volatility, uncertainty, chaos, and ambiguity.

02:16

And we found that no matter how much we tried to assess people to see their  propensity to change, or we were trying to really identify, you how can we help people  navigate such a changing world,  especially the one that we’re living in,  and how can we  redesign a coaching approach that wasn’t necessarily based on someone’s personality? So we went on the hunt to really identify a new coaching model that would actually speak to the behaviors.

02:45

leaders and teams would have to adopt and to build and grow in order for them to navigate a Buka world. And so hence we came up with the topic of the webinar of actually design a different coaching approach. And our approach, the reason we called it a different coaching approach is that we’ve all been there. We’ve taken assessments and then that’s all. We take an assessment and we really don’t do anything with it. But I was really interested in finding an assessment that would

03:14

speak to what behaviors do I need, what I need to build as a leader that would really help me thrive in a world that’s ever changing.  So that is the reason and that is the foundation and background of the webinar. Well, great. Let’s take a dive now into some of these questions.  So as you mentioned, VUCA is not a new concept, but the discussion has increased during the last several months.  What do you attribute to this?

03:42

Quite a few things, of course, a global pandemic, which many of us have never been through in our lives,  has really shifted the way we think about work, the way we think about collaboration, even the way we think about how  we connect with people in the workplace.  I think  the chaos of the economy, the global economy, the supply chain demands that have broken, and  just the actual upheaval of what the world looks like today has caused us to

04:11

pause and think of Buca in a little bit of a different way. We’ve always had some level of volatility from an economic perspective or from a business growth perspective. But we’ve seen change that occurred so rapidly. So when we talk to clients, they’ll say, never use Zoom or a computer. And then right after COVID, like within two days, boom, I was on a different platform. They had to change everything in a very almost chaotic, unplanned way.

04:40

So think that’s  one  main large reason why BOOC is a little bit  of,  we’re looking at it from a different perspective. And I think the other thing is all of us are really experiencing digital transformation. There’s not one thing that’s not being digitalized or automated  and our roles in work are changing  and they’re changing very, very fast. So I think with the amount of change and information that’s coming at us at any given moment,

05:10

I think the way we look and we perceive VUCA, I think has just shifted in a very different way. I guess the last thing I would like to add is this whole space of remote.  Who would think that I could have a colleague across the pond, you know, the UK, working with me on a project that I would maybe will never meet in my lifetime, but is a vital, you know, part of the project. You know, bring skills and  techniques and brilliance to our team.

05:39

And yet I used to think of a teaming partner as someone in the cubicle next to me. So I think things have shifted and will continue to shift pretty rapidly. That is so true. And it is really cool that you can connect so easily with people from literally across the globe. Yes. I mean, it’s interesting that you think, I mean, how powerful that you could find another perspective across the globe. And then I actually thought the other day, wow, you know, two years ago, three years ago,

06:07

I wasn’t even thinking of people across the globe to even ask to collaborate with on a project. And now it’s like a normal thing for me to do. So it has really shifted the way I think and it’s shifted who my network is.  My network used to be pretty small. It used to be people in the building that I worked with or in a team that I worked on a project with. And now that I think of my network, it’s different. I have people all over the world that  I’ve connected with that I would never have connected with.

06:35

if we had not been going through such rapid change. Yeah.  And so do all elements of VUCA happen simultaneously? They don’t.  And I think this is where we really have some interesting conversations with  teams and leaders,  especially leaders that are striving to grow inside an organization.  VUCA doesn’t necessarily have to happen all at one time, yet many times volatility will create a level of uncertainty.

07:05

or can create a level of ambiguity,  or you can just have organizations that are chaotic all the time. So they don’t necessarily have to happen simultaneously often. And I would say that there’s not always a cause and effect, but oftentimes you’ll find two of them  happening or two of them that are, there’s some kind of relationship that is connected between  both of them.  I will say that people struggle a bit with

07:32

differentiating. So when we get called into an organization who is,  they want us to work with leaders that they’re really building to the next real level of leadership. And yet they were working in this world that keeps changing. We often find that people will mix terms up. they will, know, uncertainty and ambiguity are two different things that you might  not know why there’s a cost and effect. And it’s a little ambiguous.

07:57

Or you might know why things are happening, but you’re not certain what the outcome’s going to be. And those are two very distinct concepts. And we found that working with leaders for them to understand the true meaning of the concepts really also helps them  peel the onion a little bit to really identify where the real struggle is,  not only with themselves as a leader, but with their team as a whole. So they don’t have to happen simultaneously, but I will say that most leaders

08:26

A lot of leaders we work with,  they tend to confuse the terms altogether and they are all very different terms. Yeah.  And so  how would you say that VUCA influences team dynamics? It’s very interesting because I think that  oftentimes we focus on the leader,  the leader of the team.  And the leader, the team leader does have an extremely important role

08:55

And their relationship with uncertainty or failure or  ambiguity is often reflected on their team. But we also have the opposite occurring. We do have teams  and team members who  they have a need for more information or maybe it’s too much information. The complexity of the issues are too big for them that it’s  difficult for them to grasp a project.

09:22

They really go hand in hand, but I will say there’s a direct influence that each element has, the leader on the team and team on the leader.  I’ve had leaders who are extremely confident, they know exactly what’s going to happen, and then they meet with this team  and they may have a remote member on the team as well who they don’t see, and the dynamics just shifts. so oftentimes they lose their level of clarity  or the team may lose its level.

09:52

So I do think that there’s a direct correlation and I think oftentimes we don’t focus on building team dynamics around VUCA. We tend to focus on a leader and I think our next goal is to move that level of coaching at a team level dynamics. Which that leads us into our next question and our last question here is how can we best prepare leaders to best deal with VUCA?

10:18

Well, I would say that that is something that actually keeps me up at night sometimes. Like I often wonder, are we really  building leaders, strengthening them and training them with the right skill sets? Like the skill set I needed 10 years ago, it’s not a skill set that’s working for me today. So I think focusing on a lot of agility, building that in.

10:44

especially if you’re working inside an organization, building it from the very first onboarding or even when you’re actually interviewing for a job,  those elements should be weaved in as almost daily elements that are just part of the culture. I will say that you cannot have  digital transformation without having culture transformation, without having people transformation. Oftentimes, we break things up into these little boxes.

11:12

thinking that each one of them can sit on its own. And what we’re seeing is that everything is intertwined. It’s like a huge community that’s  very, very connected. But really building people’s capability to be okay with failure, for example. So I’ve worked with leaders who say failure is not an option. And I’m like, uh-oh,  because you will fail one day.  Some project will not work out the way you think it is,  or should work out.

11:40

But I think people’s relationship with failure, with learning, with curiosity, often time comes  way before you actually walk into the door in the workplace. So I would say a couple of things. would say first,  any educators that are out there,  think about how we’re really looking at people skills. We call them soft skills, but I think there’s nothing soft about those skills and how innovative and creative they are.

12:09

And then for those who are working inside organizations, can we take those same elements of creativity and innovation and agility and reward them inside the culture of an organization?  I’ve had people who’ve told me, I’m not rewarded to being creative. I am rewarded to getting the job done. So how can we  shift the culture a bit to help them be rewarded?

12:33

for those skillsets that are sorely needed in today’s world so that organizations can thrive in such a changing and fast paced, you know, changing world in there. So I think those are the things. And then I would also  add, look at those behavioral elements that really impact VUCA. Look at things like curiosity. Is someone really curious of why something doesn’t work?  Or someone’s ability to be very agile. Can they pivot very quickly? If a solution doesn’t quite fit?

13:03

Can they pivot  and try something new? And then that whole idea of constantly testing, testing your own biases, your own hypotheses,  your own ideas. Because sometimes what we think is wonderful, our customers and clients, not so much. They don’t think  you’re so great in there. So just building on your own capability. And I would say for organizations,  having them take those behaviors and capabilities and reward them.

13:34

I think those just if we could just do those two things in tiny micro increments, I think we’ll be able to to move the needle forward. Oh, well, thank you, Judith. Judith, for a little bit of a deeper insight into our webinar that we that we recently had. I really do appreciate your time today for spending that with us. Thank you. Thank you, Sarah. And I’m just, you know, wonderful. And again, I look forward to working with HRDQ and just the topics are just so on point.

14:04

And thank you again for taking time. And for all those who joined us today, thanks for joining us today.  Yes, thank you all for  listening in today. And I look forward  to checking in with you on next week’s session as well.