Decision making in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous world, Polarity Thinking to the rescue!

It’s no news that we are in an ever-changing world. Heard of VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous - VUCA)? And to be successful in this environment, organizations and teams need to learn how to work with seemingly contradictory perspectives and views. This workshop will give participants a practical tool to do just that. It's no longer right or wrong, it's no longer black or white, it now depends.

 
 

Outline/Structure of the Workshop/Game

This workshop is organized into 4 sections.

C1. Connections (5 mins) - Engage participants in short (5mins) activities to get the participants connect to each other and the facilitator, connect the participants to the subject or what they may already know about the subject.

C2. Concepts (25 mins) - Introduce the concepts of VUCA, wicked problems and provide examples of why traditional problem solving techniques might not suffice in the VUCA world. Provide and discuss examples of common wicked problems with multiple correct solutions, depending on perspectives and organizational values. Include the participants in generating solutions to one of the problems from different perspectives. Use the concept of Polarity Thinking to review the different perspectives in a group activity. To encourage participation - this section includes several individual activities::

  • Fill-in-the blank - to quickly review concepts
  • Quick-Write activity - to write out what we have learnt
  • BINGO Game - The first person to collect all the six pre-assigned words from this section wins a prize/token/swag

C3. Concrete Practice (10mins) - In this section, the participants in groups (3 or 4) to practice Polarity Thinking

C4: Conclusions: (5 mins): Participants to come up with ways this approach can be used in their organizations. Each group will discuss and review their most interesting application with the room

Learning Outcome

Learning Outcome

  • Participants will be able to explain VUCA and wicked problems and why this is relevant in today's business environment
  • Participants will be able to apply Polarity Thinking in discussing solutions to wicked problems

Target Audience

Anyone

Prerequisites for Attendees

None

schedule Submitted 3 years ago

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