
BANI
The VUCA concept has been widely used for the past 20 or so years and has helped understand worldly events. However, the recent technological evaluation and the pandemic seem to have outrun VUCA and made it obsolete. In 2016, during an Institute for the Future (IFTF) event, Jamais Cascio, an anthropologist and futurist, put forward a BANI framework. The acronym BANI stands for Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, Incomprehensible. This framework explains changes beyond VUCA, such as the events brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Presently, the situations are not volatile; they are beyond comprehension. What was never thought about or thought impossible has happened. In a free world, people imprisoned themselves, refused to meet their near and dear ones. Many couldn’t even perform the last rights to departed souls. Companies who once refused even a day of ‘Work from home’ (WFH) asked their employees to only WFH and discouraged anybody from coming to their office. People who hugged each other, shook hands refused to do so. The situations were just incomprehensible.
In the words of Jamais Cascio,
“Situations in which conditions aren’t simply unstable, they’re chaotic. In which outcomes aren’t simply hard to foresee; they’re completely unpredictable. Or, to use the particular language of these frameworks, situations where what happens isn’t simply ambiguous, it’s incomprehensible”.
B – Brittle
The meaning of brittle is – having hardness and rigidity but little tensile strength; breaking readily. Aptly describes the present scenario. The world might look highly advanced and well developed, yet we are susceptible to a catastrophe at any time. One of the reasons could be that we do not stop at the optimum; we go for the maximum and try to squeeze every bit out, be it a man, machine or matter. With the internet of things (IoT), a ripple here is no longer restricted to one place but spreads rapidly to a wide area. The impact of the war between Russia and Ukraine is also felt in Australia.
We are seeing many strange things happening that give credence to the brittleness of the world we live in today. For example, in the ‘great resignations’, 67% of the workers refused to come to the office and preferred to switch jobs instead and look for the ones that provide the WFH option. Even in the digital world, it would be no wonder if all the worldwide computers shut down or hung at once. A virus, single weakness, or mistake (like, accidentally a missile being launched) can cause brittleness.
A – Anxious
There is always a lingering feeling of uneasiness in major activities involving the future. In other words, we are anxious about not being reasonably sure of our choices. The legacy of the VUCA world has created anxiety in the present era. We are so worried that we would like to be in the know of things every moment. We go through the fear of missing out (FOMO), which justifies the anxious state of our living. Anxiety paradoxically leads us to both over-action and under-action or no-action. A sense of urgency drives us to act lest we become obsolete. On the other hand, the dread of making a wrong choice pushes us to inaction or procrastinate. Typically speaking, most of us experience some anxiety from time to time. However, when one suffers from persistent or extreme anxiety for long periods, it may lead to health issues. On March 2, 2022, World Health Organization (WHO) released a brief in which it said that in the “first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by a massive 25%”.
N-Nonlinear
What is certain is uncertainty. It was nearly impossible to predict the outcome of our efforts. The relationship between input efforts and output results seems complex and certainly not as linear as it used to be earlier. Thanks to the VUCA world that has endowed us with high uncertainty. Take the case in hand – the pandemic. A single virus emerging in one part of the world has created havoc that is surely disproportional in the modern era. Indeed, this is nonlinear.
In a nonlinear world, the rise and fall, ups and downs are no more proportional. The Ukraine war is an example. A tiny country such as Ukraine, which is 1/28 of Russia, has been holding out for more than a month (at writing this note). A nuclear-powered nation is not able to subdue a determined nation (I am not taking any sides); the relationship is disproportionate and nonlinear. Even the end is unclear and difficult to guess.
I – Incomprehensible
The situations in the world are nearly impossible but undoubtedly very difficult to understand, i.e. incomprehensible. In the present era of massive data, we try to find answers to our questions through data analysis using modern tools. Yet we go wrong. Either the answers were incomprehensible, or we didn’t have control over everything. We try to resolve the situation by collecting more data, only to end up with more confusion. The efforts are counter-productive. Precisely the problem is what is incomprehensible. The more we have, the less we feel.
Indeed we are in a BANI world. In a situation where the VUCA framework fails to explain a situation, BANI will step in. To cope with the modern world, people may be required to look beyond VUCA.
There is only one way to beat it, whether it is a VUCA or BANI world, with BEAT. BEAT is an acronym that stands for Buoyant, Empathetic, Adaptable and Tactical.
One needs to be ‘Buoyant’ in a Volatile or Brittle world. Float on the top and surf. Empathy, awareness, and calmness can ease ‘Anxiety’. An excellent way to control ‘Anxiety’ is by being aware and ‘Empathising’ with a situation. Being ‘Adaptable’ to a given situation, one can smoothen out the ups and downs in the ‘Nonlinear’ world. Above all, one must be very ‘Tactical’ in one’s moves to overcome the ‘Incomprehensible’ situation.