More Than VUCA

How I Learned to See the Storm...and Then Humanize It

Several years ago, I attended a leadership workshop that introduced a strategy concept called "VUCA"—Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous. It felt like a revelation at the time.

But around the same time, I was also diving deep into human-centered design methods—empathy mapping, journey mapping, really listening to what people were going through. And something didn't click between these two things.

VUCA described the storm around us but ignored what it felt like to be caught in it. It was clinical, detached—like a weather report when what I needed was a better way to understand the human experience from within the storm.

The Military Roots of VUCA

VUCA was born in the late 1980s at the U.S. Army War College. Military strategists watched the Cold War end and wondered what came next. For decades, they'd planned for a clear enemy with predictable battle lines.

Suddenly, that world was gone.

The framework found its champion in General Stanley McCrystal. Fighting networks like Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan, he lived VUCA daily. His solution? Flatten hierarchies and create "teams of teams" that could adapt as quickly as their networked enemies.

McCrystal's 2015 book by that name brought VUCA to business, where it exploded. Every CEO started talking about becoming "VUCA-ready." Business schools built entire programs around it.

Higher education leaders quickly embraced the framework too. It gave us language for what we were experiencing with demographic shifts, technology disruption, and changing student expectations. VUCA appeared in strategic planning documents, leadership development programs, and conference presentations at big industry events nationwide.

But I’m Not Convinced VUCA Is Enough

Here's what’s always bothered me: VUCA does a great job of describing the storm but doesn't really humanize it. It catalogs external conditions without acknowledging what it feels like to live and work within those conditions.

I appreciate articles like "Preparing Students to Succeed in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous World" that try to apply VUCA concepts to learning, but for some reason they just fall flat. They offer strategies for building resilience and adaptability, but they're still approaching the challenge from the outside in, analyzing the environment rather than starting with the human experience.

Take volatility—rapid, unpredictable change. In higher education, we see enrollment swings, funding cuts, student protests, and rapid policy changes. VUCA treats this as an environmental condition to analyze and adapt to. But it misses the human reality: people aren't just experiencing "rapid change.” They're living through constant reorganizations, budget freezes, and program cancellations that leave them exhausted, cynical, and feeling helpless.

Or consider uncertainty—our lack of predictability about future outcomes. We face job market changes, technology disruption, regulatory shifts, and demographic transitions. VUCA suggests we need more agility and better forecasting. But when I talked to people, they weren't just dealing with "unpredictability.” They were experiencing career anxiety, imposter syndrome, and fear of obsolescence that created paralysis and constant second-guessing.

Complexity—those multiple interconnected factors in stakeholder management, interdisciplinary programs, assessment requirements, and budget allocations. VUCA recommends data-driven decision making and better analysis to combat complexity. Yet people described information overload, competing priorities, and unclear expectations that resulted in cognitive fatigue and analysis paralysis.

And ambiguity—the unclear meanings in accreditation standards, learning outcomes, success metrics, and institutional missions. VUCA calls for gathering more data and clarifying communication. But people were experiencing mixed messages, unclear success criteria, and shifting goalposts that created frustration and political maneuvering.

VUCA treats the human experience as secondary—something to be managed after you've analyzed the external conditions.

The Human-Centered Design Gap

This became clear when I facilitated design thinking workshops. Typically, I would have a slide that talked about VUCA. Everyone would gasp and lean in. But that was about all.

We'd then start with empathy mapping and stakeholder interviews, uncovering not just what was happening, but how it felt. And the disconnect was stark. VUCA gave us analytical language for external conditions, but human-centered design revealed the emotional reality people were actually navigating.

For me, it always felt like VUCA treated these human responses as side effects to manage rather than the primary experience to design for. But what if they weren't side effects at all? What if the emotional reality was the main challenge?

Enter BANI—Brittleness, Anxiety, Non-linearity, Incomprehensibility

Futurist Jamais Cascio created BANI as a more accurate description of our current reality, and when I first encountered it, something clicked.

Brittleness describes systems that look strong but fail catastrophically without warning. In higher education, we see this in optimized registration systems that crash under load, over-leveraged budgets that collapse with minor revenue drops, and single-point-of-failure processes that bring entire departments to a halt. Unlike VUCA's nostalgia for stability, this acknowledges that our "efficient" systems are actually fragile by design. We've optimized for performance, not resilience.

Anxiety names environments where the emotional toll creates paralysis. We're seeing mental health crises among students, burnout epidemics among faculty and staff, and decision paralysis in leadership teams who are overwhelmed by the pace of change. This names what VUCA misses. The psychological reality isn't a side effect, it's the primary condition we're operating in. The anxiety isn't something to manage away; it's the water we're swimming in.

Non-linearity recognizes that small changes create massive, unpredictable consequences. A minor policy adjustment can trigger massive student protests. A small budget cut can force an entire department to close. A single social media post can reshape an institution's reputation overnight. This challenges our fundamental assumption that measured inputs should produce proportional outputs—the planning fallacy that haunts higher education.

Incomprehensibility accepts that some events simply defy traditional understanding. Algorithm-driven student success predictions operate in ways we can't fully explain. AI-generated research raises questions we don't know how to answer. Complex regulatory requirements seem designed to confuse rather than clarify. This accepts that some things simply can't be understood through analysis—we need different approaches entirely.

What BANI Means for the Human Experience

When I map BANI against what people actually experience, it finally validates reality instead of dismissing it.

Brittleness explains why people experience sudden system failures, cascading crises, and those "that came out of nowhere" moments that leave them in shock, distrusting institutions, and hypervigilant about the next big breakdown. This validates people's lived experience. Things really do fail without warning, and that's genuinely terrifying.

Anxiety acknowledges that chronic stress, decision fatigue, and existential questioning have become our baseline condition, not temporary disruptions. Finally, a framework that acknowledges anxiety isn't something to manage away. It's the emotional reality of our current environment.

Non-linearity explains why people feel disoriented by disproportionate consequences, confused by the “butterfly effect,” and constantly ask, "How did we get here?" It validates why traditional planning and prediction feel useless, because they often are in non-linear systems.

Incomprehensibility gives people permission for cognitive surrender, values-based decision making, and acceptance of mystery when facing AI decisions, algorithmic outcomes, and systemic behaviors that make no sense. It's liberating in a way—it stops us from exhausting ourselves trying to understand the unknowable.

Like VUCA, BANI describes challenging conditions. But here's the key difference: BANI starts with the human experience rather than treating it as secondary. Where VUCA analyzes external conditions, BANI acknowledges how those conditions feel from the inside.

VUCA describes the storm. BANI humanizes what it's like to be caught in it.

What BANI Means for You

Consider how differently these frameworks guide action:

• VUCA thinking: Build resilience for volatility, create agility for uncertainty, develop systems thinking for complexity, gather more data for ambiguity.

• BANI thinking: Design for graceful failure rather than optimization. Prioritize psychological safety alongside performance. Run small experiments when prediction is impossible. Accept that some things simply can't be understood.

  
  

In higher education, this translates to real change. Instead of trying to predict enrollment perfectly (impossible in a non-linear world), run multiple small pilots. Instead of assuming that more data will clarify regulatory requirements (which are often incomprehensible), focus on values-based decision-making. Instead of just optimizing systems for efficiency (which can often be brittle), build in redundancy and recovery plans.

The Speed Factor

What's really changed isn't that the world became volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. It's the speed at which information travels and transforms, especially with AI. We're not dealing with "more complexity"—we're dealing with systems that fail in ways that contradict how we think systems work.

Financial markets crash from algorithmic feedback loops operating at microsecond speeds. Social media creates anxiety that paralyzes entire societies. AI generates outcomes beyond human comprehension. These aren't degrees of difference from the past—they're differences in kind.

Moving Forward

VUCA had its moment, at least for me. It helped me acknowledge that the world wasn't predictable and controllable. But it approached challenges from the outside in, analyzing conditions rather than starting with human experience.

BANI flips this around. It starts with how people actually feel within challenging conditions: brittle, anxious, confused by non-linear effects, and overwhelmed by incomprehensible systems.

The leaders who thrive won't be those who only analyze VUCA conditions. They'll be those who design for the human reality of BANI experiences.

The question isn't whether your organization is ready for a VUCA world. It's whether you're prepared to lead humans through a BANI reality.