Building Resilience, Connection and Hope in the Age of Anxiety
Navigating from a VUCA world to BANI World
The Idea: Our world seems to be shifting from a VUCA (Volatile, Unpredictable, Complex, Ambiguous) world to a BANI (Brittle, Ambiguous, Non-linear, Incomprehensible) one.
This means that Educational Leaders need to support the development of resilience, connection and hope in their organizations. A 3 step framework from William Ury - 1. Go to the balcony, 2. Build a Golden Bridge, 3. Engage the third Side - can be helpful in supporting this in todays environment.
I fell into the (BANI) trap too
I consider my self-regulation skills to be fairly strong and yet, I too have been falling prey to the addictive social media behaviors, without even realizing.
A few months ago, I felt the need to spend less time on social media and instead use it for more constructive pursuits. I thought a good strategy would be to make it harder to access it on my phone. So I moved the social media apps to a folder - within a folder - within a folder, onto the 3rd screen on my iPhone. Basically I would need a minimum of 4 clicks to open the apps. This worked well… for a short while.
Then, yesterday morning, as I was sipping my morning tea, I was shocked to realize that I was already on my Instagram page. What?! I was even more traumatized when I realized that I had AUTOMATICALLY navigated to the app with zero awareness that I was doing that. I had fallen into the trap of dopamine addiction on social media. I have always had great self-control, a strong ability to delay gratification and I too could not escape it.
I felt confused, I could not understand how my instinctive automatic habits led me to Instagram, beating the deliberate thinking of my brain. Then, I felt anxious about how my kids would survive these tests in their lives.
This experience reminded me of BANI - an acronym used to describe the world today.
BANI stands for Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear, Incomprehensible.
“The world is moving from VUCA to BANI”. I heard this at my Klingenstein Heads of School Fellowship, when Rich Boerner, HoS of the American School in Sao Paulo made an inspiring presentation. Our whole cohort talked about how each of us felt this in our contexts. This really resonated with me. I certainly feel like I have encountered more anxious/ brittle/ incomprehensible situations than ever before in my last 20 years at work.
From VUCA world to a BANI world
A VUCA World: 5 years ago I heard the acronym VUCA - Volatile, Unpredictable, Complex, Ambiguous - which describes the broader characteristics of the world that shape us and our organizations. It has served as a wonderful frame for the context of education and my school.
Today the world seems to be moving from VUCA to BANI.
From
Volatile, Unpredictable, Complex, Ambiguous
to
Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear, Incomprehensible.
The big difference between VUCA and BANI seems to be that
a VUCA world frame sees the external environment exerting strong influence on organizations and teams.
a BANI world acknowledges that we have a strong influence from both, the external environment but also internal environments within organizations and teams as well.
What has led us to a BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear, Incomprehensible) world?
I don’t know.
From what I have read, BANI contributors included a combination of social media and information overload, globalization, a health pandemic, political/ economic shifts.
In my context, Social media surely has played a key role: Social media (including whatsapp) allows shallow, highly dramatized (and often false) information to be shared widely. Not just this, it usually rewards the most dramatic ones, irrespective of how truthful/ credible/ helpful they are. We are constantly subjected to negativity, dissatisfaction, doom and gloom. OR constant craving from the wonderfully curated experiences and lifestyles of others online. Read more interesting info on this on https://jonathanhaidt.com/anxious-generation/
This has had a huge effect on one’s outlook - increasing our anxiety and diminishing our optimism.
In his HBR piece ‘Managing in the age of outrage’, author Karthink Ramanna explains BANI with 3 viewpoints that are pervasive today:
Many people feel unhopeful about the future.
Many feel, rightly or wrongly, that the game has been rigged against them.
Many are being drawn toward ideologies that legitimize an us-versus-them approach.
This hit me hard. I definitely sense this more strongly than ever before.
Success in a BANI world
The VUCA context reminded me that our approaches need to be continuously evolving AND enduring at the same time.
Continuously evolving (adaptable or agile or iterative or continuously improving): so that we can adapt quickly to the complex world that is rapidly and continuously changing.
Enduring (or sustainable): because complex changes take time, we need to last the marathon and not the sprint.
A BANI world, just like VUCA also needs us to be continuously evolving AND enduring at the same time
But a BANI world also needs our teams to be connected, resilient and hopeful as we continue to work towards our goals.
Connection (or empathy or care) for stronger, trusting relationships that promote respectful, enriching communities
Resilience and Hope, so that we can bounce back from challenges, enabling us to work towards mutual success in our communities and managing the emotional stress without succumbing to burnout.
3 steps to bring back Connection, Resilience and Hope
I am a patient optimist and definitely not one to end a post on a note of doom and gloom. So, this section is on how we can continue on our path to continuous, enduring progress while promoting connection, resilience and hope.
As Leaders in Education we need to find ways to promote Connection, Resilience and Hope.
I have taken the 3 steps from William Ury’s new book ‘Possible’. His And I have synthesized the supporting points from several books on connection, communication and negotiation (listed in this blogpost)
Here is the 3 step process I will be using to guide my thinking and actions
What I took away from each step:
1. Going to the balcony: Reframe for Resilience
Pause, step back from the strong emotions
Regulate by acknowledging emotions and then taking charge of them
Reframe my thinking and choose to be a player who is resilient not a victim who blames and gives up
2. Build a Golden Bridge: Keep Connection and Communication open
Invite connection and communication
Listen for the other person's feelings and needs too
Share respectfully and Listen to learn
3. Engage the third side: Stay Hopeful and Engage for mutual success
Recognize mutual goals and be helpful to build trust
Take a third party point of view instead of a ‘me vs you’ stance
Facilitate conversation around mutually beneficial possibilities
And finally I will end with this quote from Kevin Kelly’s website
Over the long term, the future is decided by Optimists.
More Resources
After a particularly challenging week at work I found a helpful reminder in my own advice in this Education World piece on building resilience 🙂
Here is a podcast episode with William Ury on the Tim Ferris show. He talks about these 3 steps from his book and other good stuff. I highly recommend it!
For more on effective interpersonal communication, read this blogpost which expands on similar ideas from Dr. Rosenbergs Non-violent communication.