Ben Ford on Situational Awareness and Managing for Constant Change

How do businesses actually manage — rather than plan for — continuous change?
The increasing adoption of systems thinking in business tells us that the world is changing very fast, and companies need to change at least as fast as their environment in order to thrive. It’s comfortable to talk about but hard and uncomfortable to do. Most people prefer to continue to do what they’re used to rather than embrace change and constant experimentation.

There’s a lot to be learned from the military where special forces are trained to specialize in rapid reaction in chaotic or VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) worlds. They face an ever-changing environment (often described as kinetic). They have a very pure evolutionary process: what wins, survives. While the military organization is hierarchical, military operations are flat so that tactical decisions can be made by the people on the ground.

While we are anti-war, we can nevertheless recognize that the military has experience and expertise in managing and organizing for continuous change. We can learn from it.

Show notes: https://mises.org/library/ben-ford-situational-awareness-and-managing-constant-change

"Apply Situational Awareness To Manage Change" (PDF): https://Mises.org/E4B_171_PDF

Ben Ford’s website, where you’ll find his Mission Control services: https://MissionCtrl.dev

Ben Ford’s LinkedIn page, with a lot of presentations and recordings to learn from: https://Mises.org/E4B_171_LinkedIn