Page 5 - Microsoft PowerPoint - v3_FINAL_3June21_CenMED_ZOOM half day masterclass on FOCUSED_PPT RobertWRIGHT.pptx

The world as we have always known it – so obvious

and still struggling

• Constant and dynamic state of flux!

• It is fast-paced, turbulent, conflicting, paradoxical, highly competitive, non-routine, ill-defined, unstructured
and complicated; much of which is unanticipated. We do indeed live in a “VUCA” world (plagued with
Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) and we continue to struggle to make sense of it all.

• All this challenges our current-taken-for-granted assumptions about what works and what does not work;
often leading to revisions and redefinitions that blur conventional boundaries of understanding.
•

Heraclitus (the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, 535-475 BCE) famously reminded us about the world and
about ourselves in that, “All is flux. Nothing is stationary; everything gives way and nothing is fixed. No
man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
(One of his students later extended this and said that we cannot even step into the river once because it
was always in motion)!

• Since this is and always has been the case, why is it that we continue to be surprised by such
(unprecedented) change? Why do we still struggle with the obvious? Surely, this is the fundamental
psychological problem of “man”!

Extracted from Wright, R. P. (2018). Re-examining what we “anticipate” in a constructed world. In R. Galavan & K. Sund (Guest Editor: G.
Hodgkinson). Methodological Challenges and Advances in Managerial and Organizational Cognition. (Chapter 9, pp. 219-241); UK, Emerald.