It’s no secret that the world has changed before our eyes. No matter what your political or social views, we can all agree it the world is extremely different and it’s never going back to the way it was.  In this radically changed world that has been disrupted, volatility has become vicious volatility.  Uncertainty has become unrelenting uncertainty.  Complexity has turned into continuous complexity, and ambiguity has turned into accelerated ambiguity.  Basically, we now live in a “VUCA Squared” world!

As we come to the end of this dynamic and challenging year, we should look back for a few moments to reflect and learn, but we need to quickly turn our attention to the future because the future is now.  A VUCA Squared world needs a new type of leader with new types of leadership skills.  Based on research, analysis, and an extremely intense year of working with some of the best organizations on the planet, I have put together a list of the 5 capabilities the new disruptive leader needs to have in 2018 and beyond.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about business leaders and professionals who use the phrase “And now, I’m going to be totally transparent...” The gist of the blog post was pointing out the hypocrisy and lessons learned from, and to, leaders about turning on and off transparency.  In other words, leaders need to be transparent and authentic all the time and not just turn it on and off when it’s situational, or worse yet convenient.

As readers of this blog know, I take great pride in sharing and exploring new ideas and concepts in the areas of Business Acumen, Business Leadership, and Strategic Business Selling.  I enjoy writing about recent experiences I’ve had in the business world working with our clients and most of the time these blogs are about something I know very well or feel very comfortable discussing. Today’s blog breaks new ground for me because I am going write about something I have absolutely no idea about; Haute Couture (high fashion dress making).

In today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous business world it is incredibly easy to get lost in the thousands of emails, the endless meetings, and the never-ending pressure to meet quarterly financial objectives. And when business professionals become lost in all of these seemingly important activities, it’s easy to forget about the most important thing in this process; your customers. It’s almost as if we all have to remind ourselves every day when we go to work that our customers pay us for the value we provide and our first focus must be on them and the complete customer experience.