It was a framework used thousands of times. Leadership gurus, military strategists, and corporate consultants repeatedly talked about VUCA: a snappy acronym to describe the world as Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous.
Born in the late 1980s after the Cold War, VUCA felt smart, insightful, and – most importantly – actionable. Except now, it’s outdated.
VUCA worked in a world where volatility still had some rhythm. Where uncertainty could still be waited out. Where complexity had patterns, and ambiguity meant a choice between this or that. It was a framework for an unstable world that was, ironically, still manageable.
But today, we’re not just living in VUCA; we’re operating in something far worse.
Enter BANI: Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, and Incomprehensible.
Coined by futurist Jamais Cascio in 2018, BANI is the new lens for understanding the fractured, unpredictable state of the modern world.
B is for Brittle
The systems, structures, and supply chains we depend on are shockingly fragile. The world isn’t just volatile; it’s brittle, like an old dried bone. It appears strong but one crack and it shatters.
Take the global supply chain. We spent decades forcing efficiency, squeezing every minute and every penny out of the system. The more that could be outsourced the better. We threw our vendors into the octagon and had them attack each other until only one was left standing. We embraced just in time inventory so we could minimize warehouse costs.
What comes from all the efficiency?
A 7.4 earthquake in Japan shuts production of one small inexpensive chip, and automobile production lines grind to a halt in Detroit. Brittle.
A CrowdStrike software update goes awry and millions of Windows computers lock up. Flights are grounded around the world and production drops by $5 billion.
Power outages in Texas from a freak storm. Ransomware shutting hospitals. The list goes on.
In the BANI world, brittleness demands resilience. Leaders can’t just optimize for efficiency anymore – they have to prepare for failure, disruption, and the unexpected domino effects of small cracks. Redundancy isn’t waste; it’s survival.
A is for Anxious
True, VUCA made us very uncertain and confused; but the low-grade always-on anxiety of today is on another level.
Every news cycle is a news cyclone: climate disasters in 2024 alone, political vitriol, mass shootings, microplastics (microplastics?). Trust between employer and employee is now at zero. Will you get laid off? Will your business survive the next recession?
Anxiety paralyzes us, making decisions harder and risks scarier.
What’s a leader to do? We can’t change the world, but we can offer empathy and optimism. People don’t need falsehoods—just honesty, empathy, and direction.
N is for Nonlinear
In a VUCA world, situations may have been complex, but they could be mastered with time and intelligence. Inputs and outputs had a relationship. In the BANI world, causality breaks. One event eventually triggers other events that are completely unforeseen.
Deepseek releases their version of AI and a trillion dollars is erased from the stock markets. A guy in his basement in a funny hat hypes Gamestop and a hedge fund goes out of business.
Careful linear thinking is now a liability. Leaders must accept that answers will only come from action, rapid iteration, and agility.
I is for Incomprehensible
Being smart doesn’t matter when the world is incomprehensible.
We’re drowning in data. Technology accelerates faster than we can grasp it. Mind blowing AI breakthroughs happen on a weekly basis. What used to make front-page headlines is now a bullet point in weekly tech newsletters.
What do we do when we truly can’t comprehend the world around us?
The unsettling truth is that leaders don’t need to comprehend everything – but they need to act anyway. That’s the job now: take calculated risks, move quickly, lean on intuition when the full picture is impossible to see.
Leading in the BANI World
The age of VUCA is over. The framework has changed. BANI is the mirror reflecting the new reality. Brittle systems, anxious people, nonlinear outcomes, and incomprehensible complexity.
BANI demands that leaders build resilient organizations, lower anxiety, embrace nonlinearity, and act decisively amid incomprehensibility.
