How ready are you for the communications challenges you and your organisation will face in 2024?
The reason I ask is because the acceleration of change has been particularly rapid in recent times.
This means that when you seek to convey any message to your target audiences, you’re doing so amidst more so-called “VUCA” than ever before.
VUCA stands for:
• Volatility
• Uncertainty
• Complexity
• & Ambiguity.
These VUCA factors have been evermore apparent at a global level in recent months with the tragic eruption of the worst military conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
This latest warfare has become more intense than it’s ever been.
And as everything is connected to everything else, there’s been ever-widening VUCA-related consequences flowing out from the central vortex of the Middle East upheaval.
This is evident, for example, with the attacks on international shipping in and around the Red Sea by the Houthi rebels of Yemen and by their backers in Iran – both seeking to support the Palestinian group, Hamas.
A diagram below, drawn up by The Sun, illustrates what’s involved.
These attacks on ships are adversely affecting the movement of goods across much of the globe.
THE IMPACT OF THE VUCA UPSURGE ON YOUR WORKING WORLD
Have you noticed how the general upsurge in Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity everywhere has been affecting you and your organisation?
It could be the evermore obvious effects of climate change driving more dangerous weather conditions.
Or it could be through the upsurge in working-from-home, the latest round of Covid, uncertainty over the timing of this year’s British general election and/or questions around the political impact of Donald Trump together with the ever-mounting legal cases against the former U.S. president.
Assuming you have personally noticed such impacts affecting the way you and your team work, you may have realised how increased VUCA can make your communications efforts more challenging.
It typically means there’s more to consider in terms of what you need to say and how you need to say it – whether it’s to your team members, clients, prospects, financiers, officials, journalists or directly to the public.
Increased VUCA also means that there’s more going on in the minds of your target audience members as you seek to connect with them.
So you need to be more effective than ever in enabling your message to break through and win the attention it deserves.
More VUCA can also mean that your communications efforts are having to be carried out under more intense pressures and with evermore distractions.
Michael Dodd Communications helps organisations and individuals to enhance their skill levels for getting their message across amidst the VUCA-related challenges of our times.
To help you focus on the general challenges which come with increased VUCA, check out this brief video:
Amongst those who most obviously have to tackle communication challenges amidst ever-higher levels of VUCA are aid workers struggling to help those affected by the latest human-caused and natural disasters.
Whatever VUCA challenges you’re personally facing, the chances are that those front-line aid workers are facing even more of it!
Before the latest eruptions in the Middle East, I had the privilege of working in Jordan on media interview response training projects with some of the region’s aid workers for various organisations who gathered in (relatively peaceful) Amman and on the banks of the Dead Sea for the occasions.
These included official aid workers for the refugee agency – the United Nations High Commission For Refugees – and the United Nations children’s fund, Unicef.
Among the numerous tasks of leading aid workers is to interact with journalists to alert the world to the challenges they’re facing as they go about helping victims.
When they are doing well, they’re able to entice those living elsewhere to do what they can do to help those suffering.
One of those who I haven’t trained – but who is particularly good at calmly getting his message across to the outside world – is an aid worker for Save The Children.
He’s the charity’s director in Gaza, Jason Lee.
After completing his university education in Sydney (like me), he’s working in horrendous conditions amidst the missiles and famine of Gaza.
Jason Lee is particularly good at getting that tricky balance right between discussing the highly emotional situations he’s encountering, while conveying easy-to-understand factual messages for his international audience.
The following video is an interview Jason Lee did with Australia’s Channel 9 “Today Show” from East Jerusalem late last year.
Amidst the chaos, note how Jason Lee keeps cool.
And while conveying the emotional impact, he also gives statistical details about the children affected to help viewers put it all in perspective at a rational level.
So while giving the Channel 9 interviewers important information, he admirably ensures that his vital messages about dealing with those suffering – especially the children – come across at every opportunity.
Despite the VUCA surrounding him, he also keeps admirably focused on the bigger picture of what he maintains needs to change.
BOOSTING YOUR COMMUNICATIONS IN 2024
The better you and your team can communicate amidst the ever-growing VUCA, the more you’re setting yourselves up for success.
To help you and your colleagues make presentations with confidence, impact and pizzazz, visit:
http://www.michaeldoddcommunications.com/presenting-with-confidence-impact-and-pizzazz/
To enable you and your team to give great answers to the tough questions thrown at you, check out:
http://www.michaeldoddcommunications.com/give-great-answers-to-tough-questions/
To make sure you and your organisation come across more effectively through the news media, see:
http://www.michaeldoddcommunications.com/media-master-classes/
If you need a comprehensive communications-boosting programme for your team, see what’s possible here:
And if you need a speaker to demonstrate to your conference audience how to communicate more impressively, check out:
http://www.michaeldoddcommunications.com/speaking-at-your-event/
Wishing you all the best for outstanding communications amidst the enhanced VUCA of 2024 and beyond!