The “C” in VUCA—Coping with Complexity

By Marcia Ruben, PhD, PCC on Tue, Nov 04, 2008

Nearly twenty years ago, I was working for Wilson Learning, an international human resource development firm. In my first role as a Consultant, it was my job to understand our national clients and the business environment in which they operated. In the late 1980’s, I was attending a meeting of consultants in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. One of our consulting colleagues from the east coast commented that an emerging theme was the globalization of American corporations. Many of our national accounts, like AT&T, DuPont, IBM, and others were going global in a big way. Shortly after, as I moved into an Account Executive role on the west coast, it became clear that my high technology clients were expanding their existing operations in Europe and Asia. Selling intangibles to large accounts was already complex. We had to understand the products, markets, competition, organizational cultures, leadership styles, and our own competition. It became imperative to also understand the offshore cultures, as well as the impact this expanded globalization had on the organizational dynamics of our client firms. This was all before the advent of technology.
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Marcia Ruben Ph.D, PCC, CMC

Marcia Ruben Ph.D, PCC, CMC

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