Cognitive Biases: VUCA & LAMO
"So she was considering in her own mind ... when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her. There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit so to itself, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!" (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat pocket, or a watch to take out of it..." -- Alice in Wonderland
Already in the novel's second paragraph, the VUCA White Rabbit challenges Alice's mental models. She could have found a LAMO way to explain or ignore him, but she responded with curiosity and followed him down the rabbithole.
Consider your mental models.
- How many of them started with a LAMO set of assumptions?
- And then how did you adjust those mental models after encountering the VUCA feedback from the real world?
- Do you see how 'wicked problems' are created or sustained when evaluated from only a LAMO set of biases?
LAMO
- Linear
- Anthropocentric (human-centered)
- Mechanistic
- Ordered
VUCA
- Volatile
- Unpredictable
- Complex
- Ambiguous