If VUCA ruled the last three decades, BANI is here to stay for atleast next three. Most of the hospital administrators will have lived their professional stints by the time the chaos is replaced by calm and the world starts over again in a simple meaningful manner. Till then—embrace BANI, create some best practices, make way for next practices and take the call of sense making and meaning making for yourself and people around you.
There is no denying the fact that the new post pandemic normal, has rendered the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) framework an insufficient descriptor of sense making and meaning making the chaotic times befalling all facets of human race. While the VUCA helped navigate the business and war universe for three decades—designing, describing, deliberating, discussing and debating the strategies that will make sense of the capricious macro, meso and micro environment , the pandemic knocked the world to a new playing field all together. This time the rules of game didn’t change, the game did. The rules of, life and living, existence and salvation, work and play, competition and collaboration all needed rewriting. Thence came the BANI, an updated framework given by Jamais Cascio. The acronym BANI expands as Brittle, Anxious, Non linear and Incomprehensible.
Of all pervasive chaos, the healthcare sector was one of the most hit segment which absorbed the blow of collapse and had to standup to respond without any cushion in sight . The clinical colleagues atleast had a line of sight to engage with gratification, in the fact that they are putting to use whatever they had garnered over years of theory and practice . The responsibility of making sense of the catastrophe during and post pandemic fell on the anxious hospital administrators in the healthcare system who were faced with incomprehensible and non linear patterns of new normal.
Dealing with all pervasive brittleness
As the shock of pandemic made way for new normal, hospital administrators are faced with fragility in all measures and varieties. Whether it is patients, caregivers, hospital staff , health systems, clinical counterparts or external environment; the message has arrived that everything from systems, to processes, to emotions, to relations, to structures are susceptible to irreparable falls—any time. Sudden crashes, unrestricted fragility , non resilient unstable frail foundations are a factual reality that can appear unannounced and tear apart everything beyond repair, overnight. Whether it is attitudes towards jobs and career or the data points feeding business plans for expansion, or expectations of treatment outcomes by patients, or mental health of treating doctors, or resilience of care partners like nurses and technicians, hospital administrators are challenged with creating stronger structures, resilient sentiments , infallible and profound plan Bs , curating cultures of optimizing efficiency wringing every bit of value from existing resource set.
Mitigating the Anxiety
The un-think-ability, unexpectedness, unprecedented-ness and unpreparedness of havoc created by the tiniest of the virus has charged the human neural wiring irrevocably and have put them on an anxiety spectrum, unheard of in last century. The helplessness, hopelessness and vulnerability of catastrophe has made everyone revisit their priorities, insecurities, time orientation and has given way to irrationality. There is evidence that indicate that post pandemic people exhibit negative emotions with a sense of abandon that manifest in healthcare settings as increasing LAMA (left against medical advice) cases, Hospital violence, rise in litigations against hospitals and like which is again an important realm of hospital administrators’ responsibilities. Sensitivity training, transparency in communication and commitment, empathetic communication are a few tools to mitigate the anxious nerves and troubled souls.
Disconnected, Disproportionate, and with devastating consequences , is how best non-linearity can be comprehended. The very framework of Input-process-output and outcome is replaced with non linearity that no mathematical model or conceptual framework can explain or guide. Cause-effect, path analysis, process mapping are all blinded with multiple meanings, multiple sources and multiple destinations without any pre-assessment of time for manifestation of results. Times are punctuated with dichotomy where a seemingly great plan anchored in due diligence can have immediate crumbling consequence or a impulsive decision may result in a great competitive advantage. The hospital administrator’s role in sense making and meaning making of non linearity will include context comprehension and change agility. Creating new models of decision making, strong plan Bs , innovation and creativity as an inbuilt DNA in decisions, high experiment-orientation, acceptance of non –valid, non-proven methods will help sail through chaotic times.
Accepting the incomprehensible
The more we know , the more we don’t know. Too much data, too detailed information, too many perspectives can actually be over-whelming . The Incomprehensibility element of BANI framework is an humble surrender to the unknown. In a different realm it is the humble acceptance of limited processing ability of human brain that contradictorily indicates growth of spirituality quotient at work place. The concept focuses a transition from ‘doing’ to ‘experiencing’ and finally accepting the reality as it is. The common human tendency to generate more data, discuss more angles and dig out more perspective do not necessary lead to more convincing answers and thus creates fear of loosing control over situations . However making a move from logic to intuition, reason to emotion and validation to refutation can help making peace with unknown.
If VUCA ruled the last three decades, BANI is here to stay for atleast next three. Most of the hospital administrators will have lived their professional stints by the time the chaos is replaced by calm and the world starts over again in a simple meaningful manner. Till then—embrace BANI, create some best practices, make way for next practices and take the call of sense making and meaning making for yourself and people around you.
