Leading in a BANI World
“We’re living in a world that’s delicate, uncontrollable, unpredictable and impossible to comprehend. Let’s celebrate, accept and wonder.” ~ Jeroen Kraaijenbrink
We love this quote from Forbes contributor Jeroen Kraaijenbrink, in his article What BANI Really Means. It invites us to accept the complexity of the world today (and perhaps the world as it has always been) and lead in a way that responds to current challenges with curiosity and wonder. In a world that is Brittle, Anxious, Non-Linear and Incomprehensible, Jeroen’s comment invites a sense of playfulness and awe that becomes possible when we release the illusion of strength, control, predictability and knowledge - and instead focus on what it means to lead with resilience, empathy, adaptivity, and intuition. Here’s why we think this BANI model matters for leaders.
What is a BANI World?
Developed by American futurist Jamais Cascio, the BANI concept describes the core components of what Jamais described as a rapidly changing environment. BANI stands for Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear, and Incomprehensible - attempting to describe our unique challenges in a world of fragility and unpredictability. BANI serves as a conceptual tool designed to describe the unique traits of our operating landscape. We can adapt our leadership approach accordingly with increased awareness of these traits. Here’s how increased awareness can help:
B stands for Brittle: Recognising fragility in systems helps build resilience
A stands for Anxious: Understanding anxiety can help foster a supportive environment
N stands for Non-linear: Embracing unpredictability aids in adaptive decision-making
I stands for Incomprehensible: Acknowledging complexity improves the navigation of challenges
With increased awareness of these BANI characteristics, we can then start to explore the leadership strategies and essential capabilities needed in response.
Why does a BANI Context Matter for Leaders?
Understanding the BANI Framework can help you, as a leader, navigate today’s complexities effectively. By recognising the key components of brittleness, anxiety, nonlinearity, and incomprehensibility, you can shift where you might focus your decision-making and respond more adeptly to your context. Here’s how the characteristics of BANI translate to what’s required of leaders:
Brittleness requires capacity and resilience
Anxiety asks for empathy and mindfulness
Nonlinearity calls for context and adaptivity
Incomprehensibility demands transparency and intuition
A scan through HR Trends, Employee Insights and Diveristy Data 2024, highlights the increasing desire for employees to feel a sense of belonging in their work. Gone are the days when a logo or brand felt good to have on your resume; instead, we see the shift to working for and with good people (more important than brand). Employees crave a leader who can inspire trust, hope, stability and compassion. And BANI helps us understand the context as to why this is the case. The BANI framework helps open conversations on resilience, empathy, adaptive leadership, transparency and intuition - powerful leadership traits for today’s world of work.
Brittleness Requires Capacity and Resilience
The Brittle element of BANI challenges the illusion of strength. A system may appear strong and robust, but, in reality, all systems can reach a critical point of failure and collapse easily. Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic saw the test and failure of many systems. More locally in Aotearoa, New Zealand, we’ve had the impacts of the pandemic compounded by extreme weather events - isolating regions and destroying industries. The consequences of brittle systems are often worsened by the surprise factor of such events, where the illusion of control crumbles, catching individuals, organisations and societies off-guard. We then continue to see the impacts of the Brittle systems on our economy, cost of living, and access to affordable housing.
As leaders, when we can release the illusion of strength and instead lean into a focus on capacity and resilience, then we are better placed on where to focus our efforts. Brittleness requires capacity and resilience from leaders, which includes the following:
Encourage adaptability: Promote flexible strategies that can help adjust to change
Invest in robust systems: Strengthen processes to ensure stress and challenges
Develop contingency plans: Create backup strategies for managing disruptions
Conduct regular risk assessments: Regularly evaluate and identify vulnerabilities in your systems
Foster learning: Encourage ongoing skill development among all team members to create a culture of capacity and resilience
Anxiety Asks for Empathy and Mindfulness
The Anxious element of BANI challenges the illusion of control. In his development of BANI, Jamais Cascio noted the raging sense of anxiety about the future - in particular from older Generation Z and Millenials, talking about their lived experience and this underlying sense of a challenging future made up of a collection of bad options in front of them. Jamais refers in his research to a sense of hopelessness, fear, anxiety and depression that seems to run strong in these generations. And it goes well beyond the notion of uncertainty to instead rest in a deep sense of helplessness.
In the recent Gallup research across 52 countries and territories - accounting for 76% of the world’s adult population and 86% of global gross domestic product - Gallup asked two questions:
What leader has the most positive influence on your daily life?
Now, please list three words that best describe what this person contributes to your life.
The three words people use to describe the most positive leaders in their lives fall into four themes, of which Hope stands out as the dominant need, accounting for 56% of all attributes tied to positive leaders (followed by Trust, Compassion and Stability).
It’s therefore no surprise that Anxiety asks for Empathy and Mindfulness from leaders, which includes the following:
Encourage open communications: Build trust through transparency
Prioritise mental health and wellness: Provide stress management resources
Cultivate a supportive culture: Ensure everyone feels valued and foster a sense of hope in your work and team culture
Recognise achievements: Celebrate small wins to lift morale
Facilitate peer support: Create networks of sharing experiences
Nonlinearity Calls for Context and Adaptivity
Nonlinearity challenges the illusion of predictability, and encourages us to accept that we are operating in complex systems, where cause and effect are not straightforward, with high disconnection and disproportionality between the two. What this means for leaders, is that the measures we implement cannot always be neatly connected to their results in a recognisable or predictable manner. Sometimes, significant efforts yield minimal effects, while seemingly minor decisions can have a disproportionately significant impact.
When we can increase our awareness of the non-linearity of our world and lean in to complexity, then the way we work and make decisions fundamentally shifts. Non-linearity calls for Context and Adapativity from leaders, which includes:
Adopt an agile mindset: Encourage quick adjustments to change
Promote innovation: Allow experimentation and learning from outcomes
Engage in scenario planning: Prepare for various potential outcomes
Encourage regular feedback: Create channels for continuous improvement
Foster collaboration: Encourage teamwork to enhance adaptability
Incomprehensible Demands Transparency and Intuition
Incomprehensibility challenges the illusion of knowledge. When faced with something we cannot comprehend, it tends to be overwhelming - particularly in today’s information-rich environment. We operate in an information-rich environment and risk being flooded with data. Leaders can’t have all the answers, and decision-making processes are not straightforward. This can lead to a paralysis of overwhelm, where, as a culture, we become unwilling to think about the disruptions of dynamic changes happening because it all just feels too much.
In this environment, leaders need to foster a culture of trust and transparency, where it’s safe not to know and equally safe to explore what might be possible. Incomprehensible demands Transparency and Intuition from leaders, including:
Scanning and sensemaking: Leaders must create space to sense and respond to changes in their context
Encourage lifelong learning: Foster a culture of continuous education
Utilise data tools: Leverage analytics to clarify information
Simplify problems: Break challenges into management parts
Use visual aids: Employ charts to present complex ideas
Leverage diversity: Ensure you have a diversity of views and perspectives
Promote open dialogue: Encourage discussions for better clarity.
Getting Started with BANI
Download our FREE resource guide from our Human-Centred Leaders Kete: Leading in a BANI World, A Guide For Leaders Navigating Complexity.
The guide includes a helpful overview of BANI and a checklist that captures the ideas from this blog for you to go through with your team. Where are you strong? Where might you benefit from more focus as a leader, and as a team? And if you feel like a cuppa to explore these conversations further, or to set up a plan to build capability across the team on resilience, empathy, adaptivity and transparency, then please feel welcome to get in touch. We have both tailored leadership development support, or off-the-shelf resources to help manage budget.
Additional resources, videos, and articles about BANI that you may be interested in: