You Can't Control the Wind
There Are Things You Cannot Control—Here's How to Navigate Anyway
Last year in June, I was getting ready to cross the British Channel from Bretagne to the Isles of Scilly. We were excited to go to another country—the UK by way of sea! The Captain was Clara, and there were seven of us on board.
We were so excited that we left fast, without much preparation. The beginning was exhilarating. We had wind from the East - perfect for heading West. It was our first real crossing. We didn’t know each other that well yet, trying to find our rhythm together. There was excitement, and yes, a bit of fear. Just two weeks earlier, we’d heard about a sailboat hit by a cargo ship in these same waters - the crew had to call mayday and be evacuated. That story was in the back of everyone’s mind.
But after a while, some of us started feeling seasick. Maybe being tired. Or hungry. Or thirsty... or something. It’s easy to get seasick - it takes three minutes to start, at least an hour to recover.
I was having a great time, getting all my sailing reflexes and habits back. My watch duty started at 3:30am, so even though I was impatient to cross the cargo shipping lanes and experience night sailing, I thought it would be reasonable to sleep early. That way, when I woke up just before my watch, I’d be in decent shape. I managed to fall asleep rapidly.
But after a while, I could hear noise and commotion on deck. The boat was making noises that aren’t so good. I heard us tacking and jibing - multiple times. Normally the boat is supposed to hold steady on the same tack, especially in the middle of the sea, far from the coast. Here we were unstable, moving from one side to the other, making turns. I was asleep, so I thought I was dreaming, but my sailor brain (and stomach) were telling me something was wrong. Still, I wasn’t in charge, and my job was to rest.
When my alarm went off, I got ready in two minutes, excited to play my part.
I climbed on deck, and despite all the previous motion, my three crewmates were dead silent.
“Hi there, how’s it going?”
The answer didn’t come right away... one or two seconds of hesitation, then someone answered: “So-so.”
“Oh, what’s going on?” I went to the helm to check the compass. Strangely, we were heading South. We were supposed to go Northwest.
“Are we going back home??”
The answer was not amused: “The wind is going crazy. East, West, nothing, turning all the time...”
Now I understood all the frenzy and noise. The wind had shifted from East to West - a complete reversal. When you’re trying to sail West and the wind comes from the West, you’re facing it right in your nose. And the challenge, I learned, is that when wind turns, it doesn’t happen cleanly, like someone pressed a button. The wind does weird stuff for a while. Stops. Turns. Goes another way. Stops again. Gusts in yet another direction. That made the boat move in all directions, extremely uncomfortable for sailors already getting sick. Add nighttime, stress, and exhaustion, and it took a big toll on everyone.
Earlier that night, Clara had made a tough but smart decision. The wind had turned earlier than forecast, and at this pace, reaching the Scilly Isles would take double the time. Considering our state of exhaustion and the fact we were in the middle of the cargo shipping lanes - where those big ships that don’t look so threatening from far away suddenly feel very real when pointing toward you - she decided we’d reroute toward the coast of Cornwall instead. She held to a clear destination, even when it had to change.
But I hadn’t heard this decision myself - I was asleep. I was trusting secondhand information from exhausted, seasick crewmates who seemed uncertain whether Cornwall was our new destination or just a temporary retreat. There was this unspoken mourning - we’d been so excited about the Scilly Isles. The crew had been juggling too many variables: wind direction, fatigue, seasickness, cargo traffic, constant sail adjustments. The watch system wasn’t helping - people waking up disoriented, immediately expected to make decisions. What are we actually doing here? Why South when our dream was West? Is everyone safe enough to continue?
Then someone said: “Maybe we should start the engine instead of fighting the winds.” In a way, it was the voice of reason. But not everyone agreed. “No engine, we’re sailors!” some protested. “We’re sick and tired sailors, I say engine!” others countered. In the end, we decided against the engine.
But the debate revealed something: nobody was sure what the “right” answer was. Were we on an adventure or in over our heads?
It took me time to adjust to the night conditions. I was disappointed I’d missed the action crossing the cargo lanes. But then magic happened - dolphins appeared, following our boat, playing with our stern, illuminating the water with bioluminescent plankton. It was my first time witnessing such magic. That gave the whole crew courage.
Then, luckily, the wind stabilized. When it was my turn as navigator (I love doing that), I managed to put the boat on a better course. Our GPS showed coordinates that I plotted on the map with pencil and ruler - a simple way to figure out where you are real fast. Suddenly, I built understanding of where we actually were. I didn’t have all the information I needed - you couldn’t see the coast from where we were - but at least I knew how far we had to go, what our landing options were, and where the dangers lay.
Having a fresh crew member join the watch every 90 minutes helped enormously. It brought calm and a cooler head to the deck.
When it was my turn at the helm, we started seeing the sky gradually change colors, then the first light of sunrise. Another magic moment. And more dolphins.
A few hours later, we could finally see the coast. And the first lights and lighthouses we saw were exactly the ones I was expecting from the map. That gave me and my crewmates much more confidence. We still needed energy to complete the crossing, but at least we knew the tough part was behind us.
What really saved us wasn’t just reaching land - it was how we navigated the confusion. We couldn’t control the wind. But we could control our response to it.
Later in the trip, we completely redesigned our watch system based on what we’d learned that night. Instead of waking up and immediately navigating, the fresh crew member would start at the helm - giving them time to wake up, get acquainted with conditions and direction. Then they’d become navigator - now fully oriented, making decisions from a position of understanding rather than grogginess. Finally, they’d shift to “crew” duty, and we created a routine: ensure the deck and salon are clean, keep the snack sack full, make sure everyone has had something to drink or eat and feels warm and comfortable. Making this a routine helped tremendously. We turned complexity into systems and habits.
What struck me wasn’t that we survived the crossing - it was how we survived it. A clear destination, even when it changed. Understanding built from GPS and maps. Routines that created clarity. The flexibility to adjust when needed. Not through individual heroics or perfect decisions, but through these four things working together.
Every sailor learns this eventually: you don’t control the wind, the tides, or the currents. You only control your response. That night taught me that your response is everything - if you know how to structure it.
🧑💼 The Business Reality
That night on the water, we were experiencing what the US Army War College calls a VUCA environment:
Volatile: The wind shifted from East to West—rapid, unpredictable change
Uncertain: We didn’t know if conditions would improve or worsen
Complex: Multiple interconnected factors—wind, fatigue, seasickness, cargo traffic, navigation—all affecting each other
Ambiguous: What’s the right decision? Engine or sails? Push forward or reroute? Multiple interpretations, no clear answer
In 1987, the Army War College coined VUCA to describe the post-Cold War world. Today, it’s everywhere—in business, healthcare, education, and daily life.
But VUCA only diagnoses the problem. In 2007, leadership expert Bob Johansen asked: “What’s the solution?”
His answer: VUCA Prime. Each VUCA element has a corresponding leadership response:
Vision counters Volatility - maintain direction when conditions shift rapidly
Understanding counters Uncertainty - build situational awareness when the future is unclear
Clarity counters Complexity - create simple structures within chaos
Agility counters Ambiguity - learn rapidly when multiple interpretations are valid
We were instinctively applying it that night. Clara held to a clear destination even when it changed (Vision). I built understanding through GPS coordinates. We created clarity through our watch system. We maintained agility through continuous adjustments.
These conditions aren’t unique to sailing. Here’s how VUCA Prime applies across contexts:
Common VUCA Scenarios
The Market Entry Decision
Your healthtech company is considering European expansion. Competitive landscape shifts as new players enter (volatile). Customer preferences unclear—what they say versus what they’ll actually pay for differs (volatile). Regulatory pathways uncertain. Internal leadership keeps changing priorities (volatile). Stakeholder map with conflicting requirements (complex). Market signals contradictory (ambiguous).
Most teams either over-analyze into paralysis—endless market research, consultant reports, six-month studies—or leap blindly: “We figured out the US, how different can Europe be?”
VUCA Prime in action: Set a clear strategic vision (”establish presence, learn first year”) even as tactics shift. Build deep understanding through direct engagement with regulators and market realities. Create clarity through explicit decision rights—who owns regulatory strategy vs. commercial strategy. Maintain agility by piloting in one country, learning fast, adjusting, then scaling what works.
The Organizational Restructuring
Your division is being reorganized. New reporting lines announced, then revised, then revised again (volatile). Future state undefined—roles unclear, budgets uncertain, strategic direction still debated (uncertain). Interdependent teams, matrix reporting, unclear decision rights (complex). Different leaders have different interpretations of what success means (ambiguous).
Most teams either hunker down—”let’s keep our heads down and do our work”—or politick aggressively, competing for resources and territory. Leaders either pretend everything’s fine or telegraph their own panic, destroying team confidence.
VUCA Prime in action: Maintain vision about your team’s purpose despite structural shifts (”our mission to serve customers doesn’t change”). Build understanding by actively gathering intelligence—who are the key decision makers, what are the real priorities. Create clarity by defining what you control vs. influence vs. monitor. Maintain agility by preparing your team for multiple scenarios while staying flexible as the situation clarifies.
The Strategic Direction Choice
Should you expand to new markets or deepen in existing ones? Competitive landscape shifting (volatile). Customer needs uncertain—what they say they want versus what they’ll pay for differs (uncertain). Success requires coordinating product, sales, marketing, operations (complex). Multiple valid paths forward, data supports several directions (ambiguous).
Most teams either seek perfect information—endless analysis, more consultants, delayed decisions—or defer to authority: the HiPPO (highest paid person’s opinion) decides and everyone aligns without genuine buy-in.
VUCA Prime in action: Define clear strategic vision (”become category leader in X within three years”) to constrain the solution space even if tactics remain flexible. Build understanding by running small experiments—limited pilots, customer discovery, build vs. buy analysis—to convert uncertainty into knowledge. Create clarity by breaking the decision into components—what must we decide now vs. later, what’s reversible vs. irreversible. Maintain agility by making the smallest decision that moves you forward with clear checkpoints to assess and adjust.
The Crisis That Wouldn’t End
A critical quality issue surfaces requiring a global product recall—15 million devices, €1B+ exposure, patient safety at stake. New failure modes emerging daily (volatile). Root cause investigation evolving (uncertain). Supply chain, regulatory filings, customer communications, legal exposure, all interconnected (complex). Repair, replace, or redesign? How to prioritize markets? (ambiguous).
Initially, leadership thought they could control the situation. Then the magnitude hit them—deer in headlights.
They created a war room. One vision: patient safety first, everything else follows. One leadership group brought clarity—everyone knew who decided what. Fast decision-making gave them agility. Daily standups, rapid information flow, clear escalation paths. Cross-functional team with authority to act.
And it worked—brilliantly. For the first few weeks.
Then the crisis didn’t end. The recall that seemed like a sprint turned into a marathon. 2021 became 2022. 2022 became 2023. The recall would ultimately run for five years.
The war room that had saved them was now destroying them.
The small leadership group became a bottleneck—the issue was so vast they couldn’t process everything. They got tired. Started making mistakes. Began seeking perfection instead of progress. The complexity was so high that their understanding couldn’t stay deep enough—you can’t be a specialist at everything. Decisions that once took hours now took weeks. Agility vanished.
They were back in a VUCA environment of their own making.
The evolved response:
Early 2022, leadership made a fundamental shift. They moved from centralized control to distributed authority.
Vision evolved: They documented their “constitution”—vision, goals, strategy, and plans—in a living document updated frequently and distributed to the entire extended team. Everyone could see the North Star, not just the war room.
Understanding deepened: They created autonomous workstreams, each with specialists who could build deep expertise in their domain. You don’t need one group to understand everything—you need the right people understanding the right things.
Clarity expanded: Clear frameworks for decision-making. What required leadership approval versus what workstreams owned. Weekly check-ins ensured alignment without micromanagement. Authority distributed, coordination maintained.
Agility returned: Autonomous teams could move fast within their domains. The bottleneck disappeared. Decisions happened at the speed they needed to, not the speed the war room could process them.
The recall continued through 2023, then another 2-3 years beyond. But the team didn’t burn out. The organization didn’t collapse. The business continued.
The meta-insight: VUCA Prime responses themselves must adapt. What works in week one fails in year three. The framework is constant—Vision, Understanding, Clarity, Agility. But how you apply it must evolve as conditions evolve. Sprint mode and marathon mode require different implementations of the same principles.
Notice the pattern across all these scenarios? Vision, Understanding, Clarity, Agility—the same four elements that saved us that night crossing the Channel. But where did this framework come from? And why does it work?
🧑🔬 The Science Behind VUCA Prime
VUCA Prime hasn’t been tested as a complete framework in controlled experiments. However, decades of research support its underlying principles.
Kathleen Eisenhardt’s research (1989) on decision-making in volatile Silicon Valley markets revealed something counterintuitive: fast decision-makers (2-4 months) outperformed slow ones (12-18 months) financially, and they used more information, not less. The difference was how they used it. Fast teams tracked real-time operational data rather than predictions, maintained multiple alternatives simultaneously, used simple decision rules (”three criteria: technology fit, culture match, price under $X”), and had explicit decision rights. They embodied all four VUCA Prime elements—Vision through strategic intent, Understanding through real-time awareness, Clarity through simple rules, and Agility through parallel evaluation.
Karl Weick’s sensemaking research (1990s-2000s) examined real-world crises—wildfires, chemical disasters, aircraft carrier operations. Organizations that successfully navigated uncertainty didn’t wait for complete information. They built situational awareness through action, created plausible narratives from incomplete data, and acted their way into understanding rather than analyzing into paralysis. This validates Understanding—you don’t eliminate uncertainty, you build good-enough awareness to act intelligently within it.
Haque and colleagues’ study (2016) found that when employees perceived their organization’s vision as clear and compelling, they reported significantly greater readiness to navigate change, which in turn led to organizational growth. Clear vision serves as psychological anchoring during transitions.
The pattern is consistent: leaders who maintain vision, build understanding, create clarity, and preserve agility navigate VUCA conditions more effectively. While we see correlation rather than proven causation, these represent learnable capabilities that improve your odds.
🧑🎨 The Art: Applying VUCA Prime
VUCA Prime isn’t about controlling the uncontrollable—it’s about structuring your response. Each VUCA element requires a different counter-move:
Vision counters Volatility - maintain direction when conditions shift
Understanding counters Uncertainty - build awareness when the future is unclear
Clarity counters Complexity - create simple structures within chaos
Agility counters Ambiguity - learn rapidly when multiple interpretations are valid
Here’s how to apply this in practice.
Step 1: Diagnose Your VUCA
Identify which element you’re facing:
Volatility: Conditions changing rapidly and unpredictably?
Uncertainty: Unclear what will happen next?
Complexity: Multiple interconnected factors hard to analyze?
Ambiguity: Situation has multiple valid interpretations?
Most situations involve several elements. Identify the dominant one—focus there first.
Step 2: Build Vision to Counter Volatility
Define your ultimate destination clearly while keeping tactics flexible.
Practical actions:
Articulate what remains constant: “We exist to [core purpose]”
Distinguish destination (fixed) from route (flexible)
Test clarity: Can everyone explain where you’re headed in one sentence?
Example: Clara changed our destination from Scilly Isles to Cornwall but maintained the vision: safe arrival for the crew.
Step 3: Develop Understanding to Counter Uncertainty
Build deep awareness of current reality rather than waiting for certainty.
Practical actions:
Track 3-5 real-time indicators constantly
Get direct contact with reality: customers, operations, frontline teams
Create feedback loops: try small, learn fast, adjust
Ask “What do we know right now?” not “What will happen?”
Example: GPS coordinates gave me enough understanding to act—not perfect information, good enough.
Step 4: Create Clarity to Counter Complexity
Simplify how you operate within complexity.
Practical actions:
Establish simple decision rules: “Three criteria: technology fit, culture match, price”
Define explicit decision rights: who owns what
Create clear routines
Separate what you control, influence, and monitor
Example: Our watch system—helm, then navigator, then crew—turned complexity into routine.
Step 5: Maintain Agility to Counter Ambiguity
Design for rapid learning when multiple interpretations are valid.
Practical actions:
Evaluate 2-3 alternatives simultaneously
Make the smallest decision that moves you forward
Set clear checkpoints: “Try for 30 days, then assess”
Establish rapid feedback mechanisms
Example: Fresh crew every 90 minutes. Course adjustments based on conditions. Continuous small adaptations.
Making It Work
Diagnose which VUCA element dominates your situation. Apply the corresponding Prime response. Review as conditions evolve.
Remember: your response must adapt too. The war room worked for weeks but failed for years. Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility are constant—how you implement them must change.
You can’t control the wind. But you can control your response.
💡 The Key Insight
That night crossing the Channel, we didn’t have a framework or a name for what we were doing. We just knew we couldn’t control the wind, the tides, or the currents. So we focused on what we could control.
This is ancient Stoic wisdom: separate what you can control from what you cannot. Accept the uncontrollable. Focus your energy on your response.
But VUCA Prime adds something crucial to Stoicism—it tells you how to focus that energy.
Stoicism says: “Don’t fight the wind.”
VUCA Prime says: “Maintain your heading (Vision), read the conditions (Understanding), organize your crew (Clarity), and adjust your sails (Agility).”
The Stoics taught acceptance. VUCA Prime teaches effective action within that acceptance.
This is why the framework matters. Every sailor eventually learns not to curse the wind. But knowing how to respond—with Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility—separates those who survive from those who thrive.
The conditions will always be volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. That’s the nature of the world we live in. The question isn’t whether you’ll face VUCA. It’s whether you’ll know how to navigate it.
This story has been anonymized to protect privacy, but the insights it contains are as real as the day they were discovered. Each one changed how I see some aspect of business, leadership, or life. I hope a few of them might do the same for you.
Great story, Geraud. No disrespect intended…it seems this is also a bit of a failed leadership story in that your Captain didn’t prepare or communicate very well. No doubt the Captain is a good sailer and I hope she comes away from this trip with some new learnings
Thanks for sharing and your Substack posts