State of Readiness | Mark McGrath; Founder of Chaos and Oceans, Ltd
Hello and welcome to another edition of State of Readiness with your host, Joseph Paris.
Today I am happy to have Mark McGrath, Founder of Chaos and Oceans Ltd, a consultancy specializing in helping individuals and teams thrive in Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous (VUCA) environments. He does this by sharing his cross-functional experience and education in the areas of strategic planning, decision-making, process improvement, capital markets, economics, training, and coaching.
We start where every journey starts, at the beginning, where Mark shares his early life experiences including being an “Army Brat” of a career officer and how the original Top-Gun changed his trajectory from land to sea; becoming a Marine. And Mark shares the experiences and wisdom gained from his attending university and the instructors who were impactful in his personal and professional development.
But it is in the Marines where Mark was exposed to, and became fascinated with, operating in VUCA environments and the Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act (OODA) Loop as a counter-measure.
In the podcast, Mark goes on to explain why chaos and VUCA are nothing to fear and shares his “three immutable points”. He also shares why he emphasizes Orientation over observe and why he teaches OODA, and not “OODA Loop”.
Everyone operates in chaos and the chaos is only increasing in amplitude and velocity over time. We need to learn, think, and decide in less time and with more orientation. Mark’s sharing of his thoughts and experiences may prove invaluable.
Mark also shared an article with the Operational Excellence Society entitled, “The Adaptive Entrepreneurial Method“. It’s worth a read.
