What the world needs now is – another acronym. The world is more uncertain than ever, and traditional models for understanding complexity are no longer enough. While the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) framework was widely used to navigate instability, it no longer fully captures the nature of today’s world. Instead, the BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, Incomprehensible) framework has emerged as a more relevant way to understand modern-day challenges. If you were thinking the answer was – love, sweet love, check out the Burt Bacharach songbook live in concert.
In 2025, rapid technological advancements, geopolitical conflicts, environmental crises, and economic shifts demand a new way of thinking. The BANI framework provides a lens to understand this chaos, helping businesses, governments, and individuals adapt more effectively.
Understanding the BANI Framework
BANI describes a world where systems that once seemed stable can suddenly collapse (Brittle), where uncertainty leads to stress and fear (Anxious), where cause-and-effect relationships are unpredictable (Nonlinear), and where the sheer volume of data and events make things hard to understand (Incomprehensible).
We have seen numerous examples of how brittle our supply chain system in the last few years. Eggs are the latest supply chain challenge. We’ve also seen integrated circuits, toilet paper, and baby formula as some recent challenges. A brittle system appears strong but can break suddenly under pressure. Think of a glass bridge—it looks solid but shatters under the right conditions. Many global systems, from economies to supply chains, are brittle. Many people would say the current U.S. government is brittle.
Stress in our culture has probably never been higher. A 2024 American Psychiatric Association poll showed 43% of adults felt Anxious. This is a 10-point rise from just 2 years prior. With constant disruptions, people and organizations face decision paralysis. Anxiety leads to reactive rather than strategic responses, affecting long-term planning and innovation.
We want our world to be predictable. We rely on models for population growth, where to put the next fast-food restaurant, and when to buy and sell stocks. There seems to be much less predictability in the last few years. Small actions can have massive, unexpected consequences. The rise of social media influencers or a single tweet shaking stock markets are clear examples of nonlinearity. Commercial real estate companies have clung to the old models, hoping people would return to the office, but neither the workers nor the calvary is coming. We need a new set of playbooks for many aspects of our society.
People also want to make sense of their world. If you look around you, many people are grasping for outdated ideas as something to cling to just to simplify the world’s complexity. You end up seeing two camps. One that is embracing new ways of doing things and new ideas, and others that are trying to resurrect ideas about work, relationships, sexuality, and religion from 1957. With AI, big data, and an overflow of information (and disinformation), distinguishing truth from noise becomes difficult. Incomprehensibility can lead to poor decision-making and misinformation. Return-to-office mandates are a classic example. The research shows that people are not more productive in an office, but some leaders would rather cling to the office they know (even if it’s costing them money), rather than rethink what they need to support the work they do.
The BANI Framework in Business
In 2025, businesses must adapt to a world where stability is an illusion, and unpredictability is the norm. Traditional business models, which relied on structured planning and predictable market trends, no longer work in a Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, and Incomprehensible (BANI) environment.
Businesses that embrace flexibility and adaptability thrive, while those that stick to rigid structures risk failure. Flexibility always wins. Companies need to focus on resilience over stability so they can recover quickly from a disaster or other crisis. They also need to be more agile in their decision-making. Quick and iterative decision-making processes help organizations respond faster to unexpected challenges. Ideally, they also want to be decentralized. This is where remote work and smaller offices can reduce brittleness and improve agility. Lastly, they need to be developing a strategy for using AI and analytics. There’s currently a rather large disconnect between where many CEOs think they are in embracing AI, and where their staff think they are. We live in a time of incomprehensible amounts of information. We need new tools to use the information properly.
Leadership just needs to be better at leading. Transparent communication is key to reducing staff anxiety and keeping everyone on the same page. There needs to also be a genuine sense of empathy and a concern for mental health within the organization. Recognizing the psychological toll of uncertainty helps build a healthier workplace. And most of all, leaders need to be flexible and adaptable, and let those themes exist throughout the organization. Doing things the way we always did them was never a good strategy, and now it can be a recipe for disaster. Return-to-office mandates are a common theme that signals a rigid organization. If you aren’t flexible, you are at risk.
BANI and Technology
Technology is both a cause and a solution to BANI challenges. As AI, automation, and digital transformation accelerate, organizations must manage new uncertainties. 3 out of 4 CEOs worry about losing their job based on decisions they make about AI. That’s a lot to be riding on a technology that still can’t do complex math problems, makes up references, and adds extra fingers to images of people’s hands. On the positive side, it designed more efficient engines, developed new drug treatments in record time, and created self-driving cars. AI-driven models help make complex decisions, but their “black-box” nature makes them incomprehensible to many.
People aren’t just worried about their jobs when it comes to making decisions about AI. A lot of people are worried about being replaced by AI. Even skilled individuals doing repetitive tasks like legal contracts, certain surgeries, medical claims, or reviewing X-rays, are likely to be replaced by AI agents. Customer service bots are already replacing many call center staff. Whole computer programs are being built without traditional programmers.
Then there is the dark side. Your virus scan, firewalls, and network monitoring tools are all dependent on AI. The average cost of a cyber attack is up 10% over last year to $4.88 Million. And naturally the threats you are hoping to be protected against are also based on AI agents. We sit back and hope that our Kung Fu is stronger than the hacker’s Kung Fu. The fact that the cost of attack is going up also means the payout as a hacker is going up, so the threat isn’t going away anytime soon.
This is still just the tip of the technology iceberg when it comes to BANI. Blockchain deserves a whole treatise itself. Detangling it from cryptocurrency adds an additional level. Most people’s eyes roll back in their heads as they get too far into these topics so we’re going to leave them alone for the time being. Let’s shift to something that most people understand – government.
The Role of Governments and Policies
OK, this ship has sailed as well. As if what is happening to the government wasn’t hard enough to follow, the internal workings are dealing with their operational issues. Governments must navigate BANI challenges while creating policies that protect citizens. They also need to respond to evolving situations in real-time. Not including military actions, 27 weather-related events in the U.S. caused over $1B each in damages in 2024. Based on current budget projections, states are likely to be responsible for their disaster recovery in the coming years. While I don’t know the exact details, I can guarantee that not all 50 states are equally prepared for disasters.
What about the day-to-day things like insurance coverage, legalization of marijuana, age of consent, food additives, and whether you can make a right turn on red? State and local governments have a collage of laws and practices that might not be complimentary with adjacent jurisdictions. Country borders are a whole different can of worms. The bottom line is that our world is changing and government needs to be able to keep up at all levels or they will fall behind. Apparently, donkeys in Arizona would like to sleep in bathtubs, but the law doesn’t allow it. It’s time to play catchup.
Conclusion
I had a much longer outline planned for this article but it quickly became clear this was a rabbit hole that went on forever. There are so many dimensions of complexity to our world these days that businesses, governments, and people can retreat to their default state just because they don’t know what to do. There is risk in every decision so sometimes people look to an earlier time when the world made sense to them and try to apply it to the present. While we can learn lessons from the past, we can’t always apply the same solutions to similar problems. The BANI framework provides a powerful tool to navigate the chaos of 2025. As brittleness, anxiety, nonlinearity, and incomprehensibility define our world, businesses, governments, and individuals must adapt, stay flexible, and embrace uncertainty. The future may be unpredictable, but those who learn to thrive in a BANI world will lead the way forward.
