Uncertain times in business

Ewa | Sep 18, 2024Jun 27, 2025

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this speaking lesson are to:

• talk about uncertain situations from different perspectives;
• revise vocabulary to talk about uncertainty;
• watch a video on VUCA, a model for understanding difficult situations.

With this lesson, students discuss attitudes towards uncertainty, revise useful vocabulary (e.g. resilient, complexity, disruptive, etc.) and debate helpful skills when someone faces uncertain situations (e.g. preparedness, open-mindedness and agile thinking, resilience, etc.). They also watch and discuss a video about a framework to interpret challenging situations, talk about what companies could do in challenging situations and discuss how some difficult situations were handled in real life.

WARM-UP AND VOCABULARY

This speaking lesson starts with a warm-up. Students read and choose the statement that best describes their attitude towards uncertainty (e.g. I thrive on the stress of the unknown.) and provide some examples. You can also do an extra activity where students revise vocabulary to talk about uncertain situations. Students complete gaps with the correct forms of words (e.g. ambiguous, unprecedented, volatile, etc.). Afterwards, they discuss questions about coping with uncertainty and its impact. Then, students think of an example of an uncertain situation. They look at a list of skills (e.g. critical thinking, emotional intelligence, risk-taking, etc.) and choose the one that might be helpful when someone finds themself in this situation. Students also explain their reasoning.

VIDEO AND DISCUSSION

In this part of the lesson, students prepare to watch a video about VUCA, a framework to interpret challenging situations. First, they guess what VUCA might stand for (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) and explain their reasoning. Then, they watch the video and evaluate the relevance of four different strategies for dealing with uncertainty in their industry. Afterwards, students read and talk about uncertain situations the three companies face. First, they discuss the adjectives that best describe the situations. Students also debate how each business could manage risks and opportunities during a crisis. Finally, they think of a specific example of one uncertain situation (e.g. healthcare crisis, global IT outage, extreme weather event in your country, etc.) and discuss how it was handled using some points (e.g. responding immediately vs waiting for more information).  

WORKSHEETS

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