Embracing uncertainty is critical to your success, especially in this volatile, rapidly evolving business landscape. However uncertainty goes against the grain of us humans, who want to control our environment.

Margie Warrell PhD, tells us that embracing uncertainty is critical to our success. In a Forbes article, written almost a decade ago she shares:

We enjoy the stability that comes from having continuity between our past and future, a future that is familiar, stable and predictable. We like to feel that we are masters of our own ship, in control of our fate, and so it’s entirely natural to find ourselves feeling a little out of sorts when our future becomes an unknown quantity.

Out of all the benefits coming from embracing uncertainty – enhancing adaptability and resilience, fueling creativity and innovation, with sustainable growth as a consequence; I’d say the most impactful benefit is this:

Better Decision Making

Instead of relying on a single, rigid forecast, embracing uncertainty allows leaders to create multiple scenarios and develop “playbooks” for different outcomes.

More issues arise in certainty that the problem you’re solving is the problem and additionally, you’re certain about the solution.

This is the reason most businesses never completely solve an issue. This is why employees roll their eyes at yet another training session that isn’t going to yield any different results. This is why teams lose steam, and energy wanes because the goal post keeps shifting and they are never sure what they are attempting to solve – because every time they think they’re close, the play gets changed because another muckety-muck is certain they should be doing this instead of that.

Certainty breeds dreary, predictable, political and competitive work environments leaving employees drained and exhausted rather than invigorated and excited.

Certainty can feel efficient, but it actually encourages shortsightedness. It sets you up to optimize for the wrong thing with full confidence. Leaders who move differently aren’t the ones with the best predictions. They’re the ones who stay in relationship with uncertainty. They don’t collapse ambiguity too quickly…they let it inform them, and in doing so, they create room for a clearer, more accurate assessment…a situation where the solution being proposed, has a greater tendency to work.

Strategic Reflection Prompt

Where are you mistaking certainty for clarity… and what might shift if you stayed with uncertainty a while longer, before rushing solve?

About Giselle

Most costly decisions begin with an inaccurate understanding of the situation.

I’m increasingly interested in how leaders make sense of uncertainty, complexity, and important decisions. If you could better understand one thing about your business right now, what would it be?

Giselle Hudson is a Pre-Decision Diagnostic Advisor who helps leaders gain clarity before major decisions are made or resources are committed to the wrong solution.