Navigating uncertainty

I loved the approach that Sam Conniff (author of the brilliant Be More Pirate, and the founder of Uncertainty Experts) takes in the latest episode of Google Firestarters to how we should respond to uncertainty in the modern world. His fundamental point is that we have a choice about how we react to unpredictability and that the poison (uncertainty) can actually be the cure. If we treat it in the right way it can catalyse change, bring out the best in us, generate opportunity, and spark innovation or different thinking.

Sam makes such a great point in describing how our response to unpredictable situations often gets in the way of good decision-making. When our tolerance to uncertainty is low we can fall foul of groupthink or poor habits.

In daily business for example, this may manifest as cc-ing everyone into emails, putting meetings we don’t need in the diary, retreating from riskier ideas, starting vanity projects that may help us to feel like we’re doing something but which actually solve nothing (sidenote: gosh, I’ve seen a lot of all of that in my time).

Yet uncertainty actually pushes the mind into an optimal state for learning. Sitting with uncertainty – acknowledging that it’s there, being more intentional and observing and reflecting on our response to it, can help us to avoid making hasty, potentially poor decisions. But this is difficult when hesitation is often viewed as indecision: ‘It’s not just about getting to the decision…it’s about our ability to hold off being forced into decisions…being able to “hold space”‘.

Our response is often to deal with it as a solely cognitive challenge, but Sam makes the point that we also feel uncertainty – often in the pit of our stomach or right in our chest. And if our natural response is both psychological and physiological then we should embrace both the head and the heart – cognitive but also embodied (what our gut or intuition is telling us to do) decision-making: ‘Uncertainty is a feeling. It is as if we are trying to think our way through something that we feel deeply’.

So much to take from Sam’s insights. Do watch the whole episode, or listen on Spotify or Apple.

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