The Upside of Uncertainty

SØREN’S NOTE

For more than two decades, we have run workshops with our clients to help them identify their most critical business challenges. One theme that keeps coming back is dealing with uncertainty, as many leaders feel the pace of change is constantly accelerating. We heard it in 2005, and we also heard it this year. Fortunately, there is a lot of strong thinking in this area, including the article "The Upside of Uncertainty." At the heart of this challenge is the ability to learn from failure. Many leaders have been so successful that they rarely experience failure and therefore haven't developed the skill to learn from it. Tennis legend Roger Federer captures this wonderfully: "The best in the world are not the best because they win every point. It's because they know they'll lose, again and again, and have learned how to deal with it."

WHY READ THIS
Adopt these three practices to adapt and capitalise when uncertainty strikes.

WHAT YOU WANT TO KNOW
Today’s business world presents almost a constant state of uncertainty for leaders to navigate. This can easily lead to excessive conservatism, which prioritises protecting the current state of play. Additionally, it’s often the most successful people who find change most difficult as they have to unlearn before they can learn new approaches. It’s these three approaches that can maximise the chance to succeed in uncertainty.

WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW

• Expand your time horizon. It’s easy to start focusing primarily on the short-term when things become uncertain. Instead, leaders need to expand their view to consider the future as well as the past. When driving change, it’s important to remember that anything that threatens identity is especially difficult to achieve. Therefore, transformation efforts should still maintain the essence of an organisation while delivering the necessary adaptations required.

• Don’t be afraid to destroy to give way to creation. This is about removing all distractions to concentrate solely on what the organisation is best at. It may sound simple, but there is often significant challenge related to stopping projects or even product lines that have been established for a long time. Letting go of heritage initiatives that no longer serve the company makes space to explore new things.

• Leverage failure for future success. Succeeding is about being able to cope with constant failures. The best performers are those who understand this and have taught themselves how to deal with it. Leaders in today’s business world need to lean into their strategy constantly evolving, with the acceptance that the right strategy can’t be known from the outset. It’s about testing and learning at each iteration, adopting this form of discipline to identify key assumptions and pursue the right strategy once it emerges.

Based on an article by Scott Anthony
Published by Duke Corporate Education