Becoming comfortable in uncertainty – but recognising our need for safety
“Doubt, it seems to me, is the central condition of a human being in the 20th century. One of the things that has happened to us in the 20th century as a human race is to learn how certainty crumbles in your hand. We cannot any longer have a fixed view of anything – Salman Rushdie (1988)”
Businesses and markets in the twenty first century have, so far, been dominated by unpredictability. This has led to a significant focus on the application of chaos and complexity theories to the business world. Traditional organisational and leadership thinking has been based in a world of cause and effect where outcomes were relatively predictable, where expertise was built through experience and where what worked yesterday could be tweaked and developed to work better tomorrow. This is outdated and unhelpful in our modern context. .
Snowdon and Boone 2007.
Organisations and leaders need support to operate in a world where things are more complex and effects are unpredictable, where simple and obvious solutions aren’t available and where expertise is valuable in specific areas of an organisation but is unable to predict outcomes, select best paths or design workable structures at the departmental, organisational or societal level.
In order to be comfortable in this complex space individuals need to be comfortable in uncertainty.
Safe Uncertainty model
One way of becoming comfortable in uncertainty is to understand the difference between our psychological need for Safety and our learned need for Certainty. Once we are aware of what we need, we can then work to let go of what we think we want.
The concept of safe uncertainty was initially described in a four box model by Barry Mason, working in the field of family therapy.
Jeremy Keeley developed this approach and brought it into an individual context, developing the model further.
The model shows us that the different combinations of our experience of “psychological safety” and the strength of our desire for certainty create different behaviours.
How we experience psychological safety, and our own internal need for certainty, can influence our behaviours.
It is important not to feel unsafe – however if we seek certainty (whether we are safe of not) we will also be not performing as we could – nor be able to thrive in the context of a VUCA world.
“(the model will help individuals…) distinguish between their real and genuine need for safety and their apparent and false need for certainty, enabling them to really focus on safety whilst thriving in uncertainty and allowing the possibilities to emerge”. Keeley, J 2009
Safe and desiring certainty
Dogmatic and inflexible
Denying and defensive
Status quo, stagnating and looking back
Blind to other viewpoints
Unsafe and desiring certainty
Reacting to symptoms
Over reliance on check lists & guidelines
Blame when things go wrong
Learned helplessness
Slow to respond to the unexpected
Safe and uncertain
Clarity of intent
Responsive awareness and learning
Resilience and agility
Confidence and creating hope
Unsafe and uncertain
Lacking in direction
Fear of consequences
Micro-management and over control
Inertia
Energy sapping
Key aspects for being comfortable in Safe Uncertainty
Whilst leaders and organisations should provide as much psychological safety to individuals as possible, individually we also need to:
- Understand and distinguish between our real and genuine need for safety and our apparent and false need for certainty, enabling us to really focus on safety whilst thriving in uncertainty and allowing the possibilities to emerge.
- See life not as a source of problems but as a key source of learning and recognise that solutions do not have to solve everything
- Hold our beliefs and knowledge with “authoritative doubt” – a balance of our expertise and our uncertainty
- See nothing as fixed – and see everything as always in a state of flow (“this too will pass..”)
- Allow a context to emerge whereby new explanations can be placed alongside (rather than instead of) existing explanations and viewed curiously
- Move to enquiry rather than definition when unexpected things happen – exploring meaning rather than argue about facts
- Find our own purpose in the world, a “true north” which guides us – regardless of circumstance – together with real clarity on our values, positive human qualities and core strengths which will support us in our endeavours
Resources
- Mason, B. (1993) Towards Positions of Safe Uncertainty. The Journal of Systemic Consultation &: Management. Vol. 4: 189-200.
- Keeley, J (2009) Moving Towards Safe Uncertainty: The Development of Resilience and Excitement in the Future. http://www.keeleycarlisle.co.uk/Movingtowardssafeuncertainty.pdf
- Snowdon, D. And Boone, M. A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making Harvard Business Review November 2007: https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making
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