Organisations need to embrace uncertainty because of the Uncertainty Paradox, which states that the only certainty is uncertainty. No one can predict the future. This is the first concept I explore in my new book Risky Business: How Successful Organisations Embrace Uncertainty.
The most successful organisations learn to systematically confront and get comfortable with uncertainty. They learn to embrace it. They face the drivers of their uncertainty, one by one. Those they can proactively manage, they do. When they can’t, they put in place a ‘Plan B’ to manage the fallout if the worst happens. Rather than simply managing what hurt in the past by adding another process over another process, the organisation looks to identify its fears and systematically work through them. It ignores none of them, it lives with each of them and so has a clearer view of them.
While this is what we were forced to do as COVID hit, it is what successful organisations do as a matter of course. And the evidence is clear that those who did this best were advanced in their implementation of enterprise risk management. In the Gartner article titled COVID-19 Makes a Strong Business Case for Enterprise Risk Management, Robert van der Meulen found that “an agile response occurred far more often when clear processes already existed.”
Taken to the nth degree you have the Elon Musks of the world. So driven, so passionate, they stare down the fear.
To learn more about the Uncertainty Paradox you must come to my book launch on Thursday 25 February at 4pm AEDT after which you will receive a FREE copy of my book.
REGISTER HERE. Be one of the first 50 to register AND attend and you will receive Risky Business with an additional gift.
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