Uncertainty is the only thing guaranteed in life both personally and professionally. Think back to a recent experience when uncertainty played a role in a process or an outcome that temporarily or perhaps significantly derailed your plans or objectives. Uncertainty is a teacher. In my early days of getting mentored, I learned an important word: Contingencies or “Plan B.” I also like to think about this in psychological frameworks called risk reduction and risk management. In the field of forensic psychology, my background, I would often write and testify in court when asked about various risks (i.e. risk of future violence) I would say “there is no such thing as no risk,” which is 100% true. However, with proper risk-management techniques we can reduce risk (of uncertainty) to a very low probability. To pressure test and implement this methodology it is useful to think about catastrophic scenarios and brainstorm unexpected variables that could introduce disruption to your work-flow, implementation of initiatives, and outcomes of a project or business objective for a year out. These can take various forms both personal and professional but render the same outcome. For example, a key team member has a partner diagnosed with aggressive cancer, or a supplier is delayed with a key component that disrupts the supply chain cycle.

 

My best friend is a retired Army pilot. He tells constant stories about dealing with uncertainty and disruption in his career, and I would argue that aside from his extraordinary fixed wing and helicopter piloting abilities, his most valuable soft-skill was managing and planning with routine uncertainty and succeeding “to accomplish the mission” as he would say. Thus, when initiating a new project, initiative, or innovation, a useful framework is to implement an uncertainty plan. This could be a simple document outlining all of the possible uncertainties that could introduce disruption or failure, including “anything else we didn’t think of.” This will ensure team and organizational congruence with an unshakeable mindset and capacity to tackle any uncertainty and succeed.

 

The Exercise:

Uncertainty Psychological Autopsy

 

Select a situation in the past in which an unexpected uncertainty emerged and disrupted something significant in your past or present. How did you handle it? Now, list all of the planning steps and contingencies you could have put in place to have solved better for any of the uncertainties that emerged. Lesson learned.