#571 How to Get Better at Holding Uncertainty at Work

0:00We are borrowing brilliance, I think for the first time, from a feeling. What does it look like to live with uncertainty? To have the capacity to hold that uncertainty and to kind of find your way through it.

0:13Thing that people feel most uncertain about is careers. You can't ignore this. It's very useful to think, how do I want to respond to it so it works better for me? You can't change uncertainty, but you can change your relationship with uncertainty. And that's much easier than you think. What we are trying to unlearn is uncertainty to certainty. What we want to relearn is uncertainty to the capacity to hold. I always want to create clarity and take action in uncertainty. And I'm not saying that that is always good. This whole podcast has made me think like, how could you hold it for longer? Trust the process, but that can feel hard.

0:50Do you think there is a limit to how much uncertainty you can hold?

0:58Hi, I'm Sarah. And I'm Helen. And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, where every week we borrow some brilliance and try to turn that curiosity into some useful action for you and your squiggly career. And make sure that you are subscribed to Squiggly Careers wherever you listen or you watch. It will mean that all of our episodes go right to the top of your playlists. And so today we are borrowing brilliance, I think for the first time, from a feeling. Are we taking the idea too far, do you think? Who chose this one? i did i was like i think people are feeling really uncertain and there's a lot of uncertainty in the world generally but also more individually for people when they think about their work and their career so what about borrowing brilliance from a feeling obviously i then got very carried away i think i could now do a 90 to two hour podcast on uncertainty because i've done a lot of research sarah and i met this morning before this and we're having a conversation are you gonna tell people i don't know i mean we'll come on to what we we come on we learn about our own response to uncertainty but it was more after talking about it for about 45 minutes and i was like um so it's all very interesting i was like this is absolutely fascinating sarah has like read so many things i mean what i love about you but you like read so many things you connected dots and you're like that's brilliant and that was so good i listened to that podcast twice i did listen to it people do not have to listen to this episode twice though somebody did email us did you see that yesterday no nicola asker has um emailed us yesterday so shout out to nicola um because she has listened to our episode on drawing twice because it made such a big impact to her about kind of drawing and i think we had like you know there was the episode where we had the post-it notes and we were kind of doing all the things and um she's really like taking it into action and she's doing lots more drawings to help her oh i think i might have seen her share something on linkedin yes yes that looks better than our drawings yeah obviously it's fine it's fine take it and improve on everyone so should we talk about uncertainty let's do it sit in everybody ready get comfy it's not gonna be that long well yeah we'll see um so i think the one of the conclusions that i've come to from reading watching listening to lots of different things is you know what what's the job to be done here and i think you can start off by thinking well i need to move from uncertainty to certainty yeah because you know uncertainty doesn't feel great you feel out of control you might feel overwhelmed so what's the opposite of that well you know i need to get to certainty this is so just just can i just one minute before we talk because i'm just trying to think about just some examples which i appreciate okay you're talking about especially in a broad sense and i'm trying to make it specific so if you could just bear with me for a second go on uncertainty at work for people now might look like i would i'm just thinking of conversations we have with people just to make it like a sort of a factual feeling if that makes sense what do you what are you hearing that people feel uncertain about I think the most common uncertainty that is really difficult for people as restructures team changes um I was literally on a call with somebody this week's when we work with um and then she was like our team's just been restructured today do you mind if I'd go for this call and I was like no I mean go for the call that's fine go for the call um so you're like there's that kind of uncertainty then I think there's more day-to-day uncertainty which might be I'm not really sure how this project is going or I'm not sure how these people are feeling about our progress or priorities seem to be changing um and so my my work feels uncertain you know like the work I am doing day-to-day which I think is quite different to you know like the team that I'm in or my role feeling uncertain yeah um and then I think people do have bigger worries about work, which might be about their industry.

4:44The most common one probably at the moment is, is AI going to take my job? Yeah. You know, that's the uncertainty of that because it's not people, they don't know that it's going to take their job, but there's a lot of uncertainty about how will AI impact my role? How's it going to impact my industry? Like we could say that, right? Well, surely you don't need us anymore. There's quite a lot. Please need us. We really like talking about squiggly careers. And I'm needy. So between the two of us, we definitely need you to keep listening or watching. But I guess that's creating probably even more uncertainty for people.

5:17It's like technology feels like it's playing a very different role to perhaps how it looked before, maybe. OK. Sorry, we can go back now. Are we happy? Yes, I was just trying to just understand the reality of uncertainty for our listeners. But let's go back into. So what we are trying to unlearn. Yes. Is uncertainty to certainty. and what we want to relearn is uncertainty to the capacity to hold i think we've got to hold the uncertainty and sam conniff gave us a brilliant quote um so he's got this great book which i will just hold up to the camera so if people are at home um watching just uh yeah be more pirate uh if you've listened to sam previously on the podcast and sam and katherine together have written this book called Uncertainty Toolkit, which we'll come back to.

6:01But he says, you can't change uncertainty, but you can change your relationship with uncertainty. And that's much easier than you think. And so you know, when you are trying to think about what you're trying to get better at, I think if you set yourself up to I'm trying to get rid of the uncertainty, you'll fail. It's a you often can't do that. There's a lot outside of your control. but you can rethink what does it look like to live with uncertainty to have the capacity to hold that uncertainty and to kind of find your way through it may i ask a question about the capacity to hold do you think or do you know having read and dived into this quite a lot you know you talked about actually what we want to do is develop this capacity to hold and then we gave the examples of well maybe part of the uncertainty is ai maybe the part of the uncertainty is what do people think about me part of the uncertainty is something going on outside of work do you think that there is a limit to how much uncertainty you can hold before what before burnout or yeah before burnout or before you can control a response to it you know because i think i guess where we're going to is you're experiencing uncertainty you we're not trying to go to certainty so you're not trying to like fix it right now and we're trying to hold it And I was just wondering, like, actually, if you develop the ability to hold uncertainty, can you do that?

7:22No matter, let's say I've got uncertainty at home, I've got uncertainty at work and I've got this ability. It doesn't matter how much uncertainty there is, I'm able to manage it. Or do you think actually if I'm uncertain in lots of areas all at the same time? Well, it's interesting. So we're a big fan of Margaret Heffernan and her latest book is called Embracing Uncertainty. And it links really well with Uncharted, which is what she came on the podcast to talk about last time. and what she looks at in that book it's sort of a book of completely borrowed brilliance because she's looking at people who are really creative who choose uncertainty so to your point about how much can we hold these are people who are sort of opting in to uncertainty and she gives an example actually and I don't think I realized this she was talking about some novelists who their approach is always they start writing a book but they don't know where it's going to go and they don't know where it's going to end.

8:17Whereas I think, I thought people who wrote fiction would be like, right, you know, like storyboarded. Yeah, like a skeleton, you know. Yeah, and I've seen pictures of, I think some writers do write like that. So I've seen that and I was like, oh, that must be how they figure out like what's going to go in each chapter. And maybe they move around how the story is going to work. But they always have this overall sense of this is the story I'm trying to tell. And she gives loads of examples of people where that's just not true. You know, they'll write the first chapter and they'll just stick with that first chapter.

8:46There was one person who'd stick with the first chapter for nine months, but then his book won like an incredible literary prize. And so I wonder whether I suspect your tolerance for uncertainty is easier. It's like easier to tolerate uncertainty, probably if it's only in one part of your life. That would be my hypothesis. You know, if you have a bit of uncertainty at work, but a lot of stability at home, that's probably easier. If you've got uncertainty in lots of parts of your life, of you know like exponential uncertainty yeah that must be particularly difficult and that's one of the things actually you can do so one action you can take is to figure out your uncertainty intolerance and sort of tolerance score so basically like how well do you cope with uncertainty today and I think that's quite a good place for like everybody to start because I think everybody probably starts from a natural level and I was just thinking about your question I wonder if that also changes a bit with context like where you're working at the moment what's going on in your life at the moment like we've both done that um and we both actually got nearly an identical score right like I got 19 out of 16 you got 18 which actually means we've both got quite a high capacity for uncertainty but then we were reflecting on that we have quite a lot of control like we run our own businesses we both have relatively stable lives outside of the work that we do most of our uncertainty comes from work yeah but we have each other to kind of figure our way through that if I had then taken that assessment maybe when I was working for someone would that score have been different I think it would have been and so some of this is also about the environment I think that you're in at the moment but what's useful about doing that um if you want to do your own uncertainty intolerance or tolerance score Helen and I were like oh how can you do how can everybody do that um we have written a prompt that you can put into your AI tool of choice trying to be agnostic i use claude obviously because i love claude um but you can actually tell it to like create the score we'll put the prompt in the pod sheet it'll do the assessment for you there's one that is 12 questions and then there's one that's 27 if you really want to dive into it and i think that just gives you a useful starting point it also helps you reflect on some of the things we're going to talk about in terms of which parts of uncertainty do you feel about yeah and which bits do you find hardest and just in case we've got any new listeners the pod sheet is a one-page summary that we create for every single episode and we will link to it in the show notes or you can just go to our website amazingif.com there's a podcast page and you find the podcast then you click on that and scroll down and you'll get your pod sheet there so one thing that is interesting uh is when you read about uncertainty in relation to leadership and management and i think lots of leaders and managers put themselves under pressure to have the right answer.

11:34When there is uncertainty, they think their job is to provide certainty. That's part of being a leader. You look up to your leader and you're like, well, you create this clarity for me. But then actually, when you read about what people want, when they say like, well, what do you look for from a great leader, like someone you want to work for and with, people say, well, actually, I would much prefer somebody to acknowledge that I don't know something yet. And I'm going to work with you. We'll figure this out together. I'm going to trust the process. And the different practices that Margaret Heffernan talks about around getting good at embracing uncertainty, she talks about curiosity, courage, and patience.

12:17And we were both saying we think patience is a really interesting word. Because I think when something is uncertain at work, you have to have the kind of patience and trust in the process that you will find your way through without feeling like we're trying to predict or without maybe trying to like shape too soon. And there's a guy called Simone Stoltsoff, who is actually got a new book about uncertainty that's not out yet, but he's written an article. And he says, being a leader is like sitting in a rowing boat on a foggy lake. You can't see far ahead or know precisely where you'll end up. but you have two jobs to maintain faith that you'll eventually reach land and to keep rowing so you know there's this that's to me that's a real patience trust the process but that can feel hard yeah I have a counter memory to that quote which was I was uh swimming in Australia um I think it was like a tour in Cairns or something I was like going to see the barrier reef or something and um and you know it was you've been swimming around you're supposed to have like a buddy I I think I was with my cousin.

13:22You're supposed to have like a buddy where you're swimming. And I saw a shark and they did warn us that we would see, potentially see sharks and not to panic. Panicked. And I just swam. I just swam and I was swimming, but I realised I was swimming into the sea. After about the sea. Or like towards the shark. So not only, yeah, we're just into the deep unknown. So I was just like, you know that, just like, just trust that you will, you will get to the shore. Not if you're me, because you're just, you're just swimming deeper and deeper. And I left the buddy. They basically said, don't panic. don't leave your buddy the first thing i did was just swim deeper into the situation yeah that also tells me something about your uh lack of direction yeah i mean that well yeah that is that is true um just quick question on the patience point um because we came out quite well on the older uncertainty tolerance scale with our scores if you were to rate yourself on patience if patience is a component of the tolerance uncertainty how how do you how good are you at that it's a really interesting question so I don't think I don't think it's a question I've ever asked myself so you're like well that's that's interesting in its own right you're like oh that's a new question around the skill of being patient um how patient do I think I am I don't know I think there are some things where I'm very trusting of the process where I'm really happy to like you know they talk a lot about like letting go holding holding like believing that you will get to something and I think then I can be patient probably because I trust myself you know like I trust the process and I trust myself to like keep going and be curious and be brave or whatever um but then I think if something feels really uncertain and maybe it's not just about me it's not just something I'm working on then I think I can be a bit like I can be the opposite I can be not patient at all and sort of feel like well we just need to sort this now I think it could be a future podcast episode you know like the patience in patience payoff because I think there are some times when it pays to be impatient yeah I do and there are some when actually you probably don't you want to practice patience and you want to do it very you want to do it kind of very consciously yeah do I think I'm a patient person I don't know do you think you're a patient person no no no I think I'm probably quite impatient No, it's also tricky, isn't it?

15:42Because it's like, do you start to conflate sort of patience and pace? Because I'm like, you're a pacey person. But I'm like, is that the same as being patient? Like you're patient with me. I like see you being patient with me. She's taking a deep breath. I can see you being like, right, okay. And being, and giving me, but part of being patient is like giving people space. But that's because of the patient's payoff. That's why, because I know that your difference is better. You know, like there's a, I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I do. You know, like say we're writing a book and I know that there's a process.

16:21You have a different process to writing a book than me, but there is a big payoff of having patience with that process. because the words are better and they're more considered and we're more critical. Like I've been friends with you long enough to know that that patience pays off. It's definitely worth it. But I think probably some other ways, maybe not. Maybe I've taught you to be patient because you've had to work with me. I've had to learn to be patient. Yeah, but it's because that is a consequence of working with me. One thing I think is really interesting, I'd be interested to get your take on.

16:51And this is a diagram in Sam and Catherine's book where they talk about, is it more important to you to be seen as decisive even if it leads to a negative outcome or is it okay to be indecisive if that leads to a positive outcome so do you know what i think is hard here in the moment i would always want to be seen as decisive i want to be seen as someone who is decisive and i don't think it's almost like it's a retrospective thing isn't it so if you said like in the moment you want to be seen as decisive i I would always opt for decisive rather than someone who's indecisive. But you've nuanced that a bit because decisive, but it's a bad outcome versus someone who's seen as indecisive, but it's a good outcome.

17:38In the context of, they describe it here, a moment of uncertainty. So you're in that moment of uncertainty. It's a tricky one, isn't it? It is really tricky. I think maybe I'd still want to be seen as a decisive person. Well, if it helps, you're in the majority. okay because when they asked the general population it was like i think this is yeah it's a percentage 71 of people choose being decisive 89 of leaders choose it oh okay so it's like it it's it's the majority anyway but then it spikes and probably because as a leader maybe like we said you kind of put yourself under that pressure so i think this ability to uncertainty isn't going anywhere yeah and i think whatever your role this ability to have the capacity to hold the uncertainty is really interesting um there's a hbr article by a lady called annie peshcom who i'd not come across before but it's a brilliant article um where she describes this and she has a couple of sentences i think are just worth reflecting on uh she says capacity is different it begins where competence ends and her point here here is basically you can't just like rely on being competent to find your way through uncertainty um it is how much you can stay present when action will not resolve the tension.

18:51I find her quote the hardest. It is the extent to which you can hold complexity and tension long enough for meaning to emerge. It's tough though, isn't it? It is tough because I'm like, well, but when, when do you know that it's a meaning? I feel like I, I always want to create clarity and take action in uncertainty. And I'm not saying that that is always good. And actually this, this whole podcast has made me think like, like how could you hold it for longer? because I don't think I hold uncertainty for very long. It's not that I have to move to certainty, but I try to create clarity. I think that might be okay.

19:31Okay. Yeah, maybe. That's just my point of view. I don't know. But I think there is a difference between clarity and certainty. So I think if you've got something that is, there's lots of uncertainty on a project you're working on, you could still create clarity that um doesn't ignore the things you don't know the answer to right one way to so one way to create clarity from learn like a lobster would be to create a don't know notebook that creates clarity you've not you don't know all you're not created certainty you don't know all of the answers but what you have done is gone uh let's take um team learning about ai because we said ai creates a lot of uncertainty if you wrote a don't know notebook about AI as a team, you've created some clarity on what you don't know, but what you have not tried to do is solve everything or get to certainty on answer the question, what does AI mean to our team?

20:26And so I do think there is sort of a, like everything, there's sort of scales of it, isn't there? And I don't think what any of these people are saying in any of the work that I've read, no one is sort of saying um leave it yeah hope for the best don't do anything I think be very passive yeah it happened to you I wonder if there's a difference between you know she talks about like you can't just take actions that are going to sort it I think it's sort of letting go of like the immediacy of like well if I do this then that's it'll be sorted out it might be more about but it's an active process and I think they might be very different things um and when you do read um margaret's work which is brilliant you can listen to her um on lots of podcasts talking about embracing certainty you don't need to read the book if you don't want to read another book um and she's got some really good keynotes so all available on youtube all about embracing uncertainty um she is really clear she's like would you want everything to be certain you know like ask the opposite question and then she runs to an example of what your day would be like if you had full certainty.

21:32And she's like, it's everyone's idea of hell. She describes it as like a prison. Like a robot. Well, that's what it is. It's like a uber-efficient, slick, predictable world where there's no, I don't know, there's no discovery. Like joy. There's no joy. And she says, uncertainty is the great propulsive power behind curiosity, learning, discovery and invention. It's the essence of being human. And I'm like, oh, if you start, you know, I do wonder whether there's sometimes just something that holds us all back as we go uncertainty equals bad. Whereas actually, and back to Simone's work, he actually talks about if we go uncertainty equals opportunity to learn, you go into what scientists call the approach mode.

22:21Our blood vessels dilate and we get more oxygen to the brain, which allows us to explore new ways of thinking. and so you know but I feel like with uncertainty there's just quite a lot of like unlearning and relearning so like you're unlearning uncertainty to certainty you are unlearning certainty equals bad you are kind of relearning uncertainty equals opportunity to learn you're unlearning uncertainty equals take loads of action immediately uncertainty equals holding and it's more of like and it's about patience you know like I think I find some of those from and to's are quite helpful around how you like navigate some of the uncertainty.

23:01It is interesting though, because the way that Sarah and I as our insights into our podcast process, we pick a topic and then we both go away and look at it. It's always interesting to see where our brains go. I mean, I went to McKinsey. This one really showed our differences, I think. And then we have a document that we both basically like just dump all of our thoughts in. And then we get together before we record and we discuss and try and align. And you know, like, what do we think? What do we think? And so in the document, Sarah had got like reams of thoughts. I've got quotes, musings, reflections.

23:33I had some traps and a matrix. Let's move on to the traps and the matrix. Well, I think we can leave the traps behind a little because I think we've talked about them. I do think my thought process was, I do think it is useful to reflect on your own default response to uncertainty. And just I think, just to check in, do I think that always works for and against me? So if you always, you know, for example, the clarity point that I mentioned I think whenever there is uncertainty I try to quickly create clarity when you were talking I was going back to like when I worked in innovation and innovation is an inherently uncertain field like you're producing things you don't know if they work and you're doing it for a market that might not be there yet all that kind of stuff and we used to do a lot of like scenario planning you know like yeah then that if this then that and and it wasn't you were trying to create certainty because you didn't know which which outcome would happen but you were trying to kind of you know you sort of like create a bit of clarity like where would we go that kind of thing and I think my brain my brain does that and I think it works for me and I think it works for the people that I work with too because sitting in complete and you know the hold I do find it just to sit in it that's why I didn't like that quote I didn't like it but you know the but my challenge back to you is is that it works for you and works for other people, but is that because everybody's just searching for certainty?

24:53So you know, like, are you falling into the trap? Have you just keep... I just worry that if we're all just sitting here waiting for meaning to emerge. Not waiting, holding. Holding. What did she say? It's a really good article. I would really recommend it. I'm not sure I like the quote. I find it hard, which is an insight. It's how much you can stay present when action will not resolve the tension. You can't act your way through. What did she say? She said wait for meaning to emerge. It is the extent to which you can hold complexity and tension long enough for meaning to emerge. She gives some very good examples of how helpful it is.

25:25It's very interesting. I find it a very interesting quote. There's lots of it I find uncomfortable, which says more about me. But that's because uncertainty. Holding is uncomfortable. And also if you think about even like how organisations are set up, it's back to like ladders to squiggles. And what is rewarded in organisations is holding and maybe inaction and trusting the process and being patient, are those the things that are rewarded and looked for? No. No. So you learn that certain ways of thinking and being are maybe better. I just think I'm not a very like wait for meaning to emerge kind of person.

26:02I'm a create meaning. Like I'm a, okay, I'm going to go find some things that feel meaningful and some of them might not be real meaningful. Then you've had to do it with things that we've worked on together where you don't, you have to like hold that we don't always know the answers yet and we have to trust in each other that we'll get to some ideas at some point. Yeah, but I think something's happening. You know, we're experimenting. Yeah, but that's like the... That's what I mean, though. You're not solving, you're experimenting. And that's quite different. Yeah, that's what I think my... Back to that default response is, though, I think I would go, OK, this is uncertain.

26:34So let's try and create some clarity. Let's have a framework to see if it helps us make sense of a situation. I don't think it means solving and I don't think it means leaping to certainty. But I think I do like to move people. I don't like to sit for too long in it, which may or may not be right. It's just my response. That's my point. Like reflect on your response and think, does that work? And what influence are you having on other people? All that kind of stuff. I think it's just useful. Well, one of the things that Sam has found through, so through Sam and Catherine's book, they get people to do like, what's their tolerance to uncertainty?

27:08And then can they increase that tolerance through the toolkit, through the work that they've done? And they find two things that I find really interesting. One is that the thing that people feel most uncertain about is careers. Like careers is top of the list so far from what they've kind of found. And secondly, the big shift that they're able to support people with is almost like dealing with uncertainty internally, which is, you know, like overthinking, probably worrying in a way that feels unhelpful, probably stuck and stalling, you know, words that we hear a lot. to actually if you start to maybe consider your relationship with uncertainty and your response and then what you might do and go through kind of some of the tools in his book he has some really I was doing a word search last Saturday there's a word search in the book and I was really happy doing a word search in my car like you know waiting to pick my kid up thinking yeah I'm quite enjoying this um so there's a word search he found that actually when you kind of go through the the book or some of the kind of the actions the uncertainty stays the same so I think if you're hoping the uncertainty is going to disappear again you probably hope something is unlikely to happen but people stop being as internal focused and start being more external focused so to your point on action what the external focus looks like is well what are the actions that I could actually take so given the uncertainty who could I go and talk to what is the choice I am going to make and it feels more positive it does feel like something that builds momentum so to your point it's like interesting because we were looking at his research this morning what people are not saying is oh I'm just going to hold the uncertainty better actually what holding the uncertainty better looks like for people is usually you're still doing something but it's not expecting that action is then going to like solve everything so I think it's um okay maybe that makes you my desire to maybe the toolkit is your maybe I'll go for the holding for Annie's work and you go for Sam's toolkit.

29:07Yes, I'm in. But I did also obviously create a matrix because I cannot... It took me about 20 minutes to realise that that was ironic. And I was like, at what point is she going to think that she's coping with uncertainty by creating a matrix? I feel like my learning from this whole conversation is like, holding for me just means wait for five minutes before you create a matrix. Just wait five minutes, Helen. Well, I said to you, I was like, where's the matrix come from? I was like, what's the source? And you were like, oh, me. I was like, oh, okay. so even here she's managed to die so talk me through the matrix just in case some people might need a matrix to take this interesting conversation into something that they want to take action with um obviously they've got sam stalker and so when i was reading about uncertainty different sources to sarah i one of the things that stuck with me was that uncertainty isn't equal in every aspect so you can be experiencing um long-term uncertainty like how is ai going to affect the world of work long term to short term uncertainty is my project going to get signed off next week like there's a kind of a length of uncertainty that's useful to be aware of and then there's an impact of uncertainty and low impact might be it's a bit annoying but i could probably get over it yeah and high impact is this is going to have a significant impact on me my life my career who knows what else um and you can plot that on a matrix so you can it turns out you You really can.

30:32So just imagine a matrix as a two by two matrix. And you've got on the kind of bottom, let's go bottom left of the matrix. Here you've got, it's low impact. It's a bit annoying, but it's not that big a deal. And it's not, it's kind of short term. These kind of ones, I think you just have to let it play out. You can acknowledge kind of, I don't quite know what's happening here, but you probably shouldn't. Spend loads of time on it. Yeah, don't spend loads of time on it. Don't spiral on it. Just kind of let it play out. Something's going to happen by the end of the week and it'll either go in your way or it won't go away your way.

31:03It doesn't really matter either way. And so you kind of, I think it's also useful to think how much of my uncertainty sits in these different areas. But that's the least bothersome, I guess, type of uncertainty. Now, you might have one that is quite long-term uncertainty, but low impact. So like take the AI one, you might think, well, yeah, I can see why that's kind of big and bothersome. But for me and what I do, I, you know, it's probably... I love your word, bothersome. Bothersome. Hey, bothersome. Why is that a bad word? It's not a bad word. It just feels like it's from like the 1950s. I was like, where's that come from?

31:37I don't, I love to know how many people go, uncertainty, it's just a bit bothersome. Everyone's like, I was reading some research and people say like anxiety and fear. And Helen's like, it's a bit bothersome. So I mean, it's a different framing. It's a little bit bothersome. I'm enjoying it. It's really made me laugh. I think we need that. I think we should just drop bothersome into chat. more bothersome bingo i would love people to play like i'd love to know when that word was used the most so i'm gonna guess the 50s but let's find out can i don't drop any more archaic language into a squiggly quick conversation okay okay so that one if you're in there okay it's quite a big deal but it's maybe not that much of a big deal for me i think that's just a bit of a reset you kind of have to go well this is my new normal now it's gonna be around everyone's been talking about this thing for ages they're gonna be going on about it but it's not directly affecting me um I think that's just kind of the new normal what I think some people might do is they might kind of hanker for the old ways of doing things um yeah I had a good example of this one where um you know you hear a lot about well young people because of hybrid working young people can't learn from more experienced people or their leaders in the same way and so um and then what people sort of default back to is the old way well you know you need to be sitting next to someone and like you and I both experienced that I like I do believe learning by osmosis happens like I love those leaders that I work for and I did learn a lot in that way but then I heard someone describe to me what they're now doing and I was like this is such a good example of like embracing the new normal where they do um because everyone's hybrid work so rather than just going well we've all got to be in the office all at the same time it's just unrealistic to do that all people are in global roles yeah they do these like um live working moments where let's say I'm the leader and I'm going to create a proposal say for one of our learning partners someone from our team actually comes online and like we work on it live but they sort of it sounds a bit creepy but like they watch you yeah they kind of and I was like oh crikey imagine someone like watching me trying to be like oh right what do I do but they actually like see the process in action yeah but also you then create space for the people to like ask questions and then they might be doing things a bit on it as well or you like do it for a period of time but they are sort of learning by kind of watching learning by noticing but they see the process you go through yeah um and they like they're really sort of trying to like make that a ritual yeah um so that people don't miss out on things that maybe leaders take for granted or other people just more experienced and have to be a leader take for granted that they know how to do but you're brand new into a company and you're like how do you how do you figure out what to put on the first page of a proposal oh well this is you literally kind of see that thought process yeah and I was like oh that's such a good example I think you can get caught up in those situations where it's sort of a long-term big impact but not necessarily on you directly sometimes you can get a bit caught up in the noise of all that and I think it's just embrace the new normal like but don't get caught up in the noise just just kind of let go of how it was embrace the new normal and just kind of um kind of go with it a little bit the other sides of the matrix are where something is it has a high impact on you but it may be it's a kind of short-term situation so I don't know you've got a team changing team changing kind of maybe like a I don't know yeah new team changing budget cut or something like that so it's got quite a big impact on you on your work but it's not gonna it's not gonna be in about forever and I think in that a really good response to that kind of uncertainty is to go seek out some sense makers so people who've been in this situation before because that'll stop you getting unstuck it means you can learn quite quickly um you're less likely to spiral because i'll be like oh sarah what would you do what did you do and what would you do if you were me like quite good like sense making people sense making questions and i think the hardest type of uncertainty as a situation to be in is where it is high impact and long term so this might be it's me and sarah um there's something something's happening with our business it's gonna have a really big impact to um the ongoing i don't know the ongoing growth of our business and this is probably going to happen for quite a long time this is not going to get sorted or solved quickly i think that's quite i think that's the hardest box of uncertainty to be in and so in there your response to that i think your first response is to invest in your resilience reserves yeah because you can't you you can't just solve this very quickly and so your ability to stay present i will go back to that quote okay your ability to stay present i think requires resilience so that you're less reactive or emotional or all those things where we kind of haven't got that sense of self-control um we have done a podcast on resilience reserve so maybe we'll link to that in in the pod sheet and also try to create opportunities like take maybe trying back to again your point about uncertainty is an opportunity because you could be a victim in that situation this is super hard and it's going on for a really long time and there's nothing I can do like pessimism is not going to help you if that's where you are so creating opportunities building your resilience is a really good response there so from this podcast what is one thing you're going to do differently or do more of because it might not be differently the next time you find yourself in a certain moment at work has it sort of changed your mindset as it made you reflect on your skill set i think i might ask more about how are other people feeling like i i think everyone i a bit like the leader thing and the decision making the clarity and all that kind of stuff i think i go optimism bias i know this is difficult but there's going to be some good things at the end of it here are some things that we can do you know i think i tried to create clarity and give that to people and I think I might just sit in it a bit more and be like like how are you feeling what are you thinking you know not what are we doing but I might that's a way that I might just hold and accept that we might be experiencing this differently and not everybody's need for clarity in that moment might be the same need as mine um so that's my version of holding what about you I was thinking it's helpful actually also involving other people helpful to sometimes signal and say out loud like we don't know that's okay and we think actually sitting in that don't know world is going to get us to a better answer than trying to create too much clarity or trying to certainly trying to create certainty but I do wonder whether I think probably both of us maybe one more than the other have a tendency you you are brilliant at creating clarity and I would never want to take that I would never want to take that away but I wonder whether there are certain projects or things that we might work on where you're more intentionally actually embracing uncertainty I think you know like almost the words you use around uncertainty it's interesting and I think Margaret Heffernan's even the fact she called it embracing uncertainty and almost being intentional about that uncertainty about that curiosity that courage and that patience I think you could proactively spot in what we do where the uncertainty is actually going to work for you it's like that's a it'll still feel uncomfortable and it will still be hard and we're still gonna have to hold but I think if you had intentionally gone well this is helpful for this piece of work or this project I think you just approach it differently what you say not being trying not trying not to worry too much about creating clarity like the questions that you ask what you say to other people so I sort of almost like the idea of creating the uncertainty which is probably I do think we are in a privileged position to be able to say that I think some people would be and I've been in those positions before I'm like I don't want the last thing I want to do is like create uncertainty but probably from reading all of this and spending a lot of time with it I find it quite motivating yeah because of the opportunity because of the opportunity because I want the positive outcomes well it would be good to get some feedback on this I think from our listeners there's gonna be a lot of links team yeah there are a lot of I have done too much work on this and so you are getting every link that I have thank you for listening everyone because I think it's probably a longer listen and you've got you've got both of you reckon anyone is still listening let us know if you're still listening um but yeah I think let us know what you're thinking though I think that would be useful can you are you kind of more in Sarah's camp of like just kind of creating the uncertainty and seeing the benefit bit of that or are you in the no I think I'm just gonna I'm gonna using I think I'm probably using clarity as a proxy for certainty I'm like cheating a little bit but um it's just interesting very interested in your reflections we have been reflecting on this we definitely think is an important skill and I think the key point that I heard you say was it's not going anywhere you can't ignore this and it is very useful to think how do I want to respond to it so it works better for me so if you have stuck with us through the whole of the episode thank you so much for listening for everybody who does rate, review, subscribe.

40:35Every single one of those actions makes a massive difference to us. And we do really, really appreciate it whether you listen or watch or share with other people. But that's everything for this week. Thank you so much for listening. I'm back with you again soon. Bye for now. Bye everyone.