100% is unattainable | Business Uncertainty series

False construct #4: We think we can gain 100% certainty

We are wired for getting things right. For getting as close to 100% as possible. It underpins our education system, our culture, our language vernacular and it seeps into the way we run our businesses.  

We get ourselves ‘all the answers’. We make sure we’re ‘100% certain’.

But that’s a really heavy burden to carry in a world that’s disrupting all the time. We fastidiously plan and forecast, build better systems to respond faster, develop contingencies, and pat ourselves on the back as we review the risk register. But it’s playing the small game.

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition. But certainty is absurd” - Voltaire

In fact the cost of certainty actually creates its own uncertainty.  Energetically it’s stagnant.  It creates paralysis by analysis. It blocks organisational flow.

To continue the parable of the man looking for his lost keys, this looks like the man turning around and around in circles counting the footpath tiles, noting the types of weeds growing in between, but going nowhere.

“More data - such as paying attention to the eye colors of the people around when crossing the street—can make you miss the big truck” - Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things that gain from Disorder

When we use a Design Thinking approach, we work to the 80/20 Pareto principle[1] by which 80% of effect comes from just 20% of effort.   We do this because the cost of 100% accuracy is greater than the cost of not having all the answers.  In other words, the cost of time is greater than the cost of standing still.

We lean into uncertainty.

How much of your organisational energy is caught up in 100% paralysis by analysis?

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Summarising the four blogs in the series on Uncertainty….

When we let go of our need to control, when we lose our attachment to certainty, when we give ourselves permission to fully embrace the now, we get out of any amygdala hijack that might be going on and we gain access to mastery. Mastery of the circumstances we find ourselves in. Mastery of ourselves. We get more in flow.  We’re better able to see the opportunities.  We’re better able to see the wood for the trees.

“Our present situation is neither natural nor inevitable…we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we imagine.”

Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

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If you’re a business leader grappling with uncertainty right now, ask yourself and your team these four questions:

1.       Given we respond to what we measure, how much organisational energy in our business is going to where the light is?

2.       How much organisational energy is going into managing what we can control? How much do our risk registers and governance decisions reflect what we have control over? Vs what we don’t?  How much organisational energy in our business is in managing the footpath?

3.       How much of our organisational energy is caught up in 100% paralysis by analysis? Vs a more agile 80/20 approach?

4.       How much of our organisational energy is spent in future thinking exercises vs exploring the possibilities of the present?

It can be helpful to re-frame your thinking of risk by reappraising your risk register (or similar) and do this 4 step exercise:

1.       Identify each risk on a scale of most certain to least certain.  

2.       For each risk, identify the cost: Rank each on a sliding scale according to the amount of organisational Time, Energy and Money you put towards trying to control each

3.       For each risk, identify the impact: Rank each one on a sliding scale according to how it impacts on the strength and sustainability of your business model. 

4.       Now stand back and appraise. Ask yourself: Where is the organisations energy going? More towards those things that are brighter, more certain, or easier? More towards those things are are darker, less certain, more difficult? HINT: You want to be putting more energy into shoring up your business model no matter how uncertain versus focusing on stuff because it’s easier.  Move out of the light and be prepared to go into the park

[1] The Pareto principle, also called the law of the vital few, was named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto who noted the connection back in 1896 when he observed that 80% of land in Italy was owned by only 20% of the population.