”We are always looking for certainty – that’s how we are built, the tendency of the brain is to always recognise the familiar, to recognise patterns. But living involves uncertainty. It’s an apparent paradox because accepting uncertainty makes us creative – that’s when we start looking for solutions, explains Georgeta Dendrino, coach, trainer and Managing Director at Interact Business Communication.
She says that uncertainty means a lack of information. So we can’t make predictions. Predictions give us control. Or rather, the feeling that we have control. But the best way to predict the future is to create it, as Abraham Lincoln said.
The truth is that you can plan well when conditions are right. But when you’re in a crisis, like when you’re caught in a blizzard on a mountain, you have to adapt quickly.
“Blizzard conditions are unfavourable – just like the period we’ve been going through for a while now. It’s important for a leader to stop, to quickly re-plan, to make sure they get up there, where they want to be, with the people – which is essential. They have to do all this without being overwhelmed by negative emotions,” stresses Georgeta Dendrino.
But how can a leader be in control in a world he or she cannot foresee? “Of course a dose of planning is important. But equally important is taking things step by step, co-creating with the people on the team. They don’t know what the future will look like either, they co-create it with the leader, and their participation, their involvement will increase,” explains Georgeta Dendrino.
Business schools teach us that uncertainty is to be avoided; we don’t like not being in control. But what effect does uncertainty have on us?
“It challenges our existing beliefs. What we knew to be true will no longer be true. What we thought was untrue becomes true, possible. Our core beliefs are questioned and need to be re-stated.
So a core competency of a leader is to question their own beliefs about the world, to question how their company creates value, how they manage, who their customers are, what their procedures are and so on. The ability to reset one’s own mental models is essential for a leader in uncertain situations,” points out Georgeta Dendrino.
Professor and historian Yuval Noah Harari said that what defines humanity is the ability to collaborate. But not in the sense that bees collaborate in a colony, for example – it’s that collaboration with the aim of innovating, of creating something together, of co-creating.
“People can collaborate with people they don’t know, they can innovate together. Why? Because we share stories, mental models. In uncertainty, these beliefs, these mental models become outdated, obsolete. And organisations become fragile. When an organisation’s core beliefs are obsolete, then companies need radical change.
In uncertainty, it is critical to know who you are. And who you are is about a set of beliefs, ways of thinking. Learning to question these beliefs, these mental models, has never been more important.
If a leader learns, and constantly experiments with questioning his or her own way of thinking, it will be much easier to deal with crisis situations. And another point: I don’t think a centralised approach is better; I would suggest one that combines decentralisation with a single point of decision,” adds Georgeta Dendrino.”
via: spotmedia.ro