There is one thing certain in our life; and that is uncertainty. Uncertainty about of life, our future, our family; everything in our life is uncertain. Most people are not comfortable to deal with uncertainty. But we have learned to accept such uncertainties on which we have absolutely no control, with certain amount of equanimity. Sometimes some of us try to reduce uncertainty about our future by visiting an astrologer, palm reader, so on and so forth. Linda Goodman and her ilk have made fortunes for themselves by exploiting this fear of uncertainty.
When it comes to areas where we have some control, like education, career, wealth etc, we are more uncomfortable with uncertainty. One of the primary reasons why we go to colleges and acquire degrees is to reduce uncertainty in our life. When we take up employment in a company instead of starting our own, we are trying to reduce uncertainty because the company has taken many of the key decisions with respect to the line of business, technology, product, process etc and we form a part of the team in implementing the strategies that have already been decided. Even in this case there may be still high level uncertainty as we go up in the ladder and/ or if we have direct business responsibility. When we take up a career in government we are still reducing uncertainty, as normally there is very limited systemic compulsion for results (as against process compliance) in many of the bureaucratic positions. (But there are many bureaucrats who try to do justice to their inner compulsion to make a difference)
I once did an experiment with a large group of my colleagues as a part of our internal training program. I gave three problems to all the participants and asked them to choose one problem they would take up to solve. The first problem was long, it had quite a lot of brute force computation to do; but the algorithm was sort of clear. The second problem was a logical puzzle. In this case the end result was quite measurable; it was evident that there would be an algorithm to solve, though the algorithm was not clear. The third problem had no clear algorithm or no one right answer. Most of the people chose problem 1, and only few chose problem 3. This kind of result will be common among most of the people.
There is one thing certain about uncertainty; that the success of any idea or project or company or organization is highly dependent on how we manage uncertainty for ourselves and for our teams.
To be continued ....
Certainty is the mother of quiet and repose, and uncertainty the cause of variance and contentions. Edward Coke
Can you share those three problems?
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