Fear, Failure and Certainty

Two insights into strategic planning attitudes for these times:

Milton Glaser on Embracing Failure rather than Fearing Failure (via the Centered Librarian)

Milton Glaser – on the fear of failure. from Berghs' Exhibition '11 on Vimeo.

It will be difficult to discover the future if we don’t try (learn) and fail a few times.

And this HBR blog piece reminds that ambiguity is a good thing!

Why Being Certain Means Being Wrong
via HBR.org by Ted Cadsby

“Of all the headwinds we face as decision-makers, the power of one overshadows all others: our need for certainty. It is typically more important for us to feel right, than to be right — a difference that didn’t matter much in the lives of our ancestors, but now matters a lot.”
“The whole speed-accuracy tradeoff falls apart in a world that tosses up complex problems. The need to be certain gets in the way of accuracy when it comes to problems that have multiple, interwoven causal factors that are difficult to unbundle. Complex problems require exploration, multiple perspectives, and a variety of possible explanations, before it is safe to draw any conclusions. Many complex problems can only be tackled with experimentation because they do not converge to definitive solutions.”
“But there is an antidote to premature certainty: Adopting a mindset of “provisional truth.””
“Complex decision-making requires we defer the feeling of being right, by tolerating the tension of not knowing.”

It is a complex world we are lving in and the decisions we make now are important. Experimentation, openness and exploring multiple scenarios are good ways to proceed.

Stephen