Believe in Uncertainty to Unleash Learning

Hiking taught me about learning in organisations.

“We’re lost”, chanted my wife for what-seemed-like the hundredth time. “I thought you said you could read a map.”

“We’re not lost, we’re just finding our way.”, I responded, in a more of a squeak than I’d care to admit.

“You said those woods should be on the left, but they’re on our right.”

“Maybe it’s a different set of woods.”

“Are you going to accept the reality around us, or you going to just keep your head buried in that map?”

Unfortunately, my wife was right. Something in my head clicked.

Reality is uncertain. We feel this in organisations when things don’t unfold as we expect: our product doesn’t actually solve our customer’s problem, what seemed technically feasible turns out not to be, or a promise to do something within a budget or timeframe turns out to be impossible.

Consider large projects: we often invest the most when we know the least. We agree a budget, team size, and the solution itself at the very beginning, when we know the least about the problem to be solved.

Suggests Humble, Molesky and O’Reilly: “Whenever you hear of a new IT project starting up with a large budget, teams of tens or hundreds of people, and a timeline of many months before something actually gets shipped, you can expect the project will go over time and budget and not deliver the expected value.”

However, it is management’s perception of reality that is more pressing.

If managers don’t believe the world is uncertain, then any changes in plan can only be due to staff oversight. This belief encourages staff to keep their head buried in the map, and ignore whenever reality suggests their plan is wrong.

However, if managers do believe the world is uncertain and do trust their staff, then they enable a safe environment where learning can emerge, and plans can respond to reality.

The takeaway? As Brian Kernighan puts it, “Believe the terrain, not the map” - especially when your map is the wrong way up.