How to lead through uncertainty
"I don't know where I am going, but I know exactly how to get there.” Boyd Varty repeats this phrase throughout his book a Lion Tracker's Guide to Life.
Embracing uncertainty, like Varty's aphorism suggests we do, is somewhat difficult even to contemplate. How many times have you heard it is essential to make a plan?
So what? If you are genuinely pursuing something ambitious, you will face uncertainty. Before you can accomplish anything meaningful, you must be comfortable with uncertainty.
Take innovation in the life sciences, for example. It is loaded with uncertainty. Only 1 in 10 candidate therapies make it to the market. It also takes an average of 17 years to go from research finding to clinical implementation (1).
If you have to be certain before you embark on a project, you will limit what you can achieve. Your efforts will result in only incremental advances.
Why is this important to patients? The time gap between research findings and clinical implementation is a figurative and a literal 'valley of death'. Patients don't have the time for 17 years of incremental gains.
Uncertainty is an opportunity to be a leader. A leader who embraces uncertainty for the sake of patients waiting for a better life. Here are five tactics for leading in the face of uncertainty:
Focus on the relationship aspects of collaboration: Collaborations where partners focus on building collaborative relationships, following the track where ever it goes, and not on getting something back for what they put in, are more likely to be successful (2).
Integrate: Uncertainty calls for leaders to do more than set the vision and inspire others to follow. They have to engage in bringing all the pieces together. Uncertainty calls for leading through integration (3).
Practice curiosity: Susan Jeffers, in her book Embracing Uncertainty, proposes a simple change in mindset. Replace the word 'hope' with the word 'wonder'. Be curious about the outcome regardless of what it is. Curiosity helps you and those you lead to learn from failure instead of wallowing in despair.
Get strategic: "Strategy is not the answer to decisions, but rather the framework that makes all of those decisions as easy as possible." Russell McGuire in his post What is strategy? A good strategic plan provides direction even during times of uncertainty.
Make use of ecosystems: Ecosystems are an excellent environment to find ways to pool resources, identify partners across an entire value chain, and validate ideas and findings.
Nonprofits, academia, and companies work with BioSci Consulting to build strategies and ecosystems that help them cope with the uncertainty. Contact us here for an initial strategy call.
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Morris, ZS; Wooding, S; Grant, J; The answer is 17 years, what is the question: understanding time lags in translational research. J R Soc Med 2011: 104: 510–520. DOI 10.1258/jrsm.2011.110180
Moss Kantor, R Collaborative Advantage: The Art of Alliances HBR July-August 1994
Collective Genius by Linda A. Hill, Greg Brandeau, Emily Truelove et Kent Lineback
