Handling Uncertainty by Ekaterina Garbaruk Monnot
With the calendar turning to December, I started thinking about Christmas presents for my family. At the start the process was frustrating, but then I decided to use my professional learnings about handling uncertainty and apply them to Christmas presents and it made it more fun and exciting.
I have been working with building products for many years now. First as a Product Owner and Product manager and now as a Product leader. I worked in several great Nordic companies and went international and I saw products both at scale and just at the beginning. I love what I do because no day is like another, there are constantly challenges and this also allows me to learn and grow all the time. However, it is far from being easy - very often I need to handle uncertainty. In this article I want to share with you my strategies for it.
As individuals we thrive for certainty and want to have a specific action plan or course of actions, but sometimes it proves to be hard. We get a feeling that we are stuck and helpless.
Uncertainty is a lack of clear path to continue. Often we lack the information or have confusing information that prevents us from making decisions and feel comfortable and in control.
It could be when suddenly our manager decides to leave the company or when unexpectedly the ship with equipment gets stuck in a foreign country. It could be as global as pandemic or as personal as the Christmas presents.
I remember clearly my feeling of loss of control when in one of my earlier roles some years ago, my team suddenly changed from being 5 people to being two people and then me alone due to good and positive reasons for my former teammates. Then as well I used the approach described below.
Firstly, acknowledge the situation and the feelings you are experiencing. Personally, I took a weekend off with a friend.
Secondly, define your boundaries and limitations. For example, it could be a budget for holidays that you cannot go above or it could be a personal value that you are not ready to compromise on. In my case, I had several projects that needed to be done and still wanted to have life outside work. This imposed time limitation and need to delegate.
Lastly, try to think about what success looks like for you in application to this situation. It could be how you want to feel (relaxed and rested after holidays) or what you want to achieve (have a revenue of 1 million SEK per year in your business). Personally I envisioned an offsite with my team.
Now, we can move on on the path of creating certainty.
What you need now is some kind of data that can make you feel more in control of the situation and get you closer to certainty. Once you have some information, you can make a decision.
It is important also to differentiate the types of decisions you are taking:
Type 1: can be reversed or have a low cost or error. For example, deciding where to go for lunch is such a decision.
Type 2. Cannot be changed or had a high cost of error: for example, resigning from a job. It is important to remember that this is a subjective judgment, what type is the decision and only you can make that call.
When you take type 1 decisions, you should make them fast and without spending much time on research.
For type 2 you will make as much research as possible and have a clear argumentation about the decision.
Uncertainty can come from two sources: when you don’t know what to do or when you have too many options.
In both cases it is important to make a first step, but it is also important to approach the first step in a different way.
When you have too many options:
Map if you already have some options of ideas of how the situation could be resolved. Write down what can be done in each scenario.
Prioritise first steps in each path. Limit the time you spend on each option.
After every first step assess if any of the options are valid based on what you learned, on your limitations or on your success criteria.
Once you have spent the time you allocated, reflect if spending more time on the research would really be worth it or if you have enough information to choose one path. Once you have chosen one path, make an action plan.
When you have no option at all:
If you have no idea at all, that’s also fine. Start with what could be a first step (it could be to Google the source of problem or find people who faced similar challenges)
Make that first step and assess if based on information you got, you can map next steps. At every step you need to validate if you are still remaining committed to your success criteria and if you are not compromising your limitations.
At some point you will have another information to have an approximate action plan.
Once you make a decision on the action plan to take, put a process in place when you regularly check in if you are still moving to your success goal and if you are not compromising your limitations and boundaries.
Now, the uncertainty no longer exists, but remember to celebrate when you reach that destination described in success criteria.
Remember my situation when my team left? I found a couple of people who were open to trying Product management and helped them to learn, I also found some freelancers and I strictly prioritised what we did. Unfortunately we didn’t get an offsite, but having a team meeting and seeing a full team at the table after 8 months was as rewarding.
Now, what about you? What is the situation you want to handle using what you learned in this article?
Thank you so much for reading my article! I would love to connect if you want to discuss this or any similar topic further. Good luck on your journeys!
