Map the steps

When you’re doing some new things with a team or project, it’s worth mapping out the steps so people get a sense of what’s going to happen.

This isn’t a table or list or spreadsheet - although they may hold some useful data about what needs to be done or supporting information that helps with decision making.

Sensemaking when things are unclear, unknown, uncertain or just new for people, requires us to do more than just write a few words, send a few emails or type a few messages.

All those words! Our brains are full already.

Just as a Google map shows us where we are and where we want to get to, we can use a map like that too. Include a few points like:

Here....

The path or steps to ...

There.

Add a few notes about what’s planned as you guide the team from one place... getting to that other place.

If you’ve got more of your team working remotely at the moment, don’t just rely on all the words or talking heads.

Show them a map they can keep referring back to ... later ... when they need to, when the words get lost and the talking heads are offline.

Thinking and working in uncertainty

It’s mindless to just wander, lost, meandering along a path of uncertainty. Just because you don’t know what’s going to happen doesn’t mean you are powerless.

Some of the most adaptable leaders, teams and organisations work with uncertainty and are ‘good’ with it.

The work I do with these leaders and teams involves working through this kind of mindset and approach: ◽️Uncertainty - we don’t know

◽️Discovery - we can learn

◽️Ingenuity - we can respond

And repeat. As we see new things - via sensemaking, making sense of happenings in hindsight - we’re learning, ready to respond with our collective smarts to solve problems, deliver value and improve situations.

And repeat.

This isn’t fear based but practical skills put to work problem solving, thinking, questioning, collaborating, designing and responding.

Rather than getting in a flap about not knowing ‘anything’ or thinking we need to know ‘everything', these are the ways of working in uncertainty. As we discover, we learn and we can change how we respond. And if we don’t, we’re not such a smart species after all.

Half speed

If you’ve felt busy anxious overwhelmed worried or hyper ... you might be running at twice the speed.

Thinking at 2x

Speaking at 2x

Walking and talking at 2x

Jumping to conclusions at 2x

Interrupting quicker than normal

Getting frustrated sooner than usual

Losing patience quicker than usual.

If and when we experience any of these ‘faster than our normal’ responses or reactions, it’s a great opportunity to take a speed check.

Rather than thinking ‘Oh I need to slow down’, try thinking ‘half speed’.

Half speed.

Half of the current crazy speed of thinking working talking juggling leaping and reacting. At half speed we begin to notice more, we’re tuned in to other people better and things can become clearer for us. It might not *really* be half speed, but it’s an easier mark to reach for.

Is this a new way of thinking for you? Rather than staying busy frantic and overwhelmed, it’s worth slowing down when other things seem to start going faster.

Choose : Curiosity or Fear

As we choose - and we do choose, we don’t have to go where someone or something else takes us - we can begin to think in ways that are helpful and at times, harmful.

We need fear: it keeps us alive. But how much do we need? How do you know when you’ve had enough? At what point is too much fear not good for us?

We have a strong, powerful curiosity bias, a tendency to take on information, to absorb and learn. At what point might we be taking on so much information on a topic that the curiosity ... becomes anxiety and fear? There can be a drive for more more more information: What’s the latest? Where is it at now? What’s happening where?

‘News’ outlets know we think like this. They feed our curiosity bias and they succeed when we can’t get enough of them and keep coming back for ‘more’.

But you don’t have to eat from the feeders.

You have choice: To learn and seek out information that becomes knowledge and insight and then to stop ... so it does not feed anxiety and fear.

Behave how the feeders want you to behave? Or lift up through to curiosity, to get some information and insight and then ... get on with your glorious life.

Swinging from uncertainty to certainty

We do it so many times a day.

Uncertainty about breakfast.

Certainty about breakfast.

Uncertainty about the bus.

Certainty about the bus.

Uncertainty about the meeting.

Certainty about the meeting.

Uncertainty about the decision.

Certainty about the decision.

We’re all just swinging from being sure about some stuff and unsure about other stuff. And the stuff changes. And the level of certainty and uncertainty can change too.

This is the U in VUCA. How are you going with it? How is your team going? Things are changing so you’ll be certain about some more stuff in a few minutes time. And some other stuff will become uncertain.

Notice the swing: go with the swing. Better than trying to keep everything still in certainty, expecting it to ‘switch’ to certainty and stay there. We’re going with it - oh look, more certainty approaching.