Let’s imagine a forest where a unique species of silver alder grows, constituting the sole food source for an endangered moth. Unfortunately, the alder is threatened by an invasive fungus that could endanger the survival of the forest. The solution? Use a powerful fungicide to eliminate the fungus. The problem? After a more detailed analysis, we discover that the fungus breaks down leaf litter and generates vital nutrients for a local fern species. So, eliminating the fungus saves the moth, but destroys the fern. And leaving the fungus may cause the loss of the alders and the moths. 

This is a basic, yet eloquent, example of the kind of decisions we’re sometimes forced to make in life and in the professional world. Environments in which, as in nature, we move within complex and interdependent ecosystems. Knowing how to manage uncertainty by recognising what we don’t know can help reconcile contradictions, as we’ll see through the study of a real case, also associated with forest management.

What will I read about in this article?

• Ignoring or not knowing: that is the question 
• Managing uncertainty in another forest
• Unsituated decisions in the face of complexity 
• A strategy for dealing with contradiction
• The positive effects of the absence of knowledge

Weighing all the factors in a complex system is practically impossible, but here it’s worth making a first distinction clear: ignoring is not the same as not knowing. Ignoring involves a lack of intention to know. Not knowing, by contrast, contains an intention to understand, even if one doesn’t yet know. There’s a desire to know what is not known. Managing and approaching this uncertainty is crucial for organisations in this century, which has already entered its second quarter.

Managing uncertainty has been a topic of great importance and has attracted major thinkers in management, such as Peter Drucker, Kotter or Mintzberg. Managing uncertainty also differs from managing risk: while the latter requires the ability to work with probabilities, managing uncertainty involves dealing with ambiguities and contradictions. One is a statistical game, the other a play of shadows and light. In this article, we focus on the latter.

Moreover, it is a complex organisation not only because of this dual commercial and environmental objective — where cutting trees damages the habitat, and preserving the habitat limits timber sales — but also because it is subject to very strict regulation and strategic plans spanning up to 300 years. Also, we’re talking about an organisation within which it is frequently stated that everyone is a leader.

The ethnographic study, which involved one of the professors immersing themselves in the organisation, was based on a combination of non-participant observation, in-depth interviews, visits and document collection. In total, the ethnographic work lasted for more than two and a half years and included nearly 40 meetings, interactions with 55 people, as well as dozens of visits and document analyses. For the authors, this organisation constituted a unique context for understanding what to do when complexity is such that leaders don’t know which path to take.

The findings of Blomfield, who personally carried out the ethnographic work, together with Rigg and Vince, are structured around three main ideas:

La The first is the acceptance of not knowing, which we might translate as not-knowingness. The authors coin the term unknowingness to refer to this condition of incognisability: not knowing while trying to understand.  

For those responsible for the study, the first characteristic of a responsible organisation is precisely the acceptance of not knowing — something that, as we’ll see later, can generate organisational benefits by fostering the distribution of leadership. This idea emerges clearly from very specific cases observed during the fieldwork.

For example, an employee is simultaneously asked to clear-cut dying ash trees, as they pose a risk to public safety, and to keep them standing, as they constitute the habitat of a protected bat species. In this case, the employee knows that there’s no “correct” action. Both options are necessary, but mutually exclusive.

According to the authors, the first step doesn’t consist of “resolving” the contradiction or ignoring it. There’s no optimal decision, as both alternatives are simultaneously beneficial and harmful to the organisation’s opposing objectives. The appropriate response, therefore, is to make a “situated decision” (perhaps felling some trees and preserving others), assuming that it’s a necessarily imperfect, provisional and revisable solution, which is also supported by the organisational acceptance of not knowing. In other words, the employee won’t be evaluated as inefficient for not knowing — since no one can know for certain what to do — but granted autonomy to make decisions in uncertain and imperfect situations instead.

The second finding is that it is essential to tolerate not knowing — that is, to endure the discomfort of not knowing. For the senior management of this organisation, measuring success always generates discomfort. In the case of sales figures, evaluation is clear; however, as one participant pointed out, “you will always struggle to value a butterfly”. What value does a saved butterfly have, or bats enjoying their habitat and contributing to ecological balance? Therefore, for organisations facing uncertainty, tolerating not knowing is key.

Finally, the authors found that it’s not only necessary to accept and tolerate not knowing, but also to distribute it. The fact that no one knows exactly what the best decision is precisely allows specific individuals to make situated decisions. This not knowing enables reasonable autonomy for those on the ground who must make decisions that, while imperfect and provisional, are operational. In this sense, not knowing does not paralyse, but enables a specific form of leadership, known as distributed leadership.

Overall, the article presents a counterintuitive argument: the absence of knowledge, even when deliberately sought, can have positive effects on organisational leadership. When not knowing is recognised, accepted and shared, it paradoxically facilitates the distribution of leadership and decision-making, allowing the organisation to function even in contexts characterised by multiple and sometimes conflicting objectives.

Therefore, for all organisations — and also for employees — today and tomorrow dealing with uncertainty as a constant reality, it is useful to work around this management of not knowing, learned from the case of the forest management organisation. Some implications for organisations might be:

• Accepting that not all complex problems have clear or definitive solutions. 

• Encouraging situated and contextual decisions, rather than always seeking general rules. 

• Reducing the obsession with closed indicators when these fail to capture real complexity (what value does a butterfly have?) 

For employees, these may also be some of the implications:

• Developing what’s known as “negative capability”, that is, learning to live with doubt, the unknown and uncertainty without becoming paralysed. 

• Taking responsibility for decision-making, even when there is no clearly correct option.  

Naturally, this article does not claim to offer all the answers — we “do not know” either— but it does aim to provide some tools for managing an uncertainty that’s becoming increasingly pronounced in times of dizzying acceleration. 

Source:

• Bloomfield, S., Rigg, C., & Vince, R. (2024). ‘I don’t know what’s going on’: Theorising the relationship between unknowingness and distributed leadership. Human Relations, 77(12), 1784-1810.