About six months into the COVID lockdown of 2020, I remember a fellow facilitator saying to me, “I don’t do digital meetings.” My cheeky response? “Happy retirement.”
Lately I’ve been writing about making decisions in uncertainty — about paying attention to the quantity and quality of the information we’re gathering, and to the nature of the decision itself. Today I’m thinking about the timing of decisions.
Uncertainty can make us fearful. In our nervousness, we hunker down. We follow known procedures. We seek reassurance (and answers to all our questions) rather than acting decisively. We procrastinate.
It’s worth remembering that certainty is not a precondition for decisiveness.
Making decisions in volatile times requires learning to surf rather than waiting for calm seas.
A client put it beautifully to me last week, “We are going to course correct anyway. There is no point in waiting for perfect conditions before making a move.”
Adaptability is a learnable skill. I’d much rather learn and practice it than hope I won’t need it.
