The Uncertainty Premium

Embracing "not knowing" to better navigate today's turbulence

Mar 04, 2025

Harnessing uncertainty in volatile times has become a critical leadership skill and is now in high demand to help foster creativity, build resilience and catalyze innovation.

NEW YORK— It’s obvious. We’re living through increasingly challenging times. We have questions without answers.

During a recent conversation with the international investigative journalist Gerard Ryle, he said “the world is experiencing a firehose of uncertainty,” yet truth, context and transparency about the rapid changes we’re experiencing seem in diminishing supply.

The World Economic Forum’s 2025 Global Risks Report builds on that view, citing growing pessimism by the 900+ worldwide leaders surveyed, who are convinced now that “there is an expansion and escalation of extreme uncertainties—conflicts, extreme weather events amplified by climate change, widespread societal and political polarization, the spread of disinformation.” The leaders said they have serious doubts now about whether today’s social and governing institutions “are still capable of navigating and mending the fragility generated by the risks we face today.”

Here in America, in just the past few months, examples of that fragility are appearing, all around. America’s East Coast wildfires. A measles outbreak in Texas, 25 years after the disease was eradicated. Sudden actions triggering deep divisions with long-time allies, most recently marked by Donald Trump’s hefty trade tariffs imposed on Canada, Mexico and China. [Will they stick?] The future of Gaza. The war in Ukraine. Community instability. A democracy crisis. Weakening institutions. Increasing polarization. And on and on.

Many of us want quick action to simplify solutions to our complex challenges. But there are no silver bullets. Is acknowledging uncertainty and sharing it more openly required now to better navigate change, together?

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Uncertainty, reconsidered

In this era of uncomfortable (and for some, terrifying) unpredictability, not having certainty, Ryle says, “drives many people nuts.” Our business, government and cultural leaders have been taking it as a given that uncertainty is mostly always bad and certitude is always good.

But this is starting to change. The social and leadership risks of being certain in our increasingly complex world are rising. "In an age of volatility and precarity, today's veneration of quick sureness is increasingly costly," says Maggie Jackson, the author of Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure, and one of Friday’s keynoters at this year’s 2025 SXSW conference. "When we fixate on instant answers and mistake speed for brilliance, we demote context and nuance and sow division. Our modern-day allergy to uncertainty sets us back."

Today, she says, a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that being unsure—and sharing that uncertainty with others—can open minds to exploring new perspectives and possibilities for change in these turbulent times, and surface new levels of understanding that can ease some of our divisions and encourage greater collaboration. "Far from miring us in inertia," Jackson said in an pre-conference interview, "productive unsureness fuels adaptability, curiosity and resilience—the cognitive skills that are needed most today. Skillful uncertainty offers us open-mindedness and the chance to adapt to change."

Adds Monica Guzman, Senior Fellow for Public Practice at Braver Angels, the nation’s largest cross-partisan grassroots organization working to depolarize America: “In politics today, there is a hunger for simplicity and certainty. But we’re in an increasingly complex world, and being less than 100% sure of your own point of view helps you to open your mind to understanding differences and perspectives.” Uncertainty in these times, she says, is a needed ally.

And not just for politicians. Today, many professions are discovering the wisdom of being unsure, Jackson says. In medicine, she says, “doctors are being trained to be more 'tolerant' or open to uncertainty to ward off burnout and improve diagnostic skill.”

“In AI, some of the field's greatest minds and dozens of laboratories worldwide are building robots and models that are unsure of their aims and so are able to learn on the fly and work with humans," Jackson adds. She says studies show chief executives who are ambivalent in a crisis, for example, are more resourceful and inclusive. "These ‘adaptive experts’ explore multiple options, seek other perspectives and generally wield their uncertainty to gain not just a first, often insufficient answer, but the best answer for the moment."

The Challenge

But embracing uncertainty isn’t easy for a lot of people. Psychology surveys say most humans will do just about anything to avoid ambiguity, conflict and uncertainty— even choosing a known bad outcome over an unknown but possibly good one. One frequently cited British study conducted by University College London revealed that knowing there is a small chance of getting a painful electric shock can lead to significantly more stress than knowing for sure you will get one.

And there are other downsides of having a high intolerance for uncertainty. According to The Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI), which measures how a social or work culture works with those who are anxious or uncertain:

Uncertainty avoidance puts people at greater risk for ailments such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Work, social and organizational cultures with high uncertainty avoidance tend to be more rule-oriented and structured. In social and work cultures with low uncertainty avoidance, people tend to be more open to the unknown.
Countries, organizations and cultures displaying strong uncertainty avoidance (UA) believe and behave in a strict manner. These individuals also avoid unconventional ways of thinking and behaving. Weak UA societies, on the other hand, display more ease with uncertainty and innovation.
People in work and social cultures with high uncertainty avoidance try to minimize the occurrence of unknown and unusual circumstances and to proceed with careful, step-by-step changes by planning and implementing strict rules, laws and regulations.
In contrast, low uncertainty avoidance cultures accept and feel comfortable in unstructured situations and changeable environments and try to have as few rules as possible. People in these cultures tend to be more pragmatic and more tolerant of change.

Uncertainty’s Gifts

"I, too, once assumed that good decision-making meant eradicating uncertainty as soon as possible,” Jackson says, “but I was wrong." Jackson says that "it is not uncertainty we should fear, but a growing reluctance and perhaps a waning ability to seek nuance, depth and perspective” by discovering the limits of our knowledge.

Acknowledging uncertainty in the workplace and across society can:

Reduce “tunnel vision.” The ability to gather multiple perceptions and a rich set of facts about issues and processes is important to increasing the credibility and knowledge of what is noise v signal;
Improve retention and recruitment of knowledge workers. Flexibility is prized now over rigid management styles and increases transparency and understanding of the strengths and needs of your employees and public service leaders by clarifying what is known and what is not;
Help groups and work teams to collaborate and innovate
Increase our understanding of how the truth of uncertainty comes into conflict with campaign promises of certain solutions, chiefly in the political sphere.

“Uncertainty unsettles us—and that is its gift," Jackson says.

“When the stakes are high,” she wrote in her book, “those who know they do not know everything gain the cognitive advantage. …Uncertainty can now propel us forward.”

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I’m in Austin, Texas, this week for the annual SXSW Interactive conference, where I and Bradley Schurman, as New Rules’ Co-Founders, will be sharing actionable insights on how climate risk influences human migration and the challenges and opportunities ahead. If you’re at SXSW too, this coming week, let’s connect!