On Descoping Uncertainty

XXXV

2024.02.25

I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership in the context of descoping problems into more tractable and manageable domains.

It’s easier to make a fire than it is to survive in the woods, and it’s easier to collect sticks than it is to make a fire. 

Responsibility

First thing’s first, leadership is a responsibility. More specifically, a working definition: 

Leadership is taking responsibility for uncertainty in such a fashion that makes others comfortable.

A leader takes responsibility for things that could go wrong. A leader makes decisions that could be incorrect. For the leader to be a good leader, everyone else needs to know that even if the leader messes up, he or she will take responsibility for the error and do everything in his or her power to correct it.

A good leader is trusted by others to repair any damage that a poor decision may have caused.

The relationship is rooted in trust—the leader needs to be trusted to take care of his or her domain.

Taming Uncertainty

Imagine you woke up in the woods with nothing. You’d have a lot of uncertainty. You wouldn’t know the time, proximity to a road, where to find water, how to collect food, or even why you were there. 

You’d probably start collecting information; where were you when you last went to sleep? Do you have reason to believe you’re roughly in the same environment as you were then? Where is the sun in the sky, how much time until it’s dark? Do you have reason to believe it will get cold? Do you have a phone? A flashlight? A means of starting a fire?

You’d probably check if you’re hungry or thirsty and, if you’re not, you’d make a judgment call on when you might be.

You’d check for context clues around you–is there a road, or a path? Footsteps in the mud? 

You’d listen for cars, maybe start walking uphill to see if you can get a better view.

In other words, you’d begin to set up parameters for your situation by identifying things that you know to be true.

Being lost in the woods is a seemingly impossible problem to get over, but by understanding where the uncertainty is posing the greatest risk and starting to prioritize and tackle that uncertainty, you’ll begin to make some progress. 

If you’re parched, you’re probably going to prioritize finding water more than you will worry about the impending cold in five hours. If you’re stuffed, you might estimate that you can function pretty well for a couple days without food, so you’d tackle the other problems.

The point is, you’re identifying risks and collecting and analyzing information to determine which ones can be moved down the priority list, and deciding which remaining ones to focus on.

Now, in the case of being lost in the woods, you’re the only one at risk, but we can scale the situation up to have others at risk and see what happens.

Driving a Car

When you’re in a car with someone, the person driving has taken up a leadership position.

The driver is taking in as much information as possible to make informed decisions about how to continue driving; should he or she be worried about that car coming towards them, or is it in the other lane and posing no risk? Are there bumps in the road or is it a pretty smooth highway? Is the rain starting to come down, or does it appear to be clear skies ahead?

The driver gets to deal with all of that; he or she has taken the responsibility to deliver the car, it’ passengers included, to the target destination.

As a passenger, you’ve implicitly made a trade off: you are trusting the driver to act responsibly and drive with your best interests in mind.

Here, the driver has “Skin in the Game.” Most of the time, his or her decisions negatively affect both the passenger and him or her equally. That’s not to say that car accidents don’t happen in such a fashion that exclusively harms the passenger, that’s to say that a rational driver is going to attempt to avoid all accidents, regardless of who they harm, because, really, there’s no way of knowing who's at risk. You generally assume all parties are at equal risk. 

The driver is responsible for your safety, just as he or she is responsible for their own safety.

On the other end of it, if you’re riding shotgun, you might be responsible for directions. The driver might be trusting you to help him or her know which decisions to make to get you all to where you are going.

The direction giver can act in ways that increase or decrease the probability of the driver acting safely; if the direction giver tells the driver about a left turn into oncoming traffic 3 seconds before it’s supposed to be made, that’s not great for the driver. However, at the end of the day, it’s on the driver to make the call as to whether or not he or she listens to the belated Direction Giver’s directive. 

The driver is still in charge; the driver has responsibility over everything. Ideally, the Direction Giver doesn’t have to worry about the road condition or the laws or the weather or other vehicles. While there is certainly a place for the Driver receiving pointers and feedback on all of the others, it is still the Driver’s responsibility, as the leader, to take care of everything. The Direction Giver can’t hit the brakes or the pedal. That’s on the Driver.

Back to the Woods

Lets up the uncertainty one more time. Now, you’re the Chief of a tribe. You have hunters and gatherers. 

I would argue that the goal of the Chief is to take responsibility for all of the uncertainty of living in the woods so that the Hunters can just hunt and the Gatherers can just gather. 

If the Hunters are voicing concerns about the bison herd migrating, it’s up to the Chief to take care of it. Obviously, he can’t stop the herd from moving, but maybe he decides it’s time to relocate, or consults with a counsel to determine that the tribe should pivot more towards fishing and it’s actually time for the hunters to learn a new skill set. 

The point is, though, if the Chief is a good leader, the Gatherers shouldn’t be perpetually questioning what’s going to happen with the Hunters… Chief will meet with counsel, and they’ll all figure it out. 

And neither the Hunters nor the Gatherers have to worry about the storyteller telling stories at nighttime, because Chief has that taken care of, too.

A good leader lets the Drivers drive, the hunters hunt, and the gatherers gather. A good leader takes up the uncertainty of the world and takes responsibility for solving it. 

The Chief doesn’t always have to be right, but he has to have the wisdom to quickly admit when he’s wrong and help the tribe find a better direction. 

Self Similar

Back to one of my early posts on self similarity: those same principles of leading yourself by identifying the information needed to descope risks in the woods apply to leading others at any scale.

How can you take up and solve for as much uncertainty as possible so that your partners or employees are confident that they’re in a position to be best in the world at what they should be best in the world at?

How can you give the chef the assurance that the wait staff is treating the guests with the utmost grace and hospitality? 

It’s not easy, and I’m working on the balance between communicating chaos and uncertainty. One piece of advice I got this week that I really liked was to never ask for advice if you don’t want it. If you are in the middle of solving your hunting problem and you know that another fifteen minutes of reflection will get you 85% of the way to the solution, you should take those fifteen minutes to get to the point that you actually need advice before going and running to the gatherers explaining that you don’t know what you’re doing. 

And, when you do get stuck, it might be more appropriate to consult with the Chief before the Gatherers. Or, if you are the Chief, then it might make more sense to consult with the advisors first. That’s why they’re there.

I’m running a marathon this morning. I will finish by sheer force of will. 

The run will be a masterclass in leading the self. If I can’t lead me, I can’t begin to lead others.

Live Deeply,