Taming uncertainty

...may have a lot to do with bringing together beliefs, mastery and relevance.

Here's a visual perspective of uncertainty, to replace a thousand words:

Ultimate purpose of this concept is to help clarify which practical actions could go right and what might work. The benefit of this suggested worldview is that it may universally apply to harness the dynamics of social networks or to steer sequences of events subject to chains of causalities.

Nr 1 & 2 are good starting points, got also to conquer 3 and 4 !
Nr 5 & 6 are promissing, if able to handle the facts that matter.
Nr 7: no need to make you a drawing, right ?

Beliefs are what you think you know...they struggle with doubt, they can be assumptions.

Mastery is what you really understand...it struggles with errors, mistakes. It is a skill.

Relevance is what you should really be concerned about, what really matters. It's what you should know about and master, because it affects you: one way or another.


Taming uncertainty truly means continually tuning beliefs and skills to the relevant matters.

Aligning this universal trinity is the mark of our human condition: it is the price to pay to loosen the shackles of necessity. In other words, it is the modality of our freedom, and perhaps also of our identity.

Larry Page on the 70/20/10 rule, and how to change the world

- "Not enough people are willing to place the big bets on the things that matter, things that could make a difference in meeting humanity's biggest challenges."

- "There's a reason we talk about 70/20/10, where 70% of our resources are spent in our core business and 10% end up in unrelated projects, like energy or whatever. [The other 20% goes to projects adjacent to the core business]. Actually, it's a struggle to get it to even be 10%. People might think we're wasting money or whatever. But that's where all our new stuff has come from..."

Conclusion:
=> For things that matter, there is always a better way, to be found by relentless trial and error.


read more digg story

Steering uncertainty for success

What does it take to get it right ? Not that much, really...

If survival is the goal, then dislocation is the threat.
How many betrayals or mistakes can you endure ?
Will you survive in case you misjudge ?
Do you really know what you cannot afford ? are you sure ?
Is this opportunity worth the current and prospective trouble ?
Are you leading or trailing the pack ? why ?

In unstable times, better protect your core, discipline and focus.
Limit the number of moving parts, allow for fewer degrees of
freedom, and minimize vulnerabilities.

Get ready to harness new opportunities.

In calmer times, better go on the offensive, play the strengths.
More ventures, as there is more room for trial and error.

Prepare for the inevitable rough rides.

1) SENSE ! - ARE YOUR SENSORS APPROPRIATE ?

Are your sensations, perceptions, facts checked and relevant ?
Are you aware of what affects you ? what did you forget ?
How reliable is your information acquisition process ?
What will you do, should your sensors fail ?

Continually adjust, verify, evaluate and scale your sensors.
More sensitive or more precise ? you decide.

2) THINK ! - DOES YOUR PROCESSOR PERFORM ?

Can you make a correct diagnostic ? what is your evidence ?

Do you truly understand your current reality ? inner ? outer ?
Is it totally uncertain for you or rather easy to anticipate ?
Can you predict the outcome of your actions reasonably well ?

Are you able to think outside your view of the world ?

Can you go and see beyond what you know and how you feel ?

Beware of what you think you know, and don't quite master.
Will you conceive unspecified, formless and invisible dangers ?

Do you know your core systems and networks vulnerabilities
and how to avoid the most significant and relevant threats ?

Have you conceived all the worst possible outcomes for you ?
Can you afford these ? are you sure ? why and why not ?
How many threats can you reasonably endure ? for how long ?

How well do you evaluate, and decide among
alternative courses of action ?
Which criteria have you used to select the "best" option ?
Do you think independently ? have you avoided brainwashing ?
and also those incentive-caused biases or "pavlovian" associations ?

How reliable is your judgment ?
What makes you decide to believe your diagnostic ?
What is your prognostic ? based on which hypothesis ?
Why should you trust your prediction algorithm ?

There is no "perfect prediction", at the minimum use:
[history; memory; expectations; reality check; imagination]

What you don't know and do not master

influences your survival and success, usually more.

Accuracy in evaluation/assessment - being roughly right -
is more important than precision in calculations.

It's a matter of direction and magnitude, 'risk-taking' is a geometry.

How good are you in correctly weeding out the time wasting
cohorts of false hopes, and baseless worries ?

Are you now getting closer to your desired outcomes or goals ?
Do you know when to cut your losses short
to secure immediate survival ?
Are you quick to figure out when it's time to be cautious,
and when to go for new ventures ?
Are you aware of the major long-term threats you are exposed to ?

What is your action plan ? what makes you believe it will work ?

Continually adjust your thinking.

Strive for a simplicity commensurate with a true sense for reality.
Awareness, perceptions, world view and set of beliefs
ultimately guide your decisions.

Good judgment, decisions and actions do require

a continuous effort. Shortcuts just won't cut it.

3) ACTION ! - ARE YOU EFFECTIVE ?

Are you executing your plans flawlessly ? why or why not ?

Do you understand the consequences of your planned actions ?
Have you at least mentally rehearsed the steps before execution ?
Are you effectively using available instruments, tools, resources ?
Do you know your limits such as fatigue and stress thresholds ?
Do you keep a margin of safety to deal with the unexpected ?
Do you focus your attention on the action details that matter ?

Continually adjust, check and manage your means of action.


Are you able to quickly and effectively adjust to inner
and outer changes affecting you ?
Have you really learned from past mistakes ?

In conclusion:
Only practice makes perfect. Being "in control" is a skill.
Smart improvisation and continuous vigilance are necessary.
Sensing, thinking and effective action appear to be the trinity

paving the way for steering uncertainty to your advantage.

Failure is necessary to any success, because it tames uncertainty.
Perseverance, and the ability to withstand suffering, loss and grief
makes a survivor.

There is a rythm to sequences of events, a direction and a magnitude.

There are few ways to get it right, and many more to get it wrong.

History and experience matter, together with swift

and intelligent adaptation, well steered anticipations and actions.

Knowing for sure when to be bold

and when to be prudent makes your destiny.
As any fisherman knows, success is the catch per unit of effort...

and here is a starter for the endless scroll of what doesn't work:

erroneous information, deception, misinterpretation,
false assumptions, misconceptions, misunderstandings,
hallucinations, error in judgment, not knowing nor
focusing on what truly matters, being unaware
of vulnerabilities, information overload, fatigue, burnout,
underestimating important information and threats,
breakdown of communications, clouded thinking, indecisiveness,
fighting the last war, lack of or poor management of resources,
complacency, thinking habits, faction wars, runaway conflicts,
logistical errors, inexperience, overconfidence, slow reaction,
disproportionate reaction, not thinking through,

ignoring the past, myopic thinking, tunnel vision, unskilled action,

impatience, sequencing errors, etc...

Draw your own lessons and live, steer your own ship,
take action and thrive !

"Reason, under pressure, often produces prudence
when boldness is called for."--Winston Churchill

Uncertainty, Risk and Success

"Risk is what you don't know..." (*)
... did not anticipate...or refuse to believe ...
"Is it worth it ? let me work it ..." (*)


Uncertainty
deals with the level of unknown, it depends a lot on the context.
(Unknown unknowns, the things impacting me I haven't got a clue about)
This is the most difficult part, because it involves trying to understand which among the myriad of scenarios/sequence of events is a possible reality.

Dealing effectively with uncertainty requires extraordinarily adaptive skills in terms of information processing; it also requires interpretative (heuristics), qualitative and creative methods, because you need to figure out the seemingly inconceivable or apparently impossible situations that could affect you.

Reflect on these statements: "imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge is by definition limited, imagination is not", "think outside the box, imagine what can go wrong", "nothing is impossible", "think the unthinkable", "there will always be things that you can't conceive".

Choosing what to include and what to exclude from your attention (so called framing issues) must be appropriately addressed. This means deciding which information filters to apply in your own information processing protocols. Finally, how you decide to view the world determines your assumptions. Regularly challenging information filters and assumptions is a major element of effective uncertainty management.

Because stability is an illusion, change is reality. There is also a hierarchy in uncertainty and randomness, that's why sometimes you can measure and model change...

Quantifiable Risk
is what you do not usually expect but still can estimate based on previous experience, what you try to measure, manage and plan, based on possible scenarios and estimated probability of occurrence.
It's about what you believe you can predict and control.
(Known unknowns)
Estimating unexpected risk involves concepts like expectancy (probability-weighted outcomes), variance, statistical moments, mathematical modelling and simulations, studies of infrequent but realized events that already occurred in the past (k-sigma events).

Success
is a subjective perception, it refers to a desired outcome, in the form of a reward or an avoided threat.
The basic and natural definition of desirable outcome is survival success.

Desired outcome can also depend very much on the context/environment, since it can mean:
- personal perception of success (what you want to get / avoid)
- social perception of success (as defined by other persons)

Moreover, there is also a resource constraint factor to consider:
- a time-horizon element: short-term versus long-term effects.
- costs, depletion rate of other resources driving change (providers of energy driving change)

Success metric = actual reward-realized threat
(+avoided threat-missed opportunity)

it's not a one-off kind of thing, much more a cumulative outcome...



(*) References available on demand.