Navigating Uncertainty – Your Shot of Fearless Culture #376

Where change agents find their weekly dose of culture insights and exercises, one topic at a time.

May 07, 2025

What’s the most pressing issue I’ve been helping clients with for the past few months?

Navigating uncertainty.

Not by pretending to have all the answers, but by facilitating deep conversations to help teams cut through the noise, reduce anxiety, and focus on what matters.

I use the Navigating Ambiguity Canvas© to help teams reflect on three zones:

🟢 𝗖𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗭𝗼𝗻𝗲: things we know well and do consistently
🟡 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗭𝗼𝗻𝗲: things we don’t fully understand yet but can become clearer through experimentation
🔴 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗼𝘀 𝗭𝗼𝗻𝗲: nig concerns or distant threats that drain our energy or attention but aren’t worth solving (at least not now)

While ambiguity never goes away, this tool will give your team a shared language and structure to sort things out.

Explore this week’s newsletter:

My latest article → The Navigating Ambiguity Canvas
Help me reach my stretch goal (see below)
Practical resources to navigate uncertainty

Stay fearless, my friend.

Gustavo

In Case You Missed It

→ How to Support Your Team When Anxiety Is High

Help Me Reach My Stretch Goal 🙌

Over 3,500 responses — and counting!

Thank you to everyone who completed my survey about difficult conversations for my book Forward Talk©.

Help me reach my stretch goal: 5,000 responses, and I'll close the survey for good.

If you haven’t chimed in yet, here’s how you can help:
✅ Complete the survey
🔁 Share the link with your connections
📧 Forward it to your team

Ask Your Team This

How might we become comfortable with being uncomfortable?

⚠️ Give It a Try

Train your team to stop freezing

Uncertainty can paralyze us. Try reframing your team’s language. Treat decisions as small experiments and move your team into action.

Ask your team to list 1 or 2 decisions they feel hesitant about moving forward.

Listen to the language they’re using. When we feel uncertain, we tend to use gambling phrases like “That feels like a gamble” or “We can’t bet on that.”

Ask your team to reframe its language, replacing gambling with experimentation: “My hypothesis is that…”, “Let’s test this by…”, or “If we could control these variables, then we could…”

🍦 Feed Your Curiosity

10 strategies for leading in uncertain times

What employees need from leaders in uncertain times

An exercise to make your team comfortable with conflict

🔎 3 Seats Left

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