How To Approach Ambiguity: Tools To Help You Innovate Through Change And Discomfort

By Vanessa Roknic

Ambiguity is not your enemy. But ambiguity is unavoidable. This is especially true if you work in innovation, where the focus is always on disruption and reinvention and we’re exploring things that have never been done before.

In my experience, projects with high levels of ambiguity make people nervous. Even my own team may have doubts because if they can't get stakeholders invested, scaling the project becomes much less likely.

But when you see ambiguity walking towards you, don’t cross to the other side of the street. Instead, embrace it. That’s the way you can use it to your advantage.

And to fully embrace ambiguity, you’ll also need to embrace everything that comes with it.

Embrace Resistance

Any time you make real change, you’ll face resistance - sometimes from yourself, sometimes from other divisions, sometimes from members of your own team. And that’s fine. If no one's resisting, then you're probably playing it safe and doing exactly the same thing that’s always been done.

Sometimes people resist because they dislike change, but sometimes they have legitimate concerns. Either way, hear them out. Whether you move to their position or stick to yours, listening keeps the relationship intact.

Still, don’t try to make sure everyone is aligned. Death by consensus has killed many projects. You'll always have some naysayers. And that’s ok.

Embrace Your Discomfort

Uncertainty makes people uncomfortable, so the temptation is to run to the comfort of something certain. But that is not how you innovate.

That discomfort is often an unconscious feeling, so you need to bring it to the surface, acknowledge and be aware of it. Try to challenge the way your body physiologically reacts to things like that. Say to yourself - I’m uncomfortable, and that’s a good thing that shows we are moving in an interesting direction. Remain curious.

Embrace Employee Empowerment

Some leaders try to control innovation rather than support its inherent ambiguity. Instead of empowering employees to work on the problems they encounter and craft solutions, they micromanage, insisting on their specific solutions to the problems they choose. There is nothing worse for innovation than starting with the “shiny object” that’s easy and trying to force it to be the solution that no one wants or needs.

Taking Bite Size Pieces

Some people deal with ambiguity by attempting to map out the future. But thinking too far ahead is a mistake when the path forward is unclear.

In my current line of work, identifying a pain point and testing a new solution to address it can take between six to nine months and several phases. We ask, is there a problem with this area of the market? Do customers want change? Is there a cost for the company not playing in this space and can we quantify that?

Once we truly understand the problem, we look for creative and novel solutions - maybe ideas that no one's ever thought of – that can deliver value to both our customers and the business.

Because our process involves continuously seeking answers, learning and failing, pivoting and changing, we can’t plan very far in advance.

Instead, we do two-week sprints, mapping out what we think we can achieve, and allowing ourselves time to reflect. What do we see? What did we achieve? Do we need to change direction?

That incremental approach allows us to be agile while still providing structure and boundaries in which someone can move and play freely.

You can go smaller still. If you need to make a decision, or the team needs to make one collectively, set a two-hour time box to make it in. Otherwise, you might spend two days agonizing over a single decision.

Embrace Transparency and Communication

In a highly regulated space like pharma, the response to ambiguity is often to stop work and define things. It can be tricky to balance that conservative approach with the curiosity that’s needed when you're working in an ambiguous space.

We overcome that by communicating openly and transparently. We meet with concerned divisions regularly. We want them to feel like partners, and we try to get our ideas in front of them early. In return, they give us useful insights that help us move in the right direction.

Embrace Failure

The nature of an ambiguous space is that you don’t always know the right way. And to find the right way, you might have to try several wrong ways. You've got to try something, but that something may fail.

Some people have taken to saying, it’s not failure, it’s learning. And that’s true, but I don’t think we should run away from the f-word. Sometimes we flat-out fail. If someone does something that fails, you shouldn’t reprimand them or make them feel like a failure. But you can acknowledge it and know it’s time to try something else - without judgment.

Ambiguity often causes people to freeze into analysis paralysis. I’ve been there myself. To avoid failure, you may be tempted to seize control and create certainty.

My unambiguous advice: Don’t.

Vanessa Roknic is director of innovation and digital transformation at Novo Nordisk.