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What if strategic uncertainty begins before we even start looking for the answer?
Strategic questions rarely announce themselves as such. Often, we have already been dealing with them for some time before we recognise them as strategic. Results disappoint, circumstances change, decisions are made, and gradually we start to think we understand what we are seeing. Possible explanations become plausible, plausible explanations become assumptions, and sometimes an idea of what should happen next begins to take shape. By the time the question is explicitly put on the table, we are no longer looking at it with fresh eyes. We already have ideas about what is happening, which causes seem likely and perhaps even what should change. Some of those ideas then become part of the question we ask.
And that is exactly where doubt should begin. Are we still investigating what is really happening, or are we mainly looking for answers within a picture that has already started to form? It is almost impossible to avoid. How long can we look at a problem or ambition without trying to give it some structure? When results fall behind, a market changes or an organisation wants to move in a certain direction, we look for cause and effect, but also for a way forward. We believe we know what the problem is, or where we want to go, and then start investigating how to get there. But what if the first uncertainty is not in the answer, but in the question itself?
That is what makes strategic questions uncomfortable. There is a need for direction, especially at moments when that direction is not yet obvious. Expertise is also often expected to remove that uncertainty. The more experience someone has, the more reasonable it can seem to expect that the answer must be available somewhere. But experience can do something else as well. Anyone who has worked with complex questions often enough knows that the same outcome can have different causes. Developments that initially seem unrelated may later turn out to be part of the same pattern. More experience does not necessarily make a question simpler. Sometimes it makes us see how much is still uncertain. In other cases, what is missing is mainly information. As we learn more, some possibilities disappear and relationships become stronger or weaker. Parts of the question become clearer.
At the same time, new information can make the wider picture more complex. What looked like a clearly defined problem turns out to be connected to other developments; a change in one place can have consequences somewhere else. Within that wider picture, some explanations become stronger while others disappear, without the question as a whole moving towards one answer. That can feel unsatisfying. Further investigation may force us to accept that what we know at that moment is not enough to reach a clear conclusion. Different explanations can continue to exist alongside each other, each with different possible consequences. The goal does not have to be to remove that uncertainty as quickly as possible. What matters more is understanding where the uncertainty lies, which assumptions sit underneath it and how new information could change the picture.
What is happening at the edges can also become relevant. Small changes prove little on their own. But when several developments begin to point in the same direction, they give us a reason to look again at what we thought the problem was. Not every new observation requires a different interpretation. But if we mainly search for information that confirms our original view of the problem, we risk no longer treating our assumptions as assumptions, but as facts. That creates a difficult tension. Organisations cannot continue investigating indefinitely, because reality is complex and complete certainty does not exist. At some point, decisions have to be made. But making a decision is not the same as reducing uncertainty to one answer. We can reach clear conclusions in some parts and act on them, while other parts of the question remain open. Choosing a direction does not prove that the whole question has been solved.
This also changes what we might expect from expertise. Experience helps us recognise patterns more quickly, but there is a risk in that too: recognition can tempt us to treat something that looks like a problem we have seen before as if it is the same problem. Perhaps the value of expertise is therefore not only in what someone recognises, but also in what they see when they let go of the familiar picture. In the willingness to look again, to allow other connections to emerge and to question what initially seemed obvious. The person expected to provide an answer may be exactly the person who asks the uncomfortable question: do we actually know enough to ask the question in this way?
Taking that step back can feel inefficient when everyone wants to move forward, especially when there is pressure to act. And a quick solution can genuinely work: the immediate problem disappears, results improve and the chosen direction seems to be confirmed. But that evidence can be misleading. Sandbags can protect a house very well during a flood. That does not make them a solution to a weak dike. The short-term success of an intervention does not automatically mean that we have understood the underlying cause.
So perhaps the biggest risk is not the wrong answer. It is the convincing answer to a question we accepted as the right one too soon.
What if strategic uncertainty begins before we even start looking for the answer?
Strategic questions rarely announce themselves as such. Often, we have already been dealing with them for some time before we recognise them as strategic. Results disappoint, circumstances change, decisions are made, and gradually we start to think we understand what we are seeing. Possible explanations become plausible, plausible explanations become assumptions, and sometimes an idea of what should happen next begins to take shape. By the time the question is explicitly put on the table, we are no longer looking at it with fresh eyes. We already have ideas about what is happening, which causes seem likely and perhaps even what should change. Some of those ideas then become part of the question we ask.
And that is exactly where doubt should begin. Are we still investigating what is really happening, or are we mainly looking for answers within a picture that has already started to form? It is almost impossible to avoid. How long can we look at a problem or ambition without trying to give it some structure? When results fall behind, a market changes or an organisation wants to move in a certain direction, we look for cause and effect, but also for a way forward. We believe we know what the problem is, or where we want to go, and then start investigating how to get there. But what if the first uncertainty is not in the answer, but in the question itself?
That is what makes strategic questions uncomfortable. There is a need for direction, especially at moments when that direction is not yet obvious. Expertise is also often expected to remove that uncertainty. The more experience someone has, the more reasonable it can seem to expect that the answer must be available somewhere. But experience can do something else as well. Anyone who has worked with complex questions often enough knows that the same outcome can have different causes. Developments that initially seem unrelated may later turn out to be part of the same pattern. More experience does not necessarily make a question simpler. Sometimes it makes us see how much is still uncertain. In other cases, what is missing is mainly information. As we learn more, some possibilities disappear and relationships become stronger or weaker. Parts of the question become clearer.
At the same time, new information can make the wider picture more complex. What looked like a clearly defined problem turns out to be connected to other developments; a change in one place can have consequences somewhere else. Within that wider picture, some explanations become stronger while others disappear, without the question as a whole moving towards one answer. That can feel unsatisfying. Further investigation may force us to accept that what we know at that moment is not enough to reach a clear conclusion. Different explanations can continue to exist alongside each other, each with different possible consequences. The goal does not have to be to remove that uncertainty as quickly as possible. What matters more is understanding where the uncertainty lies, which assumptions sit underneath it and how new information could change the picture.
What is happening at the edges can also become relevant. Small changes prove little on their own. But when several developments begin to point in the same direction, they give us a reason to look again at what we thought the problem was. Not every new observation requires a different interpretation. But if we mainly search for information that confirms our original view of the problem, we risk no longer treating our assumptions as assumptions, but as facts. That creates a difficult tension. Organisations cannot continue investigating indefinitely, because reality is complex and complete certainty does not exist. At some point, decisions have to be made. But making a decision is not the same as reducing uncertainty to one answer. We can reach clear conclusions in some parts and act on them, while other parts of the question remain open. Choosing a direction does not prove that the whole question has been solved.
This also changes what we might expect from expertise. Experience helps us recognise patterns more quickly, but there is a risk in that too: recognition can tempt us to treat something that looks like a problem we have seen before as if it is the same problem. Perhaps the value of expertise is therefore not only in what someone recognises, but also in what they see when they let go of the familiar picture. In the willingness to look again, to allow other connections to emerge and to question what initially seemed obvious. The person expected to provide an answer may be exactly the person who asks the uncomfortable question: do we actually know enough to ask the question in this way?
Taking that step back can feel inefficient when everyone wants to move forward, especially when there is pressure to act. And a quick solution can genuinely work: the immediate problem disappears, results improve and the chosen direction seems to be confirmed. But that evidence can be misleading. Sandbags can protect a house very well during a flood. That does not make them a solution to a weak dike. The short-term success of an intervention does not automatically mean that we have understood the underlying cause.
So perhaps the biggest risk is not the wrong answer. It is the convincing answer to a question we accepted as the right one too soon.