The “Course Topics” series from Manage Train Learn and Slide Topics is a collection of over 4000 slides that will help you master a wide range of management and personal development skills. The 202 PowerPoints in this series offer you a complete and in-depth study of each topic. This presentation is on "Managing Uncertainty".

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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
Managing Uncertainty
CHANGE MANAGEMENT

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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
The Course Topics series from Manage Train Learn is a large collection of topics that will help you as a learner
to quickly and easily master a range of skills in your everyday working life and life outside work. If you are a
trainer, they are perfect for adding to your classroom courses and online learning plans.
COURSE TOPICS FROM MTL
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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
ARE YOU READY?
OK, LET’S START!

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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
INTRODUCTION
In times of change it is unlikely that the goals and plans we
set ourselves will work out exactly as we expect. Few of us
can predict with absolute confidence what will happen in
the future and even the information we base our plans on is
likely to be outdated before we complete our work. This
does not mean not having plans and goals; they remain the
basis of managing enterprises, big and small. The only
difference is that, in times of change, we must not be
surprised if they don't remain the same and don't
themselves change. In response, we need to learn how to
accept and manage uncertainty..

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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
MANAGING UNCERTAINTY
Managing uncertainty sounds like a contradiction in terms.
Management is normally about order, planning, measuring,
observing, calculating, reasoning: things that we can be
certain of. But in times of change and turmoil, there may be
no certainties, no definite ways to manage, no easy
answers. That is why we need to develop a management
approach that copes with the messy, the crazy, the illogical
and the contradictory.
Managing uncertainty requires us to handle the following
concepts...
1. beliefs that you can't prove
2. goals that might change
3. priorities that don't stay the same
4. knowledge that you can't be sure of
5. plans that get ditched
6. actions that don't lead where you expected
7. outcomes that you don't expect.

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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
BELIEFS YOU CAN'T PROVE
The history of all successful enterprises points to the power
of belief. Belief in ultimate goal achievement, even in the
face of contrary evidence, can be the strongest motivating
force to take us through change.
Belief - which owes nothing to certainties - can be four-
fold...
1. a strong self-belief
2. a belief in others to produce their best
3. a belief in ultimate success
4. a belief in God or a benign force greater than ourselves.
Uncertainty management quote 1:
"I just know this is going to work."

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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
YOU NEVER KNOW...
The Sultan of Persia had sentenced two men to death.
One of the men, knowing how much the sultan liked his
stallion, offered to teach the horse to fly within a year if the
sultan would spare him his life.
The sultan, fancying himself as the rider of the only flying
horse in the world, agreed.
"You're mad,” said the other prisoner. “You know that
horses can't fly. You're only putting off the inevitable.”
"Not so,” said the first prisoner. “I have four chances of
escaping my sentence.
First, the sultan might die.
Secondly, I might die.
Thirdly, the horse might die.
And fourth…I might teach the horse to fly.”
Moral: Never be too certain of what the future holds.

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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
GOALS THAT MIGHT CHANGE
We set goals based on our current level of information and
our current reading of a situation. But as we journey
towards our goal, new information may emerge to change
the desirability, possibility or practicality of the original goal.
It is then unwise to carry on along the previous track, even
though many people do so in order to save face, not look
stupid or because they fear being branded a failure. We
simply need to admit that things have changed and we need
to re-trace our steps.
In times of change, we need to be ready to change the
goals, the goalposts and even the pitch.
Uncertainty management quote 2:
"Let's start again."

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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
PRIORITIES THAT ALTER
What seems important to us at one moment and from one
perspective often turns out to be less important or
unimportant when seen from a position of change.
Political parties who write election manifestoes in the
certainty that nothing will stop them implementing their
promises know only too well that priorities often change
when they come to put them into effect. What was
important or urgent today may be unimportant or non-
urgent tomorrow.
"Life is not a static thing. The only people who do not
change their minds are incompetents in asylums who can't
and those in cemeteries who won't." (Everett Dirkson)
Uncertainty management quote 3:
"This doesn't matter anymore."

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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
UNCERTAIN KNOWLEDGE
We have every reason to be wary of knowledge. It often
comes to us in incomplete parcels, biased if not inaccurate,
sometimes overwhelming in its size, sometimes
unintelligible.
The child psychologist Piaget vividly recalled being
kidnapped as a child. He could recount every last detail of
the incident. It turned out however that Piaget had never
been kidnapped and that his knowledge of it came entirely
from a story that his nurse had made up.
Although we have more information about our world than
ever before, people all over the world failed to predict the
Asian stock market crashes of 1997 and 1998.
Uncertainty management quote 4:
"I don't know."

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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
MANAGING KNOWLEDGE
In the Information Age, knowledge is the principal resource.
Despite its unreliability, it enables us to keep up-to-date and
is the raw material for new ideas and innovative problem-
solving.
Those who manage change need to manage knowledge.
They need to...
1. develop a means of accessing what others in the
organisation know
2. develop a network to share information
3. read selectively
4. tune in to Zeitgeist, the spirit of the times: what is
popular, what people expect, what is relevant, what is in
the air.
"In a period of intense accelerated change, all management
assumptions about the outside world have to be rechecked
for accuracy with the morning newscast." (Alvin Toffler)

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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
PLANS THAT GET DITCHED
When we make plans, we think things should move forward
in a nice neat straight line. We set goals; we put together
our resources; we organise what to do; we do it; and we
achieve the goal.
Unfortunately, things don't always work so smoothly to
plan. Sometimes they go slower than they should;
sometimes faster; sometimes we hit rocks and have to go
back. Sometimes we need to stop altogether and take stock.
If planning in the past was like a steady calm predictable
stream, planning in times of change is like navigating rapids.
"You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters
are always flowing onto you." (Heraclitus 535 - 475BC)
Uncertainty management quote 5:
"Let's not do that after all."

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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
WELL-LAID PLANS
The story of Shell UK's attempts to dispose of the disused
Brent Spa oil platform in 1995 is a parable for managing in
uncertain times.
Shell's original plan was to sink the platform in the North
Atlantic ocean. When this was opposed by
environmentalists and their European customers, Shell
changed their minds and came up with new plans to dispose
of the platform on shore.
Some months later, the environmentalists admitted that
they'd been wrong after all and that, indeed, the best
option had been to dispose of it at sea.
So even newer plans were drawn up, not just for how to
dispose of it but whether to dispose of it at all. Plans were
even being considered for a floating hotel, a dry dock
training school, a museum...

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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
DRIVING IN FOG
The scientific law of cause and effect says that if you do
something, a certain effect will result. In stable
environments this may be true; in change environments,
you cannot be sure.
You can no longer be sure where your actions will lead, or
indeed, if you wouldn't have reached the same result by
doing nothing. Often you will find that your actions will take
you somewhere you never expected to be, but that, now
that you're there, you're quite happy to be there.
Managing change is "like driving at night in the fog. You can
only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the
whole trip that way." (E. L. Doctorow)
Uncertainty management quote 6:
"Let's do nothing instead."

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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
EMBRACING UNCERTAINTY
Embracing uncertainty does not mean we have to throw
away our plans, our objectives and the information on
which those plans and objectives are based. It simply means
not tying ourselves in to just one interpretation of the
future.
When we recognise and fully accept that the world is a
place of uncertainty, we begin to open ourselves to hidden
opportunities. Rigid plans allow for only one future
possibility; embracing uncertainty allows for infinite
possibilities. Who knows? The future might turn out to be
much better than we thought possible.
"The unknown is the field of all possibilities, ever fresh, ever
new, always open to the creation of new manifestations.
Without uncertainty and the unknown, life is just the stale
repetition of outworn memories." (Deepak Chopra: "The
Seven Spiritual Laws of Success")

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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
SKILLS SECURITY
The only currency that is certain not to be debased in times
of change is skills. Acquiring new skills enables us to cope
with change and prepares us for the future.
"There is no such thing as job security anymore; but there is
skill security." (An ex-coal miner turned entrepreneur)
1. Recognise that most skills are learnable given time (just
think about literacy and car driving - skills which are
universally learnt).
2. Encourage people to own their own skill learning so that
they motivate themselves.
3. Create a learning organisation and learning
environment in which skill learning is the norm.
"If money is your hope for independence you will never
have it. The only real security that a man will have in this
world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability."
(Henry Ford)

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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
THAT’S
IT!
WELL DONE!

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Managing Uncertainty
Change Management
MTL Course Topics
THANK YOU
This has been a Slide Topic from Manage Train Learn