Ambiguity

2. Agenda of the day :-
 Managing Ambiguity
 Inter and Intra firm comparison.
 Business Environment – Indian and Global

3. The Competition
Rewards
• Questions + 10 Points
• Answers + 10 Points
• Example Sharing + 10 Points
• Teamwork + 20 Points
Penalties
• Late Coming - 10 Points
(Per participants/min)
• Cell Phone - 10 Points (Per Ring)
• Below the belt remarks - 10 Points

4. Norms for the Workshop
Be punctual
Cell phone to be
switched off
No unfair jokes
No below the belt
comments

5. What is the aim of your life

6. What are the efforts you are putting
to achieve your aim.

7. How many of you want to be
successful in Life.

8. What you have done to be
successful.

9.  High Impact Interpersonal skill :-
 Communication skills -
 Attitude –
 Public Speaking traits –
 Self confidence –
 Managing Ambiguity -
 Team Building –
 Motivation -
 Behavioral skills.
 Decision Making –
 Problem solving.
 Priority Management.
 Leadership traits.
 Time management –

10. Do you think that
Interpersonal skills are
the most important thing
to achieve success ?

11. Yes, Its true -
A study attributed to Harvard University
found that when a person gets a success,
85% of the time it is because of their
interpersonal skills, and only 15% of the
time because of how educated they are
and how many facts and figures they know.
Surprisingly, almost 100% of education
money spent to learn facts and figures
which account for only 15% of success!

12. This all together makes a
complete personality.
If you want something in your
life you have never had, you
will have to do something you
have never done,

13. Managing

15. How can you drop a raw egg
onto a concrete floor
without cracking it?

16. Concrete floors are very hard
to crack!

17. If it took eight men, ten
hours to build a wall, how
long would it take four men
to build it?

18. No time at all, as it is already
built

19. If you had three apples and
four oranges in one hand
and four apples and three
oranges in the other hand,
what would you have?

20. Very large hands

21. What word describes a
woman who does not have
all her fingers on one hand?

22. Normally people have half of their fingers on
one hand. So she can be called a normal
woman.

23. How can you lift an
elephant with one hand?

24. It is not a problem, since you
will never find an elephant
with one hand.

25. Imagine you are in a dark
room. How do you get out?

26. Just stop imagining!

27. Which is correct to say, “The
yolk of the egg is white” or
“The yolk of the egg are
white”?

28. Neither of them is correct.
Egg yolks are usually yellow.

29. If you were running a race
and you passed the person in
2nd place, what place would
you be in now?

30. You would be in 2nd place.
You passed the person in
second place, not first.

31. How can a man go eight
days without sleep?

32. He sleeps at night.

33. If you throw a red stone
into the blue sea what it
will become?

34. It will get wet or sink.

35. What can you never eat for
breakfast?

36. Lunch & Dinner.

37. Bay of Bengal is in which
state?

38. Liquid

39. Thanks...
For twisting your Brain

40. Managing Ambiguity -
 Understanding Ambiguity
 Importance of ability to manage ambiguity.
 Types of ambiguity.
 Example of ambiguity.
 Different strategies to manage ambiguity.
 Ambiguity Quiz

41. Origin of the word “Ambiguity”
 Ambiguity and ambiguous comes from the
Latin ambiguus, which was formed by combining ambi-
(meaning "both") and agere ("to drive").
 So each of these words carries the meaning of "both" in its
history; one with the sense of "both meanings" and the
other with that of "both hands." Ambiguity may be used to
refer either to something (such as a word) which has
multiple meanings, or to a more general state of
uncertainty.

42. Ambiguity Meaning -
 Something that can be understood in more than
one way…
 Ambiguity occurs when something is open to more
than one interpretation.
 The fact of something having more than one possible
‘Meaning/Interpretation’ and therefore, possibly
causing confusion or lack of clarity.

43. Managing ambiguity: the essential
skill for career progression
 Managing ambiguity is one the most important skills
among all the interpersonal skills.
 For the students like you development of interpersonal
skills are the most important then of anything else.

44. Lets understand
ambiguity?

45. Do you know what ambiguity
means Max?
What is ambiguity?
I may but I may not know…
Ha, ha, you’re so annoying! You obviously do know. I
need you to tell me because my homework was marked
down for being ambiguous.
I guess you didn’t like my little joke Lei. Ambiguity
means to be inexact, so the meaning can be
interpreted in more than one way – which is
confusing!

46. The confusion caused by ambiguity
Let’s look at one of the descriptions that Lei wrote, to
see why it is ambiguous…
‘The crowd waved to the people in the carnival parade. They were happy
and delighted
This description could be understood as either:
The crowd watching the parade looked happy and delighted.
The people in the parade looked happy and delighted.
Can you see why both of the answers are correct?

47. I don’t understand Max. How can both
answers be correct?
Both answers can be interpreted as correct because the sentences are not
expressed clearly.
The problem is caused by the pronoun, they in the sentence
‘They were happy and delighted’
It might mean the people waving.
It might mean the people in the parade.
It could mean either – the sentence is ambiguous.
Recognising the causes of ambiguity

48. Ambiguity: Pronouns
© Boardworks Ltd 2006
48 of 19
Pronouns

49. Pronouns are words such as he, she, it, we, they, us, you. They are
used in place of nouns to help avoid too much repetition.
Pronouns are very useful devices and will prevent your writing from
sounding too childish. If you overuse them though, you could confuse your
reader.
TIP: Use pronouns clearly, so that your reader knows which
nouns you are replacing.
Do you know what a pronoun is?
How many can you think of?
Understanding pronouns

50. Pronoun test

51. Work sheet 1

52. The following sentences are all ambiguous. Underline the pronouns and
then explain both meanings of the sentences.
A) Juliet’s nurse gave Romeo a message saying that
she was in love with him.
B) Paul hurtled down the slope after Sam. He was going
very fast.
C) Beth persuaded Michelle to go into the sea, as she
was burning in the sun.
D) Richard met Tom in the shop where he worked.
Identifying pronouns

53. Ambiguity: Avoiding ambiguity
© Boardworks Ltd 2006
53 of 19
Avoiding ambiguity

54. What can I do to avoid ambiguity Max?
1. Turn one sentence into two sentences or vice
versa, to make your meaning unambiguous.
2. Re-arrange the sentence, or add punctuation to
avoid ambiguity.
3. Change the wording slightly to clarify your meaning,
e.g. use the noun instead of the pronoun.
Preventing ambiguity
I’ve got three tips to
prevent ambiguity…

55. This could be re-written as:
‘Juliet’s nurse gave Romeo a
message saying that Juliet was
in love with him.’
A) Juliet’s nurse gave Romeo a message saying that
she was in love with him.
Clarifying ambiguous sentences
Replacing the misleading pronoun ‘she’,
with the proper noun ‘Juliet’, explains
that Juliet loves Romeo, not the nurse.
Here are some examples of how to avoid ambiguity:

56. This description could become:
‘Paul hurtled down the slope after Sam, who was leading them very fast.’
B) Paul hurtled down the slope after Sam. He was going
very fast.
Clarifying ambiguous
sentences
Replacing the full stop with the
comma allows the addition of the
subordinate clause, which explains
that Sam is leading Paul down the
mountain.

57. ‘Michelle was burning in the sun. Beth persuaded her
to go into the sea.’
C) Beth persuaded Michelle to go into the sea, as she was
burning in the sun.
Rearranging the order of the words and making two shorter
sentences, informs the reader that Michelle is getting burnt,
not Beth.
This sentence could be changed to:
Clarifying ambiguous sentences

58. ‘Richard met Tom in the shop where Tom worked.’
D) Richard met Tom in the shop where he worked.
Clarifying ambiguous sentences
This sentence could be re-arranged as:
The sentence stops being ambiguous
when the pronoun ‘he’ is rewritten as
the noun ‘Tom’.

59. Summary
To avoid unintentional ambiguity…
Ensure that it is clear which noun each pronoun replaces
Add extra punctuation if it helps to clarify your meaning
Write longer or shorter sentences if it makes things clearer
Rearrange the order of your words if it sounds confusing
Aim for a balanced mixture of nouns and pronouns.

60. Ambiguity: Spotting ambiguity
© Boardworks Ltd 2006
60 of 19
Spotting ambiguity

61. Lets Watch a Video
Ambiguity Johnny lever

62. Spotting ambiguity

63. Work sheet 2

64. Spotting ambiguity
Read the sentences below and cross out the incorrect label. Then
rewrite any sentences which are ambiguous in the empty lines
provided underneath.
 1. The rock band waved to the people in the
audience. They were smiling, pleased and happy.
Ambiguous/Unambiguous
 2. Shivam is not coming to the party, Tell Anil
that we will meet him next week’.
Ambiguous/Unambiguous
 3. A doctor and a nurse helped to save a dying
man. The man thanked her.
Ambiguous/Unambiguous

65.  4. Some British and French students took part in a
foreign exchange. They didn’t like the food
though. Ambiguous/Unambiguous
 5. Alice asked Amy to play a piano duet with her.
She had to leave early though she had to go
swimming.
Ambiguous/Unambiguous
 6. A mother beats up her daughter because she
was drunk.
Ambiguous/Unambiguous

66. Importance of ability to manage ambiguity.

68. Among the above. AMBIGUITY IS PERVASIVE

69. Types of Ambiguity -
 There are two types of ambiguity –
 Lexical ambiguity :-
 Structural ambiguity :-

70. Lexical ambiguity :-
 Lexical ambiguity is by far the more
common everyday example include noun
like Chip, Pen, Suit and verbs like Call,
draw, and run and adjectives like deep, dry
and hard.

71. Structural ambiguity :-
 Structural ambiguity occurs when a single
sentence has more than one underlying
structure. Such as – “I haven’t slept for ten
days, because that would be too long. –
Mitch Hedberg,

77. Should girls have Boyfriends after
twenty five…
Genuine Answer by Alia Bhatt – No !!
I think twenty five boyfriends are
more than enough

78. AMBIGUITY & UNCERTAINITY
 Ambiguity and Uncertainty are two different Concepts
 Ambiguity has to do with multiple meanings or interpretations
and affects the quality of an action. It is the focal point of
communication or a situation.
 Uncertainty has to do with lack of precision in estimates and
has to do with an event, a probability or impact.

79. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
UNCERTAINITY & AMBIGUITY
“Katrina”
Wife and Mother in law

80. AMBIGUITY
WHEN or IF you are NOT precise in your
responses or answers!!!!
Do we ourselves
create Ambiguity???
YES

81. Ability to Manage AMBIGUITY!!
As you grow up, the more likely you are to have to
rely on information supplied by others, which may be
partial or incomplete, rather than making decisions
based on what you have found out personally. That’s
when an ability to manage ambiguity becomes a big
advantage.
When Ambiguity is created by others or
due to external situations,
you really ‘Deal’ with Ambiguity and
‘Not merely Manage’ the AMBIGUITY!!

82. STOP
THINK
ACT
REACT

83. REACT
 First we take ACTION
 then we STOP
 then we THINK.. and feel guilty about our
behaviour
 That is why others say.. “Attitude Problem”

84. The 10 - 90 Rule
 10% is what happens
 90% is how to react/respond to what happens and
that’s your attitude

85. How much do you see of an Iceberg?

86. THE ICEBERG
 10% is above the Sea Level –
90% is below the Sea

87. STOP
THINK
ACT
Lets start by pressing the
PAUSE Button & RESPOND

88. Tips to manage AMBIGUITY
1. Suppress your urge to control things.
2. Learn to act without the complete picture.
3. Understand that some of your decisions will be wrong.
4. Work on your flexibility.
5. Learn to deal with uncertainty.
6. Realize there is not a defined plan you need to follow
7. Be confident in yourself and your abilities.
8. Listen to your voice.
9. Listen to advice.
10. Learn to deal with your stress.

89. 1. Suppress your urge to control things.
 People like to feel in control of their businesses. Often,
this results in stress when ambiguity enters the scene.
 Don’t Overburden Yourself – It Leads to Health Problems

90. 2. Learn to act without the complete picture.
 In an ambiguous world you will never have all the information you
need for absolute certainty.
 Don’t wait for all the information. Get all the information available, do
the optimum utilization of resources available, make the best decision
you can and act on it.

91.  2 + 3 = 5
 4 + 2 = 6
 5 + 3 = 8
 8 + 5 = 14
 9 + 6 = 15

92. 3. Understand that some of your decisions will be wrong.
 Now that you made the best decision you can, realize that
it might be wrong. But sometimes a wrong decision is
better than no decision.
 Ambiguity means sometimes you will make the wrong
decision. Don’t let that put you off. These mistakes should
be learning opportunities for you.

93. 4. Work on your flexibility.
 Be willing to change course of action as more information
comes to light. Don’t let pride delay you from correcting
your course.
 Be willing to accept these gifts and incorporate them into
your direction and make the necessary changes.

94. 5. Learn to deal with uncertainty.
 To deal with ambiguity you need to be comfortable with
uncertainty. My natural urge is to control everything, but I can’t.
So I cope with this by being prepared for what I can.

95. 6. Realize there is not a defined plan you need to
follow
 Make your peace with the fact that there is no defined
‘right and wrong’.
 When you do the right things in the right way,
you have nothing to lose because you have nothing to fear

96. 7. Be confident in yourself and your abilities.
 You can be confident if you realise your hidden potential…
 Do you know your potential ? Do you know power in you ?

97. 8. Listen to your voice.
 Listen to your inner voice..

98. 9. Listen to advice
 ‘None of us are as clever as all of us’.
 To Listen other’s we have to develop our listening skill as
well…

99. 10. Learn to deal with your stress.
 Even if you do all of these things, ambiguity can
still cause stress, as the world is uncertain. Learn
to manage this stress
 KASE Stress mgt.

100. We are looking forward to contribute in your
success journey

101. Are you crazy

102. The value of stock declined

103. To move your head or body quickly downward or away

104. You are a coward

105. He has more important matters to take care of

106. He is in difficult situation

107. She is Providing the start-up money

108. He is going to beat him up or destroy him

109. Share your two most important learning
from the session :-