6.
ENTERTAIN DOUBT
“To believe fully and at the same moment to have doubts is not at all a contradiction: it presupposes a greater respect for truth, an awareness that truth always goes beyond anything that can be said or done at any given moment.”
Diana: In coaching sessions I often hear my clients grapple with the question “How do I know I’m right?" It is the hardest question to hear and one of the most challenging to work with. Many of these people have high-powered jobs and heavy decision-making responsibilities....We carve out our lives in right and wrongs, black and white. We look for a sign, any sign, that shows us we are heading in the “right” direction. Can we entertain the possibility of doubt?
Business thinker and author Charles Handy, now 81, describes himself as a social philosopher. In a conversation Steven had with Charles and his wife, Liz, Charles recalled a meeting at the London Business School when they were choosing who to promote from a lecturer to a professor. There was one candidate and people knew that he was not right, but they could not put their finger on exactly why this was so. Then someone said: “The problem with him is that he has no decent doubt.”
“It’s OK to have decent doubt,” said Charles. “Those who advocate certainty are not credible. This is the nature of faith, having some belief that all will be well, even in the uncertainty.” He recalled Julian of Norwich, the medieval English mystic, who summed up “All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” This much-loved saying holds much hope for us – that even if we don’t understand and are confused in the midst of uncertainty, we will be OK in the end.
Reliance on our existing knowledge can often trap us – especially when new information comes along. The best academics and leaders entertain doubt about their own state of knowledge and this helps them open up new discoveries and creates “pockets” of Not Knowing.
The ability to question as a matter of habit, to admit that the lens through which we are looking at the world is subjective and flawed, is an essential leadership skill. And it can help us to be able to make better decisions. Doubting the outcome of a project can free us up to engage with others and invite in different views that add new insights into complex challenges.
Carsten Sudhoff, the former Chief HR Officer of the World Economic Forum and founder of Circular Society, recalls a night in Dubai where everything changed for him. He’d arrived in the iconic UAE city the night before the annual summit on the Global Agenda of the World Economic Forum.
“It must have been the overall ambiance and the heat, as well as the intensity of our conversation that triggered a deep state of questioning. Was leadership, or the absence of it, really the only cause for the many large-scale issues society faces? Or was leadership a derivative of a larger societal imbalance? In a world dominated by complexity and ambiguity, where the environment, societies and economies are so obviously interconnected, can we really continue this exclusive focus on individual success?”
Carsten hypothesized that many of the burning issues could be resolved if people considered their interconnectedness with others. He had no idea if his hypothesis was correct, but the thought of bringing the “reality of interconnectedness” into the realm of leadership and societal development was intriguing.
“That night, I could not sleep. I had so many questions circulating in my mind: If this hypothesis is true, how can societal change be brought about? How should I proceed? Am I just too naïve?”
When he returned to Switzerland, Carsten began drafting a vision in a white paper. An experienced senior executive, he was adept at formulating strategic documents, but it quickly became clear that this one was going to be very different. This time he was writing about his personal dream, his vision for a better world, where individuals and institutions could achieve success and satisfaction as they improved the lives of others. “With every line I wrote I saw the vastness of the unknown expanding in front of me. Every finished chapter produced more questions that I did not know the answers for. Doubt settled in. It felt both a frightening yet extremely energizing space to be in.”
Carsten realized that this was not just another project; it was his dream, his calling, and it might mean giving up his role at the World Economic Forum to make it become a reality. He was plagued by doubt. “Do I have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? I had a track record of creativity and persistence. But was that enough? I had succeeded in different organizational settings. But could I survive without corporate support and on my own? Could I earn a living this way?”
As he opened up and shared his doubts with some of his entrepreneur friends, he understood that the anxiety he was experiencing and his self-doubts were absolutely normal and healthy for anyone in that situation. “They did not necessarily have the answers to my questions but the discussion helped me frame and shape the issues. There was no such thing as a perfect script for me to follow.” Carsten has since left the World Economic Forum and started Circular Society, a social enterprise that aims to drive a new way of thinking and acting to improve life perspectives for individuals and society as a whole.
Doubt is a doorway to possibility and admitting doubt shows flexibility and openness to learning and creativity. However, let’s not confuse that with a lack of belief in ourselves. The assumption that admitting doubt is a weakness is a barrier to engaging with Not Knowing. We don’t want people to see the more unsure part of ourselves – we assume that if people saw our doubt, they would lose faith in us and we don’t like the way this thought makes us feel. In a recent biography of George W Bush72 it was revealed that in spite of his public steadfast certainty about the Iraq war, even he privately showed doubt. What stopped Bush from admitting his doubt publicly was his view that leaders must show certainty in order to be credible and to be taken seriously.