For instance, a major consumer brand’s marketing team wanted to rethink how they were approaching AI. What they’d done so far felt heavy: team members had to commit significant time. Plus, there was resistance to the idea of using AI tools. So we reframed from tool integration to AI curiosity. That yielded a switch from a big commitment to a light ask: an invitation to a month of AI inspiration. Once people are comfortable with the tools, integration is bound to follow.
In another environment, community members in a faith-based organization said they wanted connection* but didn't show up for events designed for that. Leaders were offering yoga classes and book clubs. But those activities tested too many things at once: Do people want connection? Do they like yoga / books? Do they have time to commit weekly to a new activity? We needed to pick just one unknown. So we focused on whether people actually desired connection by ditching the separate events. Instead, we designed small relational moments they could build into existing services (like meaningful conversation prompts while waiting in line for coffee).
(*Connection may sound like a nice-to-have to those of us outside the non-profit space, but it's very strategic. Connection leads to community which leads to stable funding in community-based organizations.)
For both of these leaders, the answer was to do less, not more. Make the next action light, easy, safe.
That is the unintuitive secret to leading well through ambiguity. The more things are uncertain, the less you should do.
Because the less you do, the more you learn. Clarity comes from focus. If you do one small thing, it's much easier to see what's working (or not). If you go bigger and it fails, the complexity means you don't know why.
I work with leaders often on experimentation, which is one approach to generating light actions. I've learned that many people hear this as akin to piloting. And things get big quickly. That's because in pilots, we're trying to prove and grow. In experiments, we're just trying to learn.
The choice we have as leaders in ambiguity isn't between doing nothing and going big (but often blind). There's a better third way, rooted in the truth that action creates clarity. It's to take small, safe, easy steps. I've started calling them Light Actions. The double entendre is intentional: they're light as in easy. But they also shed light.
Acting in light ways helps you learn, not build (yet).
There are many ways to take Light Action when you're leading through ambiguity. If you're facing uncertainty in your organization and pondering your next steps, ask yourself: How could we do less? How could we lighten it up?
If you want to learn about the main ways initiatives become heavy in ambiguity (and what to do about that), I'm running a free workshop on that later this month. RSVP here and feel free to forward this to any leader feeling ambiguity:
