How uncertainty impacts change management

Uncertainty can impact change management in diverse ways. Uncertainty affects how individuals and organizations perceive, respond to and engage with change.

From increasing resistance to change and triggering decision-making paralysis to reducing morale and creating communication challenges, uncertainty can be the proverbial thorn in change management’s side.

Tyson Browning, professor of operations management, Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University is speaking at All Access: Change Management for Business Transformation 2025. He’ll be sharing his advice on adapting to change in a dynamic environment.

Ahead of the event, PEX Network sat down with Browning to learn how uncertainty impacts change management and what to do about it.

PEX Network: How does uncertainty impact strategies and plans for change management?

Tyson Browning: Change management requires doing things that haven’t been done before, typically by a deadline. Hence, change management activities often fit the definition of projects, whether that’s realized or not. No small amount of research and thinking has occurred over the years regarding how to manage uncertainty and risk in projects, but one of the many outstanding challenges is identifying the sources of uncertainty and risk in the first place.

Learning organizations have a good way to accumulate and manage knowledge about past problems that interdicted the success of their projects and initiatives, but – to paraphrase any investment prospectus – past experience, learning and success is no guarantee of future results. Moreover, since each project/initiative is unique, its circumstances will dictate novel uncertainties. In any case, unanticipated events often surprise, delay, expand the cost and even derail many projects and change management plans. Risks are the subset of uncertainties that threaten a project’s objectives. We can also consider the upside of uncertainty – opportunities that could help with meeting a project’s objectives.

PEX Network: Why do investments in managing uncertainty and risk often fail to prevent unwelcome surprises?

TB: Sadly, many organizations invest in risk management with a “check the box” mentality, which can lead to complacency. “We got some of that, so we should be safe.” By making it one person’s or department’s job, they essentially release others from thinking about uncertainty and risk. While “buying insurance” and having some experts in house can be useful steps, not all insurance is created equal (in cost or coverage). Often, it’s the things that “we didn’t see coming” that cause the problems.

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PEX Network: Is it worth making any investment in anticipating “unknown unknowns,” the things we don’t know that we don’t know? Isn’t that just a waste of resources?

TB: If something happens that we didn’t anticipate, should we have seen it coming? Monday morning quarterbacks and boards of inquiry have often said yes. It turns out that many of the things we don’t know that we don’t know are in fact knowable, if we had only bothered to look in the right places. If we had just paid attention to that email from an analyst, trying to raise an important issue, or if we’d asked an independent expert to review our plan ahead of time, then we would have caught the (potential) problem.

So we can divide the set of “things we don’t know that we don’t know” into two categories, those that are actually and realistically knowable and those that aren’t. Then, it becomes a question of doing our due diligence. Did we invest enough resources in discovering the knowable unknown unknowns and did we manage our responses to them most effectively?

PEX Network: What are some of the main systems or networks that harbor uncertainty?

TB: It would be easy to pour a lot of resources into a black hole, looking for potential uncertainties. Therefore, it pays to have an efficient plan for doing so. According to our research (1 and 2), projects and initiatives have at least six systems or networks that tend to harbor uncertainties:

1. Their result structure, which is often a complex set of interdependent components.
2. Their process structure, which is a network of interdependent activities that must be done to accomplish the project.
3. Their organization structure, which may consist of numerous individuals, teams and departments from across an enterprise.
4. Their non-human resource structure, which often consists of numerous software tools, facilities and other equipment and resources.
5. Their objectives structure, which usually includes competing requirements, targets and goals.
6. Their context, both within the larger enterprise and beyond (e.g. supply chain).

Considering each of these six systems or networks separately can help ensure it doesn’t get overlooked.

PEX Network: What are some of the main causes or drivers of uncertainty in these systems?

TB: In each of these six systems, at least six factors tend to increase the likelihood of lurking unknown unknowns. One is complexity. All else being equal, as any of the six systems gets larger (has more elements involved in its structure), has more interconnectedness among its elements, has more variety of elements or connections etc. it becomes more complex. Two is complicatedness. Beyond a system’s objective complexity, it can seem subjectively complicated, due to things like team members’ inexperience with it. Four other factors are dynamism (the project’s systems are changing rapidly), equivocality (shared information is vague), mindlessness (individuals’ perceptive barriers to recognizing uncertainties, including attitudes and biases) and organizational pathologies (such as dysfunctional cultures that discourage bringing up potential problems or making certain topics taboo). As a project exhibits increasing amounts of any of these six factors in any of its six systems, the likelihood of lurking unknown unknowns grows.

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PEX Network: What methods and tools are helpful for illuminating uncertainties and risks?

TB: With six systems, each with up to six factors, to consider, that’s 36 potential caves in which to “shine the light” in an effort to discover the lurking unknown unknowns. Some of these caves won’t require much investigation, but others will require more. At least 11 tools can help with the investigations: decomposing the project systems to better understand their elements and connections, analyzing future scenarios, using checklists, scrutinizing plans, using long interviews, picking up weak signals, mining data, communicating more frequently and effectively, balancing local autonomy with central control, incentivizing discovery and creating an alert culture. Further thoughts about each of these tools are provided here.

PEX Network: What is the role of leadership and perspectives on uncertainty and risk in making change management more effective?

TB: Doing due diligence in identifying and anticipating potential problems isn’t glamorous, and if everything goes perfectly, it seems like wasted effort (like having car insurance when you don’t have an accident). It’s easy to ignore and hope for the best, but some have said that “hope isn’t a strategy” – or at least not the best one. Most would agree that some amount of investment in good planning, which includes efforts to anticipate problems, is necessary, but when it comes down to it, it often seems better to charge ahead and demonstrate “quick wins” and immediate progress.

Just like many people choose to underinsure, many managers skip the due diligence of anticipating unknown unknowns. Some have an aggressive nature that prefers not to worry about risks, some are most comfortable wearing blinders or rose-colored glasses and some even feel that thinking about what could go wrong is demoralizing. Overall, there are many impediments to the proactive management of uncertainty and it takes strength of leadership to make it happen.

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