Yesterday I filled up my entire gas tank for $15, $1.79 per gallon. It wasn’t that long ago that I recall many experts telling us to brace ourselves. They were certain that we wouldn’t see gas fall below $3.00 for a very long time, if ever.

The September 27, 2008 New York Times Article, “Behind Insurer’s Crisis, Blind Eye to a Web of Risk” starts off with this quote, from 2007, given by a former executive at AIG,

“It is hard for us, without being flippant, to even see a scenario within any kind of realm of reason that would see us losing one dollar in any of those transactions.

(“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/business/28melt.html?em).

These aren’t isolated examples. How often do you hear predictions or recommendations given that are qualified by the speaker’s assurance of their absolute certainty?

The issue with the two predictions above isn’t that they wound up being wrong. The real issue was the way that the speakers ruled out any possible alternative to their way of thinking. That’s dangerous. That’s not leadership, that’s fanaticism disguised as business.

So should we stop trying to make any prediction or forecast out of fear that we’ll be wrong? Of course not. Speculation is an important part of a leader’s job. The willingness to put oneself on the line in that way is something that differentiates leaders from the rest of us. Somewhere along the line however, we’ve come to judge people’s credibility on how certain and confident they appear.

Perhaps, it’s time to shift focus. Strength/ knowledge/ leadership shouldn’t be a measure of certainty. It should be assessed based on thoughtfulness.

Good leaders make predictions that are based on careful thinking. Given the complex world in which we operate any belief in a single right answer or conclusion is wrought with problems.
Here are a few tips for ensuring that you are tempering your certainty with sense:

• The more certain you are, the more questions you should be asking
• If you can’t see an alternative scenario within the realm of reason, find someone else who can.
• Don’t accept the first reasonable solution you hear, require that someone research an opposite scenario/alternative
• Don’t believe that something is right, until you’ve thoroughly exhausted all the ways it might be wrong