I have a good news and a bad news for
you the bad news is you cannot really do
it because future is inherently
uncertain but the good news is that it’s
always up to you it is always your
choice just like the mirror that you see
in this red box yes what you see here is
a lot of smart logos when you do the
Google search when you try to implement
this kind of search you see how many
different organizations are trying to be
smart nowadays it’s all our human
civilization which was trying to prevent
our uncertainty
it was the technology it was the law it
was the religion these are the political
structures that are trying to help us to
avoid all kinds of some uncertainty
nowadays what we are facing we’re facing
a lot of smart systems a lot of smart
technologies which are again trying to
minimize our choices to make us more
productive the whole environment here is
about being smart technologies like
smart phones the self-driving cars even
our smart home which is seem to be
connected by our microwave to that TV to
the computer to the fridge and sometimes
as you can see in my example all these
systems sometimes fail just because our
cognitive capacity is not really
sufficient for dealing with these smart
technologies we have our attention span
that is failing us the attention span
that is shorter than that of the
goldfish we have we’re behaving in a
very strange ways so what happens you
see here I mean maybe a karma that we
have an Intel Inside and we have been
kind of idiot outside where does all
this sort of uncertainty come from it
comes from two major sources one source
is the very fast rate space of change
and there is a lot of novelty that is
emerging due to this first change the
other source of uncertainty is all the
complexity that surrounds us we have so
many elements so
variables and our systems and was even
worse we have the connections between
these different elements which produce a
new quality a bit like chemical reaction
that we cannot really predict or really
control I mean it goes far away beyond
the technology you see all these strange
guys with the strange haircuts nowadays
in the politics and you never know how
these things connect in their heads
sometimes we have tsunamis we have
tornados that we can also not really
fully predict we cannot evacuate people
at the right times as well as we cannot
predict the full effects of artificial
intelligence that is going to change at
least 80% of all our jobs and it’s not
quite sure how we’ll live in this kind
of Gattaca or Blade Runner world that is
coming to us are we really ready for
that so I have chosen this kind of
symbol of this tree that is seeing the
ground collapsing under its own roots
and the question is how do we make the
decisions how do we choose the best
strategists in the environment where the
ground is seen since collapsing under
our own feet you know I represent
academia and in a way I am standing on
the shoulder of my many giants of these
giants are labelled Prize winners some
are very much against the Nobel Prize
they say they kill people’s creativity
and they provide you with a false status
and these people are coming from risk
analysis from investment from
entrepreneurship from psychology from
behavioral economics from IT systems
like agile software development these
are lots of intelligent people seeking
the solutions for uncertainty management
let me start with one I think of the key
observations how do we behave under
uncertain environments one of the key
messages to take from here is that the
mental model the kind of mentality which
helps you in a stable system it kills
you in the system were in the
were the ground is collapsing under your
feet and the famous folk wisdom is
saying that it is the most skilled
swimmers that drown why is that
can you believe why is that you are so
skilled you know how to swim very well
how come if something changes in their
environment they are still trusting
their instincts they’re trusting the
competence that they have got during
that very long time of practice what
happens quite often they see that they
get stuck in the current which is taking
them away from the shore there is a wave
which is coming to the shore and the
other channel which is taking them back
if you are a very good swimmer your
first instinct is to fight the current
that is taking you away from the shore
whereas a much smarter strategy if we
say so with it to swim along the shore
some 100 meters and to get the wave that
is taking you back to the shore how do
you use the energy in the environment
that you are apparently fighting against
I think one of the most smart ways to
behave in uncertain situations is to
find out the rules of the game as
quickly as it is possible know the
environment you are dealing with and
these are two highly intelligent people
and probably the richest investors in
the world Warren Buffett and Charlie
Munger who have pronounced a very real
intelligent phrase we became so rich not
because of being super brilliant super
smart just because we’re avoiding
mistakes on a consistent basis so they
said what you do not know makes much
greater difference than what you think
you know and that’s this risk of the
Redbox that you are trying to unbox here
because when we create a false illusion
of the future that we try to pretend
that we know the future we get into the
confirmation bias which means that we
deselect
all the information that does not
confirm our illusion of the future so
for most of the people who are making
these smart investment decisions they
are trying to escape this illusion
of future as much as it is possible the
illusionary certainty and there is quite
sound research which was carried out
about tennis that people who are
amateurs in tennis those people prevail
who commit less mistakes not the ones
who are more professional in playing
tennis because they are all amateurs by
Nature but if you commit less mistakes
you can see these two politicians who
have committed some at least one has
committed a mistake that we are now a
kind of in a mess of dealing with
because if he felt a bit too
professional in the uncertain
environment that he was dealing with so
recognizing your circle of competence is
of key importance we are often standing
on this kind of cliff of knowledge and
the difference between genius and
insanity is in this very same jump
because we stand on this cliff of not
knowing you can imagine this first
person who was jumping into the unknown
he must have been quite crazy on one
hand on the other hand I think he was
trusting science maybe a bit too much
which is in a way the same thing to be
crazy and the Tres science too much so
but he survived with this wingsuit we
very often talk about uncertainty in the
innovation in the context of innovation
and I really think there is a kind of
paradox between innovation and
uncertainty on one hand no innovative
idea
nothing creative happens if we are stuck
in these very strict boundaries if we do
not tolerate uncertain situations you
can see this performance which is
happening there just before your eyes a
few hours ago this situation was about
the boundaries which we put against each
other
however the innovation creates a huge
uncertainty and there is an instinct
just like Oscar said this is our
instinct to put certain boundaries we
feel very much uncertain and unsecured
about these kind of situations and all
our history shows that innovation
ecosystems there’s a kind of buzzword
that we are all now using of
especially the government’s are using
the innovation ecosystem buzzword
however the funny thing is building an
ecosystem is not a rocket science it is
much much more complex and much more
difficult why is that I want to show you
just these three analogies there are
three different levels of system by its
complexity one is simple system it’s
like baking a cake do you know what that
means to bake a cake we have a recipe
you get some ingredients some flour some
some other materials and you’d bake a
cake you fail at one at the first time
then you can replicate this solution
over and over again so simplicity it’s
easy to achieve the final result that
you want
building a rocket space and launching it
in into the space what has that been
like Tesla is doing with SpaceX it’s a
very complicated task but by its nature
it’s very similar to baking a cake
whether you like it or not it has many
more ingredients it has many more
formulas but what is common with a cake
that you can still practice there is a
clear cause causal effect between cause
and effect you can always practice and
you can launch you can learn from
mistakes you can launch that rocket
further on into the space what is the
most complex task it is raising your
child because why is that because there
is no such thing as ideal child there is
no ideal result in this kind of system
you always start from scratch there are
many events that can happen that can
change the destiny that can change many
things there are many chemical reactions
let’s call it that can happen and that
you can always deal on situational basis
so as we are talking about complexity
management we’re always talking about
many different variables and managing
some kind of cows that is surrounding us
the things that work in complicated
system they fail us in the
system and the one more analogy I would
like to make is building a park is much
easier task than building a jungle
jungle is an ecosystem park it can look
very nice but Park is only alive for as
long as we take care of this park we
always have to water it to take care of
the trees if we have to want to build a
self-sustaining system like a jungle we
have to focus not only on the single
elements like the trees what we have to
focus we have to focus on the whole
environment and on the whole ecosystem
on the whole relations in this
environment so very often what happens
that these people especially with
sometimes engineering mentality they
create a lot of side effects to the
system they try to solve one minor thing
and there are many major more problems
that are being created in the system
by creating this pipe you know all know
this kind of example it’s not about
engineering no not at all it’s more
about people who are very competent in
one field who cannot really apply their
competence to a wider context because
people who were meant to protect the
cultural heritage by cutting down the
trees from the hill to make the Heritage
visible almost sorry is the initiative
that launched the destruction of the
very heritage it’s a very ironic picture
in a way which shows us one thing that
sometimes the goals that we want to
achieve in life in our careers now
organizations they start working against
us if we are not understanding the
complexity of the environment in which
were making these sort of decisions and
when we want to build an Silicon Valley
almost every country nowadays is
building the Silicon Valley one of these
questions is ok you just dig it up you
try to build some excavators to the flat
land and it’s just a metaphor and you
dig this valley a very important thing
is as I told you to focus not so much on
the elements but on building the
relations in this
and one of the previous speakers was
talking about trust one of the key
things is really how do you build trust
how do you make the stressed work we
have carried out the research a very
global research in all countries of the
world most of them by asking the network
facilitators how do you get the trust
work in your business networks and the
questions which wish are opposed to the
people from northwestern Europe like
Scandinavia like who UK like the
Netherlands that the answer was okay you
just get these people into one room let
them communicate to each other if they
have some common business they will talk
to each other and they will build trust
okay but it’s not so very easy in the
southern Europe in Spain Italy France
Spain Italy said okay you can get them
into one room but after a while they
will have some differences in power
there will be some bigger some smaller
partner what you need here you need to
get some institutional involvement if
you want to have the trust working it’s
not only about building a tribe as they
said it’s more about getting
institutional involvement now we come to
Lithuania to many Central European
countries the main logic was in the
answer you get some big partner who has
a very strong cooperative culture like
bring some care from Scandinavia who can
build the trust network relations for us
so get us some strong partner of a good
practice approach
okay one more feasible approach so we
can see there are all these different
environments we have to operate in it’s
always a question of balance between
regulation and self regulation the
system because we have to connect these
two different elements of stability and
change and most of the systems which are
involved in the uncertainty management
they are good at both things at the same
time it’s not being only one or the
other in this case I mean I was living
in Switzerland for a while who was
working in Switzerland I was quite
amazed by this country which was not
fitting into one strict frame of rules
on one hand
it was very conservative on the other
hand it was extremely innovative on one
hand it’s a very visionary people they
have but Switzerland as a system it has
no big political ideas there are no big
ideas that can kill many things like
there is a phrase that Stalin was never
born in municipality you know
Switzerland is extremely good with
municipal structures it’s very
decentralized and the funny thing it is
profiting from almost every external
shock that is happening in the world
Switzerland was the winner in almost
every war that came from our environment
especially okay
that’s very uncertain yes that’s the
person look Aikens who has jumped from
the plane without a parachute last year
or a few years before I mean imagine
jumping without a parachute from the sky
that’s a kind of extreme risk taking but
many of the non failed entrepreneurs
they didn’t fail like this and Luke
Aikins is still alive and kicking and
why is that simply because he had a very
good safety net for landing you know
this extremely big safe with a net for
getting without a parachute into when we
create some very innovative ecosystems
we have to think about what security do
we provide to some people and there is a
myth in Silicon Valley that everyone is
taking risk there it is not really so
because they have extremely good safe
with nets in the Silicon Valley they
will be employed by the Silicon Valley
companies even if they fail in one
project or the other and in Scandinavia
there are many people taking risks
because they have very good social
security network so we should not
simplify this risk-taking as the
absolute measure it’s from
entrepreneurship I want one idea I want
you to remember do you have a cross or
do you have a sword in your life the
question is it’s not about how much can
you gain so much how can how much can
you afford to lose in your life when you
making a certainty
and many of the most successful
entrepreneurs are thinking on the
negative side
how much can I really really afford to
lose and one more important thing do I
have enough options in life how do I
bring how they develop my optionality
some extra competences if environment
changes how am i how do I not become
this t-rex that is extinct after one
comet strike you see these two creatures
which one has more option ality in a
certain environment I believe the small
guy on the left here’s a kind of
specialist generalist yes we have even a
category expression or list you have to
be both sometimes and the ironic thing
about our current management that
sometimes we optimize the systems too
much and this smart the smartness that
we have in the system the smart
technologies the smart systems that we
establish in the environment when they
fail they fail big so sometimes they can
be embedded medicine but at the same
time they can also be a poison is all it
always depends on the context very much
the last slide to finish my presentation
I think it’s very symbolic to be here in
TEDx with this extremely complex type
set of ideas which is extremely hard to
swallow especially after lunch and
that’s a human nature to really admire
the complexity I mean as we all admire
the complex ideas right here but at the
same time we have systems which rewards
simplicity so you want one message to
rule them all all the time
and that’s what most businesses pay
money for unfortunately sometimes or
maybe luckily so I wish you all the best
in your future endeavors and to make
life as simple as possible good luck to
you
you the bad news is you cannot really do
it because future is inherently
uncertain but the good news is that it’s
always up to you it is always your
choice just like the mirror that you see
in this red box yes what you see here is
a lot of smart logos when you do the
Google search when you try to implement
this kind of search you see how many
different organizations are trying to be
smart nowadays it’s all our human
civilization which was trying to prevent
our uncertainty
it was the technology it was the law it
was the religion these are the political
structures that are trying to help us to
avoid all kinds of some uncertainty
nowadays what we are facing we’re facing
a lot of smart systems a lot of smart
technologies which are again trying to
minimize our choices to make us more
productive the whole environment here is
about being smart technologies like
smart phones the self-driving cars even
our smart home which is seem to be
connected by our microwave to that TV to
the computer to the fridge and sometimes
as you can see in my example all these
systems sometimes fail just because our
cognitive capacity is not really
sufficient for dealing with these smart
technologies we have our attention span
that is failing us the attention span
that is shorter than that of the
goldfish we have we’re behaving in a
very strange ways so what happens you
see here I mean maybe a karma that we
have an Intel Inside and we have been
kind of idiot outside where does all
this sort of uncertainty come from it
comes from two major sources one source
is the very fast rate space of change
and there is a lot of novelty that is
emerging due to this first change the
other source of uncertainty is all the
complexity that surrounds us we have so
many elements so
variables and our systems and was even
worse we have the connections between
these different elements which produce a
new quality a bit like chemical reaction
that we cannot really predict or really
control I mean it goes far away beyond
the technology you see all these strange
guys with the strange haircuts nowadays
in the politics and you never know how
these things connect in their heads
sometimes we have tsunamis we have
tornados that we can also not really
fully predict we cannot evacuate people
at the right times as well as we cannot
predict the full effects of artificial
intelligence that is going to change at
least 80% of all our jobs and it’s not
quite sure how we’ll live in this kind
of Gattaca or Blade Runner world that is
coming to us are we really ready for
that so I have chosen this kind of
symbol of this tree that is seeing the
ground collapsing under its own roots
and the question is how do we make the
decisions how do we choose the best
strategists in the environment where the
ground is seen since collapsing under
our own feet you know I represent
academia and in a way I am standing on
the shoulder of my many giants of these
giants are labelled Prize winners some
are very much against the Nobel Prize
they say they kill people’s creativity
and they provide you with a false status
and these people are coming from risk
analysis from investment from
entrepreneurship from psychology from
behavioral economics from IT systems
like agile software development these
are lots of intelligent people seeking
the solutions for uncertainty management
let me start with one I think of the key
observations how do we behave under
uncertain environments one of the key
messages to take from here is that the
mental model the kind of mentality which
helps you in a stable system it kills
you in the system were in the
were the ground is collapsing under your
feet and the famous folk wisdom is
saying that it is the most skilled
swimmers that drown why is that
can you believe why is that you are so
skilled you know how to swim very well
how come if something changes in their
environment they are still trusting
their instincts they’re trusting the
competence that they have got during
that very long time of practice what
happens quite often they see that they
get stuck in the current which is taking
them away from the shore there is a wave
which is coming to the shore and the
other channel which is taking them back
if you are a very good swimmer your
first instinct is to fight the current
that is taking you away from the shore
whereas a much smarter strategy if we
say so with it to swim along the shore
some 100 meters and to get the wave that
is taking you back to the shore how do
you use the energy in the environment
that you are apparently fighting against
I think one of the most smart ways to
behave in uncertain situations is to
find out the rules of the game as
quickly as it is possible know the
environment you are dealing with and
these are two highly intelligent people
and probably the richest investors in
the world Warren Buffett and Charlie
Munger who have pronounced a very real
intelligent phrase we became so rich not
because of being super brilliant super
smart just because we’re avoiding
mistakes on a consistent basis so they
said what you do not know makes much
greater difference than what you think
you know and that’s this risk of the
Redbox that you are trying to unbox here
because when we create a false illusion
of the future that we try to pretend
that we know the future we get into the
confirmation bias which means that we
deselect
all the information that does not
confirm our illusion of the future so
for most of the people who are making
these smart investment decisions they
are trying to escape this illusion
of future as much as it is possible the
illusionary certainty and there is quite
sound research which was carried out
about tennis that people who are
amateurs in tennis those people prevail
who commit less mistakes not the ones
who are more professional in playing
tennis because they are all amateurs by
Nature but if you commit less mistakes
you can see these two politicians who
have committed some at least one has
committed a mistake that we are now a
kind of in a mess of dealing with
because if he felt a bit too
professional in the uncertain
environment that he was dealing with so
recognizing your circle of competence is
of key importance we are often standing
on this kind of cliff of knowledge and
the difference between genius and
insanity is in this very same jump
because we stand on this cliff of not
knowing you can imagine this first
person who was jumping into the unknown
he must have been quite crazy on one
hand on the other hand I think he was
trusting science maybe a bit too much
which is in a way the same thing to be
crazy and the Tres science too much so
but he survived with this wingsuit we
very often talk about uncertainty in the
innovation in the context of innovation
and I really think there is a kind of
paradox between innovation and
uncertainty on one hand no innovative
idea
nothing creative happens if we are stuck
in these very strict boundaries if we do
not tolerate uncertain situations you
can see this performance which is
happening there just before your eyes a
few hours ago this situation was about
the boundaries which we put against each
other
however the innovation creates a huge
uncertainty and there is an instinct
just like Oscar said this is our
instinct to put certain boundaries we
feel very much uncertain and unsecured
about these kind of situations and all
our history shows that innovation
ecosystems there’s a kind of buzzword
that we are all now using of
especially the government’s are using
the innovation ecosystem buzzword
however the funny thing is building an
ecosystem is not a rocket science it is
much much more complex and much more
difficult why is that I want to show you
just these three analogies there are
three different levels of system by its
complexity one is simple system it’s
like baking a cake do you know what that
means to bake a cake we have a recipe
you get some ingredients some flour some
some other materials and you’d bake a
cake you fail at one at the first time
then you can replicate this solution
over and over again so simplicity it’s
easy to achieve the final result that
you want
building a rocket space and launching it
in into the space what has that been
like Tesla is doing with SpaceX it’s a
very complicated task but by its nature
it’s very similar to baking a cake
whether you like it or not it has many
more ingredients it has many more
formulas but what is common with a cake
that you can still practice there is a
clear cause causal effect between cause
and effect you can always practice and
you can launch you can learn from
mistakes you can launch that rocket
further on into the space what is the
most complex task it is raising your
child because why is that because there
is no such thing as ideal child there is
no ideal result in this kind of system
you always start from scratch there are
many events that can happen that can
change the destiny that can change many
things there are many chemical reactions
let’s call it that can happen and that
you can always deal on situational basis
so as we are talking about complexity
management we’re always talking about
many different variables and managing
some kind of cows that is surrounding us
the things that work in complicated
system they fail us in the
system and the one more analogy I would
like to make is building a park is much
easier task than building a jungle
jungle is an ecosystem park it can look
very nice but Park is only alive for as
long as we take care of this park we
always have to water it to take care of
the trees if we have to want to build a
self-sustaining system like a jungle we
have to focus not only on the single
elements like the trees what we have to
focus we have to focus on the whole
environment and on the whole ecosystem
on the whole relations in this
environment so very often what happens
that these people especially with
sometimes engineering mentality they
create a lot of side effects to the
system they try to solve one minor thing
and there are many major more problems
that are being created in the system
by creating this pipe you know all know
this kind of example it’s not about
engineering no not at all it’s more
about people who are very competent in
one field who cannot really apply their
competence to a wider context because
people who were meant to protect the
cultural heritage by cutting down the
trees from the hill to make the Heritage
visible almost sorry is the initiative
that launched the destruction of the
very heritage it’s a very ironic picture
in a way which shows us one thing that
sometimes the goals that we want to
achieve in life in our careers now
organizations they start working against
us if we are not understanding the
complexity of the environment in which
were making these sort of decisions and
when we want to build an Silicon Valley
almost every country nowadays is
building the Silicon Valley one of these
questions is ok you just dig it up you
try to build some excavators to the flat
land and it’s just a metaphor and you
dig this valley a very important thing
is as I told you to focus not so much on
the elements but on building the
relations in this
and one of the previous speakers was
talking about trust one of the key
things is really how do you build trust
how do you make the stressed work we
have carried out the research a very
global research in all countries of the
world most of them by asking the network
facilitators how do you get the trust
work in your business networks and the
questions which wish are opposed to the
people from northwestern Europe like
Scandinavia like who UK like the
Netherlands that the answer was okay you
just get these people into one room let
them communicate to each other if they
have some common business they will talk
to each other and they will build trust
okay but it’s not so very easy in the
southern Europe in Spain Italy France
Spain Italy said okay you can get them
into one room but after a while they
will have some differences in power
there will be some bigger some smaller
partner what you need here you need to
get some institutional involvement if
you want to have the trust working it’s
not only about building a tribe as they
said it’s more about getting
institutional involvement now we come to
Lithuania to many Central European
countries the main logic was in the
answer you get some big partner who has
a very strong cooperative culture like
bring some care from Scandinavia who can
build the trust network relations for us
so get us some strong partner of a good
practice approach
okay one more feasible approach so we
can see there are all these different
environments we have to operate in it’s
always a question of balance between
regulation and self regulation the
system because we have to connect these
two different elements of stability and
change and most of the systems which are
involved in the uncertainty management
they are good at both things at the same
time it’s not being only one or the
other in this case I mean I was living
in Switzerland for a while who was
working in Switzerland I was quite
amazed by this country which was not
fitting into one strict frame of rules
on one hand
it was very conservative on the other
hand it was extremely innovative on one
hand it’s a very visionary people they
have but Switzerland as a system it has
no big political ideas there are no big
ideas that can kill many things like
there is a phrase that Stalin was never
born in municipality you know
Switzerland is extremely good with
municipal structures it’s very
decentralized and the funny thing it is
profiting from almost every external
shock that is happening in the world
Switzerland was the winner in almost
every war that came from our environment
especially okay
that’s very uncertain yes that’s the
person look Aikens who has jumped from
the plane without a parachute last year
or a few years before I mean imagine
jumping without a parachute from the sky
that’s a kind of extreme risk taking but
many of the non failed entrepreneurs
they didn’t fail like this and Luke
Aikins is still alive and kicking and
why is that simply because he had a very
good safety net for landing you know
this extremely big safe with a net for
getting without a parachute into when we
create some very innovative ecosystems
we have to think about what security do
we provide to some people and there is a
myth in Silicon Valley that everyone is
taking risk there it is not really so
because they have extremely good safe
with nets in the Silicon Valley they
will be employed by the Silicon Valley
companies even if they fail in one
project or the other and in Scandinavia
there are many people taking risks
because they have very good social
security network so we should not
simplify this risk-taking as the
absolute measure it’s from
entrepreneurship I want one idea I want
you to remember do you have a cross or
do you have a sword in your life the
question is it’s not about how much can
you gain so much how can how much can
you afford to lose in your life when you
making a certainty
and many of the most successful
entrepreneurs are thinking on the
negative side
how much can I really really afford to
lose and one more important thing do I
have enough options in life how do I
bring how they develop my optionality
some extra competences if environment
changes how am i how do I not become
this t-rex that is extinct after one
comet strike you see these two creatures
which one has more option ality in a
certain environment I believe the small
guy on the left here’s a kind of
specialist generalist yes we have even a
category expression or list you have to
be both sometimes and the ironic thing
about our current management that
sometimes we optimize the systems too
much and this smart the smartness that
we have in the system the smart
technologies the smart systems that we
establish in the environment when they
fail they fail big so sometimes they can
be embedded medicine but at the same
time they can also be a poison is all it
always depends on the context very much
the last slide to finish my presentation
I think it’s very symbolic to be here in
TEDx with this extremely complex type
set of ideas which is extremely hard to
swallow especially after lunch and
that’s a human nature to really admire
the complexity I mean as we all admire
the complex ideas right here but at the
same time we have systems which rewards
simplicity so you want one message to
rule them all all the time
and that’s what most businesses pay
money for unfortunately sometimes or
maybe luckily so I wish you all the best
in your future endeavors and to make
life as simple as possible good luck to
you
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