“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know,” (Rumsfeld, Donald, 2009). Depending on the arena, uncertainty can have grave consequences. This can be true of the business world as well. Action without proper information can be very costly.
In the age of information, we live today, there is no shortage of information. The things that we know we don’t know, in most cases we can seek and find the necessary information with which to make the necessary decisions for the organization. Some of the time, it’s a matter of what to do with the available information. The unknown unknowns are the real paralyzers when it comes to long term strategy.
The general problem to address is the inability of businesses to balance long term planning versus short term results due to uncertainty. To be clear, the word long-term here is used to convey a period of 5 years or more. Uncertainty is a lack of knowledge as to whether an event will have meaningful ramifications; cause and effect are understood, but it is unknown if an event will create significant change.” Lack of information appears to be a major source of uncertainty. Silverstein of the Lean Methods group suggest, “The bottom line is that uncertainty leads to a short-term focus. Companies are shying away from long-term planning in favor of short-term results, with uncertainty often the excuse,” (Silverstein, 2019).
The key to winning and winning big is in the long term. Jeff Bezos is one of richest men alive for this very reason. Under his leadership Amazon has dominated and steamrolled their competition for years and will continue to do so. When faced with Uncertainty, Bezos stays the course because he is a master acquirer of information much like Google and he has his sights set on the long game.
