The Environment of Uncertainty

This semester, my students and I spent time in the Modern Period, a literary movement marked by uncertainty, ambiguity, fragmentation, and rapid change. The world that produced these works was experiencing industrialization, urbanization, world wars, and the collapse of long-held assumptions about identity, society, and progress.

In many ways, the modern writers were wrestling with the same question we are today: What do human beings do when the world changes faster than they can understand it?

One of the texts we read was Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis.

The premise is simple and absurd. Gregor Samsa wakes one morning transformed into a giant insect. Kafka offers no explanation. There is no scientific cause, no magical reason, and no path back to normal. The transformation simply is.

Kafka never explains the transformation. Instead, he focuses our attention on the people forced to live with it.

Gregor spends much of the opening section refusing to acknowledge the magnitude of what has happened. Even after discovering that he is no longer human, his first concern is missing work while he can’t get out of bed because he’s stuck on his back. He continues trying to operate according to yesterday's rules despite the fact that yesterday no longer exists.

His mother collapses in distress.

His father responds with force, pushing Gregor away and sweeping him out of the room.

The office manager, faced with something he cannot understand, slowly retreats from the apartment altogether.

Each character encounters the same uncertainty, and each responds differently.

What fascinated me most, however, was Gregor's sister, Grete.

Unlike the others, Grete enters the uncertainty. She does not understand what has happened. She does not have answers. Yet she begins observing, adapting, experimenting, and responding. While everyone else focuses on what has been lost, Grete begins learning how to live within a reality she did not choose and cannot understand.

By the second section of the novella, she has changed. The uncertainty has not merely revealed her character. It has participated in her formation. That distinction feels important.

We often talk about uncertainty as something that reveals who we are. But, uncertainty can also shape who we become. It exposes our habits, assumptions, fears, and strengths, but it also invites us into new ways of thinking and acting. The question is not simply how we react when uncertainty arrives. The question is who we become while living inside it.

 At first glance, Kafka's giant insect seems far removed from artificial intelligence, automation, and workplace technology. Yet the human responses are surprisingly familiar. For the past several years, organizations have been racing to implement AI tools. New platforms appear almost weekly. Regulations continue to evolve. Best practices shift. Roles are changing. Expectations are changing. Entire industries are trying to determine what responsible implementation looks like in real time.

Many conversations about AI focus on the technology itself. Which tools should we use? What policies should we create? What risks should we monitor? These are important questions. But, after countless conversations with educators, administrators, business leaders, and individual workers, I have become convinced that the most significant challenge is not technological.

It is human.

Because technology implementation is fundamentally an exercise in uncertainty.

No one knows exactly what the workplace will look like five years from now. No one knows which tools will dominate, which regulations will emerge, or which skills will become most valuable. By the time one platform is understood, another appears. By the time one process is established, the landscape shifts again.

The uncertainty is not a temporary phase. It is the environment.

And when uncertainty becomes the environment, people begin responding much like Kafka's characters.

Some become Gregor. They continue operating according to yesterday's assumptions, hoping the change is smaller than it appears. They wait for stability before engaging, believing they can return to familiar ways of working once the disruption passes.

Some become Gregor's father. They respond with resistance, frustration, or outright rejection. The uncertainty feels threatening, and control becomes the primary objective.

Some become the office manager. They slowly back out of the room, avoiding engagement altogether. If they ignore the change long enough, perhaps someone else will solve it.

But the most effective leaders often resemble Grete. They do not possess certainty. They do not have all the answers. They are not immune to the discomfort of change. Instead, they enter the uncertainty with curiosity.

They observe.

They experiment.

They learn.

 They adapt.

They remain grounded in their values while allowing their methods to evolve. This distinction matters because every governance framework, policy document, and implementation plan eventually reaches its limits. Sooner or later, an employee encounters a situation that no policy anticipated. A leader faces a decision that has no precedent. A team must determine how to use a tool in a way that is both effective and ethical. At that moment, the most important factor is no longer the technology itself.

It is the person making the decision.

Governance, in this sense, is not only a technology problem. It is a human development problem. The organizations that thrive will not necessarily be those that eliminate uncertainty, that is a fruitless endeavor. They will be those that develop people who can think clearly, act ethically, learn continuously, and remain adaptable within it.

In a world of constant technological change, uncertainty is no longer an obstacle to overcome. It is a condition to be navigated. Uncertainty is here to stay. So, who we are becoming while we live inside it?

Of course, technology is only one form of uncertainty. Most of us are carrying others:

A medical diagnosis.

A difficult relationship.

A job transition.

A financial strain.

A child who is struggling.

A future we cannot yet see clearly.

The details differ, but the experience is familiar. We find ourselves living in a reality we did not choose and cannot fully control. In these moments, uncertainty often feels like a problem demanding a solution. We search for answers, timelines, guarantees, and outcomes. We want the discomfort to end. And sometimes clarity arrives. But sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the uncertainty stays far longer than we expected.

But, what if the goal is not to eliminate uncertainty but to learn how to carry it? Not every question receives an immediate answer. Not every season resolves on schedule. Not every transformation comes with instructions. Yet life continues moving forward. So do we.

Practically speaking, carrying uncertainty may look like asking better questions. Instead of asking, "When is this going to be over?" we might ask, "What can I learn while I am here?"

Instead of asking, "When will everything become clear?" we might ask, "What is the next faithful step?"

Instead of demanding certainty before action, we practice taking action with incomplete information. Instead we:

Pay attention to the impacts.

Take the next step we can see.

Adjust when reality changes.

Continue learning as we go.

Most importantly, we learn to live with unanswered questions without allowing them to define the quality of our lives, our future, or our identity.

Gregor spent much of his story trying to reconcile himself to what had happened. Grete learned to live within it. One became trapped by the transformation. The other was transformed by it. That may be the real lesson uncertainty offers us.

Uncertainty doesn’t only reveal who we are. It doesn’t just change how we respond to the world. Our response to uncertainty becomes part of our formation.

The uncertainty will stay. The question is what it will make of us while it here? And maybe that is where leadership begins, not with certainty, expertise, or control, but with the willingness to step into an uncertain future and keep moving anyway.