I finished “The Uncertainty Mindset” this morning.   Unike many management books, it’s taken me a while to finish because the book is dense with ideas and insights, so I have had to rest between reads.

I thoroughly recommend it, especially for those who wish to disrupt with their business.

In the high-end, ultra-innovative world of fine dining of the book, teams of innovators repeatedly dance with chaos, pushing themselves into some new, unknown situation (moving the restaurant to new country; organising a conference; organising food relief in hurrican-struck islands) inducing a feeling of desperation as they scramble to deliver on a promise that will be at once utterly new and utterly familiar to their clientele.  Each time they dance they learn anew that they will succeed, even if they don’t yet know how.  And they do succeed. Spectacularly.   Then they rest, allowing themselves time to recover before they go again, on an even bigger challenge.

They can do this because they are specifically R&D teams.   The day-to-day of a restaurant can’t run like this.  The teams running the restaurants have a different challenge with it’s own rhythm.

What if you’re not a restaurant chain?  What if you aren’t R&D?  What if you simply want to evolve continuously, not necessarily radically, in response to the world around your business, through the lens of your customers?  What can be learned from this approach?

It’s this aspect that I want to pursue – that dance between order and chaos, between predictbility and uncertainty that makes life so interesting.

So I’ll be reading it again, taking notes, and translating it into my own terms, so I can share it with you.

Discipline makes Daring possible.