How to Embrace Ambiguity When Making Decisions

Making business decisions often means choosing one path over another—but that doesn’t always need to be the case. Wendy Smith and Marianne Lewis argue that leaders should move beyond “either/or” choices and try to come up with solutions that embrace ambiguity and paradox.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to reframe the question you’re asking in order to get more creative answers. You’ll also learn how to shift your own internal thinking away from oppositional relationships and instead focus on interdependencies.

Smith is a management professor at the University of Delaware, and Lewis is dean of the University of Cincinnati Lindner College of Business. Together they’re coauthors of the book Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems.

Key episode topics include: leadership, decision making and problem solving, tradeoffs, reframing.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original HBR IdeaCast episode: Decisions Don’t Have to Be Either-Or (2022)
• Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast.
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