Ambiguity. I hate it. Just tell me what you want, and I will deliver (within reason of course). But, these are ambiguous times — we are left hanging without enough information to make informed decisions. How many times have you been given an assignment, ask a few questions, think you have a good grasp of the scope, only to find out when it’s done, the recipient gives you the deer in the headlight look as if to say “what the h*** is this?” Uh, I guess not what you wanted?

We do a lot in employment interviews to try to ferret out the ones who have a hard time with ambiguity — now notice I didn’t say hate it, but did say have a hard time with it. We can really, really dislike circumstances, but can learn to develop coping strategies to get us through those dreaded times. It’s not a good thing if ambiguity makes you freeze or want to run. It’s pretty much an occupational hazard, and a competency that is becoming more and more a necessity than an nicety.

Some of our co-workers and managers are better communicators that anothers. Some have a knack outlining the 5 w’s – who, what, where, when, and why — helping us grasp the compelling reason for the assignment. But, what do we do when we get that uncomfortable, gnawing feeling that we don’t quite have everything we need to produce a quality work product? How do we confront these nebulous, amorphous, intangible, “what the heck am I doing” moments? Read the rest of this entry