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Wildlife rehabilitation centres are run by passionate animal lovers on a shoestring budget, where creativity and innovation are essential. 

As a veterinarian, I’m no stranger to ambiguity. Between my patients being unable to tell me what’s bothering them, to unusual species and diseases, to financial limitations for testing and treatment,  it’s a bit of a wild wild world (haha pun intended). 

Your team can probably relate: budget cuts, demands for innovation from your higher-ups, and a team that is worried about not only day-to-day stressors but their careers in general as AI makes its way into the picture. 

I remember many times as a wildlife veterinarian when ambiguity was ever-present:

Never done this before? ✅

Never seen this species before? ✅

No textbook or case study? ✅

Not even a poorly drawn sketch on a napkin? ✅

No money for resources or supplies? ✅ 

My heart pounded as I stared at the x-ray images after examining a Pelican at the wildlife centre: 

Two shattered legs (tarsometatarsi, to be exact), belonging to a creature I had never treated before: Perry the Pelican. A majestic bird was now reduced to a crumpled heap of feathers and pain after striking a powerline. 

The Calgary Wildlife team rushed him to the clinic, their faces etched with worry. My stomach churned with a familiar blend of adrenaline and dread (or excitement at a new challenge? Sometimes it’s hard to tell). 

The feeling you get when you’re out of your depth, facing an uncertain situation you’re not so sure you’re equipped for. My mind raced in a frantic search for answers.

Google? No luck. There was certainly no “pelican surgery” textbook. A few hours down the internet rabbit hole uncovered a promising article with a single, grainy photo of a pelican surgery, accompanied by a warning: 

“Bones like wet cardboard.” 

Great, just what I needed. 

The pelican bones were new territory. I felt uncertain. Would I make things worse? Would my regular bird techniques work on the strange pelican bones? Perry didn’t have any other options, anyway.

Ambiguity hung heavy in the air, like a proliferation of unread emails after vacation.  

No guarantees once we open the site. 

This wasn’t a simple fracture repair; it was a high-stakes gamble with Perry’s life. 

The pressure mounted: 

Can I do this? 

Am I risking more harm than good? 

Should we euthanize him to save him from suffering?

Now, you might be thinking:

“We are not facing life or death at the office here, Caroline,” 

But our outdated survival instincts can’t tell the difference. 

Here’s the thing about ambiguity: it’s not always the enemy, even though it feels that way (if we can learn to tolerate it).

Ambiguity can be a catalyst for innovation, a spark that ignites creativity. And in our little wildlife clinic, where resources were scarce and every decision mattered: creativity was our lifeline. 

Maybe you aren’t doing surgery on a pelican, but was there a time you took on a new challenge at work, because nobody else stepped up to the plate? 

Or maybe you were assigned a project where you were the most qualified to take it on, and yet you felt unprepared. 

Did you struggle to find a metric to know if you were making progress? 

Did you have the same anxiety, wondering if you were doing a good job or if this was all going to fall apart?

The team huddled together: a motley crew of vets, vet techs, and volunteers, brainstorming solutions. We came up with options for repair and a list of supplies (also ones we didn’t need but wanted to have on hand). 

I highly recommend you lean on your team where you can. A lot of leaders like to try to look like we have our ducks in a row, but if you want a team that takes ownership of solutions, you’re going to have to lean into a little vulnerability. 

With no fancy surgical supplies, we improvised with straws and plumber’s putty and stabilized the metal pins needed for repair. Placing pins in the pelican’s bone felt like putting skewers through a soggy honeycomb covered in chocolate (that’s a Crunchie for my Canadian friends). 
It was new, unfamiliar, and I did not feel competent, especially when placing the first pin. 

There is no time to be paralyzed with indecision in the middle of surgery. With Perry, we had to move through the painful ambiguity to avoid decision paralysis. We had to have faith that we were doing the right thing and following the best processes we knew at the time. Perry had no other options. No Pelican specialist on call for help. It was surgery or curtains for Perry. 

Likewise, being paralyzed with indecision while stakeholders are breathing down your neck and employees are asking you what to do is unhelpful.

Have you noticed that some people seem more adept at moving through uncertainty than others?

Do you have friends who need to read the menu before choosing a restaurant? 

Or the other friends who don’t even need to know what they are eating to give it a try? 

These are two opposite ends of the spectrum of Tolerance of Ambiguity. Tolerance of ambiguity (TOA) is a human trait. Much of it is influenced by our personality, but it can be influenced with intention and practice.  

With a high Tolerance Of Ambiguity (TOA), you don’t freak out when things are complex and unknown.

With the frequency and intensity of ambiguity and uncertainty of our world today, this is quickly becoming a key leadership trait for innovation and progress. 

There is a misconception that people with high TOA create chaos and ambiguity, but their gift is to navigate ambiguity with more confidence. 

There are also 9 different elements of TOA.

While one person might struggle with one of the 4 elements of Comfort with Ambiguity (Dimension 1) and be uncomfortable in the face of social ambiguity (Element 2).

What will they say? Do they like my work, how will they react?

Others might struggle more with a desire for challenging work (Dimension 1) and give up too early on a challenging task.

Another dimension is related to managing the uncertainty (Dimension 3), knowing how to embrace ambiguity but learning to change tack when needed, and how to put a framework and tasks around moving forward through ambiguity instead of long-winded meetings that go nowhere.

In the workplace, higher Tolerance of Ambiguity is positively related to a number of important organizational elements:  

• Job performance
• Decision making
• Creativity* Correlated most with high TOA! 
• Critical thinking
• Risk acceptance
• Job satisfaction
• Organizational commitment
• Health and wellbeing
• Emotional intelligence
• Teamwork
• Leadership

Creativity is the one factor that influences all 9 factors in the scientifically validated IAM Ambiguity Compass from Fewseter and O’Connor out of Australia. 

TOA and Creativity are like a super duo that helps conquer insecurity and push organizations past status quo solutions that are incremental improvements on a flawed existing process. They are also both proven to improve psychological wellbeing and buffer against burnout. (worrying is exhausting).

Employees who feel creative and have a higher TOA are willing to take small risks, bet on themselves and take ownership of solutions, and are invested in the organization’s success. They have higher emotional intelligence, critical thinking and job performance and satisfaction. 

There is much research in physicians, noting that higher Tolerance of Ambiguity decreases anxiety, improves well-being, and decreases the concept of “overdiagnosis.”

Overdiagnosis is essentially overthinking in the medical field. It is a situation where a physician orders a ton of testing to find certainty in a diagnosis. This can send physicians into rabbit holes, chasing spurious results that end up being unimportant to the symptoms at hand. Ultimately, it costs money and wastes time in avoiding a treatment decision. 

If we had waited to find a pelican specialist or surgery workbook, Perry would have passed away just waiting for us to decide what to do with him.  

The Science Behind Tolerance of Ambiguity 

If you’re anything like me, a pelican story can be persuasive, but data is what really convinced me of the benefits of building our Tolerance of Ambiguity. 

There are three key dimensions of Tolerance of Ambiguity at work and my experience with Perry the Pelican was a crash course in all three: 

1. Comfort with Ambiguity:

The willingness to proceed even when the information is incomplete or unclear 

For the pelican surgery, I did not have all the information, had poor documentation, it was a new species, and an unknown outcome to surgery (that part is at the end for a reason), let alone the anesthesia (you need a long breathing tube for a pelican!) 

2. Desire for Challenging Work:

A motivation to tackle complex problems and find novel solutions (Mushy Pelican Bone Surgery on a Budget) 

This is what gives me the motivation and confidence to tackle a new problem and take the job as a wildlife veterinarian in the first place. The desire to figure it out outweighed the worry and stress of not getting it right  

3. Managing Uncertainty:

The ability to create structure and clarity in ambiguous situations, communicating effectively and making decisions with confidence. 

We discussed the surgical plan as a team and technicians. We planned ahead to have supplies we might need but likely wouldn’t use. And I reassured them that we were proceeding in the best interest of the pelican, and checkin in at every step. 

Learning to Build Your Tolerance Ambiguity Can Be Hard 

As humans, we hate ambiguity. Managing the uncertainty is the hardest element for me. I tend to jump into the deep end without telling anyone what’s going on (thanks, ADHD) 

I’m learning through the work from AdaptIQ minds and the accreditation process for the IAM Ambiguity Assessment training that I need to be more clear with others when facing ambiguity, and build structure and process to make sure that we can navigate ambiguity with more confidence. 

After taking the IAM Assessment myself, I recognized that Managing the Uncertainty is a relative weakness for me within my TOA, and that if I want to get others on board with my ideas, and lead through change, I will need to make an effort to improve this dimension.

We recovered Perry from his surgery and started the long road to rehabilitation. 

The goal with wildlife rehabilitation is to get them back to the wild, which is where our Perry story ends: at his release. I hope he’s doing Pelican things with his Pelican friends. 

Even in more “traditional” cases with cats and dogs, ambiguity is ever-present. 

The problem with ambiguity is that we don’t know the outcome until we face the ambiguity and move through the uncertainty. Combined with our human nature to judge decisions by outcomes, not by what we knew at the time, it can be easy to retreat from change and ambiguity and hide out in our comfortable status quo cave. 

Without tolerance to all this uncertainty, the stress would be overwhelming

If the surgery on Perry had not been successful, I would have felt terrible, and might have blamed myself or my inexperience. But nothing in life, especially in medicine, is guaranteed. Pet owners are often tormented by ambiguity when making health care decisions for their pets, or even for themselves.  Sometimes, animals recover thanks to our well intentioned treatments, but sometimes they recover in spite of it. And sometimes, the hardest times, they don’t recover at all. 

Can you think of a time you faced ambiguity and uncertainty like I faced with Perry the Pelican?

How did you handle it?

Did you resist the challenge, or fear the uncertainty?

How did you manage the uncertainty with other members of your team? 

A self reflection exercise on ambiguity is helpful, since much of the ambiguity we face leads to a subconscious feeling of uncertainty, which causes us to view creativity as bad, and innovation as risky. An uncertain mind is a closed mind.

If you are looking for ways to face ambiguity with more confidence, there are exercises and habits that can help. Creativity influences TOA in all of the elements, so you can start there.

Not sure where to start with creativity?

Check out this blog post for more ways to bring your wild to work and start bringing your creative self to the office (and encourage your employees to do the same!)

Whenever you engage your creativity, you don’t know how things will work out – what your painting will look like, or how your meal will taste.

A creative practice is an inherent exercise in facing uncertainty, trying something, knowing that failure is a possibility, picking yourself up, and doing it all over again.

In teams, engaging creativity can increase tolerance of ambiguity, as well as reading fiction, going on field trips, travel, and more. Anything where you are seeing the world through someone else’s POV helps to increase tolerance of ambiguity. It’s also helpful for empathy and understanding. 

The Choose-Your-Own Adventure Presentation 

If a pelican story STILL feels a little far-fetched to you, consider this example from my more corporate adventures in uncertainty: 

I remember working for a global consumer packaged goods company where my team was tasked with a high-stakes presentation to an important client. 

We brainstormed an innovative “choose-your-own-adventure” format, but one teammate was filled with anxiety. He struggled with the ambiguity of a new style of presentation. 

“What if our message doesn’t align with their goals?” he worried. 

My response? “Then we’ll learn and adjust next time.” It would have been easy to stick to a boring PowerPoint, but we chose to embrace the ambiguity. 

And guess what? We nailed the presentation, complete with actors, feather boas, and a whole lot of laughter.

The client loved it, and our unconventional approach paved the way for a successful partnership.

My teammate’s reaction is a normal response to uncertainty, when we gravitate to status quo solutions. It helped us survive, at one point, when things didn’t change so much. 

Now, our reactions to uncertainty hold us back, and when leaders also fall prey to these effects, they block experimentation and innovation, which turns engaged, bright-eyed team members into submissive automatons. It’s no wonder that nothing gets better. 

You don’t need to be a healthcare provider to reap the benefits. 

A high TOA is linked to better job performance, increased creativity, improved decision-making, and even better overall well-being, regardless of your career. It’s a buffer against burnout, a driver of innovation, and a key ingredient in building resilient teams that can weather any storm. In the high-stakes realms of HR and healthcare, TOA is a game-changer. 

For HR professionals, it translates to smoother change management, innovative solutions to staffing challenges, and a more engaged, resilient workforce. 

In healthcare, where uncertainty is the norm, a higher TOA leads to superior decision-making in critical situations, improved patient care, and reduced burnout among staff.

And, although there is an element of predisposition to TOA, the good news is that research shows that we can positively influence our TOA where and when it matters. 

Ambiguity Quiz for Team Performance

Are you curious about how your team handles ambiguity and where they stand in relation to other teams?

If you’re interested in learning more about how an ambiguity workshop or keynote program might benefit your team or organization, please hit reply and we can connect. 

Workshops can include individual IAM Ambiguity assessments, with a group debrief, and exercises and strategies on how to address possible areas of improvement. 

The first step is self-awareness of your current tolerance, to identify opportunities to improve with specific, research-based strategies.