The Uncertainty Playbook: 14 Strategies for Work Success in a Chaotic World

The Uncertainty Playbook: 14 Strategies for Work Success in a Chaotic World

There is a blizzard of uncertainty—technological, geopolitical, demographic, climate-related, and more—impacting us at work today, and it is only accelerating. With mounting uncertainty our anxiety rises, our performance suffers, and our life isn’t nearly as enjoyable as it could be. We need a smart and reliable toolkit for navigating the chaos. Drawing on two decades of research and practice by organizational scientists Geoffrey Tumlin and Cindi Baldi, The Uncertainty Playbook: 14 Strategies for Work Success in a Chaotic World equips readers with essential strategies to grow, and even flourish, in unstable times. Certainty—which is impossible in an unpredictable world and is often a flimsy cover for worry—isn’t the answer to uncertainty. The solution is confidence in our deliberate choices to act or to pause. Frank, factual, and full of insight, The Uncertainty Playbook is your route to success in unstable times. Dr. Geoffrey Tumlin is the president of On-Demand Leadership, the CEO of Mouthpeace Consulting, the author of Stop Talking, Start Communicating (McGraw Hill, 2013), and the co-host, with Cindi Baldi, of the Management Muse podcast. A national media expert on organizational performance, communication, and leadership, Geoffrey has worked with some of the most prestigious companies in the world, including Boston Scientific, Shell Oil, Tripler Army Medical Center, Dow Chemical, and Baylor Scott & White Health. He is a frequent adviser to corporations, governments, and nonprofits across North America. His writing and ideas have been featured in dozens of media outlets, including the Chicago Tribune , the Los Angeles Times , CNN/Fortune.com , and SiriusXM radio. His scholarly writing has appeared in journals and textbooks, such as the International Leadership Journal , the Encyclopedia of Leadership , and in five editions of Professional Communication Skills . Geoffrey holds a PhD and an MA from the University of Texas at Austin and a BS from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He skis poorly, but with enthusiasm, in the winter. Dr. Cindi Baldi is the founder and CEO of management science firm Culsure and the co-host of the Management Muse podcast. She is an expert on organizational behavior and effectiveness and has presented her research worldwide at institutions such as the Stanford Graduate School of Business, INSEAD School of Business in France, and Ben-Gurion University in Israel. A serial entrepreneur and the author of a book chapter on employee commitment in the prestigious Oxford Handbook of Organizational Identity , Cindi has written multiple articles on business issues for research journals and scholarly publications. She holds a PhD, MBA, and MS in management from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, and a BS in management from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Growing up, her family owned—and Cindi worked in—a haunted house, a video arcade, a drive-in movie theater, and a zoo. As a result, she knows a ton about animals and horror movies. She can also beat you at Galaga. Cindi and Geoff have worked together since shortly after they met, at the Alamo, in 2001. They married in 2005 at a lakefront ceremony in New Hampshire where even the jet skis stopped to watch.