The real challenge of our time is not learning how to predict the future, but to learn how to navigate when certainty disappears. The map may run out, but the inner compass was always there.

By increasingly outsourcing our attention to technology, we are becoming less aware of our environment. We stop using our senses and begin to lose the capacity to see through complexities, discover patterns and experience the terrain as it unfolds.

Navigating complex situations with logic and analysis alone is rarely enough. Better thinking often depends on something more subtle. It depends on the balance of two ways of thinking.

The pressure to resolve ambiguity is deeply ingrained in professional life. Teams are rewarded for decisive action. But what is the cost of closing too soon?

When we find ourselves in uncertain terrain instinctively we look for a map, preferably one drawn by someone who seems to know the way. But every map is also a story. A story about how the world works.

We treat uncertainty as a temporary disruption, something to analyse and resolve. Increasingly it seems that uncertainty is not the interruption. It is the terrain.

Ask most people whether they are creative and the answer is immediate. Artists, writers and designers are creative. But me? Not really.