Lean Into the Unknown: How To Use Uncertainty to Your Advantage in 2026

By Debbie Zaman, CEO, With

I first heard Sam Conniff* speak about uncertainty at this year’s Boardwave conference, and while I admit I can be prone to hyperbole, it really did change my perspective on the world and how to not only ‘survive’ in uncertainty, but thrive in it. This wasn’t because Sam magically reduced the chaos, but because he reframed my relationship with uncertainty entirely.

His work is rooted in something far more rigorous than intuition or motivational theory. Sam’s insights come from one of the most ambitious scientific studies into uncertainty to date: an interdisciplinary experiment backed by Netflix, built with University College London and beta-tested by Apple, Lego and Google. 

The research explores how our brains and bodies respond to uncertainty, why some people tolerate it better than others and, crucially, how we can train ourselves to work with it rather than fight it.

Whether uncertainty is hitting you at work or at home (or both!), it is a mindset shift I knew that our clients, partners and the With team would all value hearing. Which is why I asked Sam to speak at a dinner where we could explore our ‘uncertainty tolerance’…or lack thereof. Here are my key takeaways from the evening.

1. Uncertainty is – literally – off the chart

The World Uncertainty Index is signalling that in 2026, we are likely to experience uncertainty levels the like of which we’ve never seen before, and you do not need to be an economist to feel that on the horizon.

A quick look at Google Trends, which I highly recommend if you have not played with it, shows searches for ‘uncertainty’ rising across almost every continent over the past five years. Perhaps unsurprisingly, in the past 12 months, the top breakout searches linked to uncertainty are ‘AI news’, ‘OpenAI’, ‘Nvidia’ and ‘Bitcoin’.  

World Uncertainty Index (WUI)

Source: The World Uncertainty Index. GDP weighted average. January 2008 to November 2025

And if anyone knows how these narratives are positioned by the media, it is those of us who work in communications. Uncertainty in the news is almost never framed as an opportunity. It is framed as a threat, danger or downturn. Just take a look at the past week’s top articles linked to ‘uncertainty’, they range from pessimism about the Autumn Budget (Financial Times), to warnings of the ‘AI bubble’ (Business Insider), to a slowdown in US Christmas spending (Independent). 

No wonder we have an in-built aversion to uncertainty; our fear is reinforced by the content we’re consuming daily. 

2. We can – and should – reframe uncertainty

We talk about uncertainty as if it is something modern, but humans have lived with it since the beginning. What has changed since Palaeolithic times, however, is that uncertainty is no longer always life-or-death. But our bodies have not quite caught up on that reality. Today’s threats are budgets and board meetings, not sabre-tooth tigers, but the nervous system still behaves as if they carry the same weight.

This is why uncertainty feels so physical. The pit in your stomach. The tightness in your chest. We all know that sensation. Sam puts it well: the brain is a prediction engine, firing tens of thousands of thoughts a day. But under stress, 80 per cent of those thoughts are negative.

In those moments, it can feel like a tsunami of uncertainty.  We literally imagine the worst. Once you understand the biology, your body’s reaction suddenly makes sense. We are predisposed to assume the worst as a way to keep ourselves safe. It is a survival mechanism, not a prediction of reality.

Sam brought this to life in the room. He put us all through an ‘experiment’ and the With team had varied, and quite strong, reactions to uncertainty. Some of us jumped out of our chairs. Others froze. One person literally clenched their fists ready for a fight. 

He encouraged us to get our head, heart and body working together to try and reframe the uncertainty equals danger autopilot response. Because the huge irony is that only around 2 per cent of those negative thoughts we have ever come true. When you can interpret it clearly, that physical response becomes data you can harness and use.

3. Fear of regret vs fear of failure

One of the parts of Sam’s talk that hit me the hardest was a video from a young guy who had grown up in a world of uncertainty as part of a gang and surrounded by violence, later turning that into a world of opportunity, by helping others escape that cycle.

His lightbulb moment was picturing himself at the ripe old age of 50 and realising that his regret at not achieving his full potential was far greater than his fear of failure. I realised it was completely true for me. And I suspect, if you sit with it for a moment, it might be true for you. It got me a sizeable step closer to aligning uncertainty with potentially positive outcomes

Ultimately, the opportunity for growth rarely arrives in the shape we expect. It shows up in the blank spaces where no obvious next step presents itself. Growth often hides exactly where discomfort lives. 

4. Leading with uncertainty

One of the most shocking stats in Sam’s presentation was that among leaders, 87 per cent say they would rather be seen as decisive, even if that decision leads to a negative outcome, rather than be viewed as indecisive when this would actually lead to a more positive outcome. That tells us everything about how leaders are conditioned to value the performance of certainty over the quality of the decision itself.

But uncertainty is not something to eliminate. It is something to work with. Our instinct is to rush towards the answer. But the real work for leaders is learning to operate inside uncertainty. It also means becoming more comfortable saying “I do not know yet”, especially when the pressure to appear decisive feels overwhelming. 

So what does all this mean for leaders going into 2026?

Sam’s presentation unlocked an honest set of conversations around the dinner tables at our event, conversations we’ve also been having with clients, from the macro forces reshaping their sectors to the decisions being made inside their boardrooms. 

• Uncertainty is subjective. Everyone feels it differently. You cannot eliminate it, so the real work is managing your own response rather than trying to control the environment around you.
• Experimentation still matters. Even when the instinct is to tighten budgets, protecting space for testing and learning is essential. In uncertain times, experimentation becomes more deliberate, more focused and more valuable.
• Operating within ambiguity. Procrastination is the biggest risk in fast-moving industries as it can lead to loss of market share. In uncertain conditions, moving with 60 to 70 per cent of the facts is often enough. The challenge is to bring colleagues with you who default to certainty 
• Marketing leaders are internal change makers. Their role is to get people behind ideas before everyone else sees the value, creating the belief and momentum organisations need to move through uncertainty.
• “Fail fast” is outdated framing. Throwing things at the wall and calling it learning is not strategy. Useful failure is examined, understood and applied.
• Communication shapes performance. A big part of building uncertainty tolerance is how you communicate through it. Your team will take their cue from you. Position uncertainty as a threat and people contract. Position it as information, exploration or opportunity and people expand.
• Leaning into uncertainty pays off. Taking the time to move towards uncertainty rather than away from it often leads to the biggest breakthroughs.

These themes show what modern leadership is being asked to do: make decisions without perfect certainty, articulate a direction when the environment will not sit still and create the conditions for teams to adapt and crucially experiment.

So our question for you is: what is the problem you are trying to solve, and how will you move through the next twelve months using uncertainty rather than being derailed by it?

ENDS

*Sam Conniff is co-founder of Uncertainty Experts, now part of MediaZoo.