This message is for all the workforce architects.

Much of Challenge Factory’s success comes from sensing topics and trends slightly ahead of when they become mainstream. Our tools and articles often appreciate in value over time as we forecast what everyone will be talking and thinking about in the coming months and years. For this issue of Workforce Architecture, we spotlight a theme that we’ve been observing since the dark depths of the pandemic, when everything was labelled “unprecedented” and simple things like taking a walk or meeting up with friends could feel risky.

In many pandemic-era workplaces, we saw leaders delegate less and less as communication became trickier and many assumed subordinates either didn’t have capacity for more responsibility or wouldn’t know what do. Leaders developed a habit of delaying decisions or taking half-steps into strategies because they needed to wait and see what would unfold next. Subordinates lost years of experience making decisions because they weren’t included in discussions. Many people in leadership roles are out of practice and using out-of-date tools to help them with difficult management decisions.

The Fall/Winter 2023 issue of Workforce Architecture is all about how to know the unknowable.

It is common for leaders, media commentators, and experts across sectors to believe that no one can know what’s going to happen in the future. If it’s impossible to know what will happen next, how a group might react, or what the unintended consequences of a new product launch might be, some leaders decide that plans should be put on hold until more information is available. Other leaders decide to forge ahead despite the absence of complete information and manage whatever comes next.

These two approaches both carry risk. The “hold and wait” approach provides no path to certainty that the answers will come. The “push forward and manage the fallout” approach ignores the possibility that fallout may not be necessary at all. In each case, “no one knows” thinking makes it easy to operate without consultation or evidence to support key decisions. What leaders need is reliable data, indicators, and tools that can guide and assist them as we all navigate into unknown territory.

At Challenge Factory, we operate in this space all the time. As leaders in career and workforce development, we know that every decision made today creates different possibilities for the future that cannot be fully mapped at the outset. People learn and grow, new industries emerge, and social and economic factors affect living conditions and labour markets. As a result, the lifelong career pathways that both leaders and their employees take will twist and turn. This is why career development approaches, which centre the individual and identity, are so useful and powerful. They ensure shifts and changes to the original plan stay true to individual needs, goals, talents, and interests.

It is equally possible for organizations to adopt approaches that centre core purpose and values, sensing market changes and shifting course without becoming rudderless. In times when it feels like no one knows what to do, reflexively doing nothing or leaning into delay and postponement is possible, but not advantageous. In fact, in many cases, it can be a cop out. Today’s organizations need leaders to lead despite not knowing what’s coming next, and they need to do it in a way that doesn’t place undue pressure and stress on themselves and their teams.

We need new ways to evaluate risk, timing, and decision-making. At the core of each of the articles in this issue is a celebration of leaders who, despite imperfect data, step forward and lead. Leadership with imperfect information has always been difficult and risky. Today, however, we have an especially fraught relationship with data that can make decision- making feel harder than ever. Sometimes, there isn’t enough data. Other times, there’s too much data. And everywhere, it seems, data from questionable sources is proliferating.

As architects who can shape a better Future of Work for all, leaders need approaches to help ensure they continue to make timely decisions that address risks without preventing action. The white paper in this issue explores the useful concept of data proxies while presenting case studies and a tool that any leader can use to escape the “no one knows” trap. Using an excerpt from The Talent Revolution: Longevity and the Future of Work, we call on HR leaders to question the usefulness of standard workforce metrics and leverage the talents of data analysts to create new, more meaningful metrics.

At the heart of this question of leadership and data lies courage and humility. It takes courage to make difficult decisions, just as it takes courage to slow the momentum that takes over once a decision is made. Knowing when to move forward, when to pause, and when to revisit decisions based on absent, emerging, new, or changed data is a skill that is not taught in leadership programs. It usually relies on the instincts of the leader, yet everyone can train themselves to “find the flip” in common narratives, outdated approaches, and trends that don’t serve us. We demonstrate this process in an article about digging beneath headlines to find new perspectives and better Future of Work outcomes.

We also explore how a company that had previously succeeded in building a C-suite with women in leadership roles realized diverse candidates were no longer being recommended through their internal succession planning process. Somewhere along the way, the intention to develop and promote women leaders had fallen by the wayside—and it took strong company values to prioritize it again. The solution lay in rebuilding trust, understanding experiences, and fostering community.

Given how much is in flux, and given how ingrained the feeling that “no one knows” has become, responsive and adaptive leadership must prevail over inflexible and declarative management.

What I appreciate about the focus of this Workforce Architecture issue is that it acknowledges the humanity of leaders who do the best they can for their teams and organizations, while also providing concrete examples of how we can reject the idea that certain things are impossible to know. With the right questions, tools, and techniques, we don’t actually need to know as much as we originally thought in order to take first and second steps in any strategy. Sometimes a simple image sparks the right discussion that unlocks new possibilities to be explored. We show this in our article about zooming in and out to shift your perspective about workforce challenges.

I hope this issue challenges you to reconsider what you do and do not know about the Future of Work, your business, or your team, and to seek alternative ways to become confident and comfortable with the decisions you need to make now to ensure you shape a future you will take pride in. It’s time to put a moratorium on the statement, “No one knows.”

Lisa Taylor, President, Challenge Factory