Deal with it
One reason hinted at for my recent dismissal from a volunteer job was that I seemed unable to handle "ambiguity." It's true that I always want to know where I stand, what I think, what others think, and exactly what's expected of me. I really don't cope well with fuzziness and vagueness. But it had never occurred to me that this desire for precision could be a handicap in the workplace.
Curious about how important ambiguity tolerance is to today's employer, I naturally turned to craigslist, where I found more than 100,000 job postings that mention "ambiguity." Most often it's something that one must simply "deal with," but some ads are slightly less ambiguous and more verbose:
- "Must be able to work with ambiguity and make decisions in a complex, collaborative, fast paced environment..."
- "...high degree of tolerance for ambiguity and change..."
- "Good judgment and initiative to make independent decisions in the face of ambiguity..."
- "The ability to cut through foggy client requirements and ambiguity with precise, clear, and intuitive strategic insights..."
In none of these ads is this appropriately vague term explained. Seeking clarification, I turned to Google Books, where I learned that until 1979 there were virtually no English-language books that mentioned workplace ambiguity. One title published that year, Training in ambiguity: learning through doing in a mental hospital, discusses the ambiguous presence in the hospital of those hybrid student-doctors known as residents. Another book, Decentralization: managerial ambiguity by design, deals, at least in part, with uncertainty about the future results of decisions that managers make. This seems to me an inappropriate use of the word; I doubt that most employers who require ambiguity tolerance really mean that you should be comfortable with not having a crystal ball. I think they're more likely to be warning of currently squishy workplace conditions, and I suspect that in most cases those conditions have been created by managers who don't know how to organize, delegate, and communicate.
A third 1979 book, Ambiguity and choice in organizations, gives a jargony four-part definition of the term. To summarize: An organization may have to deal with "inconsistent and ill-defined objectives," unclear technologies and environments, varied interpretations of history, and changing amounts of participation by individuals. Notice that these are all things that "organizations" must deal with. The idea of expecting individual employees to be OK with feeling constantly unsure seems a relatively new one (aside from those pesky identity issues associated with being an intern).
Modern writers are all over the map in terms of both how they define ambiguity (at least one source equates it with change) and whether they think it's a good or a bad thing. However, most seem to think ambiguity is an undesirable state that results from managerial deficiencies; one article titled How to Deal With Ambiguity in the Workplace is really about how managers can avoid creating an ambiguous atmosphere.
The difficulty of defining "ambiguity" reminds me of the time that someone told me I shouldn't use the word "nuance" unless I could define it. Being a particularly sophomoric college student, I was unable to do so. Instead, I indignantly left the restaurant (the Gerst Haus) and walked 5 miles home in the dark. So you see I've always had trouble with concepts that aren't clearly black or white, good or bad, etc. Also with people pointing out my ignorance.
Curious about how important ambiguity tolerance is to today's employer, I naturally turned to craigslist, where I found more than 100,000 job postings that mention "ambiguity." Most often it's something that one must simply "deal with," but some ads are slightly less ambiguous and more verbose:
- "Must be able to work with ambiguity and make decisions in a complex, collaborative, fast paced environment..."
- "...high degree of tolerance for ambiguity and change..."
- "Good judgment and initiative to make independent decisions in the face of ambiguity..."
- "The ability to cut through foggy client requirements and ambiguity with precise, clear, and intuitive strategic insights..."
In none of these ads is this appropriately vague term explained. Seeking clarification, I turned to Google Books, where I learned that until 1979 there were virtually no English-language books that mentioned workplace ambiguity. One title published that year, Training in ambiguity: learning through doing in a mental hospital, discusses the ambiguous presence in the hospital of those hybrid student-doctors known as residents. Another book, Decentralization: managerial ambiguity by design, deals, at least in part, with uncertainty about the future results of decisions that managers make. This seems to me an inappropriate use of the word; I doubt that most employers who require ambiguity tolerance really mean that you should be comfortable with not having a crystal ball. I think they're more likely to be warning of currently squishy workplace conditions, and I suspect that in most cases those conditions have been created by managers who don't know how to organize, delegate, and communicate.
A third 1979 book, Ambiguity and choice in organizations, gives a jargony four-part definition of the term. To summarize: An organization may have to deal with "inconsistent and ill-defined objectives," unclear technologies and environments, varied interpretations of history, and changing amounts of participation by individuals. Notice that these are all things that "organizations" must deal with. The idea of expecting individual employees to be OK with feeling constantly unsure seems a relatively new one (aside from those pesky identity issues associated with being an intern).
Modern writers are all over the map in terms of both how they define ambiguity (at least one source equates it with change) and whether they think it's a good or a bad thing. However, most seem to think ambiguity is an undesirable state that results from managerial deficiencies; one article titled How to Deal With Ambiguity in the Workplace is really about how managers can avoid creating an ambiguous atmosphere.
The difficulty of defining "ambiguity" reminds me of the time that someone told me I shouldn't use the word "nuance" unless I could define it. Being a particularly sophomoric college student, I was unable to do so. Instead, I indignantly left the restaurant (the Gerst Haus) and walked 5 miles home in the dark. So you see I've always had trouble with concepts that aren't clearly black or white, good or bad, etc. Also with people pointing out my ignorance.