What Shark Diving Taught Me About Uncertainty
/I was 100 meters below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, clutching the rock ledge. Ten meters overhead, 20 large bull sharks drifted, drawn by the smell of blood in the water.
As they began to feed, jaws snapping, I was strangely calm and self-possessed. What made it possible to be in the middle of the world’s largest ocean, with nothing but a few meters of water between me and a swarming group of sharks, and not feel like the situation out of control? I think that my sense of confidence had to do with how Beqa Divers helped frame an uncertain situation.
Framing Uncertainty
Twelve years ago, I was in Fiji on a business-school trip (I know, rough gig, right?) with a few of my classmates, assessing the efficacy of micro-finance organizations.
One morning, I awakened early, took a taxi ride from Suva, and arrived for my adventure. My husband was halfway around the world, sleeping nearby my two small children. I thought of them, fleetingly, as I boarded the boat with 11 other divers. “If this goes poorly, they are going to think I was really dumb.”
As we puttered out of the harbor and set course for the dive site, our dive master called for our attention. With a dry erase board, he presented the plan for the dive. It didn’t feel like a reckless plunge into shark-infested waters. Instead, the boat ride was a combination of classroom and safety briefing. His calm demeanor and cogent explanation of each step made me feel secure.
Camaraderie breeds confidence
Looking around the boat was another boost to my confidence. I mean, there were twelve of us who paid for the privilege of taking the dive. Surely, we weren’t all idiots.
Now, I know that history is full of groups of people who, together, do incredibly dangerous or terrible things…so camaraderie in your decisions is not, necessarily, the sign that you aren’t being reckless. But it helped: if one of us were going to be eaten/maimed, I knew that the chance it would be me was only 1 in 16 (counting the dive masters).
A proven track record
As we dropped anchor at the dive site, one of my last thoughts was, “They do this every day. This is their whole business model. Surely, they wouldn’t be able to continue to be in business if they were plagued by lawsuits and diver deaths.”
And the dive did, indeed, proceed with clarity, camaraderie, and safety. There is an element of the surreal to the memory. The rock wall we were “behind” was little more than a three-foot high chunk of concrete, sunken into a ledge of undersea mountain. The Beqa employees drifted placidly in the swarm of sharks, holding giant Hefty trashcans full of fish carcasses that they speared in quick succession and offered to twelve foot bull sharks.
Guidance for Uncertain Times
Now, it might not be free diving with sharks, but each of you, in your personal or your work realms, have probably been a part of a group that is heading into uncertainty. And, like Beqa Divers, there are a few things you can do that solicit buy-in and help to calm those who are journeying with you.
Framing uncertainty
How you frame uncertainty matters. My dive master was calm. He had a plan. And that made a difference. Now, in complex, ever-evolving situations, you might not have a clearly articulated plan for how everything can-or-will go. But what are the things that you do know and can predict?
My dive master didn’t know how many sharks would be there that day or how they would behave. But he inspired our confidence nonetheless, telling us what we needed to know and what we should do if anything went wrong. Your tone, your delivery, it all matters. If you are someone in a position of leadership during seasons of uncertainty, practice delivering news or “the plan” in the mirror or with a roommate.
Hint: don’t lie or pretend to know things you don’t at this moment. Sometimes, in a rush to inspire confidence, people over-promise or fall into bluster. It will come back to bite you.
We are in this together
Community matters, especially during times of change and challenge. And community isn’t just forged during hard times, it is the product of a dozen different interactions across the week where you make people feel seen and appreciated and part of something larger than themselves (or you don’t!).
In my sessions on combatting change and compassion fatigue at work, I share a study that Altassion did in 2022 which found that teams with high-trust environments were 2.4 times more likely to navigate change successfully than those with average or low-trust environments.
Talk about the power of your team as you head into change and uncertainty. “This is going to be a rough quarter, especially as we deal with the challenge of losing that big account. But I am so glad that we are doing this together. We show up for each other and I know that we will pull together in this challenging time too.”
Being in it together also means checking in on your people who are struggling. There was a man on the dive who was obviously beginning to lose his nerve as we prepared to take that big step off the boat. One of the dive masters took him aside and purposefully checked-in with him…and then continued to throughout the dive, making sure he was doing alright.
Emphasize your track record
If you have lived this long, you’ve already experienced and survived some hard things. In a team context, take time to note what you have already come through together.
That can sound like a recent client who, while talking to his team of ten, naturally inspired confidence and courage, as he observed “Four years ago, when all of our branches had to close and we furloughed ¾ of our people, we didn’t know what would come next. But we learned and persevered and we can do it again.”
Whether it is reaching quarterly goals, implementing new payment software, or facing the final semester of high school before your child goes off to college, may you feel (and co-create) confidence and competence to face the uncertainty ahead.