When I worked as a management consultant, one of the recruiting buzzwords was "ambiguity."
The idea was, consulting firms wanted people who were able to manage ambiguity and were comfortable operating in environments where there was a lot of it. Dealing with ambiguity was an indispensable skill.
But now, I think I'd rather hire someone (and more importantly, be someone) who's uncomfortable with ambiguity. Someone who encounters ambiguity, and wants to solve the underlying problem causing it. Someone who takes ambiguity, and strives to make it clearer, simpler, and more actionable.
In retrospect, I think it's probably better to have teams that are so annoyed by ambiguity that they try to do something about it.
To be sure, I'm not naive enough to think ambiguity can be completely eliminated from enterprises. What I'm saying is that it might be better to build a team with people who will do something about ambiguity, rather than build a team who people who will have a high tolerance for it.
If you enjoyed this post, you'll probably like my new book - Character By Choice: Letters on Goodness, Courage, and Becoming Better on Purpose. For more details, visit https://www.neiltambe.com/CharacterByChoice.