Sensemaking Under Conditions of Extreme Uncertainty: From Observation to Action

The contemporary strategic operating environment is increasingly characterized by increasing complexity and dynamic change, leading into new vulnerabilities and uncertainty. Whilst global information and transparency have reached unparalleled levels, we still seem to be taken by surprise with sudden shocks and crisis. In some cases this is due to the deep or extreme uncertainty, i.e. in case of events that are so unique that they are genuinely unprecedented or extremely rare (think of a ‘planet killer’ meteorite striking Earth), or high impact—low probability risks that do not get prioritized by political decision-makers as preparedness priorities. The COVID-19 pandemic appears to be a good example of the latter. Whilst experts were warning governments (for instance the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board in a September 2019 report [1]) about an influenza pandemic involving a high-impact respiratory pathogen and criticized them about the lack of preparedness for such an event, the exponential spread of COVID-19 took governments around the world by surprise. The initial excuse was that COVID-19 was an unexpected ‘black swan’, which it of course was not. Either the thinking as it relates to pandemic threats is in too linear terms, or the message from the experts was not sufficiently convincing to political decision-makers to spring into action. This begs the question—why do we either ignore such risks or fail to take decisive action in face of a large-scale disaster? The purpose of this chapter is to review and examine methods and approaches that could enable governments and organizations to integrate security and preparedness decision-making from monitoring and detection to action through improved sensemaking. In other words, it seeks a path to being less taken surprise by the perils of deep uncertainty and taking the appropriate actions in a timely and sufficient manner.