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Saturday, February 10, 2007

TOLERANCE FOR AMBIGUITY

Tolerance for ambiguity”….We were used to hear this term quite often during the classes of entrepreneurship during the third term.The phrase basically suggests that a person who can live under highly unpredictable and ambiguous situation comfortably is an ideal candidate for entrepreneurship. Later lessons made me believe that “tolerance for ambiguity” is equally important in practically every aspect of management.

But listening and appreciating such phrases is just one side of the coin….experiencing this is another. When the campus talks nothing but placements, it is real easy to succumb to the peer pressure. The average level of “tolerance for ambiguity” for the complete batch is at an all time low. It might not be easy for somebody to self discover and wait for the right job. But then….the interesting thing is that one side of the management education teaches us such wonderful phrases and at the same time they create the ambience where people who undergo management education tend to lose the ability to use these skills during real life periods of ambiguity.

Sometimes, I do feel that there exists a kind of negative correlation between formal education and risk taking abilities. We tend to speak the jargons quite well…can formulate a structured approach to any problem in the world….can work much harder than what we thought we could….but perhaps it is this structured way of leading life that makes us compromise on our levels of “tolerance for ambiguity”.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

you are right on target about the "structured way of leading life".