If you’re uncertain, you’re not alone. According to data from FactSet, 87% of Fortune 500 companies cited “uncertainty” during their 2025 Q1 earnings calls.  And while things are definitely a tad chaotic in the world, I’ve started asking my clients, “What would you do if you were certain?”

It’s not an academic thought experiment. It’s a very practical exercise that radically shifts the way the think about and lead their businesses.

An Example That Proves the Rule

Most leaders facing disruption do one of two things: freeze and hope that “this too shall pass” or follow and hope that there is safety in numbers.

Neither is a strategy. Both are knee jerk reactions rooted in fear and communicated in the language and buzzwords of business.

This behavior didn’t start with AI. It happens every time a disruptive technology or philosophy bursts onto the scene. The printing press. The industrial revolution. Microchips. Each time, a new leader and paradigm emerges. How do they do it?

They’re certain.

Not because they’re omniscient. But because they know the answers to three questions

Question 1: Who Are You?

When photography made academic realism obsolete, Picasso didn’t freeze. He didn’t pick up a camera. He created something entirely new. Why? Because he knew exactly who he was. “I don’t seek,” he said. “I find.”

Today’s business icons are no different. Richard Branson describes himself as curious and someone who challenges the status quo. Lou Gerstner, when he arrived at a floundering IBM, declared himself a results man, not a visionary.

These self-definitions aren’t marketing. They’re decisions filters that define what you are and aren’t willing to do, agnostic of events, technologies, and capabilities.

Question 2: What Does Your Organization Actually Do?

Not what you make. Not what you sell. What Job to be Done do customers hire you to do?

Nintendo’s answer has been consistent across 130 years of radical product change: help me have fun with friends and family. From playing cards to the Game Boy, Wii, and Switch, their products changed completely. The Job didn’t.

IBM has done the same. From punch card tabulators to consulting and AI, the Job of helping customers make sense of complex information to run better never change. Amex moved from freight forwarding to credit and debit cards, but it’s commitment to move value securely when direct exchange isn’t an option never wavered.

When you know the Job you do, you stop chasing trends and start making choices.

Question 3: How Do You Move Forward?

You can’t answer this question without answering the first two. When you try, you get caught in the same freeze/follow trap as everyone else.

But when you answer the first two questions, the answer to this one becomes clear. For Picasso and Branson, they create. For Gerstner, he optimized the status quo. For most businesses, the answer is “And, not Or.”  They must stabilize today’s business, step into (even follow) the next wave, and invest in creating the new.

Satya Nadella’s transformation of Microsoft is a perfect example. He defined himself as a learner, not a knower. He defined Microsoft’s job as helping people make a difference in their roles. From those two answers, every major move followed logically: maintain Office 365, step into cloud, create quantum computing technology.

None of it was reactive. All of it felt certain.

Your Moment Is Now

Yes, the world is uncertain. You don’t have to be.

Before you close this tab and tell yourself you’ll think about it later, answer the first two questions. You can change your answers later, but you need to start now.

The leaders who navigate this moment won’t be the ones who wait and see or follow the crowd. They’ll be the ones who know themselves and their organizations well enough to be certain.