By Doug Garnett & JP Castlin, July 2025

In the May 23rd edition of JP Castlin’s Strategy in Praxis newsletter we suggested businesses often face a type of uncertainty JP named “dynamic uncertainty” — a unique uncertainty revealed when we understand the inherent complexity of doing business. Dynamic uncertainty, though, is missing from the canon of uncertainty classifications. In that article we noted:

…dynamic uncertainty keeps changing. Experiments lessen uncertainty in the moment (about the potential of the signal, feature, product, service, etc.), but add uncertainty over time as other agents (employees, customers, competitors, suppliers, etc.) adapt. Each ebb and flow relates back to the same underlying action as path dependencies emerge. Consequently, businesses do not merely react to dynamic uncertainty, but actively participate in its perpetuation. It is the force that they shape and the force that shapes them, akin to dynamic equilibria or an emergent pattern the stability of which shifts over time.

This post explores how it is that dynamic uncertainty is naturally present within all business efforts because all business success is emergent. That is, every company is immersed — always — within dynamic uncertainties because it is also immersed — always — within complexity and emergent results.

How Emergence “Works”

Traditional business training expects that businesses work in known, logical, and separable steps. Every business, though, is complex. And during those times when complex interactions dominate business behavior we cannot know how a business will work except by observing what emerges as parts interact. Further, this emergence involves the gestalt of complexity in that what emerges is more than and different from a sum of the parts.

Emergence, then, is inherently connected to uncertainty. This is also seen in an excellent description of emergence at work based on Simon Levin’s discussion in Fragile Dominions (our summary):

• At the micro-level, parts interact and adapt with each other and with their environment which also adapts.
• From those interactions, patterns emerge at the macro-level.
• Studying the parts cannot predict the patterns which will emerge.
• The emergent patterns are often similar to those in other complex adaptive systems.
• Despite similar patterns emerging in different businesses, the details leading to those patterns will always vary.
• We cannot reverse engineer the detailed actions of the parts from knowledge of the patterns which emerged.

An example of emergent reality is found in a forest ecosystem. All forests are complex adaptive systems. As they develop, reliable patterns emerge consisting of types of species — large trees, undergrowth, and more. Despite knowing the outline of a mature forest’s patterns, we cannot predict precisely which species will be in the forest. To illustrate, in the Northwestern US, most forests that survive above a certain elevation can be anticipated to have a strong presence of fir trees. However, some have barely any fir at all, but instead a core of larch. What species exist beyond the core cannot be known in advance; even though we may anticipate a great deal about the structure that will form in the forest, we cannot precisely predict its path or final form.

Intriguingly, Levin goes a step further than other ecologists and even challenges the common idea of predictable fixed “trophic” niches. We are, after all, often told there are fixed forest niches but that we can’t know which species will inhabit each niche. Our reading of Levin suggests the sets of species in the emergent forest might re-sort roles within forest ecology so that even the boundaries of trophic niches change.

A Marketing Emergence Including Uncertainty

Because emergence affects every business, a degree of dynamic uncertainty is always be present – and often a considerable amount. Fortunately, when we know about patterns which often emerge we become able to anticipate, though not predict in detail, the direction of what might emerge. Consider an emergent pattern known as the Marketing Law of Double Jeopardy:

…with few exceptions, the lower-market-share brands in a market have both far fewer buyers in a time period and also lower brand loyalty. (Wikipedia)

Stated differently, larger brands have both more low-value new customers and higher brand loyalty. This pattern emerges consistently across businesses and is so reliable that examples violating the pattern are extraordinarily rare. While the pattern is consistent, each brand’s details are different — both those parts which contribute as well as how they interact with each other and within the environment (including customers).

Knowing the strength of the Double Jeopardy pattern offers businesses important confidence as they take action. Yet, knowing the pattern does not enable a company to know, in advance, exactly how their work will lead to the pattern. Companies, then, must continually experiment adapting products and services, price strategies, packaging, sales channel approaches, and communication or promotion as they seek a balance of the four Ps leading to excellent demand. Further, each company’s Double Jeopardy exhibits different balance. Thus, each company must still determine the most productive focus in their work to encourage high value customers while bringing the new customers key to brand health.

Further Uncertainty:  Parts and Their Interactions Change Continually

We are fortunate that our knowledge of emergent patterns offers a sense of how dynamic uncertainty might affect our work. In this way, most often this uncertainty is somewhat bounded — not unlimited — as dynamic uncertainty does not usually bring uncertainty as extreme as when Covid19 forced businesses to operate remotely with far less than 30 days advance notice. A quite useful phrase we both like is suggested by Chris Mowles as “stable instability.” In his writing, Mowles suggests “..the stable instability of every day organizational life arises from the self-organizing activities of what everyone is doing together to get the work done.^[1]

Part of the stable instability of dynamic uncertainty is that all the parts of our business are not only continually interacting, but continually adapting through those interactions. And this is fortunate. Only adaptation within a business builds its longevity. In the near term, though, the dynamic instability from this adaptation might make managers quite uncomfortable.

Consider an executive who assembles a team focused on achieving great results. We are taught to describe team members as nouns meaning they are fixed and known quantities across time. Except they aren’t as each team begins to change and adapt as soon as they are formed —  and not always in ways helpful to their efforts. Thus, some team members leave while others are added while each member grows and changes as a result of their work and other interactions in their lives.

Teams, then, are in a continual process of dynamic uncertainty. Per the law of stretched systems, it is also common that the more successful a team, the more change they will bring about. The degree of this dynamic uncertainty is also generally bounded (likely to remain within limits) though its bound may be difficult to know as small adaptations within effective teams can sometimes feel quite intense.

Other Examples of Dynamic Uncertainty

While executives likely first think of uncertainty in “big things,” it starts in many of the daily actions within their companies. All activities within a business are immersed, to some degree, within dynamic uncertainty. Unfortunately, the desire to ensure absolute certainty leads companies to misunderstand what is inherently dynamic.

Consider cost overruns. Broadly, cost overruns are assumed to indicate mismanagement as most who do business have a deep seated discomfort with things “over budget.” If we accept, though, that all projects take place within an emergent environment where we cannot fully predict the future, cost overruns are no surprise. More critically, rather than indicate poor management their acknowledgement might (or might not) be a critical sign that the project is well managed.

Here the issue becomes nuanced. Sophisticated professionals build capabilities to anticipate costs better than those with less experience. At the same time, sophisticated professionals also know better what costs may matter most in the whole result of a project and have experience with the dynamic uncertainty present in project costs. Wisely directing project to achieve outstanding results, then, they know it is most critical to clearly identify the costs necessary for success. This is not at all to suggest, somehow, that costs “don’t matter.” They matter so much that one-dimensional principles like “stay within budget” must be avoided or failure is ensured.

Schedule slips or changes are quite similar. There are no omniscient managers who can fully predict what will be required for a project to deliver exceptional value to a company. Thus, project schedules live within continual dynamic uncertainty.

That the company works, always, amid a global dynamic uncertainty should be easy to deduce from these two starting points — especially once we add the uncertainty of markets, economies, governments, societies, customers, competitors, distribution channels, and much more.

The question to consider then, isn’t how to avoid or eliminate dynamic uncertainty, but how to thrive within — and sometimes because of — its constant present within our work. Denial is not an option.

So ends our first joint post here on the topic and will return to dynamic uncertainty in a future blog post. Until then, be well.

©2025 Doug Garnett, JP Castlin — All Rights Reserved

Through his company, Protonik LLC, Doug Garnett consults with companies as they design and bring to market new and innovative products. He is writing a book exploring the value of complexity science for driving business success. Protonik also produces marketing materials including documentaries, websites, and blogs. As an adjunct instructor at Portland State University I teach marketing, consumer behavior, and advertising.

You can read more about these services and Doug’s unusual background (math, aerospace, supercomputers, consumer goods & national TV ads) at www.Protonik.net. Roughly once a month, he teams with Shahin Khan to discuss current issues on The Marketing Podcast available on Google, Spotify, the OrionX website, and Apple Podcast. 

JP Castlin is a consultancy exec turned independent strategy and complexity management type. As seen on stage, on TV, in newspapers, in columns for @MarketingWeekEd etc. JP lives in Stockholm with more to be learned on his website (www.jpcastlin.com) or through his Strategy in Praxis newsletter (strategyinpraxis.substack.com). Doug highly recommends his newsletter subscription.

[1] Complexity, A Key Idea for Business and Society, Chris Mowles, Routledge, ©2021, page 21