How to Not Know: Simone Stolzoff

We have more information than any generation in history. And we're more anxious about the future than ever. So what's going wrong?

In this episode, Mina Seetharaman talks with Simone Stolzoff, journalist, author, TED speaker, and former IDEO Design Lead, about why certainty is so seductive, how our hunger for it quietly gets us into trouble, and what it actually looks like to build uncertainty tolerance as a skill.

Simone's new book, How to Not Know, draws on years of reporting to examine the three certainty traps that hold leaders back—comfort, hubris, and control—and offers practical tools for anyone navigating hard decisions, unclear direction, or rapid change. Together, Mina and Simone explore why the most resilient leaders are the ones willing to say "I don't know," how to make decisions when the path isn't clear, and a concept called ghost ships that reframes what it means to choose.

This is one of several conversations on uncertainty coming to the Creative Confidence Podcast this year. Subscribe to catch them all.

Related Resources:

How to Not Know, by Simone Stolzoff — https://simonestolzoff.com/how-to-not-know

Simone Stolzoff on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/simone-stolzoff-5a16b648/

Simone’s Harvard Business Review article: Leaders, It’s Time to Build Your Tolerance for Uncertainty — https://hbr.org/2026/01/leaders-its-time-to-build-your-tolerance-for-uncertainty

Read the blog recap — key ideas from this episode, plus five things to put into practice. ideou.com/blogs/inspiration

IDEO U All-Access Pass — unlimited access to IDEO U’s on-demand courses. https://www.ideou.com/products/human-ai-leadership-self-paced-course

Subscribe to the Creative Confidence Podcast — new episodes on creativity, leadership, and innovation every other week. ideou.com/pages/creative-confidence-podcast

In This Episode:

(Timestamps are approximate due to ad breaks)

(00:00) Welcome and introducing Simone Stolzoff

(03:21) From The Good Enough Job to How to Not Know — the thread between his two books

(05:48) Why uncertainty feels like a threat — the biology behind it

(09:37) Rowing through the fog — what Simone learned at IDEO

(12:17) Why certainty has a narrowing effect on creativity

(15:12) Commitment in spite of doubt — the Rollo May quote

(16:19) The Slack origin story — how Stuart Butterfield trusted his uncertainty

(18:20) Standing on a mountain peak — why you have to descend before you can go higher

(18:42) The three certainty traps: comfort, hubris, and control

(22:38) The AI prediction that aged poorly — Geoffrey Hinton and the radiologists

(25:05) More information, more anxiety — why our phones aren't helping

(30:17) The loss of friction — what we give up when we reach for our phones

(34:09) How to actually build uncertainty tolerance

(37:27) Microdosing the unknown — why small experiments rewire the brain

(42:13) Busting the algorithm — the explore-exploit tradeoff explained

(44:51) How to say "I don't know" without losing the room

(45:40) What Brian Chesky did when Airbnb's entire business shut down overnight

(49:11) Ghost ships and how to let go of the lives you didn't choose

(54:03) The difference between one-way and two-way door decisions

(56:32) What to do when you're in the middle of something genuinely hard

(57:17) Lightning round

(57:38) High Maintenance on HBO

(58:30) Brian Eno on originality

(59:02) Learning salsa dancing

(59:32) The skill of asking questions

(59:52) Leaving the Atlantic for IDEO — the mistake that wasn't

(01:00:38) Always eat the cookie

(01:01:40) Advice for a younger self

__________

Get episode recaps and register for free live podcast events at ideou.com/podcast.

Build your creative problem-solving skills with IDEO U's online courses in human-centered design, AI, leadership, and more at ideou.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(177)

How Constraints Make Us More Creative: David Epstein

We're told more is always better—more options, more resources, more freedom. But David Epstein spent years looking at the science, and what he found challenges that assumption. Constraints don't just ...

18 Kesä 56min

The Decisiveness Crisis in Senior Leadership Teams: Sam Conniff

Two thirds of leaders say they would rather be seen as decisive and get it wrong than appear uncertain and get it right. It may sound illogical, but it's actually the result of decades of organization...

4 Kesä 1h 1min

AI Tools for Researchers, Patterns vs. Insights, and When to Trust AI Output: Q&A with Angela Kochoska

Angela Kochoska, Design Researcher and Data Scientist at IDEO and co-instructor in IDEO U's new course, Human-Centered Research with AI, joins Mina to answer your questions on how to responsibly and e...

14 Touko 1h 10min

How to Use AI For More Human-Centered Research: Hannah Rosenfeld

AI is changing what it means to be a researcher. But most teams are only using it one way—to go faster. In this episode, Hannah Rosenfeld, Executive Design Researcher at IDEO, shares a framework for u...

29 Huhti 51min

6 Patterns for Building Organizational Agility: Clay Parker Jones

Most organizations don’t fail because their ideas are wrong. They fail because the systems underneath those ideas aren’t designed to support them. In this episode, Mina Seetharaman speaks with Clay Pa...

15 Huhti 1h 2min

How Great Teams Leverage Tension as a Source of Innovation: Daniel Coyle (Replay)

Tension on your team isn’t always a problem to solve. In fact, it’s often a signal you’re doing meaningful work. In this replay episode, bestselling author Daniel Coyle (The Culture Code) shares how t...

1 Huhti 42min

What Gets In the Way of Trust on Teams: Q&A with Ben Swire

There are many hidden barriers to building trust on teams, and sometimes we don’t see them until something breaks down.In this episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast, Mina Seetharaman sits down ag...

20 Maalis 44min