When leaders wait for answers that don't exist

About fifteen years ago, through my work for Hyper Island, I began working intensively with digital transformation in companies around the world. It was a period when social media completely changed branding and marketing, when digital and mobile technologies changed the way companies developed products and services, and when the relationship with customers suddenly became something completely different than before.

I worked with companies in many industries and countries, and one thing was common almost everywhere: management teams were looking for experts who could tell them what to do. The problem was that those experts didn't exist.

No one knew exactly how to navigate the new reality. Technology was evolving faster than strategies could keep up, and what worked one year was obsolete the next. Yet many organizations continued to look for answers from outside—the next report, the next model, the next consultant. Someone had to know the way forward.

But the truth was—and still is—that no one can provide those answers.

The companies that succeeded best were not those that waited for the right solution. They were the ones that began to examine their own situation. What does this development mean for our customers? For our products? For the way we work? They began to experiment and learned things along the way that no expert could have provided in advance.

They accepted that the path had to be found as they walked it.

It's actually the same thing I'm seeing happen now with artificial intelligence. Many management teams are looking for clear answers: What does AI mean for us? What should we invest in? How quickly should we act? And again, there is a slight hope that someone from outside the company can provide a solution that can be relied upon.

But the situation is similar to that of the past. No one can provide a ready-made recipe that fits everyone. Each organization must find its own path—a path that suits its customers, its culture, and its ambitions. That work cannot be outsourced.

Often, the real work only begins once the management team accepts this. Once you realize that no one has all the answers and that the direction must be found together.

That moment can be frustrating. You had hoped for clarity, but instead you discover that the responsibility lies with you. But that is also when something begins to shift. The conversation changes character. Transparency grows. You discover that you are not alone with your questions. Curiosity returns, and the group begins to explore possibilities instead of waiting for answers.

It is not my job to provide the answers in these situations. My role is rather to create space for the conversations that groups otherwise do not have time for in their busy everyday lives. Conversations where they can examine the situation together and figure out what actually makes sense in their particular reality.

I see it happen time and time again: Organizations search long and hard for answers until they realize that they have to find them themselves. And once that realization sinks in, the real work begins. Not because it necessarily gets any easier, but because the direction is now something they themselves are helping to create.

And perhaps that is precisely the point. In a world that is changing faster than anyone can keep up with, the most important skill is not finding the right answer once and for all, but becoming better at finding the answers together along the way.