Sometimes the most profound business wisdom comes from the most unexpected places.
Back in April, rushing through Helsinki's Vantaa Airport before my keynote at Reaktor's Bloom Conference, I stumbled upon a small card that would completely reframe my thinking about leadership, uncertainty, and what it means to navigate our increasingly volatile world.
The card featured a simple quote from Tove Jansson—the Finnish author and artist who created the beloved Moomin trolls, those Nordic fairy tale creatures who've been capturing hearts globally for over 80 years.
"All things are so very uncertain and that's exactly what makes me feel reassured."
I stood there in the airport, reading this zen-like statement over and over. And suddenly, everything I was about to tell 400 tech leaders about managing uncertainty felt completely backwards.
Here's what struck me about children's literature and adult leadership: The Moomin stories—featuring lovable troll-like creatures navigating life's adventures in Finland's Moominvalley—don't lie to children about scary things. Tove Jansson acknowledged fear, uncertainty, and the unknown, then showed how to navigate them with grace and even joy.
Yet as adults, we've built entire industries around the illusion of control. We spend fortunes on data analytics, scenario planning, risk frameworks, and forecasting models—all designed to eliminate uncertainty rather than dance with it.
What if we've been approaching this completely backwards?
Standing on that stage in Helsinki, sharing this simple quote with room full of brilliant leaders, I watched something fascinating happen. The room went quiet. Not the uncomfortable quiet of confusion, but the profound quiet of recognition.
Because every leader in that room knew the truth: despite all our tools, all our data, all our sophisticated planning systems, we're more surprised by outcomes than ever before.
Consider the leadership paradox we're all living:
The COVID-19 pandemic. The rapid emergence of generative AI. Supply chain disruptions. Geopolitical shifts. Climate impacts. Every major business event of the past five years has been, fundamentally, a surprise to most leaders.
Maybe the problem isn't that we're bad at prediction. Maybe the problem is that we're trying to predict the unpredictable.
What Tove Jansson understood—and what great children's authors have always known—is that uncertainty isn't a bug in the system of life. It's a feature.
The best children's books don't promise that scary things won't happen. They don't pretend the world is controllable or entirely safe. Instead, they teach something far more valuable: how to remain curious, kind, and courageous in the face of the unknown.
Think about the stories that shaped you as a child. Whether it was Moomin adventures, Dr. Seuss's unexpected journeys, or Maurice Sendak's "Wild Things", they all shared a common thread:
When did we forget this wisdom?
There's something particularly powerful about Nordic approaches to uncertainty. Finland consistently ranks among the world's happiest countries, despite (or perhaps because of) their intimate relationship with harsh, unpredictable winters, geopolitical complexity, and economic volatility.
Finnish culture has a concept called "sisu"—a kind of stoic determination combined with acceptance of what cannot be controlled.
It's not resignation; it's a practical philosophy that says: "We can't control what happens to us, but we can control how we respond."
Tove Jansson's quote embodies this perfectly: "All things are so very uncertain and that's exactly what makes me feel reassured."
The reassurance doesn't come from knowing what will happen. It comes from accepting uncertainty as the natural state of existence and finding freedom within that acceptance.
Standing there in Helsinki, I had a wild thought: What if a Finnish brand created a meditation app based entirely on Moomin philosophy?
Imagine starting each leadership day with gentle reminders that uncertainty is normal, that small moments matter more than grand strategies, that you can take a journey alone while still being supported by community.
But beyond the delightful product idea, there's a serious strategic insight here: In our VUCA world, the ability to remain graceful under uncertainty is becoming the ultimate competitive advantage.
The leaders who thrive aren't those who predict the future most accurately. They're those who:
Instead of asking the traditional leadership questions:
What if we asked Moomin-inspired questions:
This isn't about being reckless or abandoning planning. It's about changing our relationship with unpredictability from resistance to partnership.
Here's what I've learned from both Moomin wisdom and two decades of working with leaders navigating unprecedented change:
Start with acceptance. Acknowledge that your five-year plan is really a five-year hypothesis. Your strategic framework is a learning tool, not a prediction machine.
Build for adaptability. Create systems, teams, and cultures that can pivot quickly when assumptions prove incorrect—which they inevitably will.
Celebrate learning over accuracy. Reward teams for generating insights from surprises rather than punishing them for not predicting the unpredictable.
Practice small-scale uncertainty. Build your organization's comfort with ambiguity through low-stakes experiments and rapid iteration cycles.
Remember the long view. Moomins have adventures, face challenges, and always find their way through. The specific path matters less than the willingness to keep moving forward.
This brings me to a personal challenge for you: What's your relationship with uncertainty right now?
Does it energize you or exhaust you? Do you find yourself fighting unpredictability or learning to dance with it? What childhood wisdom about navigating scary-but-interesting situations have you forgotten in your adult leadership?
More importantly: What would change if you genuinely found uncertainty reassuring rather than threatening?
Because here's what that small airport card taught me: The most profound leadership insights often come from the places we least expect them. Sometimes a Finnish fairy tale about troll-like creatures contains more practical wisdom about navigating complexity than the most sophisticated business framework
Great children's literature teaches us that scary things can be acknowledged without being conquered. Maybe it's time we brought some of that wisdom back into our boardrooms.
What's uncertain on my radar:
Your turn: What childhood story or character taught you something about handling uncertainty that you could apply to your leadership today? Hit reply and share—I'm genuinely curious about the unexpected sources of wisdom that guide us.
Decoding Tomorrow explores the signals shaping our future. Each week, we separate lasting trends from temporary hype, helping you navigate change with clarity and confidence.
Sometimes the most important business lessons come wrapped in the simplest stories.
Anders Sörman-Nilsson
Futurist | Keynote Speaker | Brand Strategist
PS. I work with leaders to decode the future, present trend reports and scenario plan for both dystopias and utopias. This year we have been working with the Executive Leadership Team and Board of the Brisbane Broncos to decode and build narratives for 2032. Let me know if you'd like to also dance with uncertainty by designing new stories for your brand's future.
PPS. Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube Channel where we publish Weekly Videos on how to Purposefully Profit from the Future.