Vaughn Tan

I’m a consultant, author, and professor. I specialize in designing products and organizations that are resilient to and benefit from uncertainty.

I advise businesses and non-profits as a consultant and board member, working at the intersection of innovation management, product strategy, and organizational design. My focus is always on redesigning systems to be more innovative and resilient to uncertainty in the operating environment. Find out more about my consulting work here.

My first book, The Uncertainty Mindset (2020), is about how uncertainty can be used to drive innovation and adaptability. It’s available worldwide from Columbia University Press, and you can get a copy here.

I make a training tool for productive discomfort called idk which is based on the research in The Uncertainty Mindset. You can get idk here.

Since 2013, I’ve been an assistant professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at University College London’s School of Management. Learn more about my research and teaching here. I’m on leave from UCL in 2022 to work on solving some major problems in collective action.

Research

My research explores how open-ended structures and processes generate adaptability and innovation, at a range of scales of organisation and especially in the context of uncertainty and ambiguity.

Research areas:

• Innovation, organization design, r&d, adaptability, uncertainty, group processes

Education

• PhD Harvard University (2008 — 2013)
• A.M. Harvard University (2008 — 2012)
• A.B. Harvard University (2001 — 2005)