A perfect one-word to describe the year 2023: Chaos.

It is a perfectly opposite word that I had in mind when starting the year, which in business context, I can equate its meaning as: unexpected outcome to a planned strategy. Let’s take stock on the happenings around us: the multiple wars that weight on the world and its citizens; the ever-changing and evolving variants of the corona virus; the many waves of layoffs and downsizings across the industries; the disruption in supply chain and delivery of products; the continuous and well-expected climbing of interest rates, parallel with stubborn inflation rate. To name a handful and not too far in between.

The closing month affords me an opportunity to make sense of the chaos as it puts me out of my element on multiple occasions. I first define what chaos mean for me; then see that definition through visioning to help me make sense of its construct. Finally, I design questions that I will begin asking the “chaos managers” to help answer and infuse that exercise into 2024.

“The magic is in the mess” ~ Brene Brown

Defining Chaos

Nothing fancy like it is defined in Merriam-Webster; just unexpected outcome to a planned strategy. Working in finance, I see this so much and so often that it becomes a new normal. For example, how often have you heard of a new regulation change that has not been clearly defined? And because of the anticipation of that ill-defined change, we rally up resources, time, energy, technology to hopefully achieve a desirable outcome? Check with our IRS friends and they can color it vividly.

Then I also see that chaos is not created by a single individual person but a collective layers of personal and professional environment that lead to that chaotic nature. Another example, a large company that has 100+ locations, 1000+ employees, serving thousands of clients; that environment breeds chaos because no individual can control the outcome. When one needs to give up control and leans on influence, chaos looks and feels different. More on this later.

Thirdly, I see how chaos affect decision-making in number of ways. Do you remember the day when decision was made within a small group of people, 4 the most? versus what we have now, exceeding 11 humans in that game called “decision-making”? There we invite chaos: we have too many people, from too many different departments, across too many seniority layers, who have competing interests; so it is normal for company to suffer decision-paralysis. Yes, more on this in a bit.

Decision and Vision Maps

My response to the above image asking to test the font size: It’s important to recognize that not every problem needs to have a full company buy-in, depend on what you are solving for! I am sharing my freshly designed decision-map when looking in the eyes of chaos.

1. Scope it: the scope of what you’re solving for will define who needs to be engaged, and how. The broader the scope, the more folks need to be involved.
2. Role-play it: hey chaos managers, you are at the thin part of the hourglass! It is up to you to control the chaos up or down the chain. Get back to #1 if you’re unsure.
3. Distill it: (seriously, strip it down to the essence) distill the priorities, distill the chaos, then communicate to respective teams. Stop testing the font size!

In visioning exercise, my brain was spinning with the concern: how would others comprehend chaos if their vision is far removed from my own, or from the company we both work with? All teams that have priorities for all the right reasons is well aware that, the reality is all of these disparate initiatives that are coming from the top, when it manifests itself in the field, it creates complete and utter chaos. For example: healthcare employees in the field do not know whether to prioritize care, speed, accuracy, and many initiatives that land at their site, which are often conflicting with one another. How does one govern or control that if they are trying to be everything, everywhere, all at once? Here is my hack (offered to you openly and freely): recognize that there’s room for improvement; reduce that cognitive load; simplify what success looks like. You can then look chaos in the eye and say: Make Me.

For part 2 of my “chaotic series”, I will share some data points, observations, frameworks to help us all make sense of chaos, and to position ourselves for the future of managing chaos. Until then, will you let me know how you handle chaos?