We have recently witnessed “chaos in the making” inside the board room all the way to staff lounges and hallways at OpenAI. The speed of the decisions, the number of players in the “decision-making” game, the impact rippled across platforms, and the outcomes of it – all within 72 hours.

In part 1, I provided three reasonable definitions of chaos and how I envision decisions are affected in such environment. Often I see a group comes together and start making choices and decisions that, on the surface, feels like what they need to achieve (precisely the decision made in the board room at OpenAI). They focused much on the outcome than the journey; with which the OpenAI employees decided that they are better off traveling together.

So here is my 2-part question to all the chaos managers out there:

Should we have a decision on how we make decisions, and start observing how that landscape has changed in the “decision-making” game?

Here are some observations on that landscape:

1. Large and bureaucratic companies have a tendency to abdicate responsibility because it is easier in a large company to be in self-preservation mode, rather than having a courage to say “Yup, I am accountable for this decision. If it’s a wrong one, I will own that.” I know you are thinking quietly “Hello, because it’s not safe for us to say that!”. This contributory factor powers down the psychological safety, which makes arriving at a decision takes forever.
2. Many companies jump to technology as an answer for all problems; an end-all and be-all solution. From the count of one hand: TEAMS internally; Slack externally; Asana with business partners; Trello with stakeholders; AI Assistant on browser, Grammarly on everything you type. Okay that’s 6! My point is technology is an enabler, to help me get there faster in little time. It is not always the best answer in a chaotic environment. One approach I use before looking to technology is to turn inwards and assess what is within my control, validate what is possible, then allow ownership of the choice lies where the ownership belongs.
3. Decision dynamic in small or large companies behaves the same way. I see the trend in involving more people in the decisions because we all understand that with diversity of thoughts and experience, we collectively make better decisions (note: better — not the best decision). Then that trend is met with a tipping point (remember part 1 on decision-paralysis?), when we have too many people, from too many different departments, across too many seniority layers, it makes it incredibly difficult to make A decision; or decisions don’t get made (admit it, you see this!). When no decision is made, then nothing happens, then the ability to even get something wrong is removed. That is the very definition of Abdicate Responsibility as described in #1.

For all the chaos managers out there, I share this with you in good faith that it will help you control or distill the chaos, big or small. I know we are saturated with frameworks (like the famous DAI – Decider, Accountable, Informed), but try this with me. Pick a framework that works for you and add the below:

• Comfort and Reward failure is what we need in tandem of any decision framework.
• Can’t have the philosophy around decision making absent the ability to be comfortable with failure.
• Not disincentivize people from being accountable. Be okay with the cause-effect consequence of the choice.

Now you have seen the landscape through my lens, and my added-approach on top of the decision framework, chaos communication strategy comes next. Stick around for the last part so I can share with you how we identify stakeholders to classify different chaos drivers, differentiate chaos from noise, and end the year 2023 with some outlook on chaos. You guessed it, chaos is a needed element in our lives; how we respond can make or break companies.

And welcome back, Sam Altman; travel-with is better than travel-without ?.