|
When leaders (yes, people like me) drop rapid-fire “must-do” ideas and expect everyone to scramble, we don’t get innovation. We get chaos. Multiply that by a few thousand employees and you’ve manufactured a system where big initiatives stall, priorities collide, and smart people start hedging their effort because nothing sticks long enough to matter. This isn’t a talent problem. It’s a leadership operating system problem. And the pattern is painfully consistent: Launch with fanfare Brief momentum Reality hits Attention drifts Quiet abandonment Rebrand and relaunch On a slide, it looks dynamic. On the ground, it destroys trust. People learn to wait out the next “big push.” They don’t resist change because change is hard; they resist because our changes don’t last. If you see widespread “resistance,” assume your system taught it. Signs You’re Running an Anarchy Factory Ask yourself, honestly: Are we relabeling old projects as “new strategy”? If your “transformation” is just a fresh deck and a new name, you’re not transforming, you’re recycling. Do meetings start with opinions, not criteria? When debates center on personalities, not principles, you’re arbitrating turf, not making decisions. Are dashboards lagging indicators of misalignment? If you discover trouble only when the metrics turn red, you’re flying by hope, not by instrument. Does urgency outrank coherence? If speed is celebrated while rework is normalized, you’ve confused motion with progress. Do high performers look quietly disengaged? They’ve done the math. They’re waiting for leadership to pick a lane and stay there. If this stings, good. It should. What Actually Stops Anarchy (and What Doesn’t) What doesn’t: Another rallying cry, another town hall, another “transformation office” that reports out glossy timelines. None of that changes daily behavior. What does: A simple shared framework that turns strategy into decisions people can make without you in the room. Not a poster, a governance tool. This requires three things on one page: A Guiding Principle: The strategic truth in plain English: This is how we win. It’s not a tagline; it’s the filter every idea passes through. Three Core Commitments: Promises we keep even when it’s inconvenient. They name the value we create and the outcomes we’re accountable for. They make “no” defensible and “yes” intentional. Nine Supporting Actions: Observable behaviors that any function (IT, finance, ops, product development, etc.) can translate into its own context. They’re specific enough to align behavior and flexible enough to avoid straitjackets. Clarity forces choices. Choices kill anarchy. How One Page Shuts Down Chaos It replaces noise with criteria. We stop debating whose idea is louder and start asking, Does it advance the principle? Does it serve our commitments? Can it be reflected our actions? It channels initiative instead of smothering it. People can act without waiting for permission, because the boundaries are visible. It makes drift visible early. Because actions are observable, misalignment shows up before a KPI turns red. We can coach now instead of spin later. Use It Like You Mean It Publish the one-pager. Teach it. Then embed it everywhere: product reviews, budget decisions, hiring, vendor selection – you name it. Not as wallpaper, but as a rule set. If a project doesn’t map to it, it doesn’t start. If an initiative doesn’t fit it, it ends. If a new idea doesn’t tie to it, it gets cut. That’s how you unwind anarchy: not with another initiative, but with a shared, enforced way of deciding. Organizational anarchy isn’t inevitable. It’s a leadership choice played out daily. Create you one page. Commit to it longer than your last campaign. Then use it to steer your teams —especially when it’s inconvenient. Your people will tell you when they finally believe you. And you’ll know, because the chaos will stop needing a rescue plan. |
|
About the Author Trained as a behavioral scientist and customer-centricity expert, Andrea Belk Olson helps companies operationalize corporate strategy through understanding mindsets and behaviors. She is the author of three business books, including her most recent, What To Ask: How To Learn What Customers Need but Don’t Tell You. She is a 4x ADDY award winner and contributing writer to Entrepreneur Magazine, Harvard Business Review, Rotman Magazine, World Economic Forum, and more. Andrea is also an entrepreneu |
Why Leaders Keep Lighting Fires They Can’t Control
