Think about what has happened in the world in the past few years. Could you have predicted COVID with health and social implications, technology and AI innovations, political elections worldwide, geopolitical tensions and conflicts, environmental and climate upheavals (fires, floods), and (fill in the blank)? Likely, your personal and professional lives have also faced dramatic upheaval.
Change and responding to change is not new. Many have seen the VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) model that names the pace and challenges of change. We want to evolve this logic to suggest that in a world of chaos, discovering clarity becomes critical (figure 1).
Figure 1
Recognizing Chaos
Chaos describes an unstructured world with so many things going on that we (HR professionals, business leaders, and people in general) get overwhelmed, often losing confidence in our ability to think, act, and feel.
Chaos describes when a convenient script of thinking is broken because of an increasing number of conflicting variables. Instead of ABC, we have MFZT. We try to put legacy mental models on new challenges. We used to go out to shop and stay home to dine. Now, we shop from home and go out to dine (Americans spent more money eating out [$1.5 trillion] than eating at home [$1.1 trillion]). Scripted mental models put a glass ceiling on our growth, restricting us from success. In Oleg and Dave’s personal writing world, the legacy way to communicate ideas was through books; now ideas are more widely shared through social media (e.g., this LinkedIn post), podcasts, webinars, chats, and tweets.
Chaos describes how when yesterday’s actions will not solve today’s and tomorrow’s challenges. We get locked into the past—we assume the past solution will work for the present problem. For example, in the past when an individual had a customer problem, the preferred script was to get on a plane and visit the customer. But today when someone has a customer problem, they get on a video call and don’t wait for the two days to travel.
Chaos describes learning about real-time global conflicts, political divisive rhetoric, and global traumas (fires, floods, carnage)—bringing previously distant events into our homes and daily lives—that then create feelings of hopelessness as we see but cannot impact these events.
While the world around us is in chaos, that is not the major issue. The big issue arises when we experience metal chaos. No one can blaze a clear path through chaos if his or her mind is chaotic. Often, we are multipliers of chaos ourselves. We are the creators of the most uncertainties, fears, and doubts.
Letting chaos pervade our thoughts, actions, and feelings limits our world and opportunities to improve it.
Discovering Clarity
If chaos is the norm then clarity is an achievement. Our empirical research with over 400 organizations and our decades of consulting experience find that “strategic clarity” has the most positive impact (out of many organization capabilities) on stakeholder value and business results.
Clarity is an ability to create structure in an unstructured chaotic world by finding stability in volatility, certainty in uncertainty, simplicity in complexity, and order in ambiguity.
Clarity enables us to discover what can we can achieve and expand our world by envisioning opportunity.
Clarity allows us to offer the highest return on investment by creating tomorrow and folding the future into the present.
Clarity enables us to see the world clearly and realistically, recognizing that it is filled with paradoxes that can be navigated and choices that can be made.
Clarity gives us the ability to rise and stay above events and circumstances.
Clarity of where to go and confidence in inevitable success brings calmness and effectiveness in achieving goals.
Clarity allows a leader to think beyond chaos and come up with innovative solutions that become the currency of success. Iconic leaders like Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Christine Lagarde, Jack Ma, Wangari Maathai, Angela Merkel, Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, Indra Nooyi, Jeff Weiner, Jeffrey Yang, Mark Zuckerberg, and many others created new insights by their ability to see a mess and find the structure. They faced a deeply complex set of facts and opinions and synthesized them with clarity to create something from a whole lot of nothing.
Clarity is not limited to iconic leaders; everyday leadership can access it. Let us suggest seven actions every leader can take to find clarity in chaos.
These actions are rooted in resources available to any leader but are unique to every organization in the same way different combinations of people are unique. They cannot be precisely transferred or copied. Every leader and organization have its own composition of these resources that can be used to create clarity and overcome chaos.
1. Ask personal reflective questions. Run into chaos to get to the other side of it with clarity. Learn what you want by reflecting on these personal questions:
· What disrupts my thinking and peace?
· What can I learn from chaos?
· Do I know what to do and act accordingly—even making small steps?
· Can I explain clearly what I think at this moment right now?
· How consistent am I in repeating and honing my skills and competencies?
· Do I allow myself to pause?
· What will I do to become the best version of myself?
2. Build teamwork. Teamwork is selflessness for the sake of creating something great in cooperation with others. Effective teamwork is built on strong internal ties, mutual support, and shared knowledge. Strong internal relations, not internal competition, make a strong team.
3. Set and share a vision. Shared vision exists when a group of people is consciously working toward achieving the same goal. No force is stronger than people united by a common goal, making decisions together and acting as one. Instilling a shared vision comes before making a profit and is critical for the success of any organization.
4. Ensure positive accountability. Accountability requires transparency and integrity. These build respect in employees and external stakeholders. Accountability helps to eliminate hidden problems quickly and take appropriate actions to correct them, avoiding the negative consequences of those problems going undetected.
5. Enable professionalism. Professionalism happens when productivity and innovation are maintained over time. Professionalism is nurtured within a company and assumes productivity, consistency, the ability to act in different conditions with the same level of excellence and attention to detail. Professionalism is accompanied by confidence, which is essential for success.
6. Become innovative. If an organization lacks innovation, it becomes boring and faceless and will soon lose its relevance to the market. Thus, any company claiming to be progressive must enthusiastically nurture a culture of creativity and innovation.
7. Rely on trust. Trust is a lubricant for all external and internal processes. It covers all unwritten and unsaid aspects of human interaction and stimulates willingness to collaborate. Trust helps control and direct the various energy streams of different kinds of people. It allows people to work with confidence in themselves and those around them.
Rather than lamenting and being a hostage to chaos, leaders who master clarity can discover opportunities that lead to their personal progress and organization success.
We have touched on finding clarity in chaos. This will be the focus of Oleg’s next book, and we hope you can share ideas about clarity in the comments that might be helpful to others.
About the authors
Dr. Oleg Konovalov
Author, Coach, Consultant, Premier Expert on Vision and Visionary Leadership
Dr. Oleg Konovalov is a global thought leader, author, business educator, consultant, and C-suite coach.
Oleg is named among the top eight global experts in leadership and shortlisted for the Distinguished Award in Leadership by Thinkers50 2021. He is on Global Gurus Top 30 in Leadership, is the #1 Global Leading Coach (Marshall Goldsmith Thinkers50 Award), and has been named one of the Global 100 Inspirational Leaders 2022, along with Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Oprah Winfrey.
Having been named ‘the da Vinci of Visionary Leadership’ by many leading authorities of our time, Oleg is considered #1 in the world in the field of vision and visionary leadership.
Oleg received his doctoral degree from the Durham University Business School. He is a visiting lecturer at a number of business schools, a contributor to top business media, and a keynote speaker at major conferences around the world.
Dave Ulrich
Rensis Likert Professor of Business, University of Michigan (Retired). Partner, RBL Group
Dave Ulrich is the Rensis Likert Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan and a partner at the RBL Group, a consulting firm focused on helping organizations and leaders deliver value. He has published over 200 articles and book chapters and over 30 books. He edited Human Resource Management 1990-1999, served on editorial board of 4 Journal and on the Board of Directors for Herman Miller (16 years), has spoken to large audiences in 90 countries; performed workshops for over half of the Fortune 200; coached successful business leaders, and is a Distinguished Fellow in the National Academy of Human Resources. He is known for continually learning, turning complex ideas into simple solutions, and creating real value to those he works with in three fields.