6

Confront, Challenge, and Conquer Chaos

In everyday language “chaos” implies the existence of unpredictable or random behavior. The word usually carries a negative connotation involving undesirable disorganization or confusion. However, in the scientific realm this unpredictable behavior is not necessarily undesirable.¹ Yet even if some workday chaos is desirable, it has to be confronted/challenged to be able to learn and eventually benefit from it. This chapter's focus is on strategies and tools to help manage unnecessary work chaos that has now sneakily become just “routine,” expected, and overlooked.

I think that to conquer chaos, we want to first talk about confronting and challenging chaos in order to conquer some of it. To confront means to face, address, and call out rather than ignore, accept, or try to escape. Confronting chaos fits with our central theme of leading ourselves to make the most of our workdays. Once we have confronted it, we can consider other choices and actions: use chaos, learn from chaos, or then reject chaos with different approaches and behaviors. So our starting point needs to be facing chaos, acknowledging it, naming it chaos, and honestly evaluating the results from working continually in a chaotic way.

This is another chapter with which I have some personal and professional history. I learned about chaos theory in graduate school, and I started teaching a course about managing chaos for the American Management Association in the mid-2000s. I began to be part of chaos firsthand when I worked in telecommunications; traveled every week for work to different parts of the United States; worked in the energy industry; and worked in my own business, which has included individuals, teams, and leaders from several federal government agencies along with a wide variety of other organizations. Many people with whom I worked were searching for answers beyond time management courses.

As mentioned, chaos has expanded and is often accepted, expected, and worked around. But work-arounds impact our ability to make the most of our workdays and affect organization growth and success. So why hasn't chaos been confronted and challenged more at the organization, leader, and individual levels? I think the answer can be found by looking at the organization, leadership, and individual levels separately. At the organizational levels, we have to factor in the quantity and complexity of the large changes that impact the external and internal worlds of organizations. Organizations and leaders are grappling with balancing many seemingly opposing concepts: growth versus stability, standardization versus flexibility/innovation, risk versus opportunity, being the employer of choice work versus cuts to compensation and benefits, just to name a very few sources of challenge.

Leaders are part of the organization's struggles and dilemmas and in the position of inspiring and challenging people while managing the fallout from the chaos generated by external sources or top leadership. There is a quote about leadership from a church sign that a manager brought to leadership training. I am paraphrasing the quote here but it was about leaders needing to “rock the boat” without capsizing it! Leaders are managing chaos at multiple levels, which include themselves.

On the individual level, I think that some of the answer is in the fact that change is so hard and that the status quo has a very strong hold on us. Think about it: You know your current chaos and to confront it and propose different approaches will mean behavior changes and more uncertainty with those changes. There is some chaos at work that we cannot conquer, but confronting chaos starting with our circle of control is a step toward minimizing, learning from, and even eliminating and conquering some chaos.

Impact and Results of Chaos

On the organization level, unmanaged chaos can lead to great loss: losing reputation, people, customers, revenue, lawsuits, investments, budget, and stock price. On the leader and individual levels, chaos has a negative effect on workday productivity, satisfaction, and engagement. You can see this reflected in some the low engagement scores, attrition rates, error rates, missed deadlines, and health problems.

One of the worst results of chaos is the uncertainty and the “out of control” feeling that it brings, which is a basic threat to people. David Rock, who wrote Your Brain at Work, includes information about the basic threat that uncertainty presents: “Uncertainty is like an inability to create a complete map of a situation, and with parts missing, you're not as comfortable as when the map is complete.”²

Living with workday uncertainty is not a healthy state for us physically, mentally, or emotionally. The following questions are just a sample of what the workdays present, which chaos can increase and heighten in tension:

• Will I have enough time to do the job well with these moved-up deadlines?
• Will my coworker meet my deadline now that he has a new project?
• Will the team accept me as the lead?
• Will the new leader give me some control over the strategic plan?
• Will I get out of here on time to pick up the kids?

These questions are just a sample of the challenges to our feeling somewhat in control at work and are related to the common workday needs in Chapter 1:

• Wanting to have some control over their work and the workday.
• Needing clear and achievable work expectations.
• Having good work relationships with coworkers and colleagues.
• Having some downtime to refocus, reenergize, and renew.
• Feeling connected and not being alone with problems.
• Being somewhere between boredom and unhealthy stress at work.
• Being treated fairly and contributing honest results to their organization.

Workday chaos at the organization, leader, and individual levels is a threat to everything above with potential ripple effects both within and beyond the organization.

A Word About Good Chaos

It's important to acknowledge that some chaos is good. Stop and think about any good chaos in your life or at work. For me, I think of the unexpected opportunities at work that have come along, the people who popped up in my life and taught me something new by issuing me a challenge, or seeing some new role or path I wanted. Other things included a memorable role model and leader who pushed me out of my comfort zone; writing a book; a culture transformation project with tight implementation resources; and going back to school, seeking a job change, or moving to another state.

I have to remind myself that these happy changes and growth opportunities came with a cost—some chaos, uncertainty, discomfort, and loss of feeling that I was in control. That's helpful to remember since there may be some good things hidden in our work chaos: new skill growth, leadership opportunity, and creative thinking to name a few.

“Before” Profile for Josh and Lucas

The scenarios all contain elements of unproductive chaos: change, confusion about leaders, priorities, and misuse of time and people. Let's look at Scenario 3 in more depth since it gives us a look at leadership chaos and the impact on team members.

Josh, a leader of twenty people, was overstretched by the normal workload and still volunteered his team for anything that came up from his boss. There is a new person, Lucas, who was in over his head leading the wrong project. Josh was disorganized and trying all kinds of things for help and rejecting them all. What a mess.

Manage Yourself

• Josh doesn't see how he is a source of some chaos for his team and himself.
• Josh doesn't see Lucas's enthusiasm fading and being replaced by disengagement.
• Lucas is moving from enthusiastic to worry to disengagement.
• Josh thinks everyone on his team should be like him.
• Josh's mindset: Just plough through.
• Lucas's mindset: I should be able to do this.

Focus on Priorities

• Josh jumps around from task to task, losing focus.
• Josh does not coach or develop his team.
• Josh has dropped team meetings.

Value Time and Energy

• Josh overcommits his team.
• Josh spends most of his time reacting.
• Josh doesn't make time to listen to or coach Lucas.
• Lucas and Josh are spending too much time at work.

Communicate Effectively

• Josh is intimidated by some team members.
• Josh is not trying to influence his boss, and his team is now overloaded.
• Josh doesn't really listen.
• Lucas is now afraid to speak up.

Confront, Challenge, and Conquer Chaos

• Josh thinks the chaos is from incompetent staff and being understaffed.
• Lucas and team focused on day-to-day survival or planning to leave.

It's Not Me, It's You

A common cry about chaos is “It's not me, it's you” (the boss, coworker, customer, organization); however, the reality is that we probably all have contributed to the chaos and that some chaos is a natural part of changes big and small. In Chapter 4 we talked about a type of day called “I bring the chaos.”

Sometimes someone in one of my workshops will say in frustration, “I was sent here by my boss who really needs to be here.” That's not a surprise since managers and leaders are individuals facing workday challenges just like everyone else. In addition, they create a team culture that reduces chaos or increases chaos. We have seen several times in this book that interpersonal skills and priorities are often the work that is dropped because these are not recognized as immediately important. However, taking this approach will usually lead to greater problems that catch up with organizations and leaders. Remember the “top priority but not urgent” quadrant in the priority matrix?

Consider how we can unintentionally create some chaos and check off your own experiences for the following “Have you ever” items:

• Finished some tedious work, needed a break, and popped in to “visit” someone? That's good, right? Relationships are important and necessary. Absolutely, if the timing was right for the person you decided to visit. (A note about generation differences: A person in a class was complaining about the younger generation at work who spend time on social media. A younger coworker laughed noting that the pop-in visitors were not that different from people interrupting each other via text.)
• Called out to someone in a cubicle environment? (I have to plead guilty to this one.)
• Spent too much time on a task/project because of your own perfectionism and caused a delay for someone else?
• Put off starting work on a task/project as part of your procrastination with this particular thing and caused rush problems for someone else?
• Didn't speak up and accepted something that impacted your other deadlines and people?
• Didn't ask questions to clarify and then had to spend time redoing work?
• Didn't take the time to communicate clearly, which caused more emails or visits from people who don't understand what you said or need?
• Held on to work that you should have given or trained someone else to do?

You see the chain of impact that can result from any of these common actions. Sometimes we cause chaos for others without thinking. Sometimes we cause chaos for ourselves by not looking ahead to prevent or reduce some chaos. But if you did check off one or more items, multiply that by the “others” and you can see why there is so much chaos at the institutional, unit, leader, and individual levels.

Now, let's take it chapter by chapter to make sure we identify the causes of chaos.

Chapter 2

This chapter was all about you, but most of us are not working alone and impact other people and their workdays. Trying to get our needs met, it's easy to negatively impact others, which in turn impacts the work. Here are some additions to the “Have you ever” list:

• Not known when you should not send an email or make a call?
• Not managed your mindset or emotions?
• Not remained calm, breathed deep, and stepped back when needed?

Chapter 3

This chapter was about understanding and committing to priorities—long-term, proactive ones along with the short-term, in-your-face ones. A huge source of chaos that I see and struggle with personally is to give time and top energy to Box 2 in the priority matrix tool. I see that tendency also at the organization and leader levels. Ironically, not prioritizing things like developing and coaching, planning, cross-training, process improvement on the how we work together level, and/or innovating leads to more urgent crisis situations.

Not anticipating new priorities, resources, and/or delays can cause some chaos that should and could have been predicted and prepared for.

Chapter 4

This chapter was about valuing time and energy, and setting aside times to reenergize and times to bring our best focus. That's great, but the people around us also have best and down times, so awareness of this also matters; closed doors, weekends, or vacations don't stop some people from barging in physically or virtually. This chapter also included:

• Not building in time to unwind.
• Not managing distractions.
• Setting meetings without clear purpose and value.
• Not setting meetings that are needed.

Chapter 5

This chapter focused on effective communication and on managing conflict as a necessity. This has to include not only effective verbal communication but also written communication. This includes communication not only to your manager but also to your coworkers and everyone else.

• Not sharing information with everyone about work on teams and between teams, departments, and so on leads to confusion, redundancy, and interpersonal and process conflict.
• Failing to speak up, strategically push back and escalate when needed.
• Sending hurried emails that are confusing or sarcastic.
• Spitting out emails without thinking to whom they should really go.
• Not delegating effectively with clear communication, conversation, process, and follow-up.

Strategies and Tools

1. Head Off Chaos

Application Tool: Anticipating and Preparing

I don't think we could or even want to prepare for all the unexpected things, but let's be honest: There are some patterns to the chaos that we could get a jump on. What I am talking about are the things that repeat and cause confusion and distress, yet we just continue to go along in the same way.

So it is a great strategy to anticipate and prepare for the unexpected when we are able to. Here are some patterns and trends to start you off:

• People at work get sick; families get sick.
• Things take longer to complete than we often realize or communicate.
• Some people are not known for their clear communication or expectations.
• Walk-in interruptions or welcome (or unwelcome) distractions happen at certain times with certain people.
• New major initiatives can come at the drop of a hat.
• Customers may be crabbier on the return line, the help line, or the “we close soon” line.

If you take some time, you can add to this list based on your workdays and life. If some planning has gone by the wayside in these chaotic workplaces and workdays, you can imagine how this chapter's concept will really be under fire. We don't have time! Being proactive means thinking about the trends and then doing something about them.

Thinking about work, I tried to think about when I could have or did plan for the unexpected.

• Knowing beforehand that in certain meetings I had to control my feelings because of past confrontations and reactions.
• Cross-training people to do what I did in case I was not around.
• Encouraging others to cross-train and line up people as back up.
• Anticipating extra review time for a very detail-oriented manager.
• Learning something new in case I had to step in.
• Paying attention to my/team's Box 2.
• Predicting problems and having a Plan B.
• Realistic promising in order to deliver or over deliver.
• Building in time cushions where I could for unexpected delays.
• Managing expectations (my own, my team's, my customers', or my manager's).

2. Watch Your Initial Reaction When Chaos Comes

Application Tool: Basic Chaos Model

1. Stop.
2. Stay cool and calm under pressure; manage emotions.
3. Think before reacting.

Often in chaotic situations, we spring into a reaction, and sometimes that action can cause even more chaos. I understand that there isn't a lot of time to stop and think, but even a very brief pause before reacting can be very beneficial. However, we have to stop and stay calm in order to think. “Your ability to regulate your emotions instead of being at the mercy of them is central to being effective in a chaotic world.”³

In Chapter 3, remaining calm was discussed as a necessity when priorities change and compete. Here it is again as critical to confronting any type of chaos. Has this type of chaos ever happened to you? You are blindsided by someone forgetting to tell you about a big change that directly impacts an internal or external customer presentation the next day. As a result, you have to scramble that night, change your plan, and study new content so that you can be well prepared for your customers. If you had any plans to do other work or to do something personal, that plan is out. You have some choices in your initial reactions: get upset and angry; recognize that your understandable initial reaction needs to be managed first by breathing, then by thinking; figure out how to best manage the situation for the customers; and consider any possible resources. You followed the basic model above, however, there are more options to consider if you want to confront and conquer this type of chaos. There is communication to find out what happened to cause this error or oversight (not in a blaming way but in a positive problem-solving way) and the impacts on everyone involved. To go even further, problemor chaos-solving can include a session to figure out how to prevent future chaos like this. Now I see that positive warrior approach in action rather than not following up.

3. Think Before Reacting—Respond With Resources and Skills

Application Tool: Skills

• Stay in the “calm” zone and with a positive mindset.
• Brainstorm and collaborate ideas and options—visual tools are fast and effective.
• Innovate and create new options or ways of doing things.
• Communicate strategically your/your team's ideas and options.
• Negotiate.
• Manage expectations.
• Reframe and find some benefits in the situation.
• Adapt and be resilient.

There are several tools from quality and process improvement, problem-solving, and even creativity workshops that can be fast and effective ways to brainstorm, analyze, and come up with options for managing chaos. The American Management Association courses contain many of these tools; you can also use the Mind Tools website (www.mindtools.com) to find a collection of these tools. You may find that you are using them in other areas in your organization.

You will need the strategic communication skills and tools discussed in Chapter 5. Let's see this in action. What if your boss is the source of some major chaos? Instead of ignoring and suffering, as Josh's team does in Scenario 3, you have some other choices and strategies.

• Our supervisors and managers can bring chaos, that is, trickle-down chaos.
• Ineffective meetings, poorly run, too long, do not meet purpose.
• Not using team meetings for problem-solving or collaboration.
• Not managing performance consistently and fairly.
• Too busy to give feedback.
• Passing on emails without clarifying action and response.
• Unclear communication.
• Dumping instead of effective delegation.
• Micromanaging, adding to the workloads.
• Leaders who don't have strategic communication skills with their peers and leaders.
• Someone has to try and stop some chaos; if you are reading this book, that's you.

Have a strategic conversation around making things better and problem-solving, not the blame game of pointing your finger at them, which will push most of us into defensiveness and also possibly put us at risk with our manager.

• Share tools from a class, article, or book.
• Bring suggestions and ideas, not just problems and complaints.
• Volunteer first to try an idea or tool at the next meeting.

Here are some samples of strategic language, both what to say and what not to say.

What to Say

• I'm interested in what you need from me/us with these new reports.
• I have an idea how we could work together more effectively.
• Yes, I/we can add that project and need your help with reprioritizing my other work.
• I need some clarity about this assignment and have organized my questions; when do you have time to talk (persistence will be needed)?
• I have some suggestions for the team meetings and volunteer to set up team brainstorming at our next meeting. We'll need about thirty minutes.
• I'd like to set a time for some feedback about my work, which will help me in moving forward correctly.

What Not to Say

• What I'd really like to say is... ! (You can fill this in yourself!)

Here are some ideas for a general team “chaos prevention” meeting including virtual meetings:

• Come up with a way for people to connect as people even if only briefly (fun, telling a joke, music, and so on).
• Share positive news, feedback, and recognition.
• Review the team matrix.
• Establish a team “surveillance” and discuss news/things on the horizon that will impact the team.
• Make collaboration requests or specific plans, not vague plans.
• Making sure not to get lost in detail that is not pertinent to all.
• People should leave feeling and thinking that they were engaged in this team meeting and that the meeting was worth their time.

All of these need to be accompanied by a professional, positive tone of voice and confident body language along with the words. Don't forget about the importance of timing and that your own leader has a perspective and challenges that you are not always aware of.

Stuff Happens

I was on a team of about eight people. We had solo and also joint projects that involved scheduling large but limited meeting rooms, scarce dates, and invitations to internal and external customers. This was pretty complicated with lots of moving parts and a very important part of the projects. When this part was done, everyone on the project team sighed in relief. Usually these were commitments for the year's calendar.

For some reason, one of the project leaders had to change a date (probably an external pressure) and wanted the large conference room my project team had already reserved. The pressure was on to give up the room for the other project and for us to find another room (not so easy for us).

The first reactions on both teams were: “Well, you will have to change your dates or room; my project is the high priority.” The scene reminded me of a standoff in a Western movie between the good and bad guys, except that we were both the good guys. Here we go again; remember Chapter 3. We were set in the silo cement until we actually drew out on a whiteboard an “Ours” matrix for the team. Both projects were top priorities, but my peer's project had the “urgent” criteria since it was scheduled to happen sooner.

However, brainstorming showed that their one-day event contrasted our three-day event and that the cost of relocating us to a hotel was too high. In the end, my peer had to book a hotel.

Some changes bring normal chaos; we had to move to objective problem-solving as soon as we could get beyond “That's too bad, we got there first.”

You cannot shortchange communication even in chaotic times. Sometimes there may be things that go beyond this book's focus on good workdays and the need to communicate and escalate could be mandatory.

• If inappropriate behaviors are exhibited by anyone, you may need help from human resources, leaders, or ethics hot lines.
• Witnessing or participating in harmful gossip.
• Mistreating or witnessing mistreatment.

The Connection of Saying No, Distractions, and Workload

I came across an article entitled “Signs that You're a Pushover,” which contained some good workday advice. Part of the strategic communication presented in Chapter 5 included how not speaking up to persuade and say no at times can lead to chaos for yourself and others. One of the strategies that the author shares in this article is learning to say no graciously: “If you are easily persuaded by others, chances are that it shows up in your calendar. How often are you being persuaded to attend a meeting or change your schedule to accommodate the needs of others? Never say yes or no in the moment.”⁴

Lacking the strategic communication skills of persuasion and influencing others may be adding to our workload and schedule. I realize that most of us are not always in a position to say no, but we can use the article's technique when we are. There are times, however, when we can say no; both Nicole in Scenario 1 and Donna in Scenario 4 created some of their own chaos by not saying no graciously to requests and interruptions. But again, you would have to 1) give yourself permission to say no sometimes; 2) use the right language; and 3) build up and practice your skills.

Let's come back to Scenario 3 and look at options for Josh and Lucas. Josh was the somewhat chaotic manager who did not have a clue about what his team was feeling or considering. And Lucas was the enthusiastic new team member who was becoming demotivated very fast.

“After” Profile for Josh and Lucas

Manage Yourself

• Josh doesn't see how he is a source of some chaos for his team and himself.
• Josh doesn't see Lucas's enthusiasm fading and being replaced by disengagement.
• Lucas is moving from enthusiastic to worry to disengagement.
• Josh thinks everyone on his team should be like him.
  • Josh gets or seeks some feedback from his team.
  • Josh's new mindset: acknowledges to himself that he is a new leader and needs some help.
  • Lucas's new mindset: Decides not give up yet because he wanted this job; he will try other things before leaving.

Focus on Priorities

• Josh jumps around from task to task, losing focus.
• Josh does not coach or develop his team.
• Josh has dropped team meetings.
  • Lucas or Josh make a positive case for the value of team meetings; suggest team involvement to redesign an agenda.
  • Team talks about using a team matrix so everyone can see the priorities and resources.

Value Time and Energy

• Josh overcommits his team.
• Josh spends most of his time reacting.
• Josh doesn't make time to listen to or coach Lucas.
• Lucas and Josh are spending too much time at work.
  • Josh stops volunteering his team without considering the workload, talking to them.
  • Lucas establishes a boundary with Josh about twenty-four-seven email responses on nonurgent matters and problem-solves to develop a plan with Josh to get what he needs for anything urgent versus waiting until Monday or the next shift.

Communicate Effectively

• Josh is intimidated by some team members.
• Josh is not trying to influence his boss and his team is now overloaded.
• Josh doesn't really listen.
• Lucas is now afraid to speak up.
  • Lucas tells Josh about his deep concerns regarding the project role and what would help.
  • Josh considers making a case to his boss about resources (even if temporary).
  • Josh holds a team lunch as a “thank you” and opens up for feedback.

Confront, Challenge, and Conquer Chaos

• Josh thinks the chaos is from incompetent staff and being understaffed.
• Lucas and some of the team focused on day-to-day survival.
  • Josh looks at team burnout and his own burnout and draws boundaries for everyone in terms of their time at work, after-hours spent on work, and true urgency.
  • Team brings suggestions for how they could work with more collaboration.

Resiliency, Change, and Chaos

We've been considering how to confront, challenge, and conquer some chaos. Some of that chaos comes from ongoing changes, usually coming very fast and with more levels of complexity in many workplaces.

Resiliency is an ability, skill, and characteristic that needs to be added to our list of resources. What is resiliency? The ability to rebound quickly from a crisis or a trauma.⁵

Here is some great news about this critical ability: Leadership skills, including, resilience can be learned even though scientists agree there is some genetic component. “Yet, like almost any behavior, resilience can also be learned,” says Goldstein, a psychologist at the University of Utah. “In fact, research shows that resilient people share some common qualities—ones you can cultivate to master any crisis.”⁶

Here are some things to help us develop more resilience:

• A resilient mindset sees opportunity, not problems that cannot be solved.
• Positive relationships, health, and optimism.
• Identifying what is stable in your life—internal things like your values.
• Reminding yourself of what skills and approaches you have used in the past to manage disruption, tough times, and change. (Reflecting on every member's strengths to manage surprises and adversity might be a good team activity.)
• Anticipate change when you can.
• See opportunity along with loss.

Summary

Because this has been my area of immersion officially since 2005 (and experiencing chaos unofficially since the 1990s), I want to acknowledge some concerns about chaos's impact on the workday:

• Chaos is growing at work, in some homes, communities, and general cultures.
• We often don't solve problems for the long run; we just react, move on, and things get worse.
• Work relationships are sacrificed, even though as human beings we need good relationships at work.
• Health and wellness may be at risk.

People are too busy to read emails, instructions, or do what they are supposed to do. We are losing a sense of accountability, sometimes not seeing ourselves honestly and what we owe to the organization and team. “I need an exception; I am going to meetings all the time and don't have time to give you what we agreed.”

To go back to comparing our engagement at work with a personal relationship, every relationship needs some good chaos, but too much of the negative kind will have a serious cost and may even lead to a bad break-up. Take the time to see, confront, challenge, and conquer some unnecessary chaos—and please don't accept it as inevitable.

Reflection and Action

Reflection

• What are your biggest sources of chaos?
  • From others:
  • That you bring yourself:
• Think about the resiliency skills that you have used in the past.
• Decide if you need to build up your resiliency skills.

Action

• Pick out one source of chaos from others and put down some ideas to address it.
• Pick out one source of chaos that you bring and put down some ideas to address it.