Let The Chaos Reign

Chaos is not always detrimental - How do I create, synthesize, and solve necessary and unnecessary chaos?

Photo by Dall.E

What is chaos?

According to the Oxford Dictionary, chaos is defined as unpredictable and seemingly random behavior. Chaos also stems from people’s high sensitivity to changes in conditions—minor or major.

There is a clear divide in operational styles among companies and leaders in terms of how they manage chaos.

1. Some prefer to embrace a chaotic environment, expecting teams to flourish amid disorder.

2. Others strive to eliminate all traces of chaos, viewing it as an obstacle to productivity and employee contentment.

How an organization deals with chaos isn’t typically outlined in their foundational values or principles; it’s more deeply ingrained in the everyday actions and interactions within the company.

In my view, chaos is categorized into two types:

1. Necessary chaos

2. Unnecessary chaos

What constitutes necessary chaos?

A chaotic situation that results in a positive outcome for the business is necessary chaos.

I will provide some examples of necessary chaos, along with the potential positive outcomes that can arise from such chaos.

1. Debate on business direction: Discussion about the company’s path, whether to stay the course or switch to a new market, is essential. Such discussions often get messy because people with different stakes in the company have their own strong opinions. The more time it takes to decide, the messier it gets. But it’s important to work through the mess. These tough talks and what comes out of them will shape where the company goes next.
2. Unclear responsibilities: Not knowing who is responsible for what, for example, between a product manager and an engineering manager, can cause confusion about ownership and responsibilities. It’s okay to let things be a bit chaotic for a short period while teams sort out who owns what. Even though it’s tough when people are passing around tasks and responsibilities, the end result of these discussions will push teams to take charge, act, and work collaboratively.
3. Launching a product: When it’s time for a big product release, you’ll usually see a frenzy among different teams—like product, engineering, QA, and operations. This hustle and bustle comes from the need to get things done on time and to give customers something great. You’ll hear lots of talk about unclear requirements, changes being made at the last minute, and how much testing is needed. The chaos that exists during such scenarios is good, as long as everyone is aligned and focused on the outcome.

Injecting Necessary Chaos

Teams that don’t occasionally experience chaos may struggle to adapt to change, which is crucial for the agility of a rapidly evolving organization.

How do you subtly inject chaos when there is a lack of urgency or focus within the teams?

Introducing the necessary chaos requires a nuanced approach. It’s not a science but an art. Here are ways to subtly introduce necessary chaos:

1. Present a pressing issue or a potential business opportunity, and let the teams brainstorm solutions or ways to seize the opportunity.
2. Impose strict deadlines on key product features that matter to the business and customers. This creates urgency, prompting teams to find ways to deliver, and in doing so, they learn to optimize for speed.
3. Occasionally, assign challenging goals to teams and ensure they are responsible for achieving them.

Leaders must closely monitor the chaos and course-correct to ensure a positive outcome. This responsibility shouldn’t be delegated, as prolonged chaos can lead to frustration and sidetrack teams from reaching their desired outcomes.

Unnecessary Chaos

Unnecessary chaos involves disorganization, a lack of accountability, and blame-shifting within a company. Unnecessary chaos becomes an accepted norm that no one questions, often leading to suboptimal outcomes.

Sometimes, people prefer staying in unnecessary chaos because they are accustomed to the less-than-ideal results it produces. When there is a strong resistance to changing a chaotic process, it is a clear sign that the process is not serving the best interests of the business.

Examples of unnecessary chaos include:

1. Unclear responsibility during production issues: When developers are unsure who is accountable for resolving a problem during a production incident, it exemplifies unnecessary chaos. Having a service registry and owners for each service is a simple way to identify developers who are responsible for maintaining the service.
2. Constant, last-minute requirement changes: When projects often miss deadlines due to frequent changes in requirements by the product manager or design tweaks by the UX team, and this causes disruption and friction among team members, it is a recipe for unnecessary chaos. If this chaos is unresolved, it disrupts team performance and morale.
3. Conflicting directions from leadership: If a product leader’s vision constantly clashes with the engineering leader’s priorities, it creates confusion and disorder, resulting in inefficiency in both the product and engineering teams.

Eliminating Unnecessary Chaos

Contrary to the art of introducing chaos, eliminating it tends to be more scientific than artistic.

Ways to eliminate unnecessary chaos include the following:

1. Establish a process in areas where the absence of one leads to uncertainty and unclear responsibilities.
2. Streamlining processes to avoid bureaucracy and inefficiency.
3. Setting clear priorities to prevent aimless efforts.

Embracing Chaos

To foster the culture of embracing uncertainty and build the muscle strength to execute in a chaotic environment, we should let chaos reign. Chaos encourages a period of freedom, experimentation, and leveraging non-conventional approaches. This inspires innovation, solving problems, or fostering new ideas.

In chaotic times, leaders should relax their grip.

Being intentional about chaos is essential for a rapidly evolving organization; ignoring it can be detrimental.