I heard myself say something today that I’ve never said before. I said, “We need a little chaos around here to shake things up.” Understand that I hate chaos. There are few things which I love to do more than bring order from chaos. I’m good at it, and I’ve made that ability one of my greatest strengths throughout my leadership career. Give me a complicated and chaotic set of circumstances and I’ll soon have the whole operation in order and running smoothly. I love getting in the ring to fight with chaos! Trust me. You can put your money on me, because I will knock chaos out in only the third or fourth round! But today, I said “we need a little chaos.” Unbelievable!
Here’s why. I’ve been working with an organization that had become stagnant in its practices and was experiencing a decline in virtually every area through which we measure organizational effectiveness. It has an excellent team of people who serve an equally excellent constituency, but for various reasons the organization had fallen into an operational paralysis that in many ways resembles a lake that no longer has an inlet refreshing its water supply. When the river stops running, the water grows still and life begins to wane. There the lake sits, slowly dying…but restart the inlet and life returns.
Margaret Wheatley describes how the health of an organization can be observed as if it was a flowing river. When flowing, innovation rules; when the water stops, innovation dies. Allow the water to flow and it will naturally follow a path that leads to new bodies of water and create a new path for the water that is alive and healthy. Inhibit the flow and it becomes stagnant. Wheatley refers to the “chaos theory” of leadership, in which she encourages leaders, when faced with stagnant waters, to allow for times of uncertainty and experimentation, times of risk and times when one intentionally stirs things up. This is what I am doing right now as this organization is experiencing a rebirth out of still waters that were slowly dying.
The water has been still for too long and those who have been literally treading in it to stay afloat are now faced with the challenge of stirring things up in order to create new energy, enthusiasm and a new lease on the organization’s life, or watch the waters dry up completely. The latter is unacceptable for this organization that has both a rich history and the potential for future greatness. My job is to get the river flowing again and to bring the life of the lake back. However, the process is going to involve some chaos. There is just no other way. We need a little chaos in order to get people moving again, hoping again, and living again. Dealing with the chaos won’t be easy, but it will be fun as life returns.
As a leader, does your organization need you to stir things up and get things moving again? Does it need a little chaos? I imagine that virtually every organization does from time to time. Enjoy it!
Lead well.