When crisis management fails, chaos ensues.
Pattern Lines Chaos
Teetering on the Brink
As we balance on the cusp between global crisis and total chaos — and we could make the jump into full-bore chaos at any moment — it is time to explore the difference between the two.
It also is time to talk about how the rules for handling chaos differ substantially from those that govern crisis response. Because if we cling to crisis management rules in order to address chaos, it will be as ineffective as if we treat coronavirus the same way we treat the common cold.
Chaos Defined
Chaos is defined as “a state of extreme confusion and disorder…
“The word chaos derives from a Greek word meaning "chasm" or "void," and also refers to the formless state of matter before the cosmos was created. In math and science, chaos describes a system that will develop in wildly different ways with only tiny changes to the initial conditions…”
Sound familiar?
In chaos, all bets are off, all rules of natural order (except perhaps at the subatomic level) are off too. Compasses fail. Up is down, down is up, and it's almost impossible to distinguish between sky and ground. In fact, unlike with crisis, the very concept of chaos "management" is an oxymoron. By its very nature, chaos can not be managed; it is ungovernable.
Crisis Defined
Crisis, on the other hand, even a global crisis such as our COVID-19 pandemic, retains causality, and logic: If you do x, y will probably follow. Lightning strikes, thus your home burns; but you can quell the fire by calling the fire department and applying water or fire retardant. Someone gets sick, you test them immediately to see if they have COVID-19. If they do, you isolate them from the general population, or you get them to a hospital where there are ample ventilators, and health care workers are protected with adequate gear, and the escalation of the pandemic slows down. You don’t do these things, the pandemic worsens. Causality.
So, crisis also retains the hope of agency — if we can follow the rules and strategies of crisis management, if we can have a crisis plan at the ready, and a crisis team already fielded, we have the power to change our fate.
These rule include seeing clearly, accepting reality quickly, researching thoroughly, stepping up to the plate early and putting new policies in place, and leading wisely and courageously. If we can implement them, we can most likely change the outcome of a crisis or at least its trajectory. There is hope, and our leadership can make the situation improve. (See Crisis Leadership in Real Time: 8 Pandemic Best Practices , Great Crisis Management is Counterintuitive, and Communicating in Crisis: Building Trust in an Untrustworthy World.)
Leadership Works in Crises
Even "black swan" or unpredictable crises still can be mitigated by prompt, wise and coordinated action. We can be agile, flexible, innovative, indomitable, and gritty. And these qualities have power. They can have an effect.
Leadership Does Not Work as Well in Chaos
But once we descend into chaos, this is no longer true. In chaos causality is lost, strategy and leadership no longer work as well, and we are left powerless.
And that is where we almost are now. So many different black swan crises (pandemic, financial meltdown, mass layoffs, soaring unemployment, untrustworthy leaders, misinformation everywhere) are crashing into one another, clumping together into a sticky, indistinguishable mass. It's no longer quite as clear how to sort it all out. With leadership all but abandoned on the national level, with crisis management rules ignored, and misinformation everywhere, it's no longer a certainty that even if we could put in logical fixes now, they would work.
And this will hit home more, in the United States at least, as more people we know get sick, or worse.
So, What Works in Chaos?
First, of course, is to try to stop ourselves from reaching the tipping point. A few business leaders are stepping into the void to not only lead their own organizations, but to extend their leadership to the country and world. This is a ray of hope.
But, when and if all external compasses are no longer pointing in a reliable direction, our own moral compass must guide us. And this is true for organizations as well as for individuals.
True North becomes a sense of integrity, morality, courage and humanity. This beacon prizes kindness and compassion and rejects narcissism, sell-dealing, drama, liars and cowardice. It puts people first, without destroying the systems and companies that have always supported us, and will again.
If we slip into chaos, these are the attributes that can guide us out of it. And it will become critical to evaluate each of our decisions — both micro and macro, both corporate and individual — in their light.
And if we cannot find the leadership to do this outside of ourselves, then each of us will have to do it for ourselves, from boards to C-suite leaders, to workers, parents, family and friends.
True Chaos Leadership rests on an inner sense of morality and direction in the face of utter pandemonium. Think about that.
See the second part of my “Chaos Series:” “Chaos Rules: 8 Ways to Navigate Through The Fog of Crisis.”
