No lazy chaos: how to get the growth engine humming while keeping the magic
My favourite kind of puzzle is figuring out how to get the growth engine of a business humming, working as fast as possible, with teams that are scaling, pivoting or bringing new products or services to market.
The game is figuring out which approaches and frameworks will support the organisation to get where it wants to go and adapting along the way.
I’ve spoken to and worked with hundreds of companies, teams, leaders, founders…and the typical questions I hear are:
How and when should we grow?
How do we keep things light but sturdy?
How do we keep unnecessary layers and costs out?
How do we keep the magic as we grow (innovative, fast, nimble) while maintaining unit economics?
Sometimes we answer these questions by pointing to what we don’t like, or giving ourselves false choices. Corporate or nimble? Fast or slow? Hierarchy or flat? Transparent or closed? Good culture or toxic culture?
The hardest thing is that there are no right answers to these questions. It always depends on context, because organisations are complex with interdependent systems.
Enter: the strategic enough-ness playbook. To hit the ‘humming’ state, we have to filter all questions through a different lens: what does just enough look like?
Part I: understanding the problem
Spoiler alert: there’s no one solution or answer to the ‘just enough’ question. What works for one team or business won’t necessarily work for another.
A good starting point is to get clear on what kind of problem you’re dealing with.
Is it simple, complicated or complex?
In everyday conversation we tend to use complicated and complex interchangeably, but they are different, and involve different sets of skills, techniques and tools. Use a sledgehammer to crack a nut and well…you know the analogy.
Complex vs complicated
It’s easy to get lost in a few caves when trying to distinguish between them.
Complicated problems or tasks have many interconnected parts with predictable interactions. You can understand the relationships between parts by applying expertise and systematically breaking the problem down using root cause analysis or cause and effect reasoning.
Sending a rocket to the moon? Complicated, not complex:
Difficult yes, with many steps and expertise required, but it’s also fairly predictable and repeatable.
Usually limited possible answers.
Interconnected parts with predictable interactions.
Our biggest risk with a complicated, solvable problem? We’re likely to over-complicate it.
When faced with two theories to explain a situation, humans are likely to choose the most complex one - the one with the most assumptions and inter-related variables.
This ‘complexity bias’ is the reason why people fall for conspiracy theories and use long words where short ones will do! We are weirdly sceptical of simple solutions - even though they’re often the best.
We tend to drive complexity into projects, roles, processes and systems by overcorrecting for issues, or creating exceptions or workarounds for underperformance rather than dealing with it head on.
Keeping things simple requires vigilance.
On the other hand, responding to a competitor with an innovative business model is a complex problem:
There’s no algorithm that will tell you what to do.
Interactions are interdependent, with unpredictable outcomes.
The problem can’t be solved by analysing parts separately.
Organisations generally are complex because they’re composed of people, structures and processes that are dynamic and constantly evolving.
Getting the business engine humming requires experimentation, adapting continuously, and aiming to influence rather than definitively solve the problem.
Part II: grit in the engine
Things tend to go awry when smart people try to graft what worked in one context, onto another. Solving for a complicated problem as if it’s a complex one, or vice versa.
Take team size. Teams behave very differently in groups of 8, 80 and 180 and need different architecture:
Smaller team: practices like radical transparency and all-hands meetings work because of the levels of intimacy and knowledge within the group. You know where each other’s gaps are, and can preemptively fill them.
Larger teams: these practices tend to create chaos. You can’t know everyone and their strengths and weaknesses. Relationships still matter, but a different architecture is needed for the system to grow.
Larger teams: mechanisms like feedback loops, management vs control, vision and alignment vs rigidity all enable self-organisation.
Lazy vs. intentional chaos
Chaos should be harnessed for good. It’s an essential state in business and in nature that keep things in healthy tension. Intentional / good chaos:
Leverages elements of unpredictability.
Is deployed as a deliberate strategy to build resilience, exercise innovative muscle and clear out cobwebs.
Encourages regeneration, builds adaptive muscle, keeps the magic alive.
Hackathons, leadership rotations, scenario planning, rapid prototyping are common examples but not the only ones.
Chaos isn’t something inherently bad to be designed out, but what I’d call lazy chaos is.
Lazy chaos has a very different set of qualities to intentional chaos. It’s problematic and often harmful:
Business outcomes that have no discernible patterns.
Constant firefighting.
Misunderstandings among team members.
Informational silos leading to disjointed efforts.
Decisions made on the fly without a structured approach.
High turnover, low morale.
Erratic financial performance without clear reasons.
Lazy chaos can be a master of disguise
I’ve noticed that lazy chaos can get confused with being innovative, nimble or agile. When it gets woven into an organisation’s identity, it can be hard to untangle from its success.
The idea that you might rock the boat by changing the formula that ‘got us here’ feels risky. Innovative ‘DNA’ vs. corporate sluggishness.
It’s not just in start-ups or scale-ups, where that sense of a dynamic whirlwind is an important part of the origin story. Move fast and break things was Zuckerberg’s mantra at Facebook until 2014. The adage became wildly popular along with Facebook’s rise.
But breaking things isn’t a forever strategy.
At some point success happens in spite of the chaos rather than because of it, and can be an inhibitor to growth. It gets expensive and inefficient and can cause irreparable damage (to reputation, mental health, or at the extreme, to democratic foundations).
So…bureaucracy then?
If that’s the lazy chaos, keep breaking things strategy, what are the other options to get the engine humming?
Let’s give bureaucracy a crack! said probably no-one, ever.
But…as organisations grow, bureaucracy can creep in. There’s a push towards standardisation, control, consistency and coherence.
Bureaucracy provides stability for scaling, but it can also lead to unnecessarily rigid policies and those annoying unwritten rules we’ve all experienced.
It slows down decision-making and can create a canyon between the organisation and its customers. It feels sluggish to those working in, or with it.
PART III: framing ‘just enough’
Finding a ‘just enough’ structure or way of doing things is at the epicentre of the challenge to get the growth engine humming.
Too much structure? Bureaucracy. Policy reigns, it’s how we’ve always done it acts as a total handbrake to anything different.
Too little structure? Lazy chaos. Things feel like they’re moving really fast, but actually there’s huge inefficiency.
Organisations aren’t a complicated problem that can be fixed
They’re messy, complex and require a different playbook - some combination of intentional chaos and what I’d call strategic enough-ness.
The million dollar question is, what’s enough?
What’s 100% perfect vs. 80% enough (for us)?
How well can we describe the 20% we’re leaving on the table that could make a difference to the outcome, but isn’t the top priority for our effort / investment / focus right now?
How good are we at adapting when we place a bet that doesn’t work out as expected? How strong are our nimble and agile muscles?
Are we adept at spotting lazy chaos?
If we do, are we effective at course-correcting (retaining the magic)?
It depends
The more important the decision to be made is, the more likely the answers to these questions will be: it depends.
That doesn’t mean sitting on the fence, not taking a position, or being deliberately contrarian. It’s not a get-out-of-jail free card for random, shoddy decision-making processes or for lazy chaos.
Rather, the skill is here is to navigate through nuance and context to deliver results. Answer the questions with imperfect information.
The skill is not being right, flawless or perfect in the answers we put up.
Gardens and basketball games are two examples of just enough: getting results while navigating complexity.
A garden: Complex, with a number of dynamic systems that interact with each other.
Just enough is demonstrated by the gardener’s experiments with different plants, soil conditions and arrangements. There’s no final static state, rather adaptation is required based on what works best in any given conditions (storms, heat, pests, overgrowth, poisonous weeds etc).
Just enough will be shaped by the taste, desires and skill of the gardener (who or which might change over time).
A flourishing garden develops to just the right size, striking a balance between under and over developed.
A basketball game: In a complex game like basketball, ‘just enough’ is demonstrated through precise execution and strategic decision-making, balancing efficiency and effectiveness with exertion and risk.
Players need to make enough strategic shots to keep the game flowing, rather than making each one.
They make practical, often pragmatic decisions - making a good pass that reaches a teammate without needing it to be flawless or spectacular. Making the right moves to fit the context, even if they aren’t ideal.
Strategic enough-ness playbook
Below is an accumulation of lived experience, personal perspectives all of which have been shaped by conversations with others who lead / manage organisations. It’s been so interesting to toss this topic around, and I’d love for these ideas to be built upon.
The strategic enough-ness playbook might look and feel a bit like this for a given organisation (in no particular order):
A beginner’s mindset prevails especially for complex problems. Expertise is valued but balanced with the knowledge there are many possibilities and scenarios vs right and wrong.
We experiment to move forward. 80-85% is good enough (in most cases - health and safety being obvious exceptions). We’re clear on what we’re leaving on the table.
We work in different modes, for different problems and can context-switch.
We influence and leverage rather than seek to control. This applies internally, but to the ecosystem we’re in too.
Coaching and mentoring is the MO.
Roles mean different spheres of decision-making and responsibility but this is different from hierarchy.
We keep a tab on lazy vs intentional chaos vs bureaucracy.
Strive for alignment and simplicity vs unyielding rules.
Values guide us, rather than strict rules.
Things feel sturdy but not unyielding.
Only you / your team can answer what enough is based on your own context and the type of decision you’re making.
Final thoughts…
Lastly, there are a few other frames I find helpful when crafting a path through the weeds (or treacle):
Is this an edge case? Learn to spot them and have a plan if they do happen, but don’t get stuck accommodating them in your decisions and designs.
80% doesn’t mean throwing out the 20% It just means, not now. Put what’s left into the priority long-list, and see how it stacks up. Does it warrant more time/investment/effort?
Aim for answers. Adding more questions to the pile isn’t useful. Most of the time we’re trying to narrow things down by providing answers that can return data: which customers? Which features? Which markets? Placing informed bets and quantifying your level of uncertainty can help move you forward.
What kind of problem is this?
Complicated, complex or simple?
Context: is it a 1 way door (once you go through you can never go back, or not without significant consequences) or a 2 way door (you can walk back from them) situation? The first requires more thought, expertise and deliberation than the second.
Experiments aren’t free . They take time, effort and there’s an opportunity cost. Get clear on what you hope to learn, and what you’ll do with that information then decide if the cost of the experiment is worth it.
Strategic thinking is a habit Strategic thinking is embodied in action and reflection. It’s not a google doc, a powerpoint or a PDF.
For leaders and managers, the goal is to help the team crack through complexity, work in experimental mode, and move as fast as results will allow without descending into lazy chaos.
Sometimes there’s a lag when you change gears or shift tack to a new way of working. But it’s a little like compounding interest - an investment now in the sustainable growth of the organisation. Reducing grit in the engine and getting it to hum.
Summary
Business is all about problem solving.
Not all problems are the same. Understand the difference between simple, complicated and complex.
Organisations are usually complex: there’s no algorithm that will tell you how to respond.
Getting the business engine humming is about sustainable growth, without becoming bogged down by bureaucracy or chaotic practices.
Avoid overcomplicating solutions and stay alert to complexity bias.
Lazy chaos is disruptive and can disguise itself as agile or innovative.
Chaos should be leveraged for resilience and adaptiveness (intentional chaos).
Embrace strategic enough-ness to make informed, context-driven decisions.
The skill to hone is not being flawless, but navigating the nuance while also delivering results.
**update Aug 2024: following some great conversation about this piece, I’ll be following up with some more examples (my own, and contributed by others). If you’d like to include something - get in touch. Plan to publish in Sept 2024.
