Resources
The Chaos Opportunity
Unstuck Monthly | March 2025
Are you a chaos navigator, endurer, or controller?
Hi, friend!
A lot is happening in the world and many of our professional lives are impacted by the decisions of governments, fluctuating markets, or drastic changes in company policies, norms, and expectations. While some are calling it mayhem and others categorize it as disruption, I'm just using the label: chaos.
As we navigate the first few months of 2025, those bright and hopeful plans we crafted in January have demanded retooling or been thrown out altogether. Amid this chaos, I've spent the last month exploring how we can harness this chaos to showcase our true leadership skills and guide our organizations, our teams, and ourselves to calmer waters.
As we continue our exploration of professional inertia in 2025, I'm sharing frameworks, client stories, and practical approaches for moving through our current sticking points rather than around them. Because sometimes the fastest path to clarity runs directly through the mess, not away from it.
Highlights this month:
Sticking Points: The Navigator's Advantage
A Deeper Look: Creating through Chaos Framework
From the Network: Three stories about leveraging disruption
Worth Exploring: Revisiting Adam Grant's "Originals"
Happenings: Prepare for the stress of year-end by starting coaching in Q2
WD-40 for Your Mind: Ride the wave
Thank you for sticking with me!
Alex
Sticking Points
The Chaos Opportunity: The Navigator's Advantage
As we approach the end of Q1, a familiar pattern is emerging in my conversations with friends and clients across industries. The carefully crafted plans of January have collided with the messy reality of execution and navigating current events, leaving many of us feeling stuck in what seems like perpetual chaos.
“Nothing is going according to plan.”
“We're constantly putting out fires instead of making progress."
“I can't get traction on what matters most.”
Sound familiar?
What fascinates me isn’t just how universal this experience is, but how differently people respond to it.
I've observed three distinct approaches:
The Controllers try to eliminate chaos through more structure, detailed processes, and tighter control. They double down on planning, believing if they just create enough order, clarity will follow.
The Endurers simply weather the storm, heads down, waiting for calmer waters. They see chaos as something to be survived rather than engaged with.
The Navigators take a fundamentally different approach. They don’t try to eliminate chaos or merely endure it—they engage with it differently. They recognize that chaos isn’t just noise to be filtered out, but information that reveals what truly matters.
Recently, I've been exploring the secret sauce behind this third approach: how to create meaning, value, and direction through chaos rather than despite it.
Here's the paradox that might transform how we approach our current challenges: The chaos itself isn't our enemy—it contains the seeds of our most meaningful breakthroughs.
Controllers exhaust themselves fighting against chaos. Endurers merely survive it. But Navigators discover something powerful: chaos contains its own kind of order—one that can't be imposed, only discovered. They've learned to see disruption not as an obstacle to their plans, but as information that reveals what truly matters.
The shift from Controller or Endurer to Navigator doesn’t happen by chance. It requires a different mindset and specific approaches that can be learned and developed.
If you're feeling stuck between chaos and clarity right now, let's explore together how to navigate through the mess rather than around it.
A Deeper Look
Creating Through Chaos. Throughout March, we've been exploring different dimensions of navigating chaos effectively. Here are the key insights that have emerged: The Chaos Navigation Framework.
Order vs. Organization | |
|---|---|
There's a critical difference between imposing order (rigid control that resists change) and discovering organization (adaptive patterns that emerge naturally). When facing chaos, look for the natural organization that wants to emerge rather than forcing predetermined order onto the situation. | By loosening our grip on control, we often gain more influence over outcomes that actually matter. Read More. |
Anchoring in Purpose | |
When everything around you is shifting, what remains constant? Your core purpose and values serve as anchors that create stability amid turbulence. These aren't just words on a wall—they're decision-making filters that create clarity when everything else seems unclear. | Resilient professionals have identified core values and purposes that remain stable regardless of external circumstances. Read More. |
Self-Determination as Internal Navigation | |
The ability to thrive amid chaos isn't about controlling external circumstances—it's about developing internal resources. Autonomy (making aligned choices), competence (adaptive capability), and relatedness (supportive connections) serve as an internal navigation system when external environments are unpredictable. | Self-determination helps us navigate chaos, extracting value from the mess rather than being overwhelmed by it. Read More. |
Breaking Through Avoidance | |
We create more chaos for ourselves when we avoid and postpone. The conversations and decisions we most need to have are often the ones we're most motivated to avoid. Breaking through requires naming the avoidance, identifying the specific fear, and taking smaller steps forward. | What distinguishes those who break through avoidance from those who remain stuck? Read More. |
How These Elements Work Together
These approaches form a system for navigating chaos effectively:
Anchor in purpose to maintain direction amid turbulence
Strengthen self-determination to develop internal navigation capabilities
Look for emerging organization rather than imposing rigid order
Make decisions through small, reversible steps that create learning
Harness collective intelligence to see patterns individual perspectives miss
Break through avoidance by naming and addressing what you're avoiding
The underlying principle connecting all these approaches? Chaos isn't something to eliminate—it's something to engage with differently. When we stop fighting against chaos and start working with it, new possibilities emerge that weren't visible before.
From the Network
Here are three recent stories from my network of Chaos Navigators that illustrate different approaches to maneuvering through today’s complex environments and leveraging disruption:
Finding Opportunity in Uncertainty. A leader in a mission-driven organization faced multiple layers of chaos: funding contractions, staff reductions, disrupted clients, and work-life balance challenges. Rather than retreating into survival mode, she deliberately engaged with the uncertainty by cultivating her network with genuine curiosity. “I realized I could either spend energy worrying about things outside my control, or use this period to build connections that might reveal new opportunities.” Sometimes by approaching disruption with curiosity rather than fear, we discover possibilities that would have remained invisible during stable times.
Clarity Through Decisive Action. A finance leader found herself managing an underperforming team without formal authority while a senior position remained vacant. For months, she navigated carefully until a colleague observed: “You're acting like you need permission to build the team you actually need.” This reframing helped her see that the chaos was a clarity problem. Once she fully embraced her de facto leadership role, she began making necessary decisions about personnel, team structure, and work expectations. Sometimes the chaos we experience comes from avoiding necessary disruption.
Focusing Amid Distraction. A P&L leader with ambitions to scale his business found himself caught in the chaos of pursuing too many opportunities without clear strategy. He was continually drawn to serving whoever was immediately in front of him rather than strategically pursuing ideal clients. He realized, “I was creating my own chaos by trying to be all things to all people.” By developing a compelling, authentic pitch for his ideal clients, he created a filtering mechanism that helps identify which opportunities align with his strategic direction. Sometimes we create our own chaos through lack of focus.
The common thread through these stories isn't the absence of chaos—it's how these professionals have shifted their relationship with it. Rather than seeing chaos as something to eliminate or endure, they've found ways to engage with it as information that reveals what truly matters.
What resonates with you in these stories? I'd love to hear your experience.
Worth Exploring - Resources for Navigating Chaos
Book Recommendation: "Originals" by Adam Grant
I've been revisiting Adam Grant's excellent book Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, which offers insights into creative thinking and challenging the status quo.
What's particularly relevant to our "Creating Through Chaos" theme is Grant's framework for responding to challenging situations—a framework that aligns closely with my "Get Over It, Get Through It, Get Out of It" approach.
Grant explores how original thinkers don't just accept the default path (Get Over It) or merely endure difficult circumstances (Get Through It). Instead, they find ways to fundamentally change their situation by questioning assumptions and creating new options (Get Out of It).
The book offers research-backed strategies for:
Recognizing opportunities in unexpected places
Managing the fear that comes with uncertainty
Building coalitions to support new ideas
Timing innovations for maximum impact
If you're looking to strengthen your ability to create through chaos rather than despite it, this book offers valuable perspectives and practical approaches.
The Self-Determination Compass Assessment, Your Internal Navigation System for Chaos
As I shared in my recent LinkedIn post on self-determination, the most effective Chaos Navigators rely on internal resources rather than external control. The Self-Determination Compass assessment helps you understand exactly which internal navigation tools you've already developed and which ones need strengthening.
The assessment measures your current capabilities across three dimensions that are critical for navigating chaos effectively:
Autonomy: Your ability to make choices aligned with your values and purpose, even amid external pressure and uncertainty. This is what enables Navigators to maintain direction when everything around them is shifting.
Competence: Your capacity for adaptive capability rather than fixed skills. This is how Navigators learn and adjust quickly when conventional approaches no longer work.
Relatedness: Your skill at building supportive connections that provide both stability and diverse perspectives. This is what helps Navigators see patterns and possibilities that remain invisible to those working in isolation.
Understanding these dimensions gives you a precise map of your internal navigation system—showing you exactly where you're well-equipped for chaos and where you might focus your development efforts.
Special offer: Any newsletter subscribers to complete the assessment will receive a complimentary one-hour coaching session to explore their results and map their path forward.
Happenings
Q2 Coaching Programs: Building Your Navigator Capacity
As we approach the end of Q1, now is the perfect time to develop your capacity as a Chaos Navigator rather than a Controller or Endurer. My coaching programs are designed to help you create clarity and direction amid complexity.
Why start in April/May? Most of us wait until September, October, or November to invest in coaching, when year-end pressures create urgency. Starting in Q2 gives you:
Space to explore and experiment with new approaches to chaos before the end-of-year crunch
Time to build your internal navigation system that will serve you during busier periods
Opportunity to course-correct while there's still plenty of year left
I'm currently accepting new clients for the few remaining spots in my six-month coaching programs starting In April and May.
Email me or schedule a free consultation call.
WD-40 For Your Mind
When work is tough or unsatisfying, we process our experiences through humor and look for inspiration wherever we can find it.
Like WD-40 unsticks door hinges, may this and future quips help unstick our brains.
Learn to Surf Instead of Fighting to Control
This quote, often attributed to Jon Kabat-Zinn, perfectly captures what we've been exploring this month.
We can't eliminate chaos from our professional lives. Markets will shift. Technologies will disrupt. Priorities will change. The complexity of our world will continue to increase.
The question isn't whether we'll experience chaos. The question is what we'll create with it.
Will we exhaust ourselves trying to build higher walls against the rising tides of complexity? Or will we invest that energy in becoming better surfers?
The most effective professionals I work with aren't those who experience less chaos than others. They're the ones who have developed the internal resources, perspective diversity, and navigation skills to ride those waves toward meaningful destinations.
What one small step could you take this week to strengthen your "surfing" capabilities rather than trying to calm the sea?
You've survived another month. What's next for you?
Great conversations start with shared insights. My coaching practice, like this newsletter, thrives on connections – if you know someone who's navigating their own sticking points, I'd love for you to share this with them.
