E8 – WBSPodcast.com – Strategy and Thriving in “The Storms of Chaos”

By Craig A. Stevens, © 2002
(Based on the model in the book Geronimo Stone, Book 2 — The Storms of Chaos)

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” Sun Tzu quotes (Chinese General and Author, b.500 BC)

Welcome to the 8th episode of the WBSPodcast.com brought to you from beautiful Franklin Tennessee with your Operational Excellence Coach and Cheer Leader – Craig A. Stevens.

In this Episode Craig will share the Second Model of the Linked Management Models that he developed so organizations can master strategy in a chaotic world.

With these podcast our goal is to teach Operational Excellence to help make our companies more competitive, our leadership more effective, our workers more efficient, and our lives less stressful and more fun.

During this Episode we are going to talk about:

1. The Five Elements of Thriving in the Storms of Chaotic Change,
2. Address our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) found in the Five Elements,
3. Ways to recognize and address challenges then decide on a course of action.

Go here for a link to the audio: http://www.podcasts.com/wbspodcast.com-4f6424e62/episode/E8-WBSPodcast.com-Strategy-and-Thriving-in-The-Storms-of-Chaos-7cfe

This episode is sponsored by:

• Westbrook Stevens, LLC – www.e-WBS.com – At Westbrook Stevens we are here to help you with all things change and continuous improvement.
• The University of Tennessee’s (UT) Industrial and Systems Engineering (I&SE) Department’s Center for Advanced Systems Research and Education (CASRE).
• Also by www.CraigAStevens.com.

Checkout Craig’s book at www.GeronimoStone.com, his art at www.CraigAStevens.com, and his other podcasts (the www.FranklinPodcast.com and the www.BrentwoodPodcast.com).

Go here for a link to the audio: http://www.podcasts.com/wbspodcast.com-4f6424e62/episode/E8-WBSPodcast.com-Strategy-and-Thriving-in-The-Storms-of-Chaos-7cfe

The world we live in is often chaotic and those who manage organizations may find it hard to forecast and understand the correct strategies for planning and budgeting. Because in a chaotically changing environment, one never knows what is going to happen next. Changes seem to happen in random patterns similar to waves on a body of water. In smaller markets, similar to smaller bodies of water (like a pond), these waves are easier to understand and forecast. However, in the largest markets, like larger bodies of water or an ocean, all the rules change. Therefore, forecasting changes is more difficult as chaos hits the organization from all sides.

Storms of Chaos:

Some of you have seen the movie “the perfect storm.” You may know that the movie is based on real life. It was a real storm and a true story about real men.

In the movie George Clooney, the captain of a fishing boat, fights for his crew’s lives in not just any storm, but a perfect storm. An experienced captain can ride out big storms but this wasn’t just a big storm. The boat was caught in the middle of many storms that came together simultaneously. The result — the collective power of a number of combined storms sank the fishing boat and killed her entire crew.

It actually happened. This crew died the same way thousands of other sailors died, while trying to fight to stay alive in the middle of a powerful storm.

The term “the perfect storm” has become a part of our nation’s lexicon. It represents any major collection of events that describe the impossible to survive situation. Sometimes it refers to major forces that come together simultaneously to change the landscape of our current business environment, creating chaos.

The “Storms of Chaos Model” describes a strategy tool to use during a state of complete disorder and confusion, which brings many “winds of change.”

Ship of State:

As storms often describe chaos, likewise, ships are often use to describe people and organizations. You have probably heard entire nations referred to as ships of state or large organizations described as ships. Therefore, one could also think of an organization in a radically changing environment as a ship on an ocean during a storm.   The metaphor is useful when describing how hard it is to turn those “organizational ships” once a direction is set. The storm metaphor helps us to visualize the abstract concept of chaos and helps us to better plan our actions to manage chaotic changes. 

The Forces of Chaotic Change and the Thrive-ability of Our Organizations:

Often when I speak on the Storms of Chaos, I show an example of how overwhelming and complicated life can become with very visual prop. I take a stack of papers and ask the audience to imagine that the stack represents their life’s work. It symbolizes every piece of work that they ever produced for any reason, all on unnumbered sheets of paper. Then, I throw the paper in the air and watch as every sheet flies in a different direction. Next, I ask, “Now what do we do?” The answer comes — start categorizing the papers in manageable groups. That also, is what you do with chaos.

By adding the storm scenario, we can paint the picture of our organization during change. This picture of a ship on the ocean helps us to describe and organize chaos into five groups that help us understanding and proactively manage chaos.

Element 1 – The Waves of Treads and Future Events

The waves represent the foreseeable future events. It is the trends we can see coming. The Y2K scare of the past was something we saw coming. Some thought it was going to sink everyone’s ship. We feverishly fought to prepare for the turning of the clock. This drove major changes in the most industries, the banking industry was practically effected. When the wave did hit, we were either well prepared or the wave turned out to be less than we expected. Like waves, one could actually see and steer into or prepare for these events.

Element 2 – Buoyancy is Everything Working For Us

Buoyancy represents the allied forces. Buoyancy represents everything keeping our ship afloat, all our supporting allies. Buoyancy is the supporting markets, cash flow, debt management, our families, friends, our church, those social norms in our favor, good politics in our favor, our supply chain, good customer relationships, and generally those things in our favor.

Element 3 – The Lightning of the Unexpected

The lightning represents those unforeseeable events. Lightning is the unexpected. We all know lightning exist but few of us prepare for the strike. We never really know if or when it will strike. Lightning strikes may take the form of a key employee leaving at a bad time, a fire, an injury, or the terrorist attacks of 9/11. However, we can manage risk and prepare for emergencies.

Element 4 – The Storm is Everything Against Us

The storm represents the enemy. It is everything trying to sink our ship. It is everything working against us, holding our organization down. The storm is any threatening force keeping us from a successful mission. These enemy forces may include competition, negative (to us) societal and political forces, forces of war, taxes, the weather, or any other enemy force. The storm, like buoyancy, is in the eyes of the beholder. One organization’s storm could be another’s buoyancy. To fight the storm we must master the martial arts of business and competition.

Element 5 – The Ship is Our Organization, our World

The ship represents our organization and gives us the framework for planning. All the other element are external while the ship is internal. Although we can not control all the other elements, everything we can do involves the ship.  Two concepts important to our organization’s thrive-ability are (1) what the organization is designed to do (ride the ocean or a pond) and (2) its sea worthiness (structure, systems, leadership, staff preparedness, resources/provisions, etc.). One is more related to effectiveness and the other efficiency. To improve our organizational thrive-ability, we can train our sailors, plot our course, navigate our ship, use tactics, supply provisions, and build our ship for specific environments. That is where you come in – you are the captain, so lead. 

Opportunities and Threats in the Waves: Every wave should have someone’s attention. We have to master communication with all our sailors – with all our Subject Mater Experts. We have to listen to the gatekeepers of our organization. These are the people most keenly aware of their own areas of interest, closest to the different types of work, and most tapped into their own spears of influence. Forecasting tools are important, but expertise and relationships at every level are the most important assets. Understand the opportunities and threats.

Opportunities and Threats in the Buoyancy: We must optimize our buoyancy. Remove those things that make us too heavy, build relationships, balance our lives, build good will, provide good service, build allies, master excellent customer focus, and improve cash flow. Understand the opportunities and threats. 

Opportunities and Threats in the Lightning: One prepares for lightning with risk management, emergency and contingency plans, security, insurance, back-up plans, training, empowerment, and building an organization to withstand loses. Understand the opportunities and threats. Understand the opportunities and threats.

Opportunities and Threats in the Storm: One fights the storm by mastering competitive strategies, competing well, raising productivity and quality, and becoming politically and socially proactive. Understand the opportunities and threats.

Although perfect storms are rare, hardly a month goes by without a storm of some magnitude effecting our organizations. We have learned that storms will come and bring with it some challenges, the waves of trends, the lightning of the unexpected, and our old enemy the storm itself. Nevertheless, we have buoyancy and the ship in our favor. So we have a choice, we can master the storms of chaos or be mastered by them. One leads to success and profit, the other to leads to failure. You are the captain of your ship, master your job, and fight for your crew. There is no other choice, it takes effort, but the entire economic navy depends on the skills of its captains.