The Captain and the ocean of operational chaos

Businesses now seem to be getting flooded in an ocean of chaos.

Think about the hundreds of chat messages or emails that ping our inbox each day. A flood of information comes. It forces us into a state of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Even 80% of conversations don't relate to our work. Yet, customer orders, project deadlines, tickets, potential leads… these things seem to pop up everywhere but with no single source of truth. That's called operational chaos. This chaos causes our people to panic, and then our processes become disconnected. Even worse, the business is dragged down to a danger zone: customer dissatisfaction and cost of errors.

As business leaders, we are not superheroes. When chaos comes, we have to directly solve unintentional issues. Conflicts between departments arise. Customer complaints increase. Quality of things declines. Driving our business now is like trying to sail a ship across the ocean, but the ship is riddled with holes, and every time you plug one, another opens up. If we, as leaders, are getting down into these kinds of work, we should not be proud of ourselves as "get-hands-dirty" leaders when it leads to burnout and inefficiency. We just eventually wind up plain tired. No more energy. No one thinks of customers and innovation when tired. Then the captains cannot stand at the highest point to overview the whole picture of the ship, scan the horizon, and chart the next course. That's such a big mistake.

A Shift in Leadership Mindset and Motivation

Don't get me wrong in terms of "get-hands-dirty" leaders. In fact, as a founder, I love getting in the weeds on building new things with my teammates. Let me share with you some of the things I’ve learned and built at my company—Standard.inc (widely known for its products Rework.com and Success.net)

To begin with, we have no bosses, only builders. My job as captain is not to micromanage but to continuously build the standards and rules for executing as many specific duties as possible. The reasons are simple. First, the more standards we build, the more consistency we maintain, and the fewer pop-up issues we handle. So we have more time and energy to stay focused on more valuable things. Second, it's part of our growth culture, which we've called: "Next periods will be better than the previous, no matter how much or in what aspect."

Here are some solid foundations we've built (I'll share them in detail in another newsletter):

To keep innovating and aim for new higher bars:

• 3-S loop of innovation: Standardize, Streamline, Simplify.
• Build things as products: We keep versioning our operational design to remind ourselves to improve for the next versions.
• The Starter Team (We call it: The S-team) which contains the experts or top performers in each specific function regardless of management level.

To stay on the right course:

• Ideal Customer Profile as a company-wide objective.
• Customer-Product Love series.

To encourage ownership and accountability:

• "Single Source of Truth" mindset.
• Winning-as-a-team gameplay.
• Pride and ESOP.

And more. We're continuously building and pioneering new methods based on our own challenges and real-world experiences. As leaders, we can learn from and share with each other, but it all starts with our own mindset and motivation.

Take a Moment to Breathe, Reflect, and Imagine

Before the next era of artificial intelligence, where information will be created exponentially, please calm down. It's time to first conquer the ocean of operational chaos. Slow our ship down a bit. Establish a standard operating system—a universal language of business. Many things need to be done to transform our entire business. But let's begin with the end. Pencil an imagination where our ship is transformed. Workflows are built. Orders are tracked. Projects are organized. Tasks are traced. Work rules are established. People take their accountability and then their ownership. Clients are satisfied and then become loyal. And so on.

Look! Every aspect of our operation is well-set by standardizing, super transparent by streamlining, and then optimized by simplifying. The ship is now heading towards the next big things, following its own captain, with confidence in itself.

Is that the most favorite scene in our mind? If this vision resonates with you, stay tuned for the next issue of Winning by Love, where I'll dive deeper into how we're building our own business that sails smoothly through chaos.

Thank you for joining me on this journey! Subscribe to receive Winning by Love—weekly reflections that ignite passion and purpose in your inbox. Have a story to share or want to be featured? Let’s connect—comment below or send me a message!