Drifting Isn’t a Strategy | Fluid Power Journal

8 Steps to Stay on Course in Turbulent Times

By Maartje van Krieken

The storm isn’t coming; it’s already here. Many leaders are realizing they’re sailing without instruments. The current business climate is a storm of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Strategic plans are outdated overnight. Decision-making feels like a risk. And yet, standing still isn’t an option. Leaders are under pressure to keep moving as everything continues to shift and evolve.

You are not alone. Research shows that two-thirds of executives struggle to make decisions fast enough during volatile times. 70% of business transformations fail, often due to misalignment and unclear direction, and that was in the “old world.” Furthermore, half of leaders admit to delaying decisions when markets become unstable.

When chaos hits, everyone is working hard without coordinated direction. The energy is real, the effort is sincere, but there are only limited results to show for it. Conventional business management practices are largely geared towards maintaining steady state operations or planned projects, changes, or growth. Planning cycles are driven by calendar years, historical performance data, and negotiated delivery times. At present, you do not have sufficient control over your world for these tools to continue facilitating progress. To make it through this storm, leaders need more than motivation; they need navigation.

That’s where the Chaos Compass comes in. Before diving into its framework, consider how business, like sailing, requires continuous, deliberate adjustments in stormy conditions. Moments of inaction can be costly, underscoring the need to translate decision-making mechanics and people dynamics into a business context. The Chaos Compass does precisely that, and here are its 8 elements.

1. Get Your Bearings: Start with situational awareness. Map out what you know and don’t know inside and outside your organization. Involve a wide variety of people to create trust, secure buy-in, and gather perspectives from angles where you do not see yourself. Where are the bottlenecks, disconnects, gaps, and opportunities?

2. Identify Your Nearest Safe Haven: If the storm worsens, where do you go? Determine if you can stabilize while operating, or if you need to carve out space to regroup. How long could you afford a holding pattern based on liquidity and current contracts, if needed? Can you pause non-critical activity and create the bandwidth to center on current priorities?

3. Reclarify the Destination: Is your original goal still valid? Has success been redefined? Do you need some interim short-term targets, so your team has direction and urgency without false certainty? Redundancy in communication is going to help you iron out ambiguity and misalignment and identify where your definition or boundaries need sharpening. Clarity directs energy.

4. Diagnose the Big Levers: Focus on 2-4 areas to invest time and resources in. This will get you back on track towards success. Focus is key to success in turmoil, so deprioritize distractions and non-critical tasks to free up capacity and “noise” in the system. Make sure the interdependencies between these efforts are identified and resourced. 

5. Decision-Making Mechanics: Good, fast decision-making is facilitated by deploying decision-making frameworks. They are simple, fit for purpose, and not complex to implement. You need clarity on the who, what, how, and why now that the structure will provide. This will ensure that the actual effort and energy can go into making the best possible decision based on data and risks. 

6. Empower People: Time to empower your people to move forward with clarity on destination, work priorities, and mechanics and boundaries in place. Redirection of effort becomes autonomous. Strive to delegate down to the lowest practical level for expediency. Remember that task assignments may need to deviate from the existing organizational chart.

7. Reliable Tools & Data: Ensure your people, partners, and leadership are equipped with access to the right resources to do their work. More is not better. Performance Data, decision logs, and communication plans ensure your tools are relevant, real-time, and responsive. 

8. Execute & Adapt: Don’t bow out before the finish line. Execute plans until the intended outcomes have been achieved, and reassess your environment regularly. If the winds change, your course should, too. Agility doesn’t mean random; it means responsive. The need to course correct is not a sign of failure, but a sign of your business’s resilience in its pursuit of progress.

To be successful in the current climate, there is no sense in waiting for clarity or the storm to pass. You cannot afford to do so when the next one is already forming. You don’t need calmer weather to lead. You need rhythm, direction, and the willingness to move while things are still swirling. With the right navigation system, businesses can make smarter and faster decisions under pressure, align teams behind shared goals, and start building resilience; not just surviving chaos, but strengthening through it.

About the Author

Maartje van Krieken is the founder of The Chaos Games Consulting and host of The Business Emergency Room podcast. Maartje has decades of global experience as an international speaker, business triage expert, accredited coach, and former frontier oil & gas leader. She equips executives and leadership teams with tools to navigate chaos, drive decisions, and lead through volatility by unlocking powerful people dynamics with her infectious energy. Learn more at www.thechaosgamesconsulting.com.