Making Sense of the 'Chaos' Recently, I ran a workshop with several middle managers in a large multinational company. This particular organisation is well advanced in its thinking towards change with a clear compelling Vision cascaded throughout the business, trained facilitators in place and managers developed in the key skills of leading change. And yet there was still a feeling of unease in the room. After some discussion it became clear that the change programmes were so successful in creating a positive environment for team-based action, that now people in the business were overloaded. There was also a feeling of confusion as the managers struggled to understand the relationship that each of the projects had with each other and the relevance with the overall direction of the business. It's almost as if the company had moved from one extreme to the other. At the beginning struggling with its inability to make any significant change happen (whilst competitors became stronger by the day) and now overwhelmed and confused by the groundswell of action on many fronts. We decided to allocate some time to explore this yet further and using a combination of tools including 'Policy Deployment' the group began to map out the relationship between the companies Vision and strategy and the multitude of team based projects underway. The result was amazing. Firstly the managers became re-energised about the programme of activities, as it didn't seem so overwhelming after all when the full picture became clear. Secondly, two small projects were challenged as it became obvious that they didn't really contribute to the overall direction of the business - and there's nothing more likely to encourage overwhelmed managers than seeing things being taken off the agenda! This week's tip will help with similar teams, departments or organisations that are trying to make sense of the sometimes 'chaotic' nature of change.