Built to Beat Chaos

CHAPTER 10Balance Running and Changing

The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.

Proverbs 21

At this stage, after strategy formation, leaders must cope with the most challenging aspect of organizational dynamics—balancing resources between short‐term operating needs and long‐term strategic needs.

After strategy formation, leaders must cope with the most challenging aspect of organizational dynamics—balancing resources between short‐term operating needs and long‐term strategic needs.

Let's take another look at the Nehemiah wall‐rebuilding project. Their approach was to break down this massive task into sections of walls assigned to specific families. They worked in parallel to complete the task quickly. Because their enemies were trying to stop them, some people were assigned to defense. Everyone carried a sword, and there was an agreed‐upon communication process (a trumpet) to signal if an attack was underway so reinforcements would arrive quickly. They planned carefully on how to work together.

Your own approach depends on organization size. Typically you must align vertically through multiple layers, and you must align horizontally to coordinate across functions. This process is fraught with communication and coordination challenges. The difficulty increases because of the requirement to run the organization at the same time you are changing it. Running the business refers to the daily things people do to ...