Strategy During Chaos: Adaptive Leadership For Unprecedented Times
In a world where tariffs shift overnight, federal funding decisions change on a whim, and market conditions transform in the blink of an eye, how do you maintain strategic focus?
In this candid, lo-fi episode recorded during her recovery from the flu, Sara Lobkovich shares battle-tested methods for maintaining strategic momentum when everything around you is in flux.
Learn why both over-planning and strategy abandonment are equally dangerous traps – and discover a practical three-step framework to keep your organization moving forward even when forecasting feels impossible.
Episode Highlights:
Why both over-planning and strategic abandonment are dangerous reactions to chaos
How focusing on outcomes rather than activities creates strategic flexibility
A practical approach to maintaining strategic momentum during turbulent times
The strategic advantage of quick launches during rapid change
Key Concepts Explored:
Over-Planning vs. Strategy Abandonment
Why detailed plans can be comforting—but dangerous
How giving up on strategy entirely leads to reactive decision-making
Strategic Anchors
Distilling your long-term strategy into 3–5 clear, enduring priorities
Using those anchors to guide decision-making during uncertainty
What Matters Most Right Now
Separating urgency from strategic importance
Making aligned short-term decisions without losing sight of the bigger picture
The “To-Done” List & Building in Public
Shifting focus from to-do lists to what can be completed and launched
The value of fast, lo-fi execution and real-world feedback
Strategic Rhythm in Uncertain Times
Why weekly or biweekly check-ins are critical (especially when things feel chaotic)
How staying consistent with your cadence supports focus and momentum
Survival Reactions vs. Strategic Responses
How instinctive reactions can derail progress (motorcycle metaphor alert )
Learning to pause and make moderated, strategic choices—even under pressure
Notable Quotes:
"If you find yourself feeling like you need to revise your plan every time you turn on the news, you may be spending time planning that could better be spent on implementation." (00:04:00)
"OKRs let us focus on the goal and remain flexible about our plans, so they can be a bit of an antidote to over-planning." (00:04:30)
"The rapid iteration that's possible with building in public actually can create a strategic advantage during rapid change because you can be more relevant and responsive to exactly what's happening around you." (00:11:45)
Chapters:
[00:00:00] Introduction to Thinkydoer Shorts
[00:00:36] Current Challenges in Strategic Planning
[00:01:49] Upcoming Workshop: Strategy During Chaos
[00:02:46] Adapting Strategic Plans to Uncertainty
[00:03:06] Avoiding Over-Planning and Abandonment
[00:06:49] Three Steps for Strategic Resilience
[00:08:07] Focusing on Immediate Priorities
[00:09:26] The To-Done List Approach
[00:12:03] Conclusion and Upcoming Events
Upcoming Events:
Strategy During Chaos Workshop: May 7th at 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM Pacific. Just $19 (scholarships available). Register at findrc.co
No-BS Strategic Achievement Intensive: May 15th-16th (two half-days). Create chaos-proof strategic plans with structured exercises and supported coworking. Register at findrc.co
Book Launch:
"You Are a Strategist: Use No-BS OKRs to Get Big Things Done" will be available in print (hardback and softback) on May 6th. Get the ebook now wherever you buy books.
Sara’s Links and Resources:
Join Sara’s Email List: Get updates on OKRs, strategy, and workplace wellbeing and performance at ck.redcurrantco.com
Book Website: Now available! Learn more about You Are a Strategist at youareastrategist.com
Book launch squad: findrc.co/launchsquad
Connect with Sara via LinkedIn, Bluesky, Threads, or Mastodon
Podcast Home Page: Thinkydoers Podcast
Find full show notes and the episode transcript via https://findrc.co/thinkydoers !
Full Episode Transcript:
Sara: [00:00:00] Welcome to Thinkydoer Shorts where we embrace anti perfection and dive straight into the messy middle of strategy, leadership, and personal and career growth. I'm
your host, Sara Lobkovich, creator of No-BS Objectives and Key Results. Host of the Thinkydoers podcast and I'm a strategy coach, big time goal nerd and board certified health and wellness coach with a focus on work life wellbeing. In the next few minutes, we'll explore a current topic or insight to spark your curiosity and provide you a pragmatic starting place to take action.
Let's dive in.
Hello all and welcome to this lo-fi episode. I'm sitting on my sofa recovering from the flu, But I didn't wanna wait to share this episode with you. I've been having conversation after conversation with clients lately about how to exist strategically in an environment that [00:01:00] is as uncertain and chaotic as the one that we're all operating in.
It's kind of the topic of the day
I have clients dramatically impacted by tariffs and the news shifting and changing there. I have clients dramatically affected by spending in public health and education and by federal funding decisions that are being made.
So in normal cycles, I'm often having the question from clients, how do we create strategic plans or strategic goals or operate strategically when we're in an environment that is constantly changing? but I'm usually hearing that from startup founders and solopreneurs
as an objection to working with OKRs, where now every single one of my clients is impacted by the uncertainty of the environment that we're operating in.
So I wanted to take a minute today to give you a sneak peek of some of what I'm gonna be talking about in an upcoming workshop called Strategy During Chaos
that I'll be [00:02:00] hosting on May 7th at 9:00 AM Pacific, and then again at 4:00 PM Pacific to make it a little more friendly for my global time zone friends.
If you'd like to join me for that workshop, it's only $19, and if a scholarship would help or you need a fee waived, just let me know.
This is one where I might even just enable the pay what you can option to make it more possible for anyone to participate,
because trust me, there is no shame in $19 being a barrier to participation at this point. I get it.
But just in case you can't join, I wanted to share some of the key points right now here in this episode
because all signs point to this kind of chaotic and
rapidly shifting operating environment is here to stay at least for the next few years.
So instead of creating strategic plans that are resilient from occasional disruption, now we're focused on creating strategic plans and creating strategic goals
that are resilient for even [00:03:00] persistent uncertainty that we're all operating in
There are twin traps that apply in conditions like this. The behavior that I see is that folks tend to either shift into over planning mode or kind of abandon the hope of operating strategically entirely.
When the world is uncertain, one of our instincts as humans is to focus on what we can control. And what we can control is our plans. We can control our plans about what we think we need to do or what we aim to do. And so a common response in a situation like now
is that we try to comfort ourselves and give ourselves some clarity by creating detailed. Action plans and then adapting them as circumstances change. There's nothing wrong with that. We do need to do a certain amount of planning
so that we're sure we're putting our effort into intentional
activities that are designed to yield the results we need.
But if you find yourself feeling [00:04:00] like you need to revise your plan, every time you turn on the news,
you may be spending time planning that could better be spent on implementation.
This is one of the big benefits of working with objectives and key results when we have OKRs created, they help us make decisions about what to do because we're clear about what we're aiming to achieve
So we can stay focused on the outcomes we're aiming for or the progress measures that we're aiming for without being as attached to the activities that we have planned. OKRs let us focus on the goal and remain flexible about our plans so they can be a bit of an antidote to over-planning.
At the other end of the spectrum, I see people just completely abandon all hope of operating strategically. Sometimes we wind up in just a daily firefight of what's urgent, what's on fire, what has to happen today.
And I'm a small business owner myself. I get it. Some days are like that.
But as a [00:05:00] habit, even when the world is changing quickly around us,
it's still beneficial to have some sort of
point on the map that you're aiming for in your travels. So.
It may become harder to forecast your likely achievement on your strategy,
but we wanna maintain our strategic plans and keep them current even if our ability to forecast is inhibited by how chaotic the environment is
because staying focused on our strategy during wild rides like this also lets us capitalize on opportunities that we might miss if we're only focusing on the day to day and what's urgent.
So those two completely reasonable, understandable reactions to operating in an environment that is impossible to forecast,
don't mean that you're doing anything wrong, it means you're human.
I can't help [00:06:00] but make a motorcycle analogy here. If you've read Keith Code's Twist of the Wrist, you'll know survival reactions don't always lead to success in motorcycling.
Skilled motorcyclists learn to manage our survival responses because
our body's natural survival responses sometimes lead to conditions like putting too much input into the bike and falling down if we manage our.
Survival reactions, we can make moderated choices
that might yield better outcomes, and keep us upright.
So we're gonna talk about just a couple of the
methods I use for strategic resilience and basically managing those survival instincts when it comes to strategy and maintaining momentum during uncertain times,
There are three steps I'm gonna share with you today, and the first one is to reconnect with your strategic anchors. If you are working with a strategic [00:07:00] plan, that's a six or 10 or 182 page document, that's not the version of the strategy that you're gonna keep front of mind right now.
If you're a regular listener and reader of my work, you're familiar with the Connected Strategic Stack and Connected Strategic one-pager.
Now is the time to look at that long-term strategic plan and pull out your
three or four or five maybe max
strategic anchors that are the most enduring, the most important, the things that you really have to maintain focus on, no matter how chaotic the environment is that you're operating in.
So this is just a distillation process and
this is the exercise that we're actually gonna do in the workshop on May 7th,
to help you either extract your strategic anchors from your existing strategic documentation or create them if you don't have them today.
Identifying a really small number of strategic [00:08:00] anchors. gives you a way to quickly refocus on your foundational direction
When chaos disrupts your well-made plans.
Step two is one of my favorite questions, and this sounds really simple, and that is to ask yourself what matters most right now. If we've got our eye on our strategic anchors,
The question of what matters most right now lets us make near term decisions in alignment
with our big picture direction that we know, because we're familiar with our strategic anchors. So when I say what matters most right now, that doesn't mean what's most urgent right now, although you might need to factor that into account.
If the house is on fire, it doesn't make sense to be redecorating the second bedroom,
but that simple question of what matters most right now when keeping in mind your strategic anchors.
lets you transform, scattered and overwhelming thinking into [00:09:00] some simple reminders for yourself
of what it means to make progress and succeed right where you are today.
The answer to the question, what matters most right now lets you make better decisions about how you choose to spend your time and invest resources.
And helps you put more of your energy into focused progress that's in alignment with your strategic anchors, even if you have limited time to spend on what's not urgent.
And then step three is everybody's got a to-do list. We're not gonna talk about to-do lists. Here I'm talking about the to done list. So instead of focusing on that to-do list, that just always gets longer. Once you have your strategic anchors clear and you've externalized your thinking about what matters most right now, then you can ask yourself, what can I get done and launched?
I don't know about you, but there are plenty of times in my business where I've started on a project or an initiative [00:10:00] and I've been working on it, and then circumstances in the market change and that
product or initiative becomes irrelevant.
That's normal. There's nothing wrong with that. But in times like these, there's an even stronger case for building in public.
If you can get something pulled together and released that is timely
and aligned to the current operating conditions quickly,
most of us are gonna yield more benefit from doing a low fidelity, what can I get done and launched kind of approach. Then overthinking and overworking work, that risks just becoming irrelevant as the operating conditions change.
So now is the time for quick launches. Building in public, I'm always an advocate of.
When we build in public, we reduce the amount of time that we're overthinking and over planning, [00:11:00] which AKA means we're anxious. We shorten that cycle as much as we can, so we can get something into public, into market, and start getting actual information or data on its performance earlier.
Which lets us use that data and information we receive to inform how we iterate instead of relying on our own overthinking to try to iterate our way to successfulness.
Focusing on what you can get to done and launched, built in public,
getting something done and into the phase where you're getting real world feedback or data is gonna accelerate your strategic learning progress no matter how uncertain the operating environment.
And the rapid iteration that's possible with building in public actually can create a strategic advantage during rapid change because you can be more relevant and responsive to exactly what's happening around you. You can be more relevant and responsive [00:12:00] to exactly what your customers or clients are experiencing.
There are a couple other elements to operating strategically during chaos that I'd love to share, but I'm just gonna be honest. I'm truly losing my voice,
so I'll
save the pieces on decision filters and
creating clarity for teams during uncertainty. and I'll just share one last thought before I go today. If we're operating strategically, then we inevitably have a weekly or biweekly planning cadence or strategic check-in OKR check-in cadence,
and for whatever reason, when things get chaotic, it's easy for those to fall by the wayside. In favor of that focus on the firefight.
Maintaining your rhythm of business, though is actually really important. So your fundamental operating rhythm,
I know it's hard when it feels like everything's on fire,
but keeping your. Routines of operation going
and having those weekly or biweekly [00:13:00] check-ins serve as a reset. They give us an opportunity to pull our heads out of the firefighting we're doing and what's urgent, and remind ourselves of those strategic anchors and what's really most important. It can be tempting for those rituals of connection and alignment to fall off the calendar when things get chaotic.
And this is your reminder to not let that happen.
All right. There is a quick little framework for you to think about on how to
stay your course and keep your focus on strategic achievement, no matter how chaotic the environment you're operating in.
Don't forget if you'd like to join me for an expanded version of this, including workshopping your strategic anchors,
you'll find information on how to register on my website. The easiest shortcut to spell is findrc.co.
That workshop is actually gonna be followed by my Q2 No-BS S trategic Achievement Intensive,
[00:14:00] which takes place on May 15th and 16th, and that's two half days where we come together and develop your
resilient chaos proof strategic plan
through a series of structured exercises and supported coworking time.
That intensive, has proven to be so effective and useful for clients, and I love hosting it so much that It is actually the only live experience that I'm hosting regularly and quarterly these days.
It's the fastest possible way to learn how to create No-BS objectives and key results.
But you don't stop at just creating your goals. At the end of the two day experience, you'll generate a behavior change plan to help you actually achieve the goals that you create.
You'll find information about the workshop and the No-BS Strategic Achievement Intensive @findrrc.co.
Oh, and I'd be remiss to not mention the [00:15:00] print launch of "You Are a Strategist: Use No-BS OKRs to Get Big Things Done" is on track.
So pencil in May 6th, which, oh my gosh, that's right around the corner.
Where my new book will be available in print in hard back and soft back,
and as many outlets where you buy books as possible. The priority one for me is bookshop.org,
since they support independent and local bookstores.
And if you can't wait, the ebook is available right now wherever you listen to eBooks.
Sara: All right, friends, That's it for today.
Stay in the loop with everything going on around here by visiting findrc.co/newsletter and joining my mailing list.
Got questions? My email addresses are too hard to spell, so visit findrc.co/contact and shoot me a note that way. You'll also find me at @saralobkovich on most of your favorite social [00:16:00] media platforms.
For today's show notes, visit findrc.co/thinkydoers if there's someone you'd like featured on this podcast, drop me a note. And if you know other Thinkydoers who'd benefit from this episode, please share. Your referrals, your word of mouth, and your reviews are much appreciated. I'm looking forward to the questions this episode sparks for you, and I look forward to seeing you next time.
You don’t have to OKR alone!
Snag a copy of the No-BS OKRs Workbook PDF NOW for only $19 USD, and get started working with OKRs today!
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You do not have to OKR alone! And, I’d love to help!
-Sara Lobkovich, OKR Coach & Principal Consultant
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