Everything Everywhere All at Once: How Leaders Can Manage and Prioritize in an Increasingly Chaotic World

By: Hugh MacPhie

In the Academy-award winning film Everything Everywhere All at Once, our heroine Evelyn is very stressed out. She has lots going on in her business and personal life, and none of it is going right. As viewers, we take comfort and find inspiration as she gets everything under control and finds peace. 

But how did she get everything under control? By accessing the powers of a parallel universe.  

Wouldn’t it be cool if leaders facing external and internal pressures, constant change, and challenges in their personal lives could just go to another dimension to fix things? 

Many of the leaders we work with face situations a lot like Evelyn’s – where day-to-day pressures build up, crowd out key priorities, and create a pile of backlog. And, as that pile of backlog grows, there is a huge risk of their anxiety increasing while their effectiveness declines. 

One Battle After Another

In the absence of a portal to a parallel universe, how can leaders thrive again, in contexts where much of what happens is beyond our control? As one of our clients said recently, “Something literally always comes up that we didn’t expect. First it was the pandemic, and now it’s tariffs. Who knows what it will be next year?” 

We often recommend to leaders that they leave about 33% of their calendars to deal with unanticipated challenges and issues – over and above the key priorities in their strategic plans. 

Leaving a third of one’s time flexible for crisis management is extremely optimistic. The reality for many leaders is that, too often, they spend up to 80% of their time fighting fires.

Change (and its cousin, chaos) will never go away. So how can leaders – and their teams – do a better job of dealing with a world where the speed and impacts of change never slow? 

Change is the New Normal. So ‘Get Zen with the Chaos’

What can leaders do to remain focused and in control – and help guide their organizations more effectively? 

Mindset. There has been a lot written lately about how powerful and important the right mindset can be. Readings on stoicism are in vogue, as is the excellent book Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine, which we would recommend. A powerful attitudinal shorthand we’d recommend emerged from a session our firm led to help a fast-growing financial services startup. One of the guiding principles created during our session was ‘get zen with the chaos’. Put differently, don’t let change stress you out – acknowledge it, welcome it, and find opportunities to leverage it.

Disciplined Prioritization. When we do strategy work with clients, a key question we ask is: what are you choosing not to do? New and different activities or lines of business can be exciting. But they often distract from your core mission and focus and, like a toaster with too many features, simply add to the probability of things going wrong. The bottom line is to do fewer things better – as an individual, and as an organization.

Reduce Distractions and Noise.  The mental health impacts of social media are becoming increasingly clear. While we all want to be ‘in the loop’, the amount of time we spend on social media is diluting societal competitiveness and productivity. Consider approaches to limit social media usage, and reduce other forms of distraction and noise. Our brains are simply not built for so much electronic stimulus.

Create Time for ‘Think Work’. There are two aspects to this recommendation. First, create time for reading and learning about what truly matters in your industry and relevant societal trends. And, as per the previous point, do that learning in a place and at a time when you will not be distracted. Second, designate time – ideally an hour a day – for private thinking. Do this with a piece of paper and a pencil, so you can capture and build upon ideas. Then share those ideas with others – to improve and enhance the thinking, build buy-in, and problem solve with other members of your team.

Final Thought: Remember that work should be engaging, energizing, and a source of satisfaction. If you can live that way as part of your own mindset, you and your organization will find ways to succeed. Learn more about our leadership development services here.