103: The Cost of Chaos - Stop Calling Chaos a Strategy

Tammy brings the hard hitting truth: Chaos might feel like momentum, but it's really just motion without meaning. In this fast-paced episode, she dives into the high cost of allowing stress, drama, and avoidant behaviors to run your workplace. Through personal anecdotes (like the story of "Frank"), Tammy explains why unsustainability is the ultimate price of chaos—affecting everything from turnover rates and sick leave to team productivity. This is a crucial lesson on self-regulation, clarity, and building a workplace where order restores energy and trust.

4 Costs of Chaos

1. Chaos is Expensive: Chaos lacks sustainability. Leaders who use fear or high-pressure tactics get short-term results, but overall productivity drops, leading to increased turnover, higher sick leave, and loss of revenue.

2. Unregulated Leaders Create Unregulated Teams: You cannot lead people out of stress while you are drowning in it. An unregulated leader models expected chaotic behavior, causing the team to become dysregulated, driving them to spend time job-searching instead of working.

3. Communication in Chaos Becomes Cannibalistic: Fear-fed communication eats results for breakfast. When defensiveness (a form of fear-filled communication) becomes the norm, team members focus on self-preservation, eating away at collaboration, trust, and transformation.

4. Regulation is Not Rigidity: Order restores energy, focus, and trust in your team. Regulation is about your "count-on-ability"—what your team can rely on from your reactions and responses. It's the opposite of being stuck; it's the foundation for agility.

Actionable Tools & Quotes

• The Problem with Volatility and Vacancy: Both yelling and retreating are equally damaging. Vacancy (silence/shutting down) tells people they can't trust you, while volatility pushes them away. Leaders must find the regulated middle ground.

• The Key to Performance: "Healthy, actionable steps driving performance is a winning plan every single day."

• Your Self-Check: Ask your team: "What is your count-on-ability factor?" Look at your sick leave and turnover rates—these are chaos-driven numbers.

• Final Quote: "Fear-fed communication eats results for breakfast."

Call to Action:

Don't drive Q4 momentum with chaos. Drive it with curiosity and clarity.

I unapologetically ask bold questions and challenge assumptions to help leaders rethink what they thought was true!

DM me the word CHAOS on Instagram @TheTammyBond to get a resource that will help you ask the right questions to solve for the chaos and finish the year strong.