I have always loved the phrase “creating order from chaos”. I picture this crazy work environment with items flying through the air, managers with hair standing on end and panic everywhere….. then a second image with complete calm, everyone sitting at their desks in neatly pressed clothes, happily getting their work done.

When you are in an operations leadership role, creating order from chaos is often part of the job description.  Based on past experience, here are 5 steps you can use to create order in your workplace.

1) Critical Few

One of the first steps in creating order is to determine the critical, few, business priorities. These are the most important things that must be accomplished in your desired time frame. If you ask you boss, and their answer is “everything”, you need to push back.  Bring him/her a list of the projects or initiatives and work together to put them in priority order.

Once you’ve determined the “critical few” and before you begin your research and analysis, confirm what the objectives are.. i.e. what you ultimately what to accomplish and how these tie in to the overall department or business objectives. This knowledge will guide you in your next steps- and your ability to create order.

2) Become a Subject Matter Expert

To create order you must “get your arms around” the situation.

Ask lots of questions using the famous W’s: what, why, when, who, where and an occasional H- how. Talk to your boss, your coworkers and the employees directly involved with the work. Seek to understand the current situation and root causes of problems from three angles: employees, customers and the business/organization.

Observe & Report: Watch the terrible move with Seth Rogan, “Observe and Report”. Yeah.. really.  No.. kidding. In addition to asking questions, simply observe what’s happening. Attend related meetings and watch employees complete their work tasks. Review reports related to the work issues and identify trends and/or outliers.

3) Get Up On The Balcony

Take some quiet time (no email, no IM, no texting, Blackberry out of site) to read through your notes and collection of information. “Get up on the balcony”, rise above the details and build a big picture view of the situation.

What have you learned? What is really going on? What are the main roadblocks and why are they happening? You must understand the root cause(s) of chaos, and the critical few actions that will have the largest impact on creating order.

4) Identify The Process Owners

If you are in the midst of chaos, you must delegate and/or empower to create order. So, identify the process owners for the main issues you’ve identified.

For example, if the main issues reside in your order fulfillment area, then the process owner may be the Director of Customer Service or the Call Center Manager. Perhaps employees in your inside sales teams do not have the proper training to follow the established processes. In this case, the Training or Human Resources Managers may be the process owners.

You will create order much faster if the process owner, owns the resolution, creates an action plan and is held accountable for results VS, you, the Ops Leader, trying to solve it.

5) Drive Execution

This is the point in time where many leaders fail. They have done a lot of work analyzing and understanding the situation, but they don’t act or can not get others to act.

As George S. Patton once said, “A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week”.

So, you must use your enthusiasm and your influencing skills to instigate, build and maintain strong momentum towards achievement of the business objectives. Check out a previous post, “ How to increase your leadership productivity”, for some additional tips for this stage.

Note: Corporate America loves project teams, project plans with dates, and if the issues are very complicated, you may want to take a formal, project approach to solve it. However, this can sometimes make the business problem even larger and delay resolution, plus the project itself may be perceived as “red tape”. Use this line of attack wisely.

What do you think of my advice? Do you have additional tips to create order from chaos? Please add your thoughts in the comments section.