Let’s be honest: making a plan right now can feel a bit like drawing a map on a melting ice floe.

Political instability, economic whiplash, war, climate disruption — none of this is theoretical. It affects supply chains, customer sentiment, capital flows and the very fabric of our organizations. If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that uncertainty is not a temporary condition we can wait out. It’s the water we swim in.

So how do leaders plan when everything is in flux?

The reflex is to do one of two things. One is denial: Push ahead as if the world were stable, even when it obviously isn’t. The other is paralysis: Become so overwhelmed by uncertainty that you stop planning altogether. Neither works.

Plans as flexible architecture

There is another way. In my research with Chris Clearfield, we have studied how organizations — from air traffic control centers to emergency rooms — function under pressure. The most resilient ones don’t try to predict the future. Instead, they build systems that can absorb surprises.

That begins with how they plan. In these organizations, a plan is not a rigid sequence of actions. It’s more like a strategic architecture, something designed with flexibility in mind. It outlines direction and priorities, but it also creates space for people to pause, reassess and adapt.

Crucially, these organizations normalize “stopping.” In one case we studied, a young trader at a financial firm was praised — not punished — for halting a seemingly profitable trade when he realized he didn’t fully understand it. In another, a seaman on an aircraft carrier was formally commended for reporting a small error that temporarily shut down an entire training exercise.

In both examples, the organizations had internalized a lesson that often emerges only in hindsight: the cost of not stopping can be extremely high. The trader’s firm had experienced a near-miss years earlier when a hesitation to pause resulted in a major loss. Since then, they had adjusted their protocols and feedback systems to reward reflection. On the aircraft carrier, safety drills were structured around scenarios in which early interruption—no matter how inconvenient—was critical to mission success. In both environments, planning incorporated the reality that small slowdowns could prevent much larger meltdowns.

What allowed these pauses to happen was not just policy. It was culture. In both cases, the individuals involved believed they would be supported for speaking up, even if it meant stopping a profitable trade or suspending a high-stakes military exercise. That belief reflects a key feature of resilient organizations: psychological safety. It is not enough to say “speak up” or “pause if needed.” People need to trust that doing so will be rewarded, not punished. And that trust is cultivated through leadership behavior, consistent reinforcement, and visible examples of past support.

A different cycle

What distinguishes these teams is not heroic foresight, but a disciplined cycle: do, monitor, diagnose.

In fast-moving environments — emergency rooms, trading desks, even newsroom floors — this cycle allows teams to keep moving without becoming blind to what is unfolding. They act, but they also watch. They test assumptions. And when the data does not match expectations, they stop to ask why.

In contrast, in many organizations, this cycle is truncated. Monitoring is cursory. Diagnosis is skipped. The result is a string of disconnected tasks that feel productive, but never adapt meaningfully to changing conditions.

That is the real risk in uncertain times — not a failure to act, but a failure to reflect.

The power of cross-functional understanding

A third, often overlooked feature of adaptive planning is mutual understanding across roles.

In one study, researchers Beth Bechky and Gerardo Okhuysen examined SWAT teams and film crews — groups that face constant, high-stakes surprises. What made these teams effective wasn’t just calmness under pressure but the fact that each member had a working understanding of the others’ jobs. A camera operator knew what the lighting technician needed. A SWAT officer understood how a sniper’s scope functioned, even if she would never use one herself.

This kind of knowledge — sometimes called transactive memory — acts as social infrastructure. It enables improvisation without confusion. When the unexpected happens, people do not freeze or wait for instructions. They shift, adapt and compensate. They know how to help without getting in the way.

In many organizations, by contrast, employees are siloed. Specialization is prized, but mutual understanding is neglected. That works fine — until it does not. When disruptions hit, handoffs break down. Teams become brittle. And even small surprises force escalation, not because the problems are so big, but because no one knows who can flex.

The solution is not turning everyone into a generalist. It is creating moments where people learn how their roles interlock. That might happen through job shadowing, project rotations or structured debriefs. The goal is not efficiency in the narrow sense. It is cognitive slack — a shared awareness that gives the system room to adapt.

When uncertainty is high, we need more of this kind of slack. Not in the form of bigger budgets or longer timelines, but in the form of better human infrastructure.

From prediction to adaptation

The key shift for leaders is to stop treating plans as rigid blueprints and start thinking of them as frameworks for adaptation. That means creating strategies that are less about trying to forecast every twist and turn, and more about enabling thoughtful adjustment when surprises inevitably come.

It means designing systems where stopping is not stigmatized. Where reflection is not deferred. Where people know how their work connects to the whole.

Let’s not pretend the chaos is going away. The world is not returning to “normal,” because normal was always more fragile than we admitted. But we can plan anyway — differently. We can stop pretending the future is predictable. We can embrace flexibility without surrendering intention. We can design for adaptation.

That’s what real planning looks like now.

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