“May you live in interesting times” is commonly thought to be an ancient Chinese proverb. That’s a myth. A British diplomat, Sir Austen Chamberlain, used the phrase in a 1936 speech, which Robert F. Kennedy amplified in his 1966 speech in South Africa.

The ability of large enterprises to effectively navigate complexity also is a myth. In the classic 1993 book Reengineering the Corporation, Michael Hammer and James Champy estimated that 30% to 50% of change efforts succeed. As Harvard Business Review detailed in a 2017 article (“Overcome Resistance to Change with Two Conversations”), the success rate remained mostly unchanged almost 25 years later.

Managers and leaders at all levels in the organization respond to macro-, micro-, internal, and external events that have consequential impacts. Their team members’ well-being, the team’s ability to fulfill its operational role, and ultimately the effectiveness of the organization may be at stake. Strategic change efforts capture much attention. But effectively responding to tactical change is equally critical and impactful.

Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity are persistent management challenges. Today, we face volatile supply chains, uncertainty regarding the impact of AI, and the complexity of collaborating with hybrid and remote teams. We can draw on the patterns and experiences from the past to better navigate today’s challenges.

I have had the distinction of leading teams at three large enterprises as they traversed headline-grabbing crises. The executives did their best to contend with strategic and external fallout. However, it was the managers who had to contextualize and operationalize the new realities. Amid chaos, we had to stabilize our teams, brace for uncertainty, and lead courageously.

UNDERSTANDING THE CONTEXT

Michael Lewis’s first book, Liar’s Poker, provided an insider’s view of the excesses, risk taking, and bravado of the Salomon Brothers’ bond desk. The traders felt they were invincible and the rules did not apply to them. In 1991, Salomon tried to corner the market in United States Treasury securities.

I managed the team of a dozen analysts at the U.S. Department of the Treasury responsible for the securities auctions. I was in my late 20s, and it was my first leadership role. I remember being shown Salomon’s bid and being told that something looked “funny.” At that moment, there was a problem to resolve. I could not predict or imagine the turmoil that would follow.

That was the beginning of the end for Salomon Brothers. The head trader was convicted of fraud. The company was suspended from participating in Treasury auctions. It was acquired a few years later by Travelers Group and eventually disappeared.

Internally, my team was cast into chaos. Investigators from the Justice Department descended to collect evidence. We developed new regulations. New procedures and controls were implemented. Within two years, a new application was built and deployed. And the team nearly doubled in size.

I was focused on execution—keeping things going and addressing and resolving issues as they arose. Executive leadership was in crisis response mode. Political leaders, Capitol Hill, the press, and financial markets all needed reassurances that the auctions were fair and secure.

The Cynefin framework was developed nearly a decade later to help leaders understand complex organizational situations and choose context-sensitive decision-making approaches. The framework, developed by Dave Snowden when he worked for IBM Global Services, is a sense-making tool that describes four states: