The Untangler: My Method for Bringing Order to Chaos

A Fixer’s Playbook for Turning Dysfunction into Flow, and Earning Trust While You Do It (The Art of the Fix Series)

I. Embracing the Mess

Let me tell you a secret most professionals won't admit:
They hate mess. Not just the literal kind, though yes, sticky notes crawling across every inch of a glass wall can trigger a certain kind of existential dread, but the systemic, the political, the invisible messes. The ones that don’t just need cleaning; they need untangling.

I walked into one of those once.
It was a “war room” in name only. There was no strategy, just panic:
• Initiatives launched for visibility, not viability. Everyone playing career chess.
• Every team had a (different) roadmap. None pointed in the same direction.
• Decisions made in side chats, then blamed on “the steering committee” no one had ever met.
• Tasks ‘tracked’ across a maze of sticky notes, spreadsheets, and group chats no one agreed on.
• Priorities changed daily, but no one told the people doing the actual work.
Deadlines were spiritual metaphors. The vibe was less project team, more emotional support group. People looked at me like I’d just been appointed captain of a sinking ship.

And you know what I felt?
Calm. Clarity. A weird, almost impolite sense of excitement. Because while most people were thinking “How do we escape this?”, I was thinking:

“Where’s the knot? And how fast can I trace it back to the source?”

I’ve always been like this.
Even as a kid, I had a strange fascination with disorder. While other kids were breaking toys, I was dismantling and reassembling them just to see where the logic lived. I could spend hours untangling a ball of string, not for the end result, but for the joy of decoding the structure beneath the mess.

Some people chase wins.
I chase clarity.

This is not a post about “being organized.”
It’s about cultivating a strategic way of seeing, a mindset that allows you to walk into any chaotic situation and not just cope, but lead.

It’s for project leaders who inherit chaos, for founders staring at a metaphorical (or literal) pile of tangled cords, and for anyone who's ever thought, “I don’t even know where to start.”

Here’s the fix:

1. Learn to see the real problem beneath the noise.

2. Break it down without breaking yourself.

3. Build the mindset that doesn’t flinch when things get ugly.

In this article, I’ll walk you through my method, from diagnosing dysfunction to making strategic fixes that stick. This isn’t a tidy checklist. It’s a lived philosophy. Ready?

II. Seeing Through the Clutter: The Diagnostic Mindset

Here’s the problem with most “fixers”:
They rush in with answers. Solutions, checklists, frameworks, locked and loaded.
But real messes don’t reveal themselves to the impatient.
They’re like moody teenagers: loud on the surface, hiding the real issue behind three layers of deflection.

That’s why the first rule of untangling is simple:

Don’t fix what you haven’t fully seen.

Principle 1: Deep Observation Beats Fast Judgment

When I walk into a messy situation, I don’t start by acting.
I start by watching. Quietly. Strategically. Like a systems anthropologist in hostile terrain.

Where’s the energy flowing or blocked?
What’s repeated in every meeting but never actually resolved?
Who’s dominating the room, and who’s quietly holding the truth?
I look for contradictions, time lags, and emotional hotspots. That’s where dysfunction leaves clues.

Mental model: The map is not the territory. Observe the terrain, not just the to-do list.

Before you make a move, decode the dynamics.

Don’t just spot the mess, understand what created it.

Principle 2: Symptoms Scream Loudest, But Root Causes Hide

Let’s be honest: Most of what gets labeled “the problem” is just the symptom with better PR.

“Issue with the tool.”
No, it’s a lack of process.
“People aren’t communicating.”
No, they’ve stopped trusting each other to listen.
“We’re always behind schedule.”
Why? Keep going. Ask “why” until it gets awkward. Then ask once more. That’s when you’re getting warm.

I use versions of the 5 Whys, systems loops, or simple logic trees on a Miro board until the noise falls away and the leverage point emerges.

Surface-level chaos is often just a signal that something upstream is fundamentally misaligned.

Fix that, and you don’t just solve the problem.
You dissolve the pattern that created it.

Principle 3: Complexity Isn’t the Enemy. Avoidance Is.

People love to call things “too complex” as an excuse not to engage.
But let’s be real: complexity isn’t the problem. Unacknowledged complexity is.

You can’t untangle what you’re still trying to simplify prematurely.
So instead, I lean in.

I treat the system like a living organism: What’s connected to what? What’s fragile? What’s reinforcing the chaos?

Then, and only then, do I start pulling threads.
With care. With curiosity. And with the knowledge that complexity isn’t chaos... until you ignore it.

Don’t flatten the system. Map it. Then navigate it.

Wondered how you may reach misdiagnosis in the wild?

I was once brought into a digital transformation project that was (allegedly) tanking because the software team was “too slow.” The sponsor wanted to replace the dev lead.

But something felt off.
So I watched. I listened. I traced deliverables back to their origins.

Turns out? The tech team wasn’t slow.
They were reacting to weekly changes in scope, coming from a marketing lead who thought “agile” meant “change your mind on Fridays.”

The real problem wasn’t velocity. It was governance.
We didn’t need a new dev lead. We needed a freeze protocol and a translator between strategy and delivery.

Once we fixed that?
Velocity doubled. Drama halved. Trust? Slowly restored.

If you’re dealing with a mess right now, pause.
Observe like a detective. Question like a therapist. Analyse like a strategist.
The fastest fix usually starts with the slowest look.

III. The Untangling Toolkit: Strategies for Order

Here’s where most well-meaning professionals go wrong:
They either freeze in the face of complexity… or they bulldoze through it with the enthusiasm of a toddler holding a chainsaw.

Both approaches create new problems faster than they solve old ones.

What you need is structure.
Not rigidity. Not bureaucracy. Strategic structure, the kind that reveals clarity, invites progress, and prevents you from burning the whole thing down in the name of momentum.

Here’s my go-to kit when the chaos is stacked, tangled, and (of course) urgent:

Strategy 1: Break It Down Before It Breaks You

When everything is urgent and interconnected, start by pulling it apart.

I treat problems like I treat tangled jewellery:
One knot at a time. No tugging. No panicking.
I get it all onto a whiteboard (or sticky notes, or a Notion dashboard if I’m feeling fancy) and start separating the mess into components.

• What’s people-related?

• What’s structural?

• What’s technical debt?

• What’s pure noise?

Then I stack by dependency and volatility.
What breaks other things if left unresolved? What’s noisy but not important?

Complexity becomes solvable the moment it becomes legible.

Pro tip: If your problem can’t be drawn on a single page, you don’t understand it yet.

Strategy 2: Find the First Domino

Not all problems are created equal.
Some are distractions. Others are linchpins.

That’s why I don’t just look at what’s broken, I look at what, if fixed, makes everything else easier or irrelevant. (Yes, I’m borrowing from Greg McKeown’s Essentialism playbook here.)

I call this domino sequencing, prioritize the fix that starts a chain reaction.
Sometimes it’s technical. Often, it’s human. Occasionally, it’s one uncomfortable conversation that resets everything.

The mess isn’t one big monster. It’s a sequence. Learn to play the sequence.

Practical question to ask: What’s the single point of failure... or the hidden keystone holding the system hostage?

Strategy 3: Resourcefulness > Ideal Conditions

Newsflash: you’re never going to have the full toolkit.
Half the time, you’re handed duct tape and a deadline.
The other half, it’s political fog and unspoken turf wars.

And that’s fine.

Real fixers don’t wait for perfect conditions.
They improvise. They prototype. They iterate out loud.

One of my proudest “fixes” was rebuilding team coordination during a merger using nothing more than a shared Google Sheet, color-coded blocks, and daily syncs. It wasn’t pretty, but it restored flow, visibility, and morale.

Perfectionism kills momentum. Clarity sustains it.

Behavioural insight: People don’t need the perfect system to function, they need enough stability to move forward without fear.

Sometimes you just end up fixing it with your bare hands:

At a midsize consultancy, I was dropped into a project with zero documentation, outdated tools, and a team split across three time zones who hadn't had a single joint call in weeks.

I didn’t try to automate or overhaul anything.
Instead, I created a 1-page daily dashboard that tracked blockers, owner accountability, and deadlines, all color-coded and manually updated. It gave people a reason to show up. It gave the client something to trust.

Within two weeks, the chaos turned into cadence.
We didn’t just catch up, we outpaced our original roadmap.
All from a low-tech fix rooted in human behavior, not tech bravado.

Remember to always:

• Dissect before you decide.

• Sequence before you scramble.

• Use what you’ve got before fantasizing about what you don’t.

You don’t need the fanciest tools. You need the clearest lens, the right first move, and the courage to ship something better than what existed yesterday.

IV. The Mindset of the Fixer: Patience, Power, and Psychological Stamina

Let’s get brutally honest for a second: Fixing messy things isn’t glamorous.
It doesn’t look like a TED Talk. It looks like three false starts, one inbox mutiny, and you talking to yourself at 2am wondering why you always get called when things fall apart.

And still, you show up.

Because fixing isn’t about control. It’s about restoration.
Not “being the hero,” but being the hinge that gets everything moving again.

Here’s the mindset that makes the untangling sustainable, without turning you into the burnout emoji.

Principle 1: Embrace Iteration Like It’s a Sport

Here’s a truth the ego hates: The first solution is almost never the real solution.

But most people cling to it because admitting “this isn’t it” feels like failure.
For fixers? That’s just version one. And version one is supposed to suck.

I treat every fix like a live prototype: I deploy fast, watch what breaks, then adjust with curiosity, not shame.

The mess doesn’t need your ego. It needs your flexibility.

Tactical mantra: “Ship something useful, not perfect. Improve it in the wild.”

Principle 2: Stay Calm, Especially When Everyone Else Isn’t

Messes have a way of infecting the room.
One person panics, another starts blaming, and soon the whole team is reenacting a Greek tragedy with Slack notifications.

Your job? Be the stabilizer.
Calm is not passivity, it’s strategic emotional leadership. It signals safety. It slows the pulse. It gives people permission to think clearly again.

When things go sideways, I literally slow my speech. I get quieter. I strip things down to their essentials. That’s not just for them, it’s for me, too. It keeps me in command mode.

Calm is contagious. And in a crisis, it’s the most valuable leadership currency you have.

Principle 3: Document or It Didn’t Happen

Most people fix once and move on.
Smart fixers create libraries.
Because every mess you solve is a future playbook in disguise.

I document what worked, what failed, and what surprised me. Not with sterile reports, but in human language: what I noticed, where I misjudged, what made the biggest difference. Bonus points if you turn that into a template, checklist, or onboarding asset for your team.

They say that if you don’t extract the lesson, you’re doomed to fix the same mess twice.

I like to end every fix with this strategic question: “What would I do differently if I had to solve this exact problem again tomorrow?”

Why I Actually Love the Mess

Here’s the part people don’t always understand:
I don’t fix because I want praise. I fix because I see potential buried under the noise.

The moment when the system exhales...
The first signal of flow returning...
The look on someone’s face when they realize this might actually work, that’s what makes it worth it.

Fixing messy things is not about being the smartest person in the room.
It’s about being the most constructive.
And that’s a rare, underrated kind of power.

If you want to be a high-leverage player in your career, business, or life, don’t just chase shiny new projects.
Learn to be the one who fixes the broken ones.

That’s where trust is built.
That’s where reputations are made.
And that’s where leaders are forged, not in the clean room, but in the fire.

V. The Beauty of Order

Here’s what they don’t tell you about fixing messy things:
The end state isn’t always neat.
There won’t be a ribbon-cutting ceremony or a cinematic swell of music when the pieces click into place.

But you’ll feel it…

That subtle hum of alignment.
The friction disappearing.
People making decisions faster. The slack going quiet, not because the chaos was silenced, but because it finally has somewhere to go.

That’s the real art of the fix: Creating systems that hold, even when no one’s looking. So this is my formula:

1. See deeper than the noise. Messes are just unprocessed systems asking for your attention.

2. Untangle strategically. Deconstruct, sequence, and work with what’s real, not what’s ideal.

3. Lead from the inside out. Stay iterative, stay calm, and capture what you learn. Always.

Whether it’s a dysfunctional team, a chaotic workflow, a crumbling product launch, or just your inbox looking like a digital crime scene, don’t underestimate your power to bring clarity.

You don’t need to be the loudest.
You need to be the one who sees clearly and moves intentionally.

The World Needs More Untanglers

We live in a time of increasing complexity. More tools. More noise. More pressure to act fast and look competent while everything’s on fire.

But the people who will lead the future?
They’ll be the ones who know how to pause, assess, and repair the system…quietly, skillfully, without needing the spotlight.

Fixers make the invisible visible. And then… they make it better.

What’s the mess you’ve been avoiding?
Or the one you stepped into, and came out sharper, calmer, and more trusted on the other side?

Share your story.
Or drop your favourite fixer move: the tool, question, or ritual you swear by when the chaos hits.

Let’s build a better collective playbook. One elegant fix at a time.