January has a particular kind of gravity.
Even if nobody says it out loud, the message is everywhere: New year. New plan. New you. Fix it. Improve it. Optimize it.
And in most organizations, this turns into a familiar ritual:
- New OKRs
- New initiatives
- New “efficiency” drives
- New dashboards
- New promises to move faster with fewer people
It can feel productive. It can even look mature. But in complex systems, it often becomes the most expensive form of self-deception:
Optimization without orientation.
This article is a New Year message with a different flavor — not critique, not hype, not pressure. A simple systemic truth:
The New Year isn’t asking you to fix anything yet. It’s asking you to face the terrain.
Why “optimize” is the default reflex
Optimization feels safe because it is measurable.
When leaders don’t know what will happen next, they reach for what they can control:
- process
- speed
- cost
- utilization
- execution pressure
Optimization gives the nervous system relief: “At least we’re doing something.”
But here’s the trap: in complex systems, “doing something” can deepen misalignment faster than “doing nothing.” Not because action is bad — but because direction matters more than effort.
Orientation is not hesitation
Orientation is often misread as slowness. But it is a different skill entirely.
Orientation means:
- seeing what has actually changed
- noticing what the system is already trying to become
- recognizing where energy is available (and where it is not)
- distinguishing real constraints from imagined ones
- finding the next honest step
Orientation is what prevents leaders from “executing perfectly” in the wrong direction.
Or to put it bluntly:
Most systems don’t fail because they lack effort. They fail because they run fast while facing the wrong way.
The New Year illusion: “We can start clean”
New Year planning often assumes a clean slate.
But systems don’t reset on January 1st. They carry memory.
They carry:
- unfinished tensions
- quiet resentments
- unspoken truths
- capacity limits
- structural contradictions
This is why “new initiatives” sometimes land like an insult. Not because the initiative is wrong — but because the system is still living inside last year’s unresolved patterns.
In Systemic Renewal, we explored a key idea: renewal is not a slogan. It’s what happens when a system is allowed to reorganize honestly after pressure.
Orientation is the first act of renewal.
Optimization is downstream from meaning
Optimization is a tool. It’s not a compass.
You can optimize:
- a broken strategy
- a misaligned structure
- a culture that is quietly fragmenting
- a system that is already exhausted
In those cases, optimization doesn’t help — it intensifies the wrong pattern.
That’s why the most practical leadership question in January is not:
“How do we improve performance?”
It’s:
“What is the system trying to tell us right now?”
This connects directly to Sensemaking Over Decision-Making: in complexity, meaning must stabilize before action becomes intelligent.
The orientation checklist (simple, powerful)
If you want an orientation practice that actually works in real organizations, here’s a clean starting set. Not as a workshop. Not as a program. Just as a way to face reality together.
1) What changed — externally?
- What shifted in the market, customers, regulation, partners, constraints?
- What assumptions from last year are no longer true?
2) What changed — internally?
- Where did trust deepen? Where did it erode?
- What new fractures appeared? What new strengths emerged?
- What is the system tired of repeating?
3) Where is energy available?
Not “where should energy be available,” but where it actually is.
- What do people care about right now?
- What feels alive?
- Where are teams already moving without being forced?
4) What is the system protecting?
Every organization protects something: identity, stability, reputation, leadership certainty, a story about itself.
Protection isn’t bad — but unexamined protection creates invisible rigidity.
5) What would be the smallest honest step?
Not the grand transformation. Not the perfect roadmap.
The smallest honest step is often the most catalytic.
Orientation creates a different kind of speed
Here’s the irony: leaders who slow down for orientation often move faster later.
Why?
- Less rework
- Fewer initiatives that die quietly
- Less “fake urgency”
- More ownership
- More coherence
As we explored in From Agreement to Coherence, alignment that is forced produces compliance. Alignment that emerges produces coordination.
Orientation is how coherence becomes possible.
New Year planning for complex systems: a healthier rhythm
If you’re leading a complex system, consider a different New Year rhythm:
- January: orientation, sensemaking, surfacing reality
- February: choice points, constraints, coherence agreements
- March: optimization (now aimed at a clearer direction)
This isn’t about waiting. It’s about sequencing.
When the sequence is right, you don’t need to push the system as hard. It moves with you.
The hopeful truth
Here’s what I love about orientation: it’s not cynical. It’s not heavy. It doesn’t demand that you “fix yourself.”
It simply asks for honesty.
And honesty, in complex systems, is regenerative. It relaxes the system. It reduces performative pressure. It restores signal quality.
Sometimes the most powerful New Year leadership move is not a bigger plan.
It’s a quieter sentence:
“Before we optimize anything, let’s make sure we’re facing the right direction.”
Closing: start the year by facing the system
The New Year is not a command to accelerate.
It’s an invitation to orient.
Because once you see where you really are — and what the system is really trying to become — optimization stops being pressure.
It becomes care.