June 23, 2026 | Issue Archive​

​Videos | Speaking | Blog | Course | Book​

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Three rooms. Three industries. One answer.

Over the past few months, I’ve been tracking something at the end of my Radical Adaptability keynotes.

Participants identify which of five common survival defaults is creating the biggest challenge for their team right now:

Panic.
Confusion.
Comfort.
Doubt.
Isolation.

I didn’t necessarily expect the answer to be the same across organizations.

But it was.

A century-old manufacturer.
A post-merger technology company.
A room full of AI engineers.

Different industries.
Different challenges.
Different realities.

Same answer:

Confusion.

Honestly, it makes sense.

The pace of change today is relentless. New technologies. New expectations. New competitors. New priorities. Many teams aren’t struggling because they lack effort. They’re struggling because they’re trying to navigate a moving landscape.

The challenge is that confusion rarely announces itself.

It shows up as stalled decisions.

Misalignment.

Constant second-guessing.

People working hard without making meaningful progress.

Another meeting that somehow creates more questions than answers.

If you’re seeing symptoms like that in your team or organization, confusion may be the survival default costing you the most right now, too.

And that’s where most leaders make a mistake.

They assume clarity comes from more information.

One more meeting.

One more memo.

One more slide deck.

But clarity rarely comes from more information.

It comes from better questions.

One of my favorites is this:

What business are we really in right now?

Not last year.

Not before the merger.

Not before AI changed the rules.

Not before the market shifted.

Right now.

That question has a way of cutting through noise and helping people reconnect with what matters most.

The pattern was so consistent across organizations that I decided to document it.

In a new special report, I share:

• The surprising pattern that emerged across three very different organizations
• Why confusion consistently outpaced panic, doubt, comfort, and isolation
• The readiness shifts we measured in the room
• The five intentional choices leaders can make to override their default survival patterns

What encouraged me most wasn’t the pattern itself.

It was the shift.

Across the three organizations, only 13–21% of participants initially rated themselves highly equipped to address their team’s most costly default. By the end of the session, that number had risen to 79–92%.

Not because they received more information.

Because they left with a shared language, practical tools, and better questions.

You can download the full report here:

​Default Is Not Destiny: The Evidence​

I’d love to hear your reaction.

Which of the five defaults shows up most often in your team right now?

Up we go—

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