Every team runs on assumptions. What success looks like. What customers want. What good leadership means. How decisions should get made. Over time those assumptions stop feeling like assumptions. They just become facts. Until someone reveals they were never agreed on to begin with.

That's when strategy meetings turn frustrating. Not because people disagree, but because they're debating solutions while working from entirely different definitions of the problem.

This week's Field Note goes straight at why misalignment does more damage than conflict ever will, and why the most valuable thing a leader can do is make invisible thinking visible.

You can build something people love and still have no idea how to keep it alive.

Joy Foster scaled TechPixies past £2.2 million and helped 16,000 women back to work, all while still learning what a P&L was and running her first company from her personal account. She got honest about the money she avoided, the £150,000 loan she took to keep her team paid, and the day she realized the bottleneck was her.

Hear how she turned chaos into a business that finally adds up, and why it matters if you are building something of your own.

Do you have an entrepreneur story to tell? A point to make? An idea to share? We want to hear from you! Sign up to be a Hello Chaos guest today.

Bricolage Dynamics was three years old when Zeb Parsons first talked with OrangeWIP, though he'd already been working on the idea for twice that long.

Wanting to figure out how to make a profit from “the world’s largest supply of free raw materials” — a.k.a. trash — Zeb used his background in logistics to create a company that recycles glass waste into sand.

However, it took a few tries and dead ends before a clear winner for a manufacturing niche emerged. Zeb talked with OrangeWIP back in 2022 about handling failure and finding success through connections.

Every small business hits the same wall eventually.

Not enough capital. Not enough guidance. Not enough connections to the businesses that could actually use what you're selling. Power Up Spartanburg was built to close that gap.

Led by OneSpartanburg, Inc. and funded by Spartanburg County, it connects business owners to real resources. Access to funding. A mentorship program modeled after MIT's own Venture Mentoring Service. A supplier readiness program that gets you ready to do business with larger companies.

This week's Resource Spotlight highlights how Power Up Spartanburg puts vetted, committed experts within reach of business owners who need them.

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AI is fundamentally transforming CX, making perfect experiences possible. But there's no playbook for delivering them.

Join Pioneer on October 7th to explore how CX leaders are redefining what's possible with AI.

You’ll learn how some of the most innovative leaders from Clay, Anthropic, Gamma, and more are transforming their organizations and reinventing their operations.

Plus, you’ll hear from Fin product leaders on their vision for Fin and be the first to see what’s new.

Reserve your spot