In This Edition Of The Soulful Lens at Work: ​
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When things get intense, do you drop the process—or lean on it?
This newsletter explores how soulful, crisis-ready process can protect your people and your outcomes when it matters most.

• SOULFUL:​
  How do we hold soulfulness when everything feels uncertain?
• PRACTICAL:​
  What’s your plan when the usual process breaks under pressure?
• THE CONNECTION:​
  Are you unintentionally adding risk—by cutting the structure that holds people together?
• TRY THIS:​
  What can do today to make your process more steady, human, and crisis-ready?

Hi Reader,
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I was working at a large company when someone took me aside and confided:

Me:
“Why is there a process then?! So we can identify the low-performing suckers who follow it?”

That was my aha moment—the futility of most process work.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Someone else once told me, “The most efficient process is no process.” Extreme, yes—but the point stands. The ideal process is lightweight, elegant, and helps you get real work done.

In Agile we say:

And sometimes, it does.

Until...

High Stakes.
Crisis. Merger. Change. Trauma. New strategy.

And then?
We drop all process and scramble like chaos is a strategy.
We say we’ll get back to discipline once things calm down.

Exactly wrong.

A good process should support you even more when the stakes are high.

This week, we’ll explore how a solid process in high-stakes moments is soulful (hint: sanity), and good for business (hint: risk reduction).

Soulfully ✨
​- Jardena

Process Is How We Hold Soulfulness in the Work

When crisis hits, most of us go full adrenaline.
Meetings get reactive. Boundaries disappear. Everyone’s inbox is a war zone.
And then we wonder why our people feel burned out, scattered, and alone.

But the process is not the enemy of soul.
It’s the container for it, that keeps us safe and sane.

In high-stakes moments, a soulful process brings clarity when emotions are high.
It grounds your team when the ground feels like it’s shifting.

Sometimes we don’t even know what’s in the container yet—what’s coming, what’s next, what the answers are.
But we have the container.
And that container holds us.​
It creates safety, dignity, and space to respond instead of react.

At first it feels like the process is holding you back but in times of crisis—lack of process feels like abandonment. Process can be the thing that holds it together.

Good Processes Hold—Especially Under Fire

Let’s be honest: some processes deserve to be dropped.
They’re heavy, confusing, and built to serve the org chart, not the work.
When crisis hits, shedding those can be a relief.

But that’s not usually what gets dropped.
We tend to throw out the very processes that could help us navigate the storm—clear roles, focused priorities, steady rhythms, feedback loops.

That’s why some teams need a crisis process—a scaled down framework designed for pressure. (credit: Marissa Karasz at our last Transformational Leader Roundtable)

A crisis process isn’t business-as-usual.
It’s lighter. Faster.
Not all voices will be heard; decisions will be made quickly and often dictated.
Crisis process tells us how we’ll make decisions, where we’ll focus, and how we’ll stay aligned when things go sideways.
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Without it, we rely on urgency to drive decisions—and that creates noise, confusion, and unnecessary risk.

Good process in crisis or high stakes doesn’t slow you down, it eases the panic so you can move with purpose.

Abandoning Process Adds Risk—To People and Outcomes

When high stakes hit and process goes out the window, risk doesn’t just rise—it compounds.
We start operating like individuals in a storm—everyone paddling in their own direction, just trying to stay afloat.
That’s when misalignment turns into confusion, and confusion turns into real consequences.

We don’t just lose structure when we drop process—we lose our ability to stay grounded in what matters.
The soul of the work slips through the cracks. So do the outcomes.

Process—when it’s done right—is connection.
It’s shared agreements.
It’s the way we say, “I’ve got you,” without needing a meeting to say it.

A good process holds space for soulfulness without becoming chaos.
A good process gives you traction without squeezing the life out of your people.
A good process keeps things from unraveling when it matters most.

Soul and systems aren’t separate—they stabilize each other.
When you cut the process, you’re not freeing the team. You’re exposing them.

In high-stakes moments, you don’t need less process. You need the right process—one that holds people and outcomes steady.

Build it to hold. Build it on purpose.

Try this:

Here are four ways to anchor soul and structure—whether you’re in charge or not:

1. Shepherd People Back to the Process: When things spin out, gently remind the team what structures already exist. “Hey, we actually have a way to handle this—let’s use it.” It’s not about control. It’s about calm.
2. Define a Scaled-Down Emergency Process: Whether you’re leading a team or just managing your own work, define: → What’s essential? → Who decides what? → How will we stay in sync? Keep it scrappy. Write it down. Share it.
3. Honor the Agreements You Do Have: Stick to the rhythms that still make sense—standups, check-ins, priorities. Consistency builds safety. Even small rituals help keep connection intact.
4. Call What’s Working, Name What’s Noise: Don’t be afraid to say, “This part of the process is actually helping,” or “We can probably drop this.” Not everything needs to be preserved. Just what keeps people and work from unraveling.

This quote from the U.S. Navy SEALs is a powerful reminder that, under pressure, our true capabilities are revealed by the foundation we've built. It's not about rising to the occasion; it's about the level of training and preparation we've put in place beforehand.