Chaos is often mistaken for momentum. Busy calendars, constant messages, last-minute decisions — they can all look like progress from the outside. Inside the business, though, chaos is expensive. It drains focus, erodes trust, and keeps teams reacting instead of moving deliberately.

Most teams don’t ignore SOPs because they don’t care about process. They ignore them because the documents don’t reflect how work actually gets done. Over time, SOPs become something people are told to follow, rather than something they rely on.