The Business Emergency Room: For Leaders Facing Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity & Ambiguity (VUCA)

Maartje van Krieken | The Chaos Games Consulting
  • 5.0 (8)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Weekly

Scaling a business isn’t just about strategy—it’s about navigating chaos, making fast but sound decisions, and keeping teams aligned under pressure. The Business Emergency Room helps leaders, founders, and decision-makers sharpen their decision-making mechanics, master people dynamics, and build resilience in uncertain markets. Host Maartje van Krieken shares battle-tested frameworks to eliminate bottlenecks, avoid analysis paralysis, and turn turbulence into traction. Tune in weekly for real-world insights to lead with confidence and thrive in turmoil. For leaders facing: High-stakes decisions, VUCA market conditions, crisis management, and rapid business growth pains.

  1. 6d ago

    Arbitration vs. Inertia: When a Business Dispute Stops Moving

    Your business partnership is stuck in a stalemate that neither side will name out loud, and Marina Akchurina explains why filing a simple document could break it open faster than another round of lawyers. Most business owners have an arbitration clause buried somewhere in their contracts and no real sense of what it actually does. International arbitration lawyer and arbitrator Marina Akchurina joins Maartje to clear up the confusion, starting with a myth that keeps people stuck: the idea that arbitration is slow, expensive, and reserved for massive disputes. She explains how the process works and why the parties themselves control much of the timeline and procedure. Expedited rules, which most people never hear about, can resolve a mid-sized dispute in under a year. When two parties stop talking directly and communicate only through letters, that shift is one of the clearest signs a dispute has hit an impasse. Marina explains why filing a request for arbitration doesn't mean giving up on settlement. Filing often pushes the parties back toward it. The two also dig into why arbitration matters so much for cross-border relationships, where neither party trusts the other's home court system, and why a workable arbitration clause is worth checking before a dispute ever arrives. If your business has been sitting in a conflict that refuses to move, this conversation makes the case for using the tool you may already have. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Why Businesses Get Stuck in Unresolved Disputes 02:56 What Is Arbitration? A Clear Definition for Business Owners 05:56 Debunking the Top Myths About Arbitration Cost and Complexity 13:48 When to Invoke Your Arbitration Clause During a Stalemate 19:51 Arbitration Timeline vs Court: How Much Faster Is It? 22:04 Why Cross-Border Businesses Prefer a Neutral Arbitration Forum 26:00 The First Steps to Filing a Request for Arbitration 31:59 How to Draft an Arbitration Clause That Actually Works Connect with Marina Akchurina: Visit ArbitraLex's Website Visit Aksconsult's Website Connect with Marina on LinkedIn Marina Akchurina (FCIArb) is an international arbitration lawyer and dispute resolution specialist based in Toronto, Canada. She spent 13 years at Cleary, a leading international law firm headquartered in the U.S., before founding her own practice in 2021. She works on both sides of the arbitration table: as counsel representing companies in cross-border disputes, and as an independent arbitrator. She is admitted to practice in Ontario, New York, and Russia and serves on arbitration panels at leading international institutions, including ICDR, SIAC, HKIAC, DIAC, and others. Her work spans energy and natural resources, construction, infrastructure, and shareholder disputes, with a particular focus on matters involving Central Asian, Caucasian, and Eastern European parties. In addition to her legal practice, Marina consults on negotiation strategy and provides corporate training and mediation services through AksConsult. She serves clients across North America, Europe, and Asia. Connect with Maartje van Krieken: Connect with Maartje on LinkedIn Visit The Chaos Games Consulting website Visit The Business Emergency Room website Subscribe to The Business Emergency Room on YouTube Subscribe to Maartje’s Substack Host Maartje van Krieken is a crisis strategist and decision-making expert who thrives in high-stakes business environments. Combining disaster management training, hands-on experience in global industries, and leadership skills honed as a seasoned sailor, she helps businesses navigate chaos with precision. Whether tackling transformation, scaling challenges, or leadership bottlenecks, Maartje delivers actionable insights to turn turbulence into traction. Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

    Arbitration vs. Inertia: When a Business Dispute Stops Moving

  2. Sep 2

    Your Business Is Not a Machine; It Never Was - Anu Rathninde

    Dr. Anu Rathninde shut down a Tesla supplier plant of 5,000 workers during COVID without corporate approval. He joins Maartje van Krieken to unpack why treating your organization like a machine instead of a living system is the real reason most corporate transformations fail. Anu spent nearly three decades in global operations leadership at Delphi, Johnson Electric, Aptiv, and Johnson Controls before earning his PhD and writing Tackling Complexity. His China story sets the tone: with headquarters unreachable and quarantine closing in, he made a crisis call that landed him in US media headlines and cost him some allies. What does it take to make a high-stakes leadership decision alone, with no backup and the outcome uncertain? From there, the conversation digs into why leadership transitions and transformations go sideways so often. Anu argues businesses behave less like machines and more like complex adaptive systems, full of people who adapt, interact, and evolve in ways no org chart predicts. He points to research showing roughly 80% of corporate transformations fail despite unlimited budgets and top consultants, and makes the case that the real answer almost never lives in a boardroom. So where does it live? For Anu, it's with the customer and the frontline employees doing the actual work. Maartje and Anu also cover what he calls success theater, the gap between leaders who perform accountability and those who go find the truth on the ground, plus how favoritism quietly corrodes team trust even when a leader assumes no one notices. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Why organizations behave like living systems, not machines 03:40 The COVID crisis decision at a 5,000-person Tesla supplier plant 11:13 Spotting accountability (or the lack of it) in a meeting room 18:04 What led Anu to write Tackling Complexity 25:04 Complex adaptive systems and why 80% of transformations fail 31:36 How favoritism quietly destroys team trust 33:27 Where to find Anu's book and coaching work Connect with Anu Rathninde: Visit Dr. Anu Rathninde's website Anu Rathninde is the president of Aptiv Electrical Distribution Systems-Asia Pacific, the world’s leader in fundamental technologies shaping the safe, green, and connected future of mobility. Based in Shanghai, he leads the multibillion-dollar business and its over thirty thousand employees and two thousand engineers in over 20 international locations throughout Asia. For over 25 years, as a global citizen, Anu has successfully led large organizations in Asia, North America, and Europe. In Switzerland, he managed P&L responsibility for multiple global business units as the vice president of the automotive group of Johnson Electric. In North America, Anu managed P&L responsibility for Delphi Powertrain Electronics and Sensors business. He previously held senior leadership positions spanning engineering, program management, innovation, business development, and general management in the automotive and industrial business globally. Anu holds five degrees, including a PhD and MBA and is a guest professor at the School of Business of East China University of Science and Technology. Anu also serves as the chairman of Aptiv Electric Systems Ltd and is the author of the book: Tackling Complexity: Tough-Love Interactions to Navigate Uncertainty, Promote Positivity, and Deliver Performance Excellence Connect with Maartje van Krieken: Connect with Maartje on LinkedIn Visit The Chaos Games Consulting website Visit The Business Emergency Room website Subscribe to The Business Emergency Room on YouTube Subscribe to Maartje’s Substack Host Maartje van Krieken is a crisis strategist and decision-making expert who thrives in high-stakes business environments. Combining disaster management training, hands-on experience in global industries, and leadership skills honed as a seasoned sailor, she helps businesses navigate chaos with precision. Whether tackling transformation, scaling challenges, or leadership bottlenecks, Maartje delivers actionable insights to turn turbulence into traction. Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

    Your Business Is Not a Machine; It Never Was - Anu Rathninde

  3. Aug 26

    Early Symptoms: How Do You Know and How Do You Manage?

    60% of employees sat on a concern this year because they had nowhere safe to take it, and by the time it reached leadership, it was already an emergency. Maartje van Krieken has spent decades walking into organizations after things went wrong, and she keeps finding the same pattern. Someone always saw it first. The question is never whether the signal existed. The question is whether that person believed there was a safe place to bring it and whether anyone was listening. This episode is her answer to that question, five practical tricks for any leader who wants to build a speak-up culture and catch problems while they're still small and cheap to fix. Some are structural, like an escalation system with a named, independent receiver and a guaranteed response window. Others are about creating real psychological safety at work, like carving out ten minutes at the end of a team meeting to name the subject nobody wants to touch, or asking new hires what surprised them about the business before they had time to stop noticing. None of these require a massive overhaul. They need a simple feedback framework and the willingness to look at your own leadership blind spots. Do people two levels below you know where to take a serious concern? Do they believe it's safe to bring it up? And if the honest answer is no, what does that tell you about what you're not hearing right now? Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Understanding Organizational Concerns 02:59 The Importance of Signal Detection 06:13 Implementing Effective Escalation Frameworks 09:05 Identifying Frustrations in Leadership 11:55 Facilitating Difficult Conversations 14:52 Utilizing Traffic Light Systems 20:50 Leveraging New Joiner Insights 26:55 Building a Resilient Organizational Culture Connect with Maartje van Krieken: Connect with Maartje on LinkedIn Visit The Chaos Games Consulting website Visit The Business Emergency Room website Subscribe to The Business Emergency Room on YouTube Subscribe to Maartje’s Substack Host Maartje van Krieken is a crisis strategist and decision-making expert who thrives in high-stakes business environments. Combining disaster management training, hands-on experience in global industries, and leadership skills honed as a seasoned sailor, she helps businesses navigate chaos with precision. Whether tackling transformation, scaling challenges, or leadership bottlenecks, Maartje delivers actionable insights to turn turbulence into traction. Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

    Early Symptoms: How Do You Know and How Do You Manage?

  4. Aug 19

    Rowing Through Treacle: When Friction Becomes the Culture

    Companies spend $140 billion a year training leaders, yet trust in leadership keeps sinking. Jimmy Burroughes has a different diagnosis: the real problem is leadership friction built into the system your managers work inside. Jimmy spent years leading in the British Army before bringing that discipline into corporate consulting, working with organizations like Bank of America, Samsung, and Walmart. Then he burned out completely and lost his job, his relationship, and his home in quick succession. What he built afterward challenges a core assumption in leadership development, that capable managers who seem stuck simply need more coaching. What if leadership friction sits in the system around them instead? On this episode of The Business Emergency Room, Jimmy and host Maartje van Krieken unpack the forty-three friction points his team has identified across organizations, including unclear decision rights and the hidden cost of constant task switching. They dig into why experienced managers keep escalating decisions they already know the answer to, and why adding more process usually deepens the friction. Jimmy offers a blunt diagnostic any leader can run without hiring a consultant: ask a few people their top three priorities and listen for the pattern. The answers reveal more about leadership friction and organizational health than any engagement survey ever could. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Why $140 Billion in Leadership Training Isn't Working 06:18 Signs Your Organization Has a Leadership Friction Problem 10:12 The Real Root Causes of Workplace Friction 13:54 A Real-World Example of Decision Making Breakdown 20:47 Why Adding More Process Makes Friction Worse 22:47 The Hidden Cost of Multitasking and Task Switching 26:38 A Simple Way to Diagnose Leadership Friction in Any Team Connect with Jimmy Burroughes: Visit the JBL High Performance Website Jimmy Burroughes is a former British Army Officer turned global leadership transformation expert and the founder of JBL High Performance. With experience leading up to 110 personnel across European and Middle East operations, Jimmy has translated the precision of military leadership into a practical methodology that Fortune 500 companies around the world rely on. He has partnered with organisations including Bank of America, eBay, Samsung, Walmart, Fonterra, and SkyCity — designing enterprise-wide leadership programmes that have reached 1,000+ staff in single engagements across 8 countries. Jimmy is the creator of the "Simplify to Amplify" methodology, which helps exhausted executives escape reactive, firefighting leadership and reclaim significant time, without sacrificing results. His clients consistently report reclaiming 10+ hours per week and achieving measurable performance improvements within 90 days. He is the author of two books: Beat Burnout & Ignite Performance and Escape the Multitasking Trap, and is the host of The High Performance Leader Podcast, ranked in the Top 10% globally. Connect with Maartje van Krieken: Connect with Maartje on LinkedIn Visit The Chaos Games Consulting website Visit The Business Emergency Room website Subscribe to The Business Emergency Room on YouTube Subscribe to Maartje’s Substack Host Maartje van Krieken is a crisis strategist and decision-making expert who thrives in high-stakes business environments. Combining disaster management training, hands-on experience in global industries, and leadership skills honed as a seasoned sailor, she helps businesses navigate chaos with precision. Whether tackling transformation, scaling challenges, or leadership bottlenecks, Maartje delivers actionable insights to turn turbulence into traction. Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

    Rowing Through Treacle: When Friction Becomes the Culture

  5. Aug 12

    Drill It On Paper: The Pre-Mortem Exercise Every Leader Should Know

    60% of employees swallow a concern serious enough to derail the whole plan, and Maartje van Krieken has a 60-minute exercise designed to surface it before it becomes an expensive surprise. Most business failures trace back to something someone already knew. The signal was there. Nobody moved it to the right table. Maartje calls the fix a pre-mortem, an eight-step exercise borrowed from industries where getting it wrong isn't an option, adapted for anyone about to commit to something big. What if the plan you're about to execute is only one version of success, and nobody in the room has said out loud what happens if the assumptions underneath it don't hold? Maartje walks through why most plans collapse under a single path forward, why an outside facilitator changes everything about how honest the room gets, and why naming who has the authority to stop execution matters more than most leaders want to admit. She also makes the case that this exercise builds trust and sharpens a team's ability to improvise when reality diverges, which they usually do. The next time you're about to greenlight something significant, ask yourself one thing. Has anyone actually been given permission to say what could go wrong? Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Why 60% of Employees Stay Silent on Workplace Concerns 06:47 The Data Behind Failed Strategy Execution 07:44 What a Pre-Mortem Is and Isn't 10:22 The Single Path to Success Problem 13:30 Defining What's Actually Being Stress Tested 16:56 Naming Decision Points and Go, No-Go Criteria 19:47 Running What If Scenarios on Major Risks 23:30 Naming the Stop Work Authority 26:48 Three Hidden Benefits of Time, Trust, and Improvisation 30:22 When to Use a Pre-Mortem and When Not To Connect with Maartje van Krieken: Connect with Maartje on LinkedIn Visit The Chaos Games Consulting website Visit The Business Emergency Room website Subscribe to The Business Emergency Room on YouTube Subscribe to Maartje’s Substack Host Maartje van Krieken is a crisis strategist and decision-making expert who thrives in high-stakes business environments. Combining disaster management training, hands-on experience in global industries, and leadership skills honed as a seasoned sailor, she helps businesses navigate chaos with precision. Whether tackling transformation, scaling challenges, or leadership bottlenecks, Maartje delivers actionable insights to turn turbulence into traction. Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

    Drill It On Paper: The Pre-Mortem Exercise Every Leader Should Know

  6. Aug 5

    Could You Afford to Be Sick for a Week?

    Ask yourself this: could your business survive a full week without you, no phone, no email, no decisions from you at all? That's the question behind Maartje van Krieken's conversation with Cory Blumenfeld, founder and CEO of BlueMoso, who built and exited multiple companies before landing on his 90/10 rule. Ninety percent of what most leaders do daily can be handed off. The other ten percent, the vision and judgment calls that actually move a business forward, is the real job. Cory learned this firsthand when a sudden illness pulled him out for a week, and the business ran fine without him. Maartje ties this straight to valuation. A company that can't function without its founder is worth less than that founder probably thinks, and the usual culprit is unclear ownership rather than a lack of trust. The conversation then turns to AI, and Cory is direct that it can't fix a delegation problem for leaders who never learned to delegate to people in the first place. AI clears out busy work. It doesn't replace judgment. Maartje pushes back with an example from her own experience, where a polished AI-assisted report turned out to rest on a completely wrong assumption. What happens when a tool built to move faster just moves a mistake faster too? They close by flipping the lens toward investors and board members to ask what separates a leader still buried in the weeds from one built to scale. The answer, they argue, shows up in small things: how a leader talks about their team, their time, and what they're willing to admit they don't know. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Could Your Business Survive a Week Without You? 02:57 The 90/10 Rule of Leadership Delegation 06:13 How to Build Processes You Can Hand Off 08:31 Warning Signs of Poor Delegation on a Leadership Team 10:59 Delegating to AI vs Delegating to People 16:20 The Risk of AI Errors at Scale 18:24 What Investors and Board Members Look For 25:42 Final Leadership Advice From Cory Blumenfeld Connect with Cory Blumenfeld: Connect with Cory on LinkedIn Visit the BlueMoso Website Cory Blumenfeld is a 5x founder with two exits and more than a decade of experience across startups, operations, sales, and product. Across his companies, he has helped raise nearly $5 million and built an audience of more than 67,000 followers on LinkedIn. Having started businesses in industries he knew nothing about, Cory learned that success rarely comes from having all the answers. Today, he is the founder of BlueMoso, which helps business owners get their time back with high-performing virtual assistants matched to how they actually work. Cory is on a mission to help one million business owners spend less time buried in day-to-day tasks and more time focused on what matters most, whether that's growing their business, serving more clients, or building a life outside of work. Connect with Maartje van Krieken: Connect with Maartje on LinkedIn Visit The Chaos Games Consulting website Visit The Business Emergency Room website Subscribe to The Business Emergency Room on YouTube Subscribe to Maartje’s Substack Host Maartje van Krieken is a crisis strategist and decision-making expert who thrives in high-stakes business environments. Combining disaster management training, hands-on experience in global industries, and leadership skills honed as a seasoned sailor, she helps businesses navigate chaos with precision. Whether tackling transformation, scaling challenges, or leadership bottlenecks, Maartje delivers actionable insights to turn turbulence into traction. Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

    Could You Afford to Be Sick for a Week?

  7. Jul 29

    The Most Avoided Diagnosis in Business: Who Is Managing Your C-Suite?

    Nearly half of company boards never regularly evaluate their CEO, and Maartje van Krieken explains why that silence at the top quietly costs organizations far more than any bad quarter. Most leadership teams look calm from the outside. Meetings run smoothly, decisions get made, and everyone seems aligned. Maartje argues that calm can be a warning sign rather than a strength. When a senior team stops disagreeing about anything important, has it really reached alignment, or has it just learned to avoid the hard conversations? She breaks down the three layers of accountability that should exist at the top of every organization. The board should hold the CEO responsible. The CEO should hold the C-suite responsible. And the C-suite should hold each other responsible. Maartje explains why each layer tends to fail quietly, from boards with a personal stake in the CEO they hired to executives who stop challenging peers because their own career depends on staying in favor. She draws on two real cases. One is a public company unraveling under a founder-led board. The other is a mid-market business where every department performs well alone but nothing gets done together. She shows what dysfunction actually looks like before it becomes a crisis. What happens in the room when the CEO isn't there? Does anyone still get uncomfortable on purpose? Maartje closes with a case for bringing in an outside perspective before problems harden into politics. Her takeaway is direct. The strongest leadership teams share a habit most performance systems miss. They tell each other the truth. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 The Hidden Cost of an Unaccountable C-Suite 04:43 The Three Layers of Leadership Accountability Explained 08:45 A Public Company Case Study in Board Failure 11:26 PE-Backed vs Mid-Market: How Company Type Shapes Accountability 16:09 A Real Case of C-Suite Silos and Dysfunction 18:30 Warning Signs of a Dysfunctional C-Suite 20:11 The Hidden Cost of a Team That Avoids Conflict 24:53 When a Performance Problem Becomes a Turnaround 27:35 Three Steps to Close the Accountability Gap This Week Connect with Maartje van Krieken: Connect with Maartje on LinkedIn Visit The Chaos Games Consulting website Visit The Business Emergency Room website Subscribe to The Business Emergency Room on YouTube Subscribe to Maartje’s Substack Host Maartje van Krieken is a crisis strategist and decision-making expert who thrives in high-stakes business environments. Combining disaster management training, hands-on experience in global industries, and leadership skills honed as a seasoned sailor, she helps businesses navigate chaos with precision. Whether tackling transformation, scaling challenges, or leadership bottlenecks, Maartje delivers actionable insights to turn turbulence into traction. Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

    The Most Avoided Diagnosis in Business: Who Is Managing Your C-Suite?

  8. Jul 22

    Before You Call the Lawyer, Call a Mediator.

    Every business relationship sends a warning signal months before it breaks, and the leaders who profit are the ones willing to act on it early instead of waiting for the lawyers to get involved. Maartje sits down with mediator and arbitrator Imtiaz Siddiqui, a litigator who spent two decades in courtrooms and now works to keep people out of them. His take is blunt: most leaders wait until the legal bills pile up before they consider mediation, when the smarter move is to bring in a neutral at the very first sign of friction. Why do we wait? People process conflict on different timelines. One side flags the problem right away, the other absorbs it until it boils over, and by the time both parties agree something is wrong, the dispute has already blown up. The numbers back him up. Mediation costs a fraction of litigation, resolves in a fraction of the time, and produces agreements people actually honor. Court judgments don't carry the same weight. Winning a case is no guarantee the other side follows through. The real fix is a better contract, not a better lawyer. Siddiqui and Maartje both land on the same idea. Name your neutral and define what success and failure look like while the relationship is still healthy, not after the trust is gone. What would change if every partnership agreement treated conflict as a certainty rather than a risk? Disagreements don't hurt businesses. A known problem left sitting while everyone stays polite does the damage. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Why Business Leaders Wait Too Long to Address Conflict 03:12 When Should You Trigger Mediation in a Business Dispute 13:27 Mediation vs Litigation: The Real Cost and Timeline Data 18:58 Arbitration vs Mediation: Key Differences Explained 23:04 Why You Need a Dispute Resolution Clause in Every Contract 34:21 Final Advice: Use Mediation Early and Often Connect with Imtiaz A. Siddiqui: IAS LAW LLC Visit Imtiaz Dispute Resolution Imtiaz has been practicing law for over twenty years. He started his career in New York City working on complex, large-scale antitrust, financial fraud, and commodities fraud matters. After ten years, Imtiaz moved to New Orleans where he worked on varied contract and litigation matters in the public and private sectors. In 2018, Imtiaz launched his solo practice, IAS LAW LLC, where he handles, among other things, business transactional and litigation matters. Last summer, Imtiaz started his newest professional endeavor, Imtiaz Dispute Resolution, where he provides arbitrator, mediator, and negotiator services relating to a variety of disciplines. Connect with Maartje van Krieken: Connect with Maartje on LinkedIn Visit The Chaos Games Consulting website Visit The Business Emergency Room website Subscribe to The Business Emergency Room on YouTube Subscribe to Maartje’s Substack Host Maartje van Krieken is a crisis strategist and decision-making expert who thrives in high-stakes business environments. Combining disaster management training, hands-on experience in global industries, and leadership skills honed as a seasoned sailor, she helps businesses navigate chaos with precision. Whether tackling transformation, scaling challenges, or leadership bottlenecks, Maartje delivers actionable insights to turn turbulence into traction. Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

    Before You Call the Lawyer, Call a Mediator.
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Scaling a business isn’t just about strategy—it’s about navigating chaos, making fast but sound decisions, and keeping teams aligned under pressure. The Business Emergency Room helps leaders, founders, and decision-makers sharpen their decision-making mechanics, master people dynamics, and build resilience in uncertain markets. Host Maartje van Krieken shares battle-tested frameworks to eliminate bottlenecks, avoid analysis paralysis, and turn turbulence into traction. Tune in weekly for real-world insights to lead with confidence and thrive in turmoil. For leaders facing: High-stakes decisions, VUCA market conditions, crisis management, and rapid business growth pains.

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