Episode 72

Heroics Are Not a Strategy: Early Signals, Better Bets, Less Chaos

Strategic risk, early signals and decision quality sit at the center of this conversation with Maartje van Krieken as she speaks to leaders who feel risk piling up while their systems stand still. Where does your business feel most exposed right now and which “surprises” keep landing on your desk even though you sensed them coming? Maartje invites you to look at those patterns with a clearer lens so you can see how uncertainty touches your strategic goals in both directions and choose your bets and concentrations with more intention.

You hear how a focused top risk list creates a shared view of what could move the business, how a light rhythm of risk conversations supports stronger choices and how AI can act as an admin partner that protects your institutional memory. Maartje stresses clear definitions of success, written assumptions and real kill criteria for big bets so sunk cost does not quietly run the show. By the end, strategic risk management feels less like box ticking and more like a core leadership habit that helps you notice early signals, act faster on real opportunities and cut down chaos before it hits.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Why Strategic Risk Management Prevents 80 Percent Of Business Chaos

02:26 Signs Your Organization Lacks Strategic Risk Management

04:49 Strategic Risk Definition And Data On Failing Risk Practices

07:18 Why Leaders Avoid Explicit Risk Management And Rely On Hope

12:01 Building A Practical Top Risk List For Better Strategic Decisions

16:49 Creating A Regular Risk Review Rhythm With Simple, Powerful Questions

19:04 Defining Success, Assumptions And Kill Criteria For Major Initiatives

21:29 Shifting Culture From Firefighting To Rewarding Early Risk Detection

23:55 Using Leading Indicators And Single Ownership To Spot Risks Early

26:08 Keeping Risk Management Simple So You Reduce Chaos And Capture Opportunity

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. 



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The Business Emergency Room: For Leaders Facing Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity & Ambiguity (VUCA)
Triage, Tools & Tactics to recover from or prevent business chaos in this VUCA business environment

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Maartje van Krieken

Maartje van Krieken is a crisis strategist, executive consultant, and your at host of The Business Emergency Room podcast, where growing businesses go when things get messy. With a career that began in frontier oil and gas and spanned war zones, boardrooms, and billion-dollar pivots, Maartje has spent over two decades helping organizations steer through chaos and come out stronger.
Now through her consulting firm, The Chaos Games, Maartje works with medium-sized businesses, especially those scaling rapidly or navigating uncertainty, to diagnose breakdowns in leadership, collaboration, and decision-making before they become business emergencies. Her signature approach blends practical triage, people-first strategy, and blunt Dutch honesty to help teams realign fast.

​The Business Emergency Room delivers high-impact insights for business leaders, board members, and investors who are tired of the symptoms, disconnection, friction, paralysis, and want the tools to fix what’s really going wrong. Maartje’s episodes cut through fluff with stories, frameworks, and metaphors that turn even the most complex chaos into something leaders can act on.
Maartje is based in New Orleans and speaks regularly on navigating organizational storms, building business resilience, and turning reactive firefighting into proactive leadership. Whether you’re scaling a business, running a team, or dealing with dysfunction, The Business Emergency Room is the place to find straight talk and smarter tools.