Plan Your Burn, Then Burn Your Plan: Leadership Lessons From Burning Man

"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Here's what you need to know about Burners: We're obsessive planners and preppers.

We make lists. We create spreadsheets. We double-check everything twice. We plan for dust storms, extreme heat, and logistics nightmares. We pride ourselves on being ready for anything the desert can throw at us.

This year at my fifth Burning Man, none of it was enough.

When 50 MPH Winds Laugh at Your Spreadsheets

Windstorms on Saturday brought down half the structures at Black Rock City. People spent hours holding down their tents against 50+ mph gusts. Some folks literally held on for hours, only to watch their carefully planned camps get shredded anyway.

Then we rebuilt everything. Because that's what you do.

Sunday night, another windstorm hit. More structures down. More plans blown away, literally.

Then came the rain Monday and Tuesday, confining us to a few blocks around camp.

I missed most of the windstorms since I arrived late Monday night, but I could see the exhaustion in people's eyes. These weren't casual weekend warriors. These were people who'd spent months planning and thousands of dollars preparing for this moment.

And it wasn't enough.

The Disruption Response: How Communities Thrive in Chaos

Here's what fascinated me: How people responded when their best-laid plans met forces completely beyond their control.

Some people declared defeat and left early. Others didn't bother rebuilding after the second windstorm hit.

But most? Most people picked up the remnants and kept going.

People who lost their tents found shelter with complete strangers. Camps that got destroyed shared resources with neighbors they'd never met. The community literally weathered the storm together.

What struck me wasn’t just how people rebuilt, it was how they found joy in doing it together. In the middle of chaos, that collective laughter, dancing, and awe around the art wasn't distraction, it was fuel. It reminded us why we adapt, why we show up for each other, and why we keep going.

Now, let's keep perspective here. This is just a gathering in the desert. People in the real world face far more consequential disruptions every day. But witnessing this collective response to forces beyond anyone's control revealed something profound about human resilience.

The Disruption Paradox: When Planning Meets Chaos

As disruptive leaders, we live in this same paradox every day. We create strategies, build contingency plans, stress-test scenarios. We prepare our teams for digital transformation, economic downturns, competitive threats.

Then reality hits with the force of an 50 mph desert wind.

The question isn't whether disruption will come. It's how you and your team will respond when your best-laid plans meet forces beyond your control.

I watched this play out in real time at Burning Man, and it mirrors everything I've seen in organizations facing their own "windstorms":

▶️ The Defeated: Some teams fold when disruption hits. They'd rather retreat to what's familiar than adapt to new realities. These are the companies still trying to go back to "how things were before."

▶️ The Rebuilders: Other teams mechanically rebuild exactly what they had before, even when the environment has fundamentally changed. They're working harder, not smarter.

▶️ The Adapters: The most resilient teams pick up the pieces and create something new. They ask, "Given this new reality, how do we move forward together?"

Stretch vs. Stress: The Leadership Litmus Test

The conversation that stuck with me most was with my camp leader. He was heartbroken Sunday. Not because of the wasted effort, but because the experience he'd envisioned for first-time Burners in the camp was falling apart.

"I encouraged them to get an RV instead of tents," he told me. "They didn't follow my recommendation, and now they're miserable."

Then something shifted. He surrendered to what was, rather than fighting what should have been.

"I have to let this go," he said. "I've done everything I can. This is the experience they got. They own part of that too."

This reminded me of something one of my kids' middle school principals used to say: "We try to stretch our students, but not stress them."

The difference is everything in leadership.

When disruption hits, you can tell the great leaders are stretched, not stressed. Yes, there's strain. Yes, it's hard. But they've built teams that can flex together rather than fracture under pressure.

The Serenity to Accept, the Courage to Change

Here's what Burning Man taught me about leading through disruption:

▶️ Accept what you cannot control. You can't control the market crash, the supply chain breakdown, or the regulatory change. Spending energy fighting these realities is energy you're not investing in solutions.

▶️ Change what you can. Focus your team's energy on the variables within your influence: how you respond, how you adapt, how you support each other through the storm.

▶️ Know the difference. This is where wisdom lives. Great leaders quickly distinguish between what's in their control and what isn't, then redirect their team's energy accordingly.

The camp leader who surrendered? His team rallied. When it came time to tear down camp (what we call "strike"), everyone showed up early and worked together seamlessly. Compare that to camps where leaders stayed stressed. Their teams fractured under the pressure.

Building Anti-Fragile Organizations

What I witnessed in the desert was anti-fragility in action. Not just resilience, bouncing back to where you were, but actually getting stronger through disruption.

The camps that thrived weren't the ones with the most detailed plans. They were the ones with the strongest relationships and clearest principles. When the winds hit, people didn't need detailed instructions. They knew what mattered and acted accordingly.

This is what 80,000 people governing themselves for a week with no police looks like. Ten simple principles provide the framework, and people adapt within that structure as conditions change.

🗨️ Your Turn

How is your organization preparing for disruption? Through more detailed planning, or by building the relationships and principles that help you adapt when plans fail? When was the last time you had to surrender your original plan and create something new with your team?

What I Can’t Stop Talking About

• Your personal brand is more about the people you serve than yourself. When I stopped trying to showcase my expertise and started sharing stories that connected to my audience's challenges, everything changed. True leadership means showing up authentically, not perfectly.

• 78% of companies are using AI, but only 27% have formal policies. That's like letting people drive without licenses or traffic lights. You can't build responsible AI practices when the windstorm hits. You need the foundation in place before disruption strikes.

My Upcoming Appearances/Travel

• Sep 8: Private Client, Washington, DC

• Sep 17: Private Client, London, UK

• Sep 21-22: Singapore Ministry of Health, Singapore

• Oct 7: Keynote, Reston, VA

• Oct 15: Executive Women's Forum, Keynote, Denver, CO

• Nov 12: Private Client, Santa Barbara, CA

• Nov 13: Brilliance 2025, Celebrating Women Disrupting Healthcare Keynote, Chicago, IL

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