Article
January 15, 2026
By Mike Sacks
Corporate Affairs teams work in a fast, noisy environment where expectations shift quickly, issues pile up without warning and every move is scrutinized. We contend with that uncertainty day in and day out, when the job to be done is to help organizations move with confidence and speed and avoid getting knocked off course.
In shorthand, we often refer to that as ‘complexity.’ But what do we really mean, other than, well, that it is hard out here?
As it turns out, there is a theory that explains it! Complexity theory, clearly if not creatively named, is a framework for understanding systems that are difficult to predict and control. While it is primarily used to think about natural or computational systems, it also has explanatory power for our work. It explains how patterns can arise from the simple interactions of many individual components (for our purposes, stakeholders) without a master plan. The theory’s most famous insight is that the behavior of the whole system is often vastly different from, and cannot be predicted by, simply understanding the behavior of its individual parts.
Does that sound…like the world we live in?
We also often also talk about ‘navigating’ that sort of complexity. So let me apply another concept as an analogy: aerodynamics. The analogy is simple. An aerodynamic organization can cut through complexity (not just navigate around it). It can maintain flight while others are grounded by turbulence.
To extend the analogy, every organization faces four forces. Lift is the permission and support that keep you in the air. Weight is the internal clutter that slows everything down. Thrust is the energy that pushes the CEO’s agenda and organizational strategy forward. Drag is the external friction – the issues and crises, the stakeholder competition – that hold you back.
Managing all the forces well creates the aerodynamics you need to confront complexity effectively.
For Corporate Affairs leaders, that starts with clarity. You cannot influence or manage those forces if you have not named them inside your organization.
On the ground, though, this doesn’t feel like theory. It feels like grinding through tradeoffs in real time.
For Corporate Affairs leaders, lift is often whether your CEO can walk into a tough room – regulator, editor, investor – and get a fair hearing. If that air cover isn’t there, nothing else works.
Weight shows up as the six people who need to approve a post, the slide deck that has to go through three committees, or the instinct to duck anything that looks remotely controversial. That’s how you miss moments, and how competitors set the narrative for you.
Thrust is what the CEO cares about this quarter – not the 12 priorities on the wall, the two or three that really move valuation, permission to operate, or political exposure. If your time, stories and stakeholder work aren’t wired to those, you’re burning fuel.
And drag is now permanent: political hot buttons, culture wars, activists, weaponized screenshots, disinformation-spewing bots.
In that world, cutting through complexity in 2026 means the job is to know which risks you are taking, with whom, and on what timeline, and to keep the organization flying anyway.
In coming posts, I’ll spill more ink unpacking these concepts, digging deeper into understanding complexity and the aerodynamics of corporate positioning.
Mike Sacks leads FleishmanHillard’s corporate affairs practice in Chicago.
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