For Edmonton Oilers fans, the sting of the 2024–25 Stanley Cup Finals feels all too familiar. For the second year in a row, the Oilers fell just short of hockey’s ultimate prize, once again losing to the Florida Panthers. The disappointment is raw, captured in Coach Kris Knoblauch’s words: “It hurts right now and I don’t think it’s gonna let up for a while.” The Oilers’ Captain Connor McDavid echoed the sentiment, highlighting the team’s ability to stay united under pressure: “We came together at the right time. A lot of difficult circumstances coming down the stretch with injuries... We found a way to get here.”
In a post we shared in 2024, we explored how building winning teams requires well-understood roles. This year’s Oilers Stanley Cup run carried a theme of resilience, offering fresh insights into how high-performing teams navigate chaos, rise to challenges, and stick together when it matters most. Just like last year, these lessons also translate into building great teams in the professional world.
Transforming chaos into resilience
The Oilers’ 2024–25 season was a masterclass in managing chaos. Injuries disrupted the lineup all year, forcing constant line changes and leaving the team without a fully intact defensive core until the playoffs began. In fact, partway through the playoffs marked the first time that the Oilers' top 6 defensive players had played together, an extraordinary challenge in a sport that depends so heavily on chemistry and timing. Line rotations were fluid, with Coach Knoblauch frequently adjusting combinations to adapt to the moment. As goaltender Stuart Skinner noted after a hectic Game 3, the team struggled when falling into “penalty chaos” and Florida’s grinding style. Yet despite these obstacles, the Oilers showed remarkable resilience, bouncing back again and again, a trait Ryan Nugent-Hopkins called a defining strength of their season.
This ability to thrive amid disruption mirrors what high-performing technology teams aim for in high-stakes environments. While some organizations may introduce chaos deliberately, through stress testing or disruptive innovation, much of it simply emerges from the fast-paced, complex reality of building and operating modern systems. Shifting priorities, unexpected outages, evolving requirements, and cross-team dependencies are all part of the terrain. The teams that succeed aren’t the ones that avoid disruption, but the ones that adapt quickly, stay aligned, and respond with resilience, just like the Oilers did this season.
Lessons from Netflix and Shopify
In technology, embracing chaos is a proven method for fostering adaptability and resilience. Netflix’s Chaos Monkey, a tool developed in 2011, exemplifies this approach. By randomly terminating virtual machines in its Amazon Web Services infrastructure, Chaos Monkey forces engineers to design systems that withstand unexpected failures. This “controlled chaos” helped Netflix weather the 2011 AWS outage with minimal disruption, while other companies faltered. The tool, part of Netflix’s Simian Army, simulates real-world failures to ensure services remain robust, encouraging automated recovery and fault tolerance.
Similarly, Shopify’s leadership has adopted a “chaos monkey” philosophy to drive organizational resilience. In 2023, COO Kaz Nejatian imposed a sudden moratorium on meetings, wiping calendars and restricting Slack group chats to boost productivity. Describing the move as “fast and chaotic,” Nejatian argued that “intentional chaos is more than OK, and it’s part of working and thriving at Shopify”. While risky, this abrupt disruption forced employees to adapt quickly, mirroring the Oilers’ need to adjust to injuries and line changes on the fly.
In professional settings, introducing controlled chaos, whether through stress-testing systems or shaking up workflows, builds teams that can pivot under pressure. The Oilers’ ability to navigate their chaotic season reflects this principle: by facing disruption consistently, they developed the resilience to compete at the highest level.
Building a resilient culture
The Oilers' playoff run offers a clear analogy for the resilience required in technology teams. But beyond sports metaphors, what does a genuinely resilient culture look like in a professional environment?
In technology, disruption isn't just occasional; it's constant. Teams regularly encounter shifting market dynamics, unexpected outages, evolving client requirements, and rapid technological advances. Some chaos may be intentionally introduced, but much of it emerges naturally from the realities of complex systems. The true measure of success is how quickly and effectively a team responds to disruption, adapts its strategies, and maintains alignment on shared goals.
A resilient culture actively embraces the unpredictability inherent in the tech industry. Organizations such as Netflix have demonstrated this through chaos engineering practices that simulate real-world failures, pushing engineers to design systems capable of rapid recovery. Similarly, Shopify’s decision to impose a chaotic ban on meetings illustrates how introducing uncertainty can force innovation and agility into team dynamics. Rather than fearing disruption, resilient teams leverage it to become stronger, more innovative, and better prepared for future challenges.
The key to cultivating resilience lies in creating psychological safety, encouraging open dialogue about failures, and adopting an iterative, experimental mindset. When teams feel comfortable testing ideas, sharing lessons from mistakes, and swiftly adapting their approach, they position themselves to thrive even under significant pressure.
Ultimately, resilience transforms disruption into opportunity. Organizations that prioritize resilience foster teams capable of turning chaos into innovation and growth, ensuring they don’t just survive in unpredictable environments, but they excel.
Alignment and adaptability are key to success
Despite their resilience, the Oilers fell short against a Florida Panthers team that was completely bought into their style of play and goal of repeating as champions. Florida’s cohesive culture, where every player committed to the collective mission, proved decisive. Their ability to dictate the game’s pace and capitalize on opportunities showcased a team fully aligned in pursuit of victory.
While resilience alone doesn't guarantee success, it's undeniably an essential ingredient. Even the most aligned teams will inevitably face setbacks and disruptions. Resilience allows these teams to navigate those challenges effectively, providing a foundation upon which alignment, adaptability, and strategic execution can thrive.
In the world of technology, building resilient and adaptable teams isn’t optional; it’s essential. Resilient tech teams embrace unpredictability, rapidly adjust to changing circumstances, and continuously learn from disruption. Organizations that foster such resilience are not only better positioned to manage unforeseen challenges but also empowered to leverage these situations as opportunities for growth, innovation, and sustained competitive advantage.
If you're exploring ways to build or strengthen resilience and adaptability in your technology teams, I’d love to connect. Feel free to reach out directly via LinkedIn.
