The Art of Organised Chaos

Why things in Italy rarely go according to plan and almost always turn out just fine

Anyone who spends enough time in Italy begins to notice that order here emerges very differently from what we’re used to in Northern Europe. What might initially sound like chaos to us, voices overlapping, opinions colliding, hands sketching invisible lines in the air, is often precisely how a workable solution takes shape.

Not in silence, not according to a rigid plan, but right in the middle of a lively exchange where everyone feels compelled to contribute, whether the problem concerns them or not.

I saw it again recently on a building site, where what seemed like a minor detail suddenly became the centre of an animated discussion. The electrician, who had come merely to check a set of fuses, developed a firm opinion about a pipe that, in his view, needed shifting a few centimetres to the right. The plumber, naturally, disagreed. Within minutes, a circle of men had formed around the wall, tape measures appeared from pockets, fingers traced imaginary lines, and everyone had a theory.

Measurements were taken, reconsidered, adjusted. Someone marked the wall with a pencil, someone else shook his head and suggested an alternative. I let the conversation unfold, listened, asked a question here and there, and gently steered things, until the various ideas began to move, almost imperceptibly, in the same direction.

By the end of it, everyone walked away convinced he had been the one to find the solution and, in a sense, each of them had.

I’ve come to understand that my role in this system is not to replace chaos with order, but to let order and improvisation work together. That requires something different from planning and control; it calls for timing, trust, and the ability to make people feel their contribution matters, even when you already know where things are heading.

For someone from Northern Europe, there is a deeply ingrained reflex to structure first, plan thoroughly, and only then act. Here, a plan often takes shape while it is already being carried out. What initially appears messy reveals itself, in practice, as a form of practical intelligence, fed by experience, intuition, and a remarkable flexibility.

I once wrote about l’arte di arrangiarsi, that typically Italian ability to find a way forward with whatever happens to be available. On paper, it might sound like improvisation born of necessity, in reality, it often proves to be a surprisingly creative and sometimes even more effective system.

I remember one afternoon when a delivery of materials failed to arrive just as a wall was due to be plastered. In another country, the work would likely have been postponed. Here, there was a brief discussion, then someone drove off in a van, called a contact in a nearby village, and returned an hour later with materials that weren’t exactly what had been ordered, but turned out to work better. The wall was finished that same afternoon.

On another occasion, a group of tradesmen gathered around a problem that, according to the original plan, shouldn’t have existed at all. There was some laughter, a story about a similar situation years ago, a phone call to someone who “knew about these things,” and before the discussion had properly run its course, someone was already up a ladder implementing a solution no one had anticipated. The final result was better than what had been planned.

That kind of improvisation doesn’t happen by chance. It rests on something less visible, but just as essential: trust. Problems here are rarely solved because a contract demands it, but because people genuinely want to find a way through. That means building relationships, listening, respecting each person’s craft, and sometimes simply taking the time to share a coffee while thinking things through. Those who constantly confront or control soon discover that solutions become harder to find. But where goodwill exists, there is a willingness to go that extra step, to make a call, take a detour, or come up with something unexpected that makes all the difference.

This way of working has deep historical roots. Italy has never been a tightly organised whole, but rather a patchwork of city-states, each with its own rules and its own way of solving problems. In such a landscape, flexibility becomes not a choice, but a second nature. Cities like Florence, Siena and Perugia were not only rivals, but also centres of ingenuity, where solutions had to be invented without the comfort of established models.

The dome of Florence was built without anyone fully knowing how it could be done. Leonardo da Vinci sketched solutions to problems centuries ahead of his time. Improvisation and invention have long been close companions here.

That doesn’t mean everything runs smoothly all the time. There are moments when five people speak at once, no one seems to let the other finish, and a neat, structured plan suddenly feels very appealing. Yet more often than not, such moments end in laughter, a hand on someone’s shoulder and a solution that appears just when no one is actively searching for it anymore.

What may look like chaos at first glance turns out to be a different kind of order, one that doesn’t exist in advance, but takes shape as people collaborate, think, adjust, and try again.

To an outsider, it can resemble an orchestra without a conductor. But listen a little longer, and you begin to hear that everyone knows their instrument and that someone always comes in at exactly the right moment, so that, in the end, the day resolves into music!