Butterflies and the Value of Terror
Fear as a strategic signal
Photo by Mateusz Tworuszka on Unsplash
“There are very few bold plans that get me nervous. But this one is just too risky.” I love hearing these kinds of responses to the work I get to do with executive leaders. This is different from whiteboard moments, crazy ideas, or daydreaming—those are made for reactions like this. But synthesize a real plan with real opportunities and implications, and it’s going to stir the nerves.
That nervous energy—the butterflies—is often dismissed as weakness. But it’s one of the clearest signals that something real is at stake.
Andy Grove liked to say that “only the paranoid survive,” and nowhere is that clearer than in the story of how he led Intel through its most terrifying strategic turning point. In the 1980s, Intel’s identity and revenue were built on memory chips, but Japanese competitors were relentlessly undercutting them and steadily eroding their margins and market share, even as Intel still had plants, plans, and product on the shelves. Grove describes the gnawing sense of dread he felt, the realization that if they stayed the course, Intel would slowly bleed out, not as a reason to back off their strategy, but as proof that the world had already changed and that clinging to the familiar would be fatal.
That terror became a signal, not a stop sign: he and CEO Gordon Moore made the agonizing decision to exit the very business that had made Intel famous and to bet the company on microprocessors instead. It was a choice that felt like jumping off a cliff with a partially built parachute, but that decision, born in fear and executed with conviction, is what transformed Intel from a vulnerable memory manufacturer into the dominant engine of the PC revolution.
Now, decades later, Intel finds itself at another crucible moment. Whether today’s leadership treats the unease they face as a jump scare, a warning sign, or a catalyst remains to be seen.
I heard an interview with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal of Acquired podcast fame. When discussing some of the work that goes into preparing for each of their episodic corporate storytelling deep dives, they said that terror is a major factor as they get closer to the moment of recording.
Terror can be a powerful Antagonist.
Not because it paralyzes, but because it clarifies. Terror shows up when the old map no longer fits the terrain—when the organization is still operating as if yesterday’s assumptions hold, even as reality has moved on.
Most leaders treat that feeling as a personal flaw to overcome or a risk to manage away. The better ones learn to read it. Butterflies are not proof that the plan is wrong; they are often evidence that the plan might have just enough audacity to matter.
The question is not whether you feel terror. The question is what you do with it.
Ignore it, and you will preserve comfort at the cost of relevance. Listen to it, and terror becomes a signal, one that points toward the decisions that actually matter, the ones that reshape identity, strategy, and trajectory.
The Antagonist rarely announces itself loudly. Sometimes it arrives as a tightening in the chest, a sense that this choice matters more than you’d like. Leaders who learn to trust that signal don’t eliminate fear. They convert it into conviction.
The Antagonist is already at work. Are you?
Antagonist Check
Where does fear show up and how quickly do you try to silence it?
What decision feels too risky precisely because it would force you to abandon something familiar?
What is the cost of this Antagonist being ignored?
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Hi, I’m Brad. If the challenges I write about sound familiar, it’s because I spend my time helping executives and their teams work through them. Over the past 30 years, I’ve been a founder, principal, CEO, chief of staff, and board chair. If you’re interested in a conversation about working together, I accept a limited number of new engagements each year. You can send me a message here.