Last month I commented on Seth Godin’s book, Tribes. I focused on the idea that leaders, as well as great organizations, do not just react to what is immediately going on around them, they initiate or create the environment they want to be in. I had this idea re-enforced and further clarified for me at my son’s 11th birthday party.
For Sam’s birthday I took him and 5 of his friends paint balling. It was Sam’s first time and it was great fun. We talked about it for weeks before we went. Sam was planning what he wanted to wear (layers are important in paintball!), who was coming, what the teams might be; all kinds of important details.
Most of those plans came to fruition, but there were some things that just did not happen. One friend got sick the day of the party and could not come, and other plans got forgotten during the ‘heat of battle’. We played 4 or 5 rounds and before each one each team would huddle together to strategize. All those plans sounded good at the time, but it did not always work out as discussed. We had great intentions of what we wanted to do, but when the paintballs started coming at us we tended to react very differently.
One kid in particular had an interesting strategy. No matter what we talked about ahead of time, he would simply go to the starting spot and not move. The other kids picked up on this quickly and would zone in on him because they knew where he was. He got pelted, and I am sure he went home more bruised than the rest of us. For the last game I told him to follow me and we would move together; but it did not work out that way. He moved forward about 10 feet, found a hiding spot, hunkered down, and got pelted yet again.
My point is this; most organizations have great plans and intentions heading into the day, quarter, or year, but often those plans get derailed when the action starts to pick up. We respond to things going on around us, our attention gets focused on the immediate which sometimes means the important strategic plans, get left behind.
It sounds great to say, ‘we want to initiate not just react’, but often the biggest obstacle to being able to do this is time. When the immediate, day-to-day concerns grab our attention it is easy to say, ‘great idea, but we just don’t have time to work on team-building and culture’. I understand that there is a time and place for everything, but over the past couple of years I have become even more convinced than I was before that the ‘busy-ness’ of life flows much better when the larger context of team and culture are well established and continually developed. Regular attention to the key elements of organizational life is an essential investment that, in the long run, allows us to work much more efficiently and productively. Admittedly, this is sometimes hard to remember when paint balls are flying at us, but taking the opportunity to pause and re-focus can help tremendously.
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When The Paint Balls Start To Fly
For Sam’s birthday I took him and 5 of his friends paint balling. It was Sam’s first time and it was great fun. We talked about it for weeks before we went. Sam was planning what he wanted to wear (layers are important in paintball!), who was coming, what the teams might be; all kinds of important details.
Most of those plans came to fruition, but there were some things that just did not happen. One friend got sick the day of the party and could not come, and other plans got forgotten during the ‘heat of battle’. We played 4 or 5 rounds and before each one each team would huddle together to strategize. All those plans sounded good at the time, but it did not always work out as discussed. We had great intentions of what we wanted to do, but when the paintballs started coming at us we tended to react very differently.
One kid in particular had an interesting strategy. No matter what we talked about ahead of time, he would simply go to the starting spot and not move. The other kids picked up on this quickly and would zone in on him because they knew where he was. He got pelted, and I am sure he went home more bruised than the rest of us. For the last game I told him to follow me and we would move together; but it did not work out that way. He moved forward about 10 feet, found a hiding spot, hunkered down, and got pelted yet again.
My point is this; most organizations have great plans and intentions heading into the day, quarter, or year, but often those plans get derailed when the action starts to pick up. We respond to things going on around us, our attention gets focused on the immediate which sometimes means the important strategic plans, get left behind.
It sounds great to say, ‘we want to initiate not just react’, but often the biggest obstacle to being able to do this is time. When the immediate, day-to-day concerns grab our attention it is easy to say, ‘great idea, but we just don’t have time to work on team-building and culture’. I understand that there is a time and place for everything, but over the past couple of years I have become even more convinced than I was before that the ‘busy-ness’ of life flows much better when the larger context of team and culture are well established and continually developed. Regular attention to the key elements of organizational life is an essential investment that, in the long run, allows us to work much more efficiently and productively. Admittedly, this is sometimes hard to remember when paint balls are flying at us, but taking the opportunity to pause and re-focus can help tremendously.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 20th, 2011 at 3:21 pm and is filed under Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.