“Somebody asked me
What it really mean to be true
Somebody, tell me
Tell me what it mean to you
You can’t find it in a TV screen
You can’t read it in a book, no
You won’t see it in the future
No matter how hard you look, ya’ll
You know truth ain’t hard to find
You know sitting deep inside
And that truth can be in disguise
You don’t have to go far
Truth is right where you are…”
– Lyric from “Truth” by Ruthie Foster
Yesterday on the golf course, my neighbor, a retired Harvard Medical School professor, and I were talking about office politics. Neither of us is a fan, we’ll just leave it at that.
“Always speak truth to power,” he said. And, if he’d have had a mic, he could have dropped it. It was a masterful point comprised of the idea that power is often steeped in the illusion that the bosses are always right, when in fact, no one is ever always right, and most of us are often wrong. But the truth is always the truth. No matter how hard we try to get truth to yield to power, power is always trumped by truth.
“Pursue truth, or pursue harmony,” she stated. When decisions must be made, it is difficult to think of a time when truth and harmony are aligned. Because when decisions must be made, the status quo and inertia will creep in to try to mask the truth, or to give the impression that there is more than one truth.
There isn’t. DeVoss commented on university professors admonishing their students to “find their own truth,” and this pervasive idea that “you have your truth and I have mine.” Hmmmmm. Oh, wait. That’s not how truth works. The truth, simply put, is the truth. Whether you’re a DeVoss fan or not, that right there is pretty danged hard to debate.
As we look at our businesses, our plans, our strategies, it’s easy to be aspirational — and we should be. Otherwise, why plan? As we look at our markets, it’s easy to be defensive. “Well, if we could afford to,” or “the competitor just buys the business,” or whatever else we want to use to explain our challenges. No matter how aspirational we are or how serious our challenges might be, standing on the foundation of the truth increases our odds of being successful, fulfilled, happy and respected.
Or, said differently, when we start with, stay with and always function from the truth, our challenges will be fewer and our lenses will be clearer as we create plans and strategies to move forward.
Ruthie’s got it right. “Truth ain’t hard to find,” even if it’s sometimes hard to accept.
The Heston Group’s Truth-Based Strategic Planning Practice is designed to get our clients on the right path by keeping the truth at the center of everything we do. Contact us if you’d like to know more!
Make it a great day!
Steve Heston says
Here’s a lyric from a subscriber, who cites Sara Groves “The Word,” on “truth”…
People are getting fit for Truth
Like they’re buying a new tailored suit
Does it fit across the shoulders
Does it fade when it gets older
We throw ideas that aren’t in style
In the Salvation Army pile
And search for something more to meet our needs
It’s not something for which we get “fitted,” it just is, he says!
J leaf says
The only people who are wrong are those who never stop to think they may not be right. Ideas are straight, but the world is round.