“The older I get, the more I see a straight path where I want to go. If you’re going to hunt elephants, don’t get off the trail for a rabbit.”
– T. Boone Pickens, courtesy of my friend, David Newton
Straight paths.
T. Boone is on to something. Growth is our “elephant.” It feels to me, though, like we veer off after a lot of rabbits. Some of it might be “shame on us,” and some of it is a sign of the times. That’s where focus comes in to play.
How much of what we work on advances the ball for our cause? How much of what we work on gets us sideways from our goals? Our ability to focus….to discern the difference between those two conditions, will be key to our success.
The rabbit can also be described as the “illness of the urgent” which robs us of our focus on what’s important. “Important” should trump “urgent” about 95% of the time, and that takes focus on the part of every member of the team. Straight paths require that we consider:
● “Urgent” doesn’t become important just because the boss asks for it.
● “Important” is always important, even if the customer, our boss or our boss’s boss loses sight of that fact.
● It is always ok to ask / know “why?” and it is often ok to say, “No.”
● Open debate, productively engaged, can bring clarity to focus and restore “important” to its rightful place at the head of the table.
The path won’t be smooth all the time. (Or much of the time.) The path won’t be without potholes and puddles, slick spots and cracks, roots or other things to “stumble” over. But, the straighter it is, the less likely we are to see “rabbits” and the more likely it becomes that we’re on the right track to hunt the elephant.
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