Trigger Question #165:
Sometimes formal education gets it wrong. Like the time my business school professors taught me to always be ready to deal with the unexpected. Because dealing with the unexpected, they said, is the most difficult aspect of business life. That is one reason I became interested in what was then called corporate planning before it morphed into strategic planning and then into strategic management.
Do you know why I found strategy work so interesting? Because the work involved trying to imagine all the weird things that could happen unexpectedly. (Like tariffs out of the blue. If not the tariffs themselves, then the size and the breadth.) And then to hatch equally weird strategies to counter said weird events. Stimulating, yes. Dull? Heck, no. What’s not to like?
Except, my experience in the field taught me the opposite. The most difficult thing to manage is the expected. Not the unexpected.
Let’s face it, business is boring. It’s the same nonsense over and over, day after day. It’s like driving the same car on the same road to the same destination at the same time every day. You must do it. And if you take your eye off what you’re doing, bad things can happen.
The most successful managers I have worked with were the ones who had the discipline to focus on the same detail, over and over, day after day. (If they were bored, they never let it show.)
So tell me, what held your attention this week? Something unexpected or the usual same old same old?
Please note. I asked what held your attention. Not what grabbed your attention. If your attention is grabbed, then chances are you are in no state to hold your focus on the required same detail, over and over, day after day.
Maybe, with practice and experience, you can learn to do both, manage the expected humdrum while dealing with the electrifying surprises. But you will need help, because it takes a bit of un-holding and un-grabbing.
Also known as delegating and coordinating.
Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.
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Quote of the Moment: “I could have been successful, but I got bored too easily.” The Chief Nonsense Officer.
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