BBs and A-Bombs

I was with my leadership team recently for our annual goal setting meeting and we began to discuss an issue that had been developing in our organization for some time. The problem was well known, as we were spending a third consecutive quarter diving into the issue. From a leadership standpoint, I know that I was visibly frustrated because we had this huge elephant in front of us, and I shook my head in dismay as everyone around the table took out their bb guns and started trying to kill the elephant. After about 30 minutes of an unrelenting assault on the beast, everyone was frustrated but mercifully they eventually ran out of ammo. No one realized that to kill an elephant you need something more appropriate than an air rifle. We got nothing accomplished in that half-hour of meeting, but I held out hope that we were learning an important lesson.

And so, the case with many young leaders is that they normally underestimate the issues they are trying to solve. They never know where to aim their energies and they often are trying to tackle the wrong problem with the wrong weapon. And I’ll admit for a time it can be amusing to watch someone try to dig a ditch with a couple of pool cues, but eventually it only leads to frustration, you don’t get much done, and then of course there is the lost time, that you never seem to get back.

As a leader, you need to train your team to be able to identify hurdles in the journey and teach them to use the right weapons for the right application. There are times to release the atomic bomb, and then there are times to avoid the battle altogether. If you as the leader haven’t prepared your team for the battles in front of you, you have no one to blame but yourself when the team gets mowed down in the heat of battle. Success on the journey comes much easier when you are well prepared, well trained, and well equipped to face the difficult stretches of the journey that lead to the upper echelons of excellence.

Take five minutes and consider, have I taken the time to teach and prepare my organization for the battles ahead? Have I equipped them well and taught them how to use the weapons at their disposal?

Take some time this week to look at your plans for training and equipping your team. Do you have intentional time blocked out for this effort? Or maybe you don’t even have a strategy. Time to get started. A trained organization prepared for the journey will spend less time in battle and make quicker gains toward the vision.

Now Go Lead