Last week I concluded a series about lifting by sharing a story from a recent nighttime obstacle course race.  Lindsey Caruthers reached out to me and suggested there was more to tell.  That got me thinking, and now this week is about running a night obstacle course race, headlamps, and moving forward.

A few days before the race, I got my hands on the course map.  I could see that it was going to be around 4 miles, mainly running through woods.  I knew there was going to be a lot of mud.  I saw the names of the obstacles, so I had an idea of what was going to come my way.  When I started the race, the sun was still out, so for the first 30 minutes I could see quite a bit in front of me, including the obstacles.  Then, it got dark.  That’s when everyone turned on their headlamps.  Now, instead of being able to see out in the distance, I was only able to see the few feet in front of me.  While this may have slowed me down a bit, it didn’t stop me.  While I couldn’t see as much as I once could, I could still see enough in front of me to keep going.  I could still see the marked trail.  I could see the obstacles as I approached them.  I could remember the obstacles on the map to estimate where I was on my journey.  I was able to stay focused on taking the steps in front of me over and over again, until finally I reached the finish line.

How does this connect to anything?  I’d argue that organizational change management efforts or leading projects is a lot like running an obstacle course race in the dark.  It would be so much easier if we always had a goal AND a clearly outlined path we could easily follow to get to that goal.  However, it doesn’t work that way.  You might have a general idea of where you are trying to go, but you like don’t have a clear line of sight to get there.  The path isn’t going to be easy either.  It’s going to be filled with mud and obstacles like resource demands, difficult stakeholders, last minute pivots, etc.  It’s easy to freeze and become paralyzed when things aren’t 100% clear.  The thing to remember though, is you don’t have to be able to see every step on the path clearly.  All you really need is a good head lamp in the form of a clear milestone or next step to take.  As long as you have this headlamp, you can keep moving forward, even if things are a little dark and tough.

The challenge: How can you keep your headlamp focused on the immediate next step, so you can keep going?

Bonus thought: I can’t remember where I saw this, but it’s always stuck with me.  I saw a presentation about how to successfully drive organizational change management.  They said you needed 3 things: A clear vision of where you’re going, a clear why that people can rally around, and an IMMEDIATE next step the audience can take toward that vision.  If folks get stuck, it’s because you don’t have those 3 things.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry