Happy Wednesday,

Recently, my family and I have got back into playing Mario Kart 8 on Switch, which is the inspiration behind this blog series.  Our first entry will be about choosing the right set up for the task in front of you. 

In case you’re not familiar with Mario Kart, here is how it works.  You choose from a collection of Super Mario characters along with a variety of vehicle, tire, and glider options.  These choices impact your speed, acceleration, weight, handling, and off-road capabilities.  Here was my predicament.  Typically, I would choose characters and set ups that were higher on speed and not so much on acceleration.  This was great at the lower difficulty levels.  Then, once I got to 200cc, I was no longer able to have success with this set up.  I slid off courses, struggled, and ultimately lost.  As I reflected, I realized that 200cc is more about stopping and going vs staying at a continual top speed.  My builds focused on speed may have worked in previous situations, but now I was facing a different challenge.  I needed to adapt.  Maxing out speed was no longer serving me.  Instead, I needed to choose characters, carts, tires, and gliders that would give me high acceleration.  Once I switched to this new set up, I started winning!

Making connections.  Work is a lot like Mario Kart.  We have different options of tools and skillsets we can use to solve problems.  Over time, we find set ups that we become comfortable with that we can use over and over again.  This serves us well, until things change.  Then, our tried and true methods are no longer effective.  Has this ever happened to you?  You better believe it’s happened to me.  From time to time, we need to take a step back to understand the problem we are solving for.  From time to time, we need to take a step back and ask whether our current tools and skills are the right ones to solve this problem.

The challenge: Will you be willing to switch your set up when the environment and challenges around you change?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry