It has been really foggy a few mornings this past week here in Wisconsin. After living in the desert for so long, I’ve always loved the fog; plus it makes me think of San Francisco, one of my favorite places anywhere.
Those mornings, as I sat in my garden and watched the fog hovering in the trees behind and around my house, over the fence and plants, it brought to mind my compass. When it is super foggy or when full dark descends, even if you have a step-by-step map, it won’t do you any good if you don’t have your current bearing and know the bearing of your ultimate destination.
Leadership is a lot like that as well.
I have spent a lot of my career in complicated situations where, like at the De Pere Chamber of Commerce during the financial crisis of 2008-2009, we were working through a maze of questions and concerns: what did the business community need to do? What did we need from a public policy perspective? What hard calls were we asking our elected officials to make? What could we do locally? What was outside of our hands? How could we support our businesses and our community through this crisis?
We had an e-newsletter and a growing presence on social media. I had been posting those questions and doing presentations, seeking input as well as discovering what the members of our business community needed during the evolving days of the crisis.
I remember I got a call one day, and a gentleman said he wanted to come in and visit with me. I said, “Of course, absolutely.” This call was not long after I'd done a post on the complexity of the moment, how we needed to strategize solutions together and asking how the chamber and our members could support our community and our residents.
He came in, and we sat down and chatted for a few minutes getting acquainted and assessing where the conversation was going. I didn't know this gentleman. I'd never met him before that day. I'd never talked to him before he called me. After we had talked for a few minutes, he said, “I have *the* answer you're looking for.”
I can be a little sarcastic at times, and at that moment it was all I could do to not react. Internally I wanted to throw my hands up in the air and say, “Thank God you're here! I have been looking for *the* answer because once I have it, we can simply put it into place and I can retire and call it a career!” I mean, seriously, there is no ONE answer for any complex situation.
That conversation has stuck with me for nearly 18 years.
First, I shook my head a lot, thinking, Oh my gosh, wouldn't it be nice if life was that simple?! Of course, it never, ever is. Second, it wasn't the first time that someone had said, okay, here's a simple answer; like there is a single answer to a complicated system-wide problem.
Oversimplifying can sometimes be a strategy when you are feeling overwhelmed. It gives you a moment to stop, breathe and boil it down to the most simple elements and try to analyze from there. It can still your racing thoughts into simple components to work through. But that still is not one answer to the complex problem; it is a series of answers to get you toward solutions.
Ofttimes, when people in leadership find themselves in a gnarly situation and are presented with an oversimplified solution, they need the confidence to say, “I don't think this is that simple, and I think we're going to need a multi-pronged approach to address this.” Then they need to trust themselves to begin that work. To have the courage to do one hard thing at a time.
This also applies in other leadership activities. Being a leader or acting as a member of a community group, you are often in the position of looking at an issue or current status and being called to put together a strategic plan, do a SWOT analysis (or similar tool) and talk about the issues facing a community, a school or an enterprise. You spend the time going through the process, doing your homework, giving your input and going through all the steps. Once that is all done, some consultant or leader (maybe you) puts together this beautiful strategic plan; everyone in the process gets a copy, and then … back to real life.
I distinctly remember all those aspirational Vision 2020 processes and plans. They were filled with fabulous ideas and visions of the future, but let’s face it: we all come to those tables with full schedules and full plates and, as excited as we are, those visions and ideas will take a lot of someone’s time, energy, and focus to craft into real plans to achieve them. They too often end up as souvenirs.
As a leader, you often know only a few basic things: where you are at this very moment and where you want to end up. There is no step-by-step route like Apple Maps telling you, “Look out, there's an accident,” or “There's construction ahead, you're still on the fastest route,” or any of the things that Apple or Google Maps tell you when you're using them.
Leadership isn't that way. Transformation is not that way. You have the now and the hoped-for future, a general idea of the logical next few steps based on what you know at the moment, and the guts to start moving forward.
I have long been a proponent of finding your own True North. Knowing where you are headed and keeping that in front of you. What you also need is a compass to guide you to get there. You need it to get started. You need it when conditions change. You need it when the road is suddenly gone and the map you had is now sending you in circles because the road is gone and there is no longer a map. You need it when the proverbial fog rolls in and everything suddenly looks foreign and distorted.
Those times are where the Detrick CompassTM comes in. It is a practical framework for helping you understand where you are, clarify where you are going, design the path forward, create alignment, navigate changing conditions, and measure what matters.
Over the next several posts, I’m going to unpack each point of the Compass — not as a rigid formula or another beautifully bound strategic plan destined for a shelf, but as a way of thinking and working when the path forward isn’t completely clear.
Because most of the meaningful work of leadership doesn’t happen when the road is straight, the weather is perfect, and the destination is clearly marked.
It happens in the fog.