What do you do when you can't stop it?

I listened to a very informative talk last night by John Englander. I stumbled onto the video as I was checking out the news on YouTube — it’s one of my sources for current events I have to admit. The talk was important, sobering and depending where you live, down right horrifying.

The title of his talk was Sea Level Rise Can No Longer Be Stopped. What Next?

Dr Englander was engaging, informative, and although the topic is linked to the changes in our environment, kept his message on the simple fact that the Sea Level is rising. It is the result of glacier melt off, and when it’s all said and done will rise over 210 feet (give or take) — he emphatically stressed this can’t be stopped for many reasons, including the simple fact it’s one of the things Mother Earth does every so often. He did stress this would happen on a geological time scale so we still had decades to prepare, adapt, or make some important decisions — although not a real silver lining, it did offer some breathing room as far as dealing with it.

At this point I should mention I’m not positioning to offer any commentary on climate change but rather provoke some conversation about dealing with something that is inevitable, can’t be avoided, ducked, or side stepped.

Simply put, what do you do when there’s no choice but to deal with it?

Simply answered, there are two options when this happens: 1) do nothing, surrender, and let the chips fall where they may or 2) do something, and manage out to the best possible outcome (all things considered). It should be pointed out that doing nothing is easy, where doing something is a little more action oriented, and may involve a number of considerations —

• Recognize what can’t be stopped and accept it

• Understand the situation and its consequences

• Establish the best and worst scenarios

• Develop plans for the best possible outcome

• Move forward and do not lament the past

• Muscle it out, dig deep, and work through it

• Try not to do it alone

• Don’t quit, because if you do you have surrendered to the worst case scenario

Both of these options are entirely acceptable — doing nothing is recognizing you have given up to the situation and will accept the outcome whereas doing something means you are going to work to make the best of a bad situation. The operative word in this is best because if you aren’t going to do something to the best of your ability I suppose we should have a completely different conversation and you probably should just do nothing — it will save on all the excuses and complaining.

As an aside, if you live on the coast you may want to consider doing something.

iamgpe

What's with all this strategy talk?

Your text — This strategy course is one of the more interesting courses so it makes all the weekend strategy group work worthwhile.

My text — Hope you’re all more strategic for it.

Your text — So I have mentors here.

Your text — And I look forward to our next calls asking them how they choose what not to do.

Your text — And how do they see the pitfalls when something lies outside the chosen strategy or how they push back when people want to go down the wrong roads, etc.

Your text — Helps give context to the academic stuff.

There seem to be five words, that although extremely important, always cause me to pause, tighten up and prepare for a semantical and contextual entanglement — my experience is their definition offer great delight for the wordsmith, but can cause confusion for those who want to get something done. I only really care about them because they ensure there is alignment ( as well as effectiveness and efficiency) between what you want and what you need to do.

Vision, Goal, Strategy, Objective, and Tactic

I already regret writing them down — it’s like rolling a snow ball down a mountain and imaging the havoc it will create at the bottom; everything caught up in an oversized snowball with feet and arms sticking out every which way. I suppose I should define the famous five, but the internet will do a much better job, so I’m not going to. I should mention I only bring this up because of that brief “text conversation” but now that I’m into it, I’ll be brief.

My favourite illustration of strategy et al is with a mystical land whose ambitious king wants to unite the land under his leadership (his vision) by capturing the island city state of “Gold City” (the goal). To do this he will isolate the island and starve the city into the submission (the strategy) and will do it by the end of the summer (adds an objective and makes it time bound). He will blow up the bridges that connect the island to the main land and cut off the food supply (the tactic). A nice little story to bring the definitions to life don’t you think; that is until someone says the goal is to starve the people and the strategy is to blow up the bridges, and the tactic is to put explosives at the footings of the bridges — let the contextual and semantical discussions begin. As a side note, no one ever mentions the need to add a naval blockade to truly make this work (although I digress).

All of this is very important to know and adopt into your planning because it increases the chance you will get you where you want to go. Lately though, I’ve boiled it down to three questions that still encompasses everything but with less wordsmithing.

What do you want?

What is your plan to get you what you want?

What are you doing to make your plan a reality?

When I say there is less wordsmithing it isn’t to suggest that the answers don’t have to be big, and a little wordy, and require quite a bit of thought — because big visions require big plans, and the grit to get them done. And nowhere in the manual does it say it’s easy.

I did mention I would be brief.

iamgpe

Ride your own ride...

I’m actually in the middle of writing a blog on strategy but the other day I was reminded of a very important imperative so I’ve put that blog on the back burner for the time being (I’m sure I’ll get back to it shortly because although the word strategy can get confusing, it represents something very important).

The imperative I was reminded of — “Ride your own ride”

If you’ve ever ridden a motorcycle you’ve probably heard this imperative because when you’re on a motorcycle you’re also keenly aware that the opportunity for a do over is rare. Although open to interpretation, the core meaning is to ride to your current ability and not get influenced by those around you — it’s advisable, unless you are ready, not to lean heavily into a turn going 100km/hr just because the rider ahead of you did it.

When you are on a motorcycle this imperative is very much a literal mantra — I was on my new bicycle when it came to mind so I suppose it may also have some figurative utility. My new bicycle is very different from my old bicycle, so not only am I dealing with getting my cycling legs back in order, I’m also dealing with a new riding position, different gears, different gear ratios, and larger tires. It is a completely different riding experience compared to what I’m used to and it had me lagging far behind the others.

As frustration was beginning to set in I found that little voice offering up some advice… “Ride your own ride”. And because a little wisdom has finally starting to settle in I listened.

I forgot about the people around me, started enjoying my ride, focused on what I needed to do to improve, and slowly, day by day, found myself improving — all simply because I finally recognized it was my ride and not anyone else’s. I should also mention I’m not lagging so far behind anymore. Sure this is a fine two-wheel reminder, but I would suggest it’s also a nice reminder for anything you do; particularly when you want to stay focused on your goals.

Because the moment you make it someone else’s ride, you will never meet the goals you’ve set out for yourself.

I guess I should get back to that strategy blog,

iamgpe