Its What You Avoid That Will Kill You
Most Organizations Do Not Have a Strategy Problem. They Have an Avoidance Problem.
When my kids were younger, one of their favorite books was We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. If you’ve never read it, the story follows a family searching for a bear and repeatedly encountering obstacles along the way. Tall grass. Deep mud. A river. A snowstorm.
Each time they encounter a new challenge, the refrain remains the same:
“Can’t go over it.
Can’t go under it.
Oh no!
We’ve got to go through it.”
For years I thought it was simply a children’s book. Then I spent enough time leading organizations to realize it might be one of the better leadership books I’ve ever encountered.
Most leadership challenges follow the same pattern. The problem is rarely that nobody knows what to do. More often, everyone knows exactly what needs to happen and nobody wants to do it.
