I still smile remembering the time I was invited on a trip to Ottawa!
It wasn’t a new destination. I knew it well.
I still know it well – because I live in Ottawa. To do the trip, I had to leave town to meet people at the starting point, and then turn around and head back toward my hometown.
I concede that it is inefficient.
And here’s another head scratcher: The drive to the starting point was three hours. The trip back took five days. Yes, five days. We got on a river boat cruise that meandered its way through plenty of locks and stopped at lots of quaint villages.
This trip has me thinking about how I have usually approached goals.
I admit that through my career I often set my sights on “the” solution. I would analyze the “best” way to get there. And once I set the goal, I would strive to reach it as efficiently as possible. I measured success as how much time and money was “saved”.
On the surface, that might seem like the “right” way to manage a major building project. It’s based on minimizing risk and sticking with what is known. Oddly it rewrites as “I could have put more into this, but I chose not to.” Huh?
But as I think of those construction adventures, we were constantly reiterating and remapping.
- An underground discovery would cause a redesign.
- A supplier with surplus inventory would present an opportunity.
- A new grant would change priorities.
Our true measure was how much quality space we could deliver with the funds and schedule available.
If I reacted to the idea of a trip to Ottawa with only efficiency in mind, I would have declined. I’d already reached that goal. I’m here!
There are destinations we don’t know about until we get moving.
But I reacted to the trip as an opportunity to spend time with people I care about. And I was curious to experience a new way of getting to Ottawa; seeing what I could never see when driving 100km/hr on the highway.
A river cruise is not the cheapest way or the fastest way to Ottawa. But it is perhaps the most fascinating and impactful way that’s within the budget and schedule. And we declared the trip as a success well before we reached the last dock.
I realize now that projects are not really about a prescribed destination. They’re about moving in the generally right direction and gaining new ideas and fresh perspectives along the way to reach a place that we couldn’t have seen yet alone identified at the beginning.
Try this
This week consider what decisions you’re making from a place of efficiency. Maybe it’s buying the same groceries, driving the same route, skipping over a podcast or a book.
Then let yourself imagine new ways of enjoying those common experiences that may take a little more time but could give you more energy and more fulfillment.
TL:DR
- It’s shortsighted to believe you can fully prescribe a destination before starting.
- On the journey you gain new ideas and perspectives.
- Measure success not by saving time and money but by making the most of the budget and schedule available.
