Avenues – ElPropósito4 min de lectura

Shortcuts and planning

Many organizations have their road to success already paved. They map it out perfectly in their strategic plan and have everything they need to execute it, yet somewhere along the way something breaks down and they slip back into old habits. It happens in companies, in teams and in our personal lives. We’re tempted to leave the avenue for a side street and take a detour, only to end up on a dirt road and, more often than not, at a dead end. We’re on the eve of the year’s final quarter, and this is exactly when it’s common to forget many of the lessons of recent months, and of the four years this half-decade has run so far.

There are many reasons we drift off the highway, the avenues paved with our great, brilliant ideas, and I’d like to point out three main ones. As you know, I like to start everything with purpose. Many organizations, teams and people aren’t clear on their purpose, and setting out without that compass is a 100% guarantee we’ll get lost once we’re on the road. Purpose is, and always must be, the philosopher’s stone that answers many of the questions along a business owner’s path. Many business owners succeed because they found an effective, high-quality solution at a price customers are willing to pay, whether to solve a problem or to improve their well-being. Over an organization’s long journey, that purpose gets pushed aside as new ideas and new ways of doing business come along. The key to success is holding firm to the original spirit that brought the organization to life, which is simply its organizational purpose. The very same thing happens personally. People who lose sight of their life purpose tend to stall and lose track of the avenue they once laid out, often a project, a new job opportunity and so on.

The second big reason we leave the main avenue is an apparent urge to get results as fast as possible. Here I like to recall a Latin phrase, Per aspera ad astra (to the stars through hardship). Whatever the project, the aspirations, the objectives or the goals, we need to be clear that there’s work to do and effort to put in. To own the fact that results come as the fruit of that effort, English has a word that’s very hard to translate into Spanish: accountability. Translated, it becomes responsabilidad, which misses its essence. It goes much further. Being accountable means accepting that the result, or the lack of one, depends solely and entirely on us and no one else. Whether we’re executing a strategic plan or tracking our personal goals this year, there’s one person, and only one, in charge of the final result, and that’s us. Taking a detour may sound like an easy way to reach our goals faster and with less effort, but it won’t necessarily deliver the result. In the vast majority of cases, the result requires significantly more effort, and that means staying on the avenue.

The third big issue that pulls us off the avenue is poor planning before the trip, which leads to deep frustration. Some roads in this world are lonely and dangerous, with sheer cliffs, or simply no gas stations or places to stop and restock. That’s exactly what any plan we set for ourselves looks like. The odds of hitting an endless stretch with nowhere to stop are close to 100%, so, as on any trip, we need to plan for fuel, food, water and a long list of other things (knowing there’s no perfect plan). An expedition through a jungle also comes to mind. Everything starts with planning and with taking the risk of exploring toward something greater, and history is full of good expeditions that stayed true to the spirit and purpose of the journey. My conclusion is that there are no shortcuts to a goal. The work has to be done, and done well. If in the end we miss the goal, what matters is finding the lessons so we know what to do differently the next time we face something similar. The other thing that matters is finishing the effort with the satisfaction of having done everything in our power to deliver the plan.

Warm regards and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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