A good article came to me via my colleague Caroline, always ready to save some gems from my spam filter where most HBR articles go: Blitzscaling, by Tim Sullivan [1]
The road to growth, to complexity, to the next stage of possibilities is likely to be muddy. The journey is messy. Trying to fix efficiencies as you go along is a waste. Yes, the tent could have been better waterproofed, the rucksack is heavier than it should be, the shoes were not great, company in the camino is not precisely enlightening (those fellow travellers are a bit of a pain) and the weather, well, the weather, what can I say?
Maybe there is an unhappiness and unsettling tax to pay in order to get to the destination. Maybe inefficiencies are obvious, systems are not great, but we can’t stop the time and fix them. Maybe it’s not perfect. Maybe, dare I say, some people don’t live the values well as they should. Maybe bureaucracy is higher than we always had anticipated and wanted. Maybe leadership development is a bit primitive. Maybe there is some ambiguity in the system that drives people nuts. Maybe we are full of contradictions. Maybe the processes are not perfect, and the databases don’t talk to each other, and IT is a bit of a pain, and plans are not pristine, and life is not plain sailing.
But, guess what, we are moving, moving, moving, the train is gone, gone. Jump in or wait in the station to read a manual on how to fix the heating.
Some inefficiencies are a healthy sign of moving forward and focusing on what matters. Battles not worth fighting, 100% perfection is never achievable, unfinished and not a perfectly closed state of affairs.
It sounds like life. And if business sounds like life, you know what, that is not bad at all…
Inefficiencies, frustrations and unhappiness? Maybe, just maybe, is the right path to growth. If so, congratulations.