Go. Go. Go. Do. Do. Do.
The go go go, do do do pace feels very productive. The hustle and bustle to fill every nook and cranny with movement feels like much is being accomplished. The “I’m Busy” Badge is worn with pride as though it is the indication of lasting success. But at some point, this busy pace slides into the area of only working FOR the business. This location of functioning is as though the demands of the business become the real manager and director of time and resources. The demands usurp the decision-making seat and dictate what decisions need to made and when. This is not unlike when emotions take the forefront and operate as Master not a Servant or Guide.
Working For the Business is important. Decisions do need to be made that then direct actions to take. But to primarily take the position of working FOR the business is to let activity run rampant and be the director unto itself, as though activity in and of itself is the chief goal, not the means to accomplish something else. Activity, like emotions, serve greater purposes other than being expressed without direction and purpose.
Activity cannot reference itself as whether it is good or not. Being busy is not, by necessity, a good thing (or even a bad thing, for that matter). Busy is not inherently an indication of health and success. Being busy could actually indicate that we are not being successful at our goals. It could reveal that we are being highly wasteful with our input. For instance, lets say we try to shoot a basketball into a hoop, and we make it! But it took 10 tries, so we were highly profuse in our activity but less dense in our successful return. But we might exclaim, “For those 10 tries, we were busy, by golly! We put a lot of effort into it! That speaks for something!” I would agree, that effort expended is better than no effort at all. However, if we keep going through this same routine and only making 1 out of 10, we come to a junction. We can either decide that 1 out of 10 is as best as it can ever be or we re-approach and re-think our effort.
Approach Again
I suggest that the go go go pace of business that leads to primarily working FOR the company could use some re-approaching, some re-consideration. There is a possibility to both work ON a business and FOR a business, consistently. I propose that the ON leads the FOR, and it’s essential that both work harmoniously together for better and lasting results.
This ON and FOR relationship is the proverbial Horse and Cart scenario. Each need to be attended to and rightly honored. The Horse, in this context, is the embodiment of all the decisions, directions, and potential of resource impact. The Horse by itself is untrained and undirected in context with its capacity for strength to move objects powerfully. The Horse matches its identity, design and purpose when pulling the cart, doing the actual work. There is greater feedback and learning from the cart when the horse is engaging with the cart. The cart is the work and practical actions that need to be fulfilled for the company to meet its demands. Both Matter. Both are vital together.
If a company overemphasizes working ON a business, with deliberation and analysis only, it reaches a screeching halt because it becomes too ethereal and often tries to reduce the unknowns and uncertainty to zero, which does not exist. There simply are unknowns and uncertainties that do exist, which is risk. But risk is not so unruly that success cannot still happen in the same sentence.
And its also not primarily working FOR the business without considering the power of decision making and using results-feedback to guide its actions and re-actions. Only attending to the FOR is like a chicken that has had its top member removed.
A healthy way forward is attending to Horse AND Cart. Sometimes a little assistance and time given to work ON a business can do wonders FOR the business. And it doesn’t stop there. The movement of a company continues forward with the dynamic relationship of making decisions with resources and improving those decisions through the feedback of the results of the work. It’s not a competition between the two but a dance. A powerful, creative partnership of ON and FOR.
So GO. GO. GO. And, LISTEN. LISTEN. LISTEN.
Good ideas dynamically connected with Practical Demonstrations.
Have you experienced this tension of ON and FOR in your work? Good? Not so good?