Reality Check

I always thought of myself as a realist, however life has a way of reminding us of our shortfall.

Yesterday morning I was sitting on my couch before going to work like I do most mornings and talking to my wife. The subject of the restaurant project came up, which is not unusual in itself. We started to randomly talk about how we felt the project was coming along and how things were developing. She then mentioned how she did not believe that my financial projections were close to what would be needed. In other words we would fall short of cash flow in order to bring the project to term. For anyone of you who has ever been in charge of a project, hearing a member of your team (and especially someone close to you) doubting the feasibility of your endeavour is disheartening, especially as you are forging ahead.

I instantly recoiled, shutdown. I told myself that everything was going along well. That our financial forecast was close to reality. How dare she be negative? Especially so near the start up of construction.

However she taught me a lesson. For all of you out there who lead in any sort of capacity, whether it is your own business or your are a manager or a pastor, your first responsibility as a leader is not to cast vision or to empower people, your first order of the day is to DEFINE REALITY. In order for my project to run as smoothly as possible, I must define, with the help of my team and staff the shortfalls of the project. Not to point fingers at anyone, but in order to never be blindsided and enable my team to find solution and to go forward. Otherwise anything I do will be based on a very weak foundation.

John C. Maxwell talks about this principle in his book the 17 laws as of teamwork, he calls it the Law of the Scoreboard. In order for any individual or organization to lead efficiently, we must be able to know where we are in the game. What is the score?

Leaders will always be too positive, will never see all the angles, will rarely be realistic and will always need to to define reality.