The Weatherman Doesn't Control the Weather

Everyone thinks great business people control everything. They don't. They're just better weathermen.

They know there are forces that they can’t control:

• customer market

• labor market

• individual motivation

These are the “natural disasters”, “acts of God” (whatever that means), or “uncontrollable forces” in business

They DO have things they can control:

• Where they position themselves in the market

• How they attract and reward the talent in the job market

• How the incentivize and reward employees

My job in business (and consulting) usually comes down to:

1. Get clear about what winning the game looks like.

2. Embrace what is unchangeable as the rules to a game.

3. Find a way to rearrange the chess pieces to win the game.

Sometimes this simply isn’t my client’s skillset (which is fine).
Sometimes it’s just that they’re buried in the day-to-day (no judgment here).
Sometimes they can’t read the label from inside the jar (that’s me).

Here’s the question for you:

• Where are you trying to control something you can’t?

• Where are you ignoring something you can?

• Where are you unclear about what you really want?

PS: If you try to control something that you can’t, you’ll inherently revert to manipulation and self-delusion.

PSS: Life is usually hard enough without being delusional.