Walk The Straight-Line

Thanks for waiting, i’ll start now
I’ll walk, i have walked, i walk slowly
What if someone meets me halfway
Open armed with the widest smile
Biggest heart

I suddenly find myself led astry
By wandering hands
Excited by thrilled her empty

How long could i hold your attention?
Would you wait another week?
A year?
Five years?
Sounds to me like you have too much time on your hands

Thanks for waiting
I’ll start now
One hour
Slowly

 

• Walking In Straight Lines, by Insides

Try Walking In A Straight-Line.

Many experiments have attempted to discover why we cannot walk in a straight line when blindfolded.

In one experiment, a scientist asks a friend to walk across a field in a straight line blindfolded.  In another, three men are asked to leave a barn on a very foggy day and walk straight ahead to a point a mile away.  In yet another experiment, a blindfolded man is asked to jump into a lake and swim straight to the other side.  Finally, a man is asked to drive his car straight across an empty Kansas field.

In each case, the subjects initially walk (swim or drive) in a relatively straight line but slowly drift.  As soon as they start to drift, the curve becomes more pronounced, and they quickly begin to travel in circles until they end up where they started.

In each case, the conclusion is that people cannot maintain their original trajectory without the ability to see a fixed point on the horizon.

Business Application

The same phenomena happen in business.

While teams often start out moving in a common direction, they quickly fall off the path without the ability to consistently see a focused and fixed vision of what they are expected to achieve.

Like the subjects in previous experiments, teams begin to go in circles at an increasing rate until many of them are back where they started.

But worse, teams are not just back where they started.  They are also now frustrated with leadership because they worked hard to make a positive contribution only to end up confused and demoralized.

Walk a Straight Line

A leader’s job is to define where the organization needs to go and then empower each team member to accomplish the goals through active problem-solving and experimentation.  The issue is that merely explaining the goal is not enough.

To keep the organization from walking in circles, the leader needs to ensure that each team member can consistently

1) see a focused and fixed vision of what they are trying to achieve and

2) design a system that allows everyone to see when they start deviating from the path.

Without clear and consistent goals and the ability to see when they start to drift, leaders, in effect, send their team members across the field blindfolded.

The Bible

We all know that businesses, careers, and lives do not travel a straight path.  Companies pivot, careers derail, and we all have unexpected personal changes.

The Bible is full of stories of men and women who take a circuitous journey while following God and his will.

For example, take Joseph of the Old Testament.  Born a favorite son, sold to slavery by his brothers, imprisoned by the lying wife of a boss, and finally, becomes the second most powerful man in Egypt (see Genesis 37-45).

So what is the big deal about walking a straight line?

In each of the experiments given, the issue was the inability not to walk a straight line when they could not see a fixed point in the horizon.

It’s the fixed point that is the issue.

In business, it is the fixed point that the leader gives the team.  No, the company may pivot and the fixed point changes, but the team is still focused on the fixed point given by the company leadership.  Business leadership is tasked with keeping the team focused on a “moving fixed point.”

The Word of God, however, does not present that problem.  His point doesn’t pivot or change.  It is steadfast, always.  Following God is following an “immovable fixed point.” And following this point allows us always to walk a straight line.

Business leaders have a challenge – that is, to motivate their teams with vision and focus—which is susceptible to change. 

Using God’s Word for encouragement, however, allows their leadership to have immovable and unchanging points of focus that will give themselves and their team’s confidence in the direction they are going.