Building the Timeline
In business, there’s no way to tell if a solution you provide is actually the correct solution.
Metrics can adjust, sure, but there’s always the weight of infinity that can tip the scales toward the other end. What works today may not work tomorrow. It’s fine to want certainty, but it’s naive to think you’ll actually get it.
So how do you truly know if the solution you provide is correct? If it’s The Solution?
The answer: You don’t. You really don’t. And you never will.
I’ve been going through an unlearning phase in my new role recently. It’s the realization that problems at work are nothing like those presented on high school exams. There are no clear-cut criteria for what’s right and wrong because time can change the results.
In reality, we’re all stepping forward in the dark. Some—the more tenured—already have a sense of the textures of the ground we step on and what we can expect depending on where we walk forward. But even they can’t say they act with 100% certainty.
Nothing is certain because we’re moving along with time. There is no future. It’s the present that keeps presenting itself. Now, right now, is the future you may not have thought about last night.
We aren’t writing the timeline in pencil either. It’s pens from here on out. That’s a scary thought, but I think there are definitely ways to respond to it. Primarily, it's that you've gotta own your decisions. To do that, you’ve gotta be okay with being proven wrong, because there’s always a chance you will be. And to do that is to be open to learning.
That’s how I’ve come to deal with scary decisions, at least. It isn’t so much about standing on a mountaintop and proclaiming that, "Hear ye, hear ye! So-and-so is where we should walk toward." Nah. I think it requires something a little softer and open. It’s one of a genuine spirit of cooperation.
“Let’s commit to this and see what happens.” Not haphazardly, but curiously.