SEASONS, CYCLES AND LEADERSHIP
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them
Albert Einstein
I live in Canada near Toronto and have a family cottage on a lake in a beautiful region of lakes, rocks, and woods named Muskoka. In this part of Canada there are definitely four seasons, each one about three months in length – spring, summer, fall, winter. My parents purchased the cottage in 1958 and I have been going there every summer since I was a little boy. Given the significant ice build-up on the lake over the frigid winter our dock has to be removed. So late spring every year we put our dock in the lake in front of our cottage and take it out and store it towards the end of the summer – a cycle that been repeated over 60 years and counting. I have just returned home from doing that very thing this year. There are a number of cottages adjacent to ours who also require taking their dock in and out. For the past several years all the men along our shore gather en masse to participate in this annual ritual amidst jokes, barbs, grunts, and copious amounts of beer. Of course the elders, like me and others in the motley crew, now witness our sons participating, lustily knowing we can be confident that this ritual will continue long after we are gone by the young men we used to be 30 years ago.
Putting the dock in signals the beginning of a glorious cottage summer. Taking the dock out signals the end of summer, and for most involved, the return to a busy fall season of school, business meetings, and home projects that have been put on hold all summer. Once the docks are in and my wife and I, and other family members close up the cottage for another year, I have always found the drive home to be very reflective and melancholy. This dock ritual marks the passage of time in years – 60 and counting as mentioned. But it isn’t just that. This milestone ritual causes me to step back, take stock of what I have done or didn’t do during the summer and then take charge of my fall priorities. To make a regular process of reflectively and honestly taking stock and then taking charge is to make growth a living, continuous process. It seems that milestones or cycles seem to stimulate this occurrence best whether birthdays, weddings, funerals, Thanksgivings, and anniversaries on the personal level, and project completions, year ends, new strategies, and leadership changes on the business level. Or, it can be putting out and taking in cottage docks. All of these things mark the passage of time, our most valuable resource, and if we miss the reflective moment…well, we miss it and it there’s no going back. These milestones can’t be manufactured to be as substantial as the real moment they occur. Just try celebrating a birthday the month after it really is or buying a Christmas present in January. I believe good leaders know how to leverage such natural moments and transition opportunities to both reflect on their own effectiveness and also help their organizations do so as well. And if they don’t, they should. I say, why waste a good milestone?