Sometimes when we discover a new approach, we get so intoxicated with its value that we forget the old one that served us so well in the past.

As I look back at my own life experiences I realise that an approach that had served me well but which I had put aside due to the negative experiences I sometimes had with it, is one that can now serve me much better when I temper it with a new-found skill.

This resonated very strongly with me at a recent peer-to-peer leadership coaching forum when the group’s challenges were similar to mine. As one participant’s story resonated the strongest with all the other members, I am going to outline what emerged from his perspective.

This client has a history of great success in business and his company had become a national brand in its sector. He had sold the business a number of years previously but over the next few years he realised he had a yearning to do something more significant with his life than just live off his accumulated resources. While he was contributing to many worthwhile causes, and this was keeping him occupied, he felt he was not being stretched or pushed outside his comfort zone like he was when he started out as a young and determined entrepreneur wanting to make his mark on life.

He now realised his early success came from taking risks without thinking too much about the outcomes. As the business grew he had developed another skill and that was to be more considered and nuanced in his decision making. He had also focused on developing his people and as a result he created a business that no longer depended on him. He became a wise and enlightened strategic decision-maker, my label not his.

The teacher also learns

As he helped peer coach another participant, who believed he was over thinking when looking for solutions to his business challenges, it dawned on himself that he had put aside his own earlier flair for entrepreneurial risking taking. You see, his risk-taking behaviour hadn’t always worked out well and because of that, he had learned to take the opposite approach – slowing down and thinking things through.

He realised, like I did, that too often we only see the negative sides of our past strengths because of the problems they may have caused us. In our intoxication with the new learned approach, our new ‘thing’, our new baby, we can throw the old baby out with the bathwater.

Seeing the oasis behind you

I once came across the expression that you have it made, not when you see the oasis in front of you but when you also see it in the rear view mirror. At the time this expression intrigued me, and it was only when I listened to this participant’s feedback at a follow up forum that I really understood the significance of this statement.

The oasis behind you represents the old approach or skill that helped you get to where you are now; the oasis in front of you is the new skill – or perhaps it’s the magical melding of the two approaches that will really take you to your ultimate destination.

During his feedback he outlined how he is now getting his new ‘stretch project’ off the ground in a much shorter time scale and with much less stress than we would have before because he is incorporating risk taking with a considered, thought-out approach. He feels this is working much better, because while he is back taking risks, he is now doing so in a more conscious and aware way. This new duality allows him to self-correct as he goes along.

Navigating the Covid fog

As I listened to his story it resonated with my own life experience and the metaphor I came up with came from another forum. If you are driving in a dense fog you just need to see as far as your dipped headlights. While you will have thought out and planned your journey and may be using your sat nav – all elements of your strategic plan – you still need to get in the car and drive. The dense fog is the commercial and other effects of Covid-19. It’s making driving difficult. I have my strategic plan, but I also have my two babies in the back of the car – the older risk-taking one and the new more measured one – and together, we’ll get there safely. Everything I’ve learned plus my strategic plan will support me in implementing my own new project.

What was even more inspiring for me was that the participant I mentioned who believed he was over thinking his approach reported that he is now starting to collaborate more with his business partner who is a strong risk taker, and is becoming less risk averse himself. However, he is also learning from his coach, the entrepreneur, and me, and not throwing out his considered and thoughtful baby.

So what skill or approach have you discarded that might be worth your while reviewing and partnering up with some new-found competency? Or have you a key employee who has the opposite approach which could complement your present leadership strength?

Whether it helps to think of the baby in the bathtub, the two oasis or driving the car in dense fog, I hope this blog helps you see the importance of being aware of what you might be losing when you ditch an attitude or behaviour.

Contact us today for more information on our services.