How do we make progress towards our goals?
Should we start with what’s real and extend it forward into our imagination – or dream of what’s possible and work backwards to the practical?
Thoreau wrote that we should build castles in the sky and then “put foundations under them,” but Edison reminded us that opportunity is “dressed in overalls and looks like work!”
In the first full month of More For Many, I’ve done quite a bit of both, from helping the Immune Deficiency Foundation translate what started as flip charts and post-it notes and refine it into a beautiful, well-reasoned strategic plan to helping the disciplined leaders at UGN Automotive imagine beyond the boundaries of the X-Matrix they use to manage their exacting work.
Of course, Edison and Thoreau were both right. There’s more than a bit of dreaming and a bit of work required to bring new things to life.
Dreaming and doing aren’t opposites; they’re partners. You can’t reach the sky without the scaffolding, but you don’t build the scaffolding for its own sake.
As we head full into the fall and, incredibly, the holidays, two questions to jump-start your autumn thinking:
Jeff Shuck, President
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