As I move up in leadership, I am confronted with more and more things that I just don’t have a lot of experience with. I find myself wanting to make sure that I ask very direct questions and make fewer and fewer assumptions.
On some matters, I want to know what the norm is. What is the “rule of thumb,” so to speak? I hear some leaders express various financial metrics as our rule of thumb. I guess that helps, but unless I ask the right questions, I really never know if that “norm” fits our situation or not, and it really can leave me questioning myself.
Most of our work will always call for precision beyond the rule of thumb. Let’s be leaders who don’t want to exhibit the norm, the usual or expected— but rather set the curve, raise the standard and deliver unusual results.
So, the lesson for this week is to be careful of the “rule of thumb.”
