Go to Norway
As leaders, we are inundated.
The natural outcome of a slurry of budget approval requests, meetings, business reviews, etc. is to be in maintenance mode, a concept I introduced in Autonomous Transformation, defined as "an organizational state in which preservation and incremental improvement become the central orientation of the organization."
This can happen on an individual level when you're steeped in the same context on an ongoing basis, like a painter who never goes outside.
Vision flourishes out of context
Two earlier editions of this newsletter (this one and that one) have emphasized the importance of vision preceding strategy and shared a starting point for creating a vision. If you were to sit down at your desk to create a vision for the future of your team, organization, or market with your team members walking past your window every so often, you're psychologically not in a context where you're likely to have a breakthrough.
Should you go on a walk?
A run?
Those are great options, but why not go to Norway? Or at least your Norway.
My Norway
Your Norway could be a hike you've always wanted to take, a lake you've been meaning to visit, or it could be Machu Picchu.
My Norway is literally Norway, specifically the Lofoten Islands in the Arctic Circle, where my great-grandfather was living when he captained a ship to Seattle.
The Lofoten Islands are sparsely populated, and the main accommodations are fishermen's cabins built in the early 1900s that have since been renovated.
In October 2022, I spent 8 days either holed up in one of those cabins or visiting the one local coffee shop (pictured above) that was only open until 3pm.
I had intended for the trip to be a tactical execution of writing my book, which I had outlined twice, and for which I had all but completed the research phase.
Instead, I had several breakthroughs that fundamentally shifted the course of the book and, frankly, surprised me.
It turned out that the tactical execution required revisiting the strategy and, ultimately, the vision—something I had felt confident about and hadn't revisited since my book proposal had been approved by Wiley.
If you read my book and end up liking it, I can guarantee you that it would be remarkably different if I hadn't taken this trip.
If you're setting or revisiting a vision, try getting out of context
There is an economic case for leaders to go hide somewhere in the world and set the vision for the next 1-2 horizons of their teams, organizations, and markets.
A work trip that doesn’t involve client meetings or team meetings. Just envisioning.
How about you? What's your Norway?
Thanks for reading,
Brian
Whenever you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:
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