[Journal] 24 July 26

Hey 🙂

Here’s my biggest lesson from this week, looking back across it.

I said yes to something that doesn’t fit with our future strategy. And here’s the thing — a few months ago, we’d have said yes to this without a second thought. It wouldn’t even have registered as a decision. Now, with a plan in place, it should have.

Look, it’s not about blaming someone. It’s not about placing fault, but it is a mistake. Looking back across the week, I can see clearly that this opportunity has absolutely no place in 18 months of our plan. We shouldn’t have said yes to it. As much as it isn’t about blame or placing fault, it is about taking on the lesson and figuring out how to respond differently in the future.

And I think that’s actually the lesson. Not the decision itself — the fact that it happened at all.

Here’s how I’ve come to see it. When something like this shows up, it’s almost like it’s testing you. Let’s see how committed these guys actually are. Let’s see how committed this company is to the strategy — by dangling something in front of them that doesn’t fit it.

If you say yes, you’re not as committed as you thought you were. Yet. And “yet” matters, because we’re all trying to train ourselves to do things differently, and that takes time. If you say no, you’re clearly thinking about the path you actually want to be on.

This week, I failed the test. Not catastrophically. But I failed it.

What makes it sting a bit more is something I wrote about recently — our team actively pushing back and saying no to things that don’t fit the strategic plan. They’re doing the hard work of holding the line. And here I am, the same week, doing the opposite.

If I’m saying yes to things that pull us off strategy, and some of the team are working hard to say no to exactly that kind of thing, then we’re not really in integrity with each other, are we? I did something that pulls us away from the plan, while other people in the business are doing everything they can to keep us on it. That creates real tension.

I think there’s a case for saying: of course there’s some tension when you’re rolling out a new strategy. That’s normal for a period. But the important thing is what you do with it — treating it as a lesson rather than just moving past it. What can we learn here? How do we get tighter and more aligned going forward, rather than just letting it slide?

So that’s what I want to leave you with this week. Have a look back across the last week or two — maybe the last month, even. What’s shown up in your business that was, in a very similar way, a test? An opportunity, a project, a new client — something that didn’t belong in your future plan, and you said yes to it anyway?

And then the other side of it — what showed up recently that you said no to? Something that actually felt affirming, that gave you more conviction that your strategy is exactly what you should be doing?

Have a think about those two things over the weekend. Either way, you’ll come out the other side with a bit more clarity about whether what you’re saying yes to is really the right call — or whether what you’ve been saying no to, you simply can’t do anymore.

A couple of prompts to sit with:

• What opportunity showed up recently that you said yes to, even though it doesn’t belong in your next 12–18 months?
• What did you say no to recently that actually strengthened your conviction in the plan?
• Where in your business is someone else holding the line better than you are right now?

🗣️ 👀

Chris.