Guess who said, “Strategy without tactics is the longest road to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”?
A few years ago I did something that has honestly changed my life.
It was Christmas time and I decided to read “A Christmas Carol.” I decided that I’d seen the story presented just about every way but, other than when I was very young, I hadn’t read the inspiration for all these obligatory TV Episodes. (Now that I’m writing this I think that Gift of the Magi will be on the list this year…) I noticed something very interesting. While most picked up on the high points none carried the richness and depth and none were complete.
The reason that I say this changed my life is that it has left me unsatisfied with others interpretations. I now have an OCD need to get to the core of an issue – as close to the source of things as I can. To paraphrase Mr. Frost – THAT has made all the difference.
There is great richness to be found in seeking out source materials. I have found that I often greatly disagree with the conclusions that have been reached. Frequently it’s a simple causation vs correlation mistake but sometimes it is egregious.
In one case I found the same erroneous view of some data that had been extrapolated so far beyond the original sources intent I was shocked. Bills had been passed in Congress based on weak if not downright wrong assumptions.
In 1981 there was a census evaluation of workers in the United States that came to the conclusion that there would be a shortage of 10 million workers by 2010. A 30 year prediction. This statistic was still being published in 2007 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It was being quoted by numerous ‘scholars’ right up until the bitter end. None seemed to done any fact checking or questioning. If BLS says it, then it must be true. To me that is like saying “if it’s on the internet it must be true.” 30 year old guesses and extrapolations. Here is the crazy part. Bad enough the info was old and weak, folks were taking the raw number and just applying factors to. We need more H1 visas. Why? BLS says we are going to be short 85,000 software engineers by 2010. How did they come up with the number? 8.5% of the labor force are software engineers. Therefore we will be 85,000 bodies short. I’ve lost the reference for the bill so these are not exact numbers unfortunately.
I’ve also found reaching huge upside to seeking out the source. Here’s why. Say I write a book. From what I can tell that takes a LONG time. Then it takes a while to get it published. OK. The book is now in print form. Time to get on the road and help sell the thing. I will never write a book because I never want to be that guy, sitting in the metal folding chair with a stack of books to my right (left handed you know…) signing away. Or worse… waiting for the chance to sign something. The challenge with a book is that once it’s done it’s done until you can afford to update it. I’ve spoken with many authors that have either changed their position on a few things or have been led to extremely powerful examples since.
Why do I relate this story? Monday I read Art of War by Sun Tzu. Imagine my surprise when nowhere in the text could I find the phrase at the beginning of this article. Apparently the oldest reference to this quote is all the way back… in 2002. It took 2600 years for someone to find it?
Dale
The Blue Collar Executive 