Sherpa Alliance

While "beginning with the end in mind" is still a good idea, developing the advantage of organizational agility these days also demands a willingness to get going in the dark, letting the sun rise on the path.

A personal story will illustrate (which you can also listen to in the last part of a 5 minute video).  Before getting married, my fiance and I were on a rough and ready, budget trip around Egypt and the Sanai Peninsula.  Late one evening, we arrived in utter darkness at a monastery/hostel at the foot of Mount Sanai.  Over supper our guide asked if anyone would like to see the sun rise the following morning at 6am from the top of Mount Sanai, the only problem being that we would have to be up at 2am to make the trek, to be up there in time.  Many people enthusiastically said yes and promptly gathered outside the hostel at 2am.

It was utter darkness, as it had been when we arrived late the previous evening.  We had no concept of the mountain we were about to climb.  We didn’t know how much higher it was from our starting point, where it was or what kind of path we were going to have to trek to get to the top.  We couldn’t see a thing.  We had a few flash-lights, which allowed us to see a few steps in front of us, but that was it.  So we all set out.  We went around and around, up and down and it soon got pretty steep with loose rubble.  The going got harder and we had to sustain a good pace or we wouldn’t make it in time.  After a while, a number of people stopped, turned around and went back down, deciding it wasn’t worth it.

But we stayed focused on the feeling of achievemenet, of what it would be like to be stood at the top of Mount Sanai, with the warmth of the sun rising on our faces, taking wonderful photos for our photograph album.  We kept going, trudging along in the darkness, putting one foot in front of the other, sustaining a sufficient pace.  As the pre-dawn light started to come up, we began, ever so slightly, to be able to make out the looming profile of the mountain, gradually getting a sense of where it was and how much higher it was.  Little by little, as the light came up gradually, very hazily at first, we were able to make out the path that would take us the rest of the way upto the peak.  Our enthusiasm grew as we could gradually begin to see through the gloom that we were on track and were going to make it in time.  Indeed we did and it was wonderful, better than we had imagined, taking fabulous photographs with the warmth of the sun rising on our faces.  Those photos are now one of the parts of our vacation that we look back on most fondly.

So what’s the moral of my story?

• "Begin with the start in mind" - we can’t wait for the light, we have to be willing to get going in the dark, just putting one foot in front of the other and letting the sun rise on the path.  Sometimes, we are faced with problems, opportunities or challenges which are so complex and tangled-up that we feel like we are in utter darkness - we aren’t sure where the mountain is, how high it is or where the path is.  We don’t have the time or luxury to wait for the light.  We must be willing to get going in the dark and, in so doing, letting the sun  rise on the path.  The mountain and the path will gradually present themselves to us and we will have the opportunity to make it to the peak on time.
• "Begin with the end in mind" - even though we have no concept of the mountain, we can still focus on the feeling of achievement of what it will be like when we get there and imagine those photos in our photograph album.  Yes, also "begin with the end in mind", to the degree that you can, making it as vividly visual and visceral as possible, so you can see it and feel it.  That is what keeps us going.
• When the end-in-mind is so shrouded in darkness, get going anyway, trusting that the sun will rise on the path.  The demands on us these days for organizational agility mean that we don’t always have the luxury to "begin with the end in mind" - when we know we can’t stay where we are but don’t have a clue what mountain we are trying to climb and what the path looks like.  Nevertheless, get going anyway and we’ll figure it out along the way - putting things in motion will help the  mountain and the path present themselves to us.