Lonesome Dove
I am always struck by the ending of the mini-series Lonesome Dove (adopted to TV from the novel written by Larry McMurtry) when the reporter from San Antonio asks Captain Call if he is a ‘man of vision’. The Captain reflects on all he has seen and witnessed during his life in the 1880’s West. He retorts “hell of a vision” and wanders off.
So often we want the quick and easy answer. Provide us with the lesson learned, the ‘one thing’, the new association and we will be on our way. The short one-line answer always seems so powerful and convenient since it does not force us (the listener) to anything more than pause and then continue with our current course of action.
I am reading the book Outliers by Malcom Gladwell and he discusses the need for an individual to accumulate 10,000 hours of practice before a person typically reach a level of competency to be considered an expert. To put this into a timeline, this usually equates to ten years in most individual’s lives. The eulogy seems to epitomize a summation of a lifetime of experiences without having lived the journey. Anything Captain Call had said would have been deeply unsatisfactory as as synopsis of all he had endured. Three quarters of the key characters from the start of the series are dead and buried, he has traveled the width of the United States (as we know it now) twice, driven a couple hundred head of cattle to Montana, survived epic weather, and generally lived a lifetime of experiences. His expertise seem beyond words.
Day-to-day I find myself in meetings where key decisions need to be made. An item comes-up for discussion and a course of action needs to be selected. I have always been inspired by the person who could ask the question that needed to be considered but had not been brought forward yet. I would leave the meeting thinking ‘why had I not considered that?’ I started to equate some of theses moments to personal experience and background. A good team should have a variety of perspectives and it would make sense that every participant should bring a unique question. What is shifting my thinking today is the thought of expertise. The more meetings I attend, the more decisions that are made, the more results tracked, and the more case studies I read the greater my repertoire. Eventually, I find myself waiting to hear the group’s discussion and then ask a question or two that has not been discussed but experience shows needs attention. Only through my march to 10,000 hours do I have the scaffolding being built around my own vision. If Captain Call had turned and told the report everything he knew at the end of his journey and then sent the report on the way up the trail the reporter would still be at hour number one. Perhaps we have all survived our share of endless deliberations or too many meetings but we are also moving closer to becoming experts.
As the motto of the Hat Creek Cattle Compan reads: Uva Uvam Vivendo Varia Fi (We are changed by the lives around us).
What-if-concepts 