If we make real-time decisions, be aware of our mindset and the moment we decide. No skiers were riding the chairs in front of me, there was no snow on the south slopes, and nobody was skiing the mogul run below the chairlift. A good observation in real time might be that it is time to shift the ski area’s operations to a minimal viable status. The snapshot does not capture that both photos were taken in the last minutes of the ski day for this part of the mountain; everyone had departed or was exiting via other runs.

How might we balance the long view with the immediate facts? How might we remain more holistic when there is a variance in the budget, a blip in enrollment, a change to a donor’s giving habits, a shift in how board members attend meetings or a disruption experienced by a peer organization? How might we prioritize a culture of curiosity over the desire to fix the immediate issue?