Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. When we see or hear or experience something from which we can learn, it is that example and experience that often helps us remember the lesson. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illusutrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. And so I am sharing examples of circumstances and stories that I have experienced in my everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those stories, and it’s a great reminder that timing matters.
My wife and I had the opportunity to stay in our little camper at an RV site on the bank of a river. It was an area known as a place for people to float down the river in innertubes or kayaks. In fact, there are companies in that region that are dedicated to providing that experience. We arrived at the RV campground on a Monday afternoon, and when we got there, there were no other RVs and no other people. We set up our site and proceeded to enjoy a beautiful and relaxing few days. We would hear the birds, and listen to the rippling water of the river as it flowed right outside of our camper. We cooked breakfast and dinner on the grill, and enjoyed the beauty of God‘s creation. Every once in a while, a few people would float by on their innertubes, and then we would have the peace and quiet to ourselves again.
We were staying through Friday morning, but it wasn’t until Thursday night that somebody else showed up at the campsite to stay. Friday morning, others started to arrive, and based on what we knew of the campground and the community, we knew that by Friday night , the place would be full of activity, music, and people enjoying their weekend on the river. But while we were there during the week, it was quiet, relaxing, and a time for my wife and I to thoroughly enjoy being together and experiencing God‘s creation.You see, the place was the same, but the timing was important. If we had wanted to be around a lot of people with loud music and activities, we would have gone on the weekend. But because we went during the week, we had a completely different experience. The only thing that was not the same between those two experiences was the timing of when we were staying there. Because the timing mattered for what we were trying to do.
That’s an important lesson for you to understand. In the leadership work that you do, sometimes your idea is a good idea and your plan is a good plan, but the timing is wrong. If it’s not a good plan, then it’s not a good plan regardless of the timing, but there are times when a good plan is impacted by bad timing. It reminds me of an experience when I was the principal of a high school, and had spent months developing a plan to implement a 1-to-1 technology program, meaning that every student would have a device in their hands at school for their classes. I had researched and visited other schools who had done it, I had prepared the infrastructure with the IT department, I had secured funding to purchase devices for all teachers, and I had prepared a plan to roll it out to students and their families. But the night before I was going to announce what we were doing, the superintendent contacted me after a board meeting to tell me that I couldn’t do it yet. At first, I was frustrated, but I came to understand that there were other factors and circumstances that the board was navigating that made this not the best time. Six months later, when we did roll out this program, it was a great success. But the timing had mattered.
That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from the intentional timing of when my wife and I went away for a little retreat. The days that we were there determined the kind of experience we would have, and if we had chosen different days, it would have been a different experience. For that reason, timing is one of the important considerations that needs to be part of your planning, but it is one that people often don’t think through carefully. A good plan can be derailed by poor timing, which then makes a good plan look like a bad one. That, in turn, makes it difficult to implement and sustain that plan. So, when you are developing your next big idea or preparing your next project, remember to consider the timing. Because the timing matters.
