Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it teaches us that there is often more to what you see than what you see.
I was driving to a neighboring town for some work that needed to be done on my truck. I live near the edge of the county, and the place I needed to get to was not far across the county line, so this errand took me into a different county than one that I live in. As I was driving towards my destination, I saw the sign on the side of the road that announced that I was now entering the next county. The difference was noticeable, because almost immediately the road surface became rougher, with some potholes and a well-worn surface. To be fair, the county that I live in had just resurfaced the road, and it had been quite rough before they had done that. But now, the difference was obvious. It was the same road, but the appearance, quality, and drivability changed when I crossed over from one county into another.
This made me think about other things that were the same, but then were presented, provided, or maintained differently. For example, sometimes when I’ve searched for something on Amazon, I have seen the exact same item selling for different prices from different vendors. I have seen cars listed for sale that were the same make, model, and year, but with noticeably different appearance and wear. I have gone to a department store to see an item of furniture or clothing selling for a higher (or lower) price than the same item at another department store (and it’s because this is true that some stores will offer to price match the price of something that another store has listed). I’ve witnessed prices rise, sometimes significantly, and then lower again in relation to circumstance and demand (do you remember the fluctuation in egg prices during the year of COVID?).
What do all of these things indicate? They point out that there is usually more to something than than what it appears to be in the surface. Eggs are eggs, but sometimes eggs are more valuable at one time than they are at other times. Two cars that are the same are affected by how they are maintained. The same item sold from different places will be affected by hidden costs of service and administrative factors. Each of those is affected by timing, priority, and resources. And that’s helps to explain why the same road that I was driving on in one county had a different feel in another county.
Now apply this concept to your leadership and your organization. You may offer a service or a product, but there is more to what you offer than simply the service or the product. It is for that reason that you need to be aware of the “more” that is there. If you are not, it will have a negative effect, not just on what other people see, but what they experience. You may be aware of others factors than what I list here, but you can at least start with these four things.
- Reputation. Your character and your conduct, both personally and organizationally, produce a reputation, and once that reputation is in place, it is very difficult to change. Be aware of your reputation, and get in front of things that could damage it.
- Hidden costs. There are often unexpected and unseen factors that impact what you are doing and how you are doing it. Knowing that allows you to plan for those kinds of contingencies. I had an uncle who was a building contractor, and he always added vandalism expenses to his costs, because experience had taught him that he was likely to experience it on a building project.
- Maintenance. Everything experiences wear from use and friction over time. Make sure that you are doing things necessary to maintain whatever needs to be maintained. There is effort and cost to keeping things maintained, so you need to account for it.
- Need. Demand almost always plays a role in the value of something. Pay attention to what people need, so that you can be aware of the ways in which you can meet those needs, and show how you are doing so.
That’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from noticing the change in the surface of the road as I drove from one county into another. There are things that you don’t see that eventually have an impact on what you do see. The reality is that what people see is also going to be affected by what they experience, and what they experience is often affected by what they don’t see. This requires you to cultivate a level of awareness and discernment, so that you can see what is not obvious or visible, what is hidden but necessary or uncontrollable, and can be intentional about how you navigate those things. Learn to see beyond and beneath what you see on the surface, because there is more to see than what you see.
