Great By Choice | How to Manage Through Chaos
Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen | October 2011
“None of us can predict with certainty the twists and turns our lives will take. Life is uncertain, the future unknown.”
Preface: Great By Choice | How to Manage Through Chaos is a invaluable book that gifts readers with clarity and effective business guidance amidst future unknowns, while abetting faith in and achievement of the vision and energizing purpose of your enterprise.
“We cannot predict the future. But we can create it.
Think back to 15 years ago, and consider what’s happened since, the destabilizing events — in the world, in your country, in the markets, in your work, in your life — that defied all expectations. We can be astonished, confounded, shocked, stunned, delighted, or terrified, but rarely prescient. None of us can predict with certainty the twists and turns our lives will take. Life is uncertain, the future unknown.”
“But when you 20-Mile March, you have a tangible point of focus that keeps you and your team moving forward, despite confusion, uncertainty, and even chaos.”
“In contrast, Scott would sometimes drive his team to exhaustion on good days and then sit in his tent and complain about the weather on bad days. In early December, Scott wrote in his journal about being stopped by a blizzard: “I doubt if any party could travel in such weather.”
But when Amundsen faced conditions comparable to Scott’s, he wrote in his journal, “It has been an unpleasant day — storm, drift, and frostbite, but we have advanced 13 miles closer to our goal.” Amundsen clocked in at the South Pole right on pace, having averaged 15½ miles per day.”
“…….Financial markets are out of your control. Customers are out of your control. Earthquakes are out of your control. Global competition is out of your control. Technological change is out of your control. Most everything is ultimately out of your control. But when you 20-Mile March, you have a tangible point of focus that keeps you and your team moving forward, despite confusion, uncertainty, and even chaos.”