It was 4 am on a cold December morning, and the snow, illuminated by bright LEDs powered by a noisy generator, had just started to fall. I looked up at the sky, and my helmet didn’t prevent a fat snowflake from landing on the left lens of my goggles, partially obstructing my vision. It was then that the gun went off, and I found myself being pushed forward by a pack of smart people who didn’t blind themselves right before the start of an adventure race.
Adventure racing is an endurance sport in which you run, bike, and sometimes canoe and even zipline to several checkpoints indicated on a provided topographic map. The shortest race is 8 hours, but some last for days. This was my first adventure race.
Adventure racing is not linear. You map out your plan to hit as many checkpoints as possible before returning to the start/finish to see where you ranked. Using a GPS is cheating. You must use a paper map and a compass to find your way around. The compass/map activity is called “Orienteering,” which is the most challenging part.
Nothing is more heartbreaking than arriving at a location you chose only to realize you misoriented your way into the middle of a swamp with no checkpoint in sight.
After a couple of those frustrating misses, my strategy quickly became what I like to call “Beast Mode.” See, talented Orienteers use the contours and topological indications on a map to plan a clear path to arrive at a checkpoint safely. “I will head north until we hit this dense brush, then go east until we see the ridge of the second hill, then run the treeline until we see the start of the valley. The checkpoint is 200 yards past that. Go”
When I tried that I ended up in a swamp, alone.
So, my strategy quickly changed to: “The checkpoint is North. Go North. No matter what.”
Thorns, brush, animals, water, and steep terrain be damned. If you are going to be dumb, you’d better be tough. Go.
I didn’t finish last, but I finished.
It was a blast, and my orienteering improved over time, but I never forgot that first race and how critical it is to plan well. There are many lessons to be learned from Adventure Racing: Planning, perseverance, grit, and attitude all come to mind. But the biggest lesson for me was the intellectual exercise of orienteering and how, in the middle of a cold, dense forest, with the chaos of other racers running in all directions and critical decisions afoot, you still must know three things every time you pull out that map.
- Where you are. This is the “A” in “A to B”.
- Where you are going. This is the “B” in “A to B”.
- How to get there. This is the “straight line” I used or the more sensible path I eventually learned.
Learning this was a paradigm shift for me. This 3 component structure is elegant, and if you look, you will see it everywhere.
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For instance, the key goal of a CTO is closing the gap between the business and its use of technology. To do so, a CTO needs to know where we are, where we are going, and how to get there. To execute a project properly, you must know where you are, where you are going and how to get there. To review a person, you must know where they are, where they want to go and their plan.
The diagram is disorienting because “C” appears before “B,” but it doesn’t. I read it from left to right, top to bottom: A, B, then C.
Also, C is shown as a straight line. This is me thrashing through the dense brush with a mountain bike under one arm. The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, but the fastest travel time is often a winding road.
This is a beneficial tool when communicating with others. It feels comprehensive. Even if you don’t fully vet any of the 3, just acknowledging them can get you closer to an outcome.
The litmus test for using this tool is simple: planned movement. Here are several case examples of when this can be used.
- Hitting financial goals.
- Evaluating a staffer.
- An architecture analysis.
- A transformation plan.
A.Where you are (START)
Do not cheat, position your argument as discovery, do not lead the witness here. It is better to tout success and talk about the height of your success, but not as if it is a limit factor.
B. Where you want to go (GOAL)
Without discussiong hte how, write where you will end up.
Find ways to talk about hte advantages of getting there. This can be the “why” of this document.
Talk about the outcomes here. WHy you are here and what it emans to be here. The future should look happy.
C. How to get there (PLAN)
Planning plus strategy and contingencies.
To get all the benefits of B, there’s going to be some payment, this is where that goes.
Strategy is never Planning.
- Strategy - What might work.
- Planning - Strategy execution management.
- Execution - Doing the plan.
The why is outside of this document. If you find yourself talk about about
Who - C
What - A/B
Where - C
When - C
Why - n/a
How - C