Too Many Irons in the Fire

Sometimes it’s useful to consider analogies from different lines of work other than our own, in order to turn the spot light on our situation.

The closest most of us will come to blacksmithing is watching Cowboy movies, but I am sure we know the sayings:

• Too many irons in the fire.
• Strike while the iron is hot.
• Don’t squat with your spurs on.

As much as that last one is great advice, let’s talk about the iron for a bit.

Apparently when you put your iron in the fire to heat it, it changes colour as it gets ever hotter. From a relatively cool black, it progresses through blue, red, orange and eventually white hot.

At black it is hot enough to hurt you if you touch it, but to try and work it would be a huge effort.  Around orange / yellow, it is so pliable that you can use it like clay, except of course you are still not touching it.  And by the time it gets to white, it is about to burn out – disintegrate and be useless.

So the best time to use this metal, the best results are when the temperature is right and the metal is easily malleable.

However, should you have too many irons in the fire at once, and you are trying to work them yourself, you are going to be tempted to pull out one and work it before it is ready, thereby exhausting yourself.  The next one, even if it is the right temperature, will also not work perfectly because you will already be tired from the far more difficult iron.  And inevitably, while fussing over the previous ones, something is going to get left in the fire too long and become useless.

So how do we relate that to our comparably neat business with cell phones and laptops and meetings?

We are all dealing with lots of projects, clients and ideas simultaneously.  If we try to work on too many at once, we are going to be forcing things before they are ready, and missing opportunities to take advantage of.

It is worth it to slow down a little, focus on fewer projects and perform them better with excellent results, than to run ourselves ragged, ruin future opportunities and get less in return.

Because then we might be tempted to slump down in disappointment – and accidentally sit on those spurs.

For the original lesson in the book see here.

It is better to have one person working with you than to have three people working for you.  President Dwight D. Eisenhower

In World War 1, the Generals of the British army on the Western Front delegated the task of engaging the German army, to the soldiers.  Their assignment was to literally kill as many Germans as possible and gain territory.  Unfortunately for the Generals, the soldiers failed in this role temporarily as peace broke out, particularly focused over Christmas Day 1914.  Enemy soldiers played football, shared stories, ate together and even exchanged a few small gifts.  The British Generals had to literally reinforce the order to kill by threatening court marshal in order to sabotage the spontaneous truce and restart the war.

Their delegation failed.  And that is why military organizations are so often rigid and allow so little opportunity for spontaneity, creativity and free thought – just in case we discover that we can have peace instead of war.

We often resort to the same in our own lives and organizations, imposing rigid rules and controls because we don’t trust that those around us; staff, employees, family members, have the same creativity, innovativeness and or dedication to the goal as we ourselves do.  That perhaps they don’t have our best interests at heart. So we seek to impose our order on everyone else.

I am often asked what I would do differently if I started a business again having learnt my mistakes, and this is one of the lessons I would pay particular attention to.  We must learn how to delegate effectively in order to expand our reach.

But delegating is a skill that has many parts.  It is not just about giving up control.  It is also about finding the right person in the first place.  The person has to buy into the vision for the task at hand.  You have to prepare both the person for the task and the task for the hand over.  There has to be a period of feedback and mentoring and then a time when you trust that the person now ‘owns’ that job and will run with it and contemplate it in ways that you now no longer have an opportunity to do.

When the British Generals left their soldiers to engage the enemy, they didn’t expect them to find a way to bring peace to the region.  Perhaps they hadn’t really communicated the ‘vision’ clearly enough and that is why the control had to be maintained and constantly imposed from that point on.  But if we can equip even one person to be on our side then our progress will be so much more rapid and sure than if we are trying to force march a reluctant team towards a goal that they don’t believe in.

Please feel free to share your experience of mistakes or failures with us.  And if you are a resource that could help other small business owners, then you are welcome to post your information here (or on the Facebook page) as well.  The original Lesson #4 is here.

“I’m Not Afraid of the F Word” can be ordered from any book store.  The distributor is Redline books and they can be contacted on christopher@redlinebooks.co.za or 021 557 2146.  Charlotte Kemp is available to speak on the subject of “I’m Not Afraid of the F Word” to entrepreneur groups or the subject of “The Art of Failure” to corporate groups.

You can never stand in the same river twice.  Old American Indian saying.

And you never meet the same person twice.

Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie, in a talk titled “The danger of a single story” explains how so often we hear only one story about a person or a country or even a situation, and we draw all our conclusions from that single perspective.  And then sometimes we are disappointed, and feel betrayed or foolish when we discover the deeper layers to the story.  But in reality our lives are composed of overlapping stories and to forget that means we risk misunderstanding people, sometimes to a dangerous level.

If we know that we ourselves are complex, every changing and growing people, then we have to believe that of other people too.  Don’t assume that the friend you saw last 5 months ago is going to be the same forever.  When your child goes away to varsity, expect to meet a new person coming home.  They have grown and experienced new things and made decisions on their own.  Discover who they are again.  Allow your partner to grow in your relation, and keep close enough to discover who they are as they change, so that you don’t wake up one morning next to a stranger.

Through the course of all of this, be tolerant about how each person handles their own failure, and the failure of others; how people respond to your failure.  We can only do what we are capable of doing at any point in our lives.

If you fail at any important aspect of your life, there are people who are going to come along side you and support and encourage you.  But others will judge, criticize and reject you.  Those people may have their own fears, their own failures that condemn them and make them feel uncomfortable around you because your failure points at their own weakness.

In terms of the people you meet every day, remember that you never meet the same person twice.  You don’t know what your colleague has experienced since you last met.  You don’t know what your competitor, your client, your prospect has gone through since you last conversed, concluded a deal or closed a door on a negotiation.  There is always change in both of your lives and as you change there is the opportunity for a new solution today that may have been impossible last week.

So don’t pre-judge people.  In the same way that you would like them to be open to the fact that you have changed and grown, give them the same chance.  Especially the people you think you know well.  That way you won’t get caught out by people cheating you, or be overly surprised by people blessing you with wonderful responses.

Please feel free to share your experience of mistakes or failures with us.  And if you are a resource that could help other small business owners, then you are welcome to post your information here (or on the Facebook page) as well.  This is a link to the original Lesson #3.

“I’m Not Afraid of the F Word” can be ordered from any book store.  The distributor is Redline books and they can be contacted on christopher@redlinebooks.co.za or 021 557 2146.  Charlotte Kemp is available to speak on the subject of “I’m Not Afraid of the F Word” to entrepreneur groups or the subject of “The Art of Failure” to corporate groups.