You're familar with the old saw, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." The saying resonates. When something goes wrong, don't dwell on it: Make something positive out of the negative.
This is a particularly powerful concept in the world of Strategy Execution in the context of Reaching True Goals. Reaching goals is a process. During that process, it is almost inevitable that everything won't go smoothly. Those are the "lemons."
The "lemonade"? How you react to the lemons. If you let the lemons throw you off, you get depressed, angry, discouraged. The focus changes from reaching your goals to "fixing" the lemons. That creates distractions. The end result is frequently a shift from concentrating on reaching specific goals to correcting and avoiding future lemons. And, somewhere along the line, the true goals get lost and forgotten.
Making lemonade, on the other hand, means taking the lemons in stride. Recognizing that they will occur, and reacting appropriately. If you recall, one element of the RedZone Strategy Execution Framework is "Monitor and Mitigate Threats to Success." That means watching out for and dealing with the lemons - the things that can get in the way and keep an organization from reaching its true goals.
A critical element of reaching goals is recognizing that lemons will and do show up along the way. The key is to watch out for them, recognize them, and deal with them - and not let them derail the entire initiative.
Make Lemonade. Reach Your True Goals. Now that's a refreshing thought.
Posts
