I once heard February dubbed “The Graveyard of Good Intent.” Remember all those promises we made for 2014? How THIS year was going to be different. We were finally going to get around to losing those holiday pounds, paint the fence, and sort the origami crane collection.
February’s here! Belts seem to need a new notch in the wrong direction. Paint cans gather geologically significant levels of dust in garages. Unsorted origami crane collections everywhere offer silent testimony to the awesome power of unchecked entropy. Optimism, so boundless at the beginning of the year, has begun to flag and fail as the realities of life start creeping back in.
We all reach this critical moment at some point in our career or personal lives–when it is easier to quit and forget than it is to continue. As managers, opportunities abound to abandon the flywheel of good to great fame. After all, there are other problems that demand our attention, other goals to achieve, and other initiatives to get underway. The low hanging fruit is much easier to enjoy than the fruit way up in the canopy. Frankly, it’s a wonder we ever get anything accomplished at all.
Students of history (and, among Texas city managers, I’ve found there to be more than a few history buffs) are quick to recognize that most great accomplishments have faced this critical moment. Invariably, it seems like those who push through to obtain that greatness share one absolutely indispensable trait–courage.
The kind of courage that led Joshua Chamberlain to order the 20th Maine to fix bayonets and right wheel forward when a tactical retreat was the doctrinally sound choice.
The kind of courage that kept Walt Disney dreaming when he was fired from a newspaper job for having “no good ideas.”
The kind of courage that fueled a young Thomas Edison who was told by his teachers that he was “too stupid” to amount to anything.
The kind of courage that saw Louisa May Alcott through when she was told by an editor that she would “never write anything with popular appeal.”
This is not to say that none of these people ever missed a New Year’s resolution. After all, they were only human. Yet, when the chips were down, each confronted that critical moment with courage and conviction; and in doing so, pushed through to achieve greatness.
(Article submitted by Matt McCombs, Assistant to the Town Manager, Town of Addison. If you have interesting news or helpful topics to share, please submit them to Kim Pendergraft at [email protected]. Please keep the information to fewer than 250 words.)