What on earth are you talking about now Joel? Is this the latest mass storage device concepts? Or, are you referring to the trends with autonomous vehicles? No … not at all.
I am referring to that energy that we used to admire in people … which now seems totally out of style. Blend has replaced drive as the expected behavior… don’t make waves … just blend in and be a cordial part of the team, please.
Hog wash! Drive is what characterizes the leaders of change and they simply do not take no for an answer.
Let me illustrate this with a critter we have encountered in our back yard that evidences true drive: a racoon.
We have several bird feeders that we have noticed are being emptied overnight. The critter left us a present on our deck that gave itself away. That present is called scat … in this case it was racoon droppings.
We just weren’t sure though … I set the feeders on a skinny wire that I was certain the racoon could not climb down. I was right, the racoon didn’t … it swung the bird feeder so that it could grab it and then emptied it. I figured that out by buying a game camera so I could see precisely what the little devil was doing.
Here is a shot it took:
Technology enabled me to see just how much drive this racoon had … and told me precisely when it was doing its thing. Tonight, we plan to put the camera in another spot to figure out what is taking a 20-pound bird feeder down from its protected perch that was designed to be racoon proof … we will see.
But, for the moment, I want to focus on the word drive. Clearly this racoon is driven to find food and will not give up. One of the video clips shows it hanging from a nearby tree limb by its rear feet and swinging to get the feeder.
My point with this is that we in the utility industry put out our bird feeders hoping to attract the right customers and do not assume critters will steal the bait. The latest stupidity here is outsourcing programs to contractors and thinking they will do the right thing. Nope … they will be driven for sure, just like the racoon … but not necessarily to do the right thing. We must recognize drive when we see it and then wonder seriously why we can’t see drive in our own organizations.
More as we figure out what on earth a racoon is doing to take a 20-pound bird feeder off a 6-foot-high stand in the middle of nowhere …