Using your silver bullets

Hello Everyone,
Welcome once again to the Lion's den. Hope you had a great week . I have been writing in the last couple of weeks on purpose and why it is critical. Purpose is critical because it helps us in making choices as we go through life. This week I will be sharing about how to focus your effort and energy as we go through our careers. Each day we go through lots and have to make choices about what to focus on.I have come across a number of young professionals who are struggling, who spend so much energy on trying to do everything or fight every battle and end up getting burnt daily. This is more common when they enter new roles and are eager to demonstrate they can deliver.

As a young promising manager who had just been promoted from the field into a strategic planning role in head office, I was brimming with ideas and carried along with me the air of someone who wanted to fix the world in a hurry. This was an opportunity I felt to fix all the wrongs that most field people faced now I was in the head office.

After a couple of weeks, I was chasing after everything I felt needed some change and would push back at anyone who I felt was a stumbling block.This was energy sapping and after pushing back at the GM on something that with hindsight wasn't that important, my boss who was the head of sales called me and taught me a simple parable which stuck with me and I have applied whenever a conflict situation was about to arise.


He said,Alex consider that you are in the jungle and have a gun with only six silver bullets, will you shoot at anything that passes or will you be calm and save your bullets for the biggest animal? I replied, I will save my bullet for the biggest animal. He then replied, that's exactly what you have to do. You have got to think of how important what you are fighting for is to the organisation and to yourself. Save your silver bullets for the things that matter. I started to apply this and over time with hindsight I can say this has helped me manage my energy and focus on fighting the most critical battles and letting go of other stuff.

This meant I had to learn to be still and master myself. Do nothing is also an option in certain situations and may be the best option because you are saving your energy for something more critical.there is no sense in winning a battle and losing the war. I had to start focusing on the outcomes for the organisation and what I wanted to get from the situation. In my later years when I discovered purpose, the parable of the silver bullets became even more profound.

You may be struggling with juggling so many "priorities", with processes serving as barriers or people as stumbling blocks. and you may feel you have to react or respond to everything. Think of your silver bullets. Against what should you aim them at? Let your organization's purpose, your own personal purpose and role purpose guide you in deciding the most critical things to aim your silver bullets at.


Have a great week ahead and God bless us all.
Kind regards,
Alex Goma aka Teranga Lion

Comments

  1. UnknownMay 21, 2017 at 12:18 PM

    The parable of the silver bullets. Thank you Sir.

    ReplyDelete
  2. komsby18May 21, 2017 at 11:35 PM

    Lesson learnt , always work towards the big picture.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BadmusMay 24, 2017 at 12:08 AM

    Good message. Point taken.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Boss is a pain and doesn't like me .

Image
Hello Everyone, Welcome to the Lion's den once again. It's good to be back after a couple of weeks offline. I apolozie to all who I have  disappointed by not sharing in the last couple of weeks.I hope I can make it up in the next couple of weeks. This week I am sharing on how to manage a difficult boss relationship .The number of people coming to seek for ideas to resolve a difficult boss issues keeps increasing and prompted me to share a few principles I think can be useful. A lot of companies have done a good job selling their organisation culture and values, thus creating the idea of a perfect organization. This has led to an expectation of an ideal situation by new hires of a company where managers are leaders and coaches building a healthy work environment and helping their teams achieve great results and rise to their potential.Also experience of having good bosses over time makes us expect that everytime.  Sadly, the reality is not true for a large number of comp
Read more

Communication, the engine oil of life -1

Image
Hello Everyone, Barka da Sallah and I hope you are enjoying the extended weekend due to the muslim holidays. I have been asked what skills are critical to growing up the corporate ladder. There are a couple in my view which are critical, leadership communication, thinking and problem solving, wisdom/sense of judgement ability to work effectively with others and agility.  I will over the course of the next few weeks write about each one of them but this week I want to start with communication skills. Communication Skills  is sometimes described as a "soft skill." makes it feel like it's a nice to have. Communication is important because it is at the heart of leadership, critical to problem solving and ability to work with different people.  My analogy is to describe it as the engine oil of business. Try to run your engine without oil and you will appreciate how important the "soft engine oil is. Anyone aspiring to a senior leadership position has to bui
Read more

Welcome to the Lion's den.

Hello everyone, Welcome to my blog. It has taken me a lot of pushing and urging for me to finally pen something down. I have decided to share my thoughts on life,  purpose and leadership in a simple manner and hopefully help lots of people struggling with the journey of life to get some snippets that might aid making their life journey . My background of growing up in a military environment plus early involvement in church institutions and my experience in working in five large companies and living in four countries will influence a lot of my writing. I will also draw lessons from football and golf which are two games I enjoy playing. I titled this welcome to the Lion's den simply because among my football friends,  I am known as the Teranga Lion. I look forward to sharing every week and an opportunity to rub minds with anyone looking to get better every day. Have a beautiful week and kind regards, Alex Goma aka Teranga Lion
Read more