Most sports teams at the beginning of their season have lofty goals such as winning a national championship. Winning a national championship can be a daunting goal, and the path to reach that goal is long and arduous. To achieve such a lofty goal, you must break the journey down into smaller and more manageable steps. When my college baseball team won a conference title, we did so by focusing all of our efforts towards accomplishing the next task on the path to a title, and we didn’t allow ourselves to become distracted by thinking about the mountain we had yet to climb. For us, focusing on the process meant getting the most out of each repetition we took during practice. Stringing together a series of good repetitions and drills would lead to a successful practice. A set of good practices would result in strong performances in a game and eventually the chance to play for a conference title.
Launching off an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Gulf and flying an eight-hour mission into Iraq and Syria is daunting. A successfully flown mission in Iraq and Syria is accomplished by focusing on the process and the next task. When getting ready to launch off the aircraft carrier at over 150 mph, we had to focus on the steps that allowed us to get airborne safely and could not have our attention wander to what challenges may await us when we arrived in Syria. Each part of the mission had specific tasks that had to be accomplished before moving onto the next portion of the mission. To let one’s focus wander to a future challenge would result in the current task not being properly completed, which could lead to mission failure.
In business, you can often be faced with daunting goals. Rather than expend energy on the worry about the goals themselves, successful companies will focus their energy on the processes and steps that will allow them to achieve their goals. As Creighton Abrams said, “When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time.”
Authored By: Fletcher Vynne, former F/A-18 Super Hornet Weapon Systems Officer
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