“People learn something every day, and a lot of times it’s that what they learned the day before was wrong.”

-Bill Vaughan

Have you ever had the experience of finding out what you were certain was so wasn’t necessarily so?  As Vaughan’s quote suggests, it happens.

We work hard to arrive at solutions to problems. On any given day, we come up with the best solution we can and implement it.

But, we have to remember a couple of things.

1. Try as we might, our information will never be perfect. We can know some of what we need or most of what we need, but never all of what we need.

There’s always a chance we can learn something more that would cause us to arrive at a new conclusion.

2. The world is broken and full of change because of it. Economies change. Bad weather arises. Factories shut down. People leave. Nothing stays the same. Therefore, the calculation of what is the right decision can change with the circumstances.

So, we have to remain agile and flexible. We have confidence in our team. We are decisive about planning and strategy. We work to implement with a forward lean.

But, we remain humble. We remain alert to all opportunities to learn. We scan the horizons for change and the potential of change. We are flexible to move in a different direction when new knowledge compels us.

Our tendency is to want to arrive at a decision and stay the course. In most cases that works. But, it is essential we remain open to the fact that a good idea today can be obsolete tomorrow.