Corinne Bailey Rae and the Red Queen
Leadership Thought of the Day
It was an early and quiet Saturday morning and I decided to whip up a little breakfast. Instead of snapping on the TV to fill the quiet, I decided to fire up my Norah Jones station on Pandora. It was great to just soak in the jazz and R&B music while I enjoyed the morning, scrambled up some eggs and thought about what I wanted to accomplish this weekend. I am not sure why, but in the middle of a song by artist Corinne Bailey Rae one of the lyrics jumped out and grabbed my attention.
The song was titled “Put Your Records On”, and it is a great song to slice up some vegetables to garnish an omelet with.
All of a sudden I keyed in on the words to one verse, “The more they stay the same, the more they seem to change.” I paused and listened a little more, and then it came around again, “the more they stay the same, the more they seem to change.” Wow, leadership truth jumping right out of my iPad on a peaceful morning. Amazing what can happen when we least expect it.
Not only did this lyric fit in with Corinne Rae’s musical story, it is a fundamental leadership truth. If I could add to her music, I would sing, “the more things stay the same, the more they change, and for the worse…” It is a fundamental law of physics, thermodynamics and of leadership, (see chapters 7-9 of my book, The Energy to Lead) that left alone, all systems will change and unfortunately, not in a good way. They will by nature take the course of corruption, decay and loss. I liken this situation to living life going up a down escalator. If you are standing still (staying the same) you are actually losing ground and going backwards. If you want to prosper, and ascend to new heights, you must be moving upward faster than the escalator is going downward.
In the child’s story, Alice in Wonderland, Alice learns this tough lesson from the Red Queen. While they are running together, we find this exchange. "Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "You'd generally get to somewhere else--if you ran very fast for a long time as we've been doing." “A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that."
And that is the leadership thought of the day. Living and working upward on a down escalator we must continue to always stay vigilant and to strive forward. If we do not, we will definitely slide backwards. We must guard our areas of responsibility from falling prey to “The Red Queen Effect”.
If we are not exercising and feeding our bodies well, they grow weaker.
If we are not innovating and improving our products, we will lose market share to those who do.
If we do not keep learning, we grow dim.
If we do not train our children to be good citizens, somebody will teach them to be less.
If we do not continually invest in our relationships, they grow tired and diminish.
Leaders understand this truth and continually guide their charges forward to a better state of being. They understand that rest is important, but once rested; the journey up the down escalator must be relentlessly pursued if we are to achieve a full and prosperous future.
The mantel of leadership is heavy, it is not to be placed on weak shoulders.
Stay Strong!
Terry
