Last night I went to a big celebration here in town, as the city celebrated it’s 150th birthday. There was an unveiling of the new river lights, as well as guest speakers and choirs, special videos, and a fireworks display at the end. You could tell a lot of time and money and put into the event, and overall it went well. The only problem that I noticed was that a lot of the people who showed up couldn’t hear what was being said through the PA. Most people could ‘see’ what was going on (unless you were too short, and got stuck in the back), but as I wandered around the event, I realized that most things were not audible once you reached a certain distance—and there were probably thousands of people beyond that distance. The bummer is that I know that the words spoken, the videos played, the songs sung, and the commentary given, could have made the night that much more meaningful for so many people. Don’t get me wrong, the night was still good—but that one issue affected the experience for many who attended.
Since then I’ve been thinking about how similar things can happen in our lives and businesses. We can put a ton of time and energy and money into something, and sometimes it’s just one oversight that ends up crippling the effectiveness of that thing we’re trying to pull off. Or on a personal level, we may have all kinds of skills, and may have put in the necessary practice time, and yet a single lapse of judgement or one unaddressed character flaw could end up undoing all we’ve worked for.
The more we’re going to invest into doing something, the more important it is to make sure we have all our bases covered. It would be a shame to have all we’ve worked for be sabotaged by failing to address something that was within our control.