Have you noticed that people and organisations that are great have a lot of luck? And the opposite is also true: a poorly managed companies are unluckier. In my experience.
Now, I don’t think luck has anything to do with it (no - this is not a post about my Christian faith, please contact me for that :)). Which is good news; because that means that we can control it, do something about it.
I’ll share a few stories and then some thoughts in this post.
Example 1 - Clarinet players
I had the good fortune to do my military service in the Royal Swedish Army Band (1992 version) and playing there had a great influence on my musical life. I also got to meet some amazing musicians and some of them went on to great heights.
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| Nothing to do with Kristian |
I’m a brass musician (euphonium, mind you) and I had little experience with wood winds, whats easy and hard on those instruments, before being in the Royal Swedish Army Band. Specifically the technical fluency of the clarinet impressed me, and the high-pitched squeekes (pull a chair out and you know what I mean) that sometime came out of the clarinets, had me confused. Even great players produced these from time to time.
I noticed that our best player, Kristian Möller (who went on to amazing things), never had those sounds coming from his instrument. So I asked him:
Me: Can’t you teach the others to stop doing SQUUEEEEEK? Kristian: No. You can’t control that. It has to do with moist and … well it’s just bad luck. Me: But… it never happens to you Kristian (with a sly smile): Well, I guess I’m lucky then.
No, he wasn’t. He was an awesome player. He practiced since forever. And kept practicing. That gave him margins. Luck had nothing to do with it.
Example 2 - Company X
I have been working with an organisation lately that was missing a vital permit. They were super late with their application. They official authorities promised to handle things as fast as possible, since they really needed that permit.
Without the permit they were subjected to big risks.
They pushed hard, got the application in just in time, started to wait…. and got unlucky.
The person handling the permit was hit by a car and hospitalised. They had to wait a few weeks more. They were really unlucky.
No… they really were not unlucky. They cut every corner they could think of. They ran too fast and started too late. They worked too much in a short while. That gave them small margins. Luck had nothing to do with it.
Example 3 - Goal keepers
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| Peter “Pekka” Lindmark |
