Waves

My family and I recently went on vacation to the beach. One day, as we walked along, my 9- and 10-year-old sons ran down to the water as the waves crashed and quickly turned and playfully ran away in the opposite direction, as if the water was chasing them and they needed to escape. My wife and I watched, enjoying the show and savoring the memories of our vacation as we built them.

Waves can certainly be fun. My sons loved playing this game of chase with the sea water as it rolled in, but their shrieks of joy also had an element of fear in them. Of course, the waves were not dangerous to the point of terrifying, but they did get rough enough to knock over several bystanders and the undertow dragged swimmers into oncoming waves only to be tossed back into the dirt, myself included. My sons and I slowly got up from getting thrown around like a piece of clothing in a washing machine, slightly dizzy and our bathing suits filled with sand. We laughed and enjoyed the moment, happy we had made it through the challenging surf.

Water, of course, can be dangerous. Hurricanes, tsunamis, tropical storms, and giant waves can devastate and destroy communities and even countries. What can start as a small wave or current can completely level a person, house, or city.

Medicine is similar. If you have an infection, you take an antibiotic. If you have pain, you take a painkiller. If you have cancer, you undergo chemotherapy. Each of these treatments have a small window of efficacy that will help you with your ailment but if you deviate too far from this window, you could end up in serious trouble. Knowing the limits of these therapeutic windows is the key. This takes training and discipline.

Learning when and where to press the limits of these windows is where medicine becomes difficult. Treating a superinfection, managing acute pain in a chronic pain patient, treating complications from chemotherapy – they all involve handling your tool effectively but usually in a novel way. The tool is only as effective as it’s applied use, in the right way.

We have different tools in business than medicine, of course. Medications, procedures, and surgeries are not generally used by CEOs or managers in running their businesses. But software applications, analytics, customer relationship management, strategic planning, market segmentation, supply chain management, outsourcing, financial decisions, and effective leadership all involve the efficient nuanced use of a tool. If one is used too much, it can become a powerful wave that may prove more destructive than useful. The critical step is in knowing when and where to press the use of these tools.

In approaching new and old business, our relationships, and enterprises, one needs to be cognizant of our use of these tools. Are we relying too much on certain analytics to drive our decisions? Are we spending too much of our resources on customer relations at the detriment of new opportunities? Do we have the right leaders in place to propel the company forward or are they dragging us down? In answering these questions we find the right balance of how we use our tools. This balance helps establish the basis for how we control the myriad of situations we will encounter, from small playful waves to dangerous tidal waves.