Better decisions with line of sight

The choices you make in the present will differ based on your understanding of where you are trying to get to in the future.

I haven’t touched a bow since high school, and even then it was only a couple of times in gym class, so it’s safe to say I am not an expert. But I have always been interested in the aiming mechanism and believe the approach to aiming with a composite bow may be a useful analogy for thinking about the relationship between goals in the short, medium and long term.

Modern compound bows have available to them various accessories that aid the aiming process. One I wasn’t familiar with until I did some research is the peep sight which is a small ring often a small ring positioned in the string near the eye of the archer. They can use the peep sight line up with the scope sight and the target. From the perspective of the eye, it’s lining up the circle of the peep sight, the scope sight and the target. You could imagine a straight line from the peep sight, passing through the scope to the bull’s eye of the target. The effect is to increase accuracy through improved alignment.

I think of this alignment when I think of the relationship between goals of different time periods. If my target was different it would change my position as I lined up my eye with the peep sight and the scope to the target. Similarly, our knowledge of the long-term goal makes a big difference in how we approach the work in front of us. Our choices of what we do today, and how that might serve where we are trying to get to in the medium term and the long term.

In our work, we make many small decisions a day. About what options we choose, design considerations etc. Understanding the purpose of your organisation, what it is looking to achieve and the strategy it is taking to get there can inform these decisions. The more people in your organisation that can have this line of sight with the goal, the better decisions can be made where it becomes more obvious which choices will either line up or not line up with the intended destination.

Do you have an example where better clarification of your long-term goals led a team to better decision-making? Share your experiences in the comments!