VIM Executive Coaching is based in Denver and, as most of you know, Denver was once a key rail transport and shipping center. Train tracks crisscrossed Downtown and branched off to warehouses, factories, livestock yards and manufacturing concerns.
As the years passed, many stretches of rail became abandoned, only to be overgrown by weeds and rust, until pervasive development removed and re-shaped the cityscape. Nevertheless, it is still possible to find rail remnants of a bygone era before those memories will be removed and replaced as well.
The rail lines are clearly a metaphor for leadership stagnation and what occurs when an executive leader allows “weeds and rust,” instead of an expansion of skills and mindfulness.
One Last Rail Note
As many of us did learn in business marketing courses, it was the railroads who were the most logical of all of the carriers to add airlines to the portfolio of services. The railroads knew ticketing, cargo management, baggage handling, scheduling and a myriad of other skills. Imagine great airlines being named Union Pacific, Burlington Northern, New York Central and the like.
Instead, the railroads insisted they were not in the business of transportation, but railroads. Today, there is only one passenger train that links Denver to the rest of the country, the California Zephyr. It comes through Denver, usually hours late, and largely a relic reduced to sightseers and those terrified of flying.
The railroads, especially passenger services are emblematic (and ironically) examples of an industry that was afraid to see itself change. However, lest we single out one, massive industry, we would imagine there are – in this very moment – thousands of executive leaders and their managers who have become so rote or predictable (or dare we say, bored) in their thinking that they might as well be waiting at an out of commission train station.
Where to Start?
Leaving the literal, i.e., tracks and trains and wooden benches and going to executive leadership, it is certainly understandable to observe how people get to reacting rather than responding; become more unreliable and affected than authentic; become less mindful and more inflexible.
Clearly, many executive leaders find themselves in the mindset of not wanting to disturb the status quo or passing along hard decisions to someone else or putting off dealing with a particularly tough personnel issue. When these patterns become habit, everyone and everything in the organization begins to suffer.
Whether we are talking about executives at an automobile manufacturer complying to perpetuate an unethical decision to mis-represent emissions, or allowing systemic bias in a company’s hiring practices or intentionally cheapening a product to improve margins, what often occurs to such organizations are tracks that lead in only one unfortunate direction.
Not the Tracks
We shouldn’t blame the tracks of executive leadership, but where they lead. Whether a small company that manufactures glass perfume bottles, or a steel mill, if executives are allowed – and allow themselves to be mindful, authentic and responsive to change, no matter the challenges, they will understand that change also means opportunity. VIM Executive Coaching can help with the transitions to enhance that change.
Sometimes tracks that can lead us somewhere, are confused with ruts. Please don’t let that happen.