The view from my office window sometimes gives me pause for thought. A few days ago the view I have of the sugar loaf was, at the top, shrouded in fog whereas today as I write, the mountain is in clear bright sunlight.

As I look at the two photographs side by side I am incredibly aware first of how bad I am as a photographer and second of the visible difference a few hours can make in terms of the clarity of my perception of the mountain.

I realise that is the truth of it.  Sometimes I view things through a fog and sometimes not. That led me to reflecting on the kind of fogs that we have in business and I want to look at just three and as it happens they are all E words which kind of breaks the pattern of my F word series.

  • Education
  • Experience
  • Expectation

Education or the lack of it. We have to go back to the root of things. There are two conflicting opinions on where the word comes from. The older one is to lead out or to draw out intrinsic knowledge - to assist to learn.  The second is to give schooling. The fog can come from either root A common fog is ‘he doesn’t have a degree therefore he (or she) couldn’t be competent. And so we lose something like life skill, emotional intelligence or intuition.  Equally though a lack of core information from ‘schooling’ which draws on the past learning of others can mean thick fog and slow progress.

Experience

If I have done it before then of course I know how to do something. I may have been taught, shown or have figured it out myself. The example I use here is the Ikea flat pack being put together by 2 people. One who just figures it out as they go along the other who reads all the instructions first and then starts.  Put those two people together to jointly assemble the product and two totally different kinds of fog mix and then you sometimes get a red fog and sparks can fly.

By far the biggest fog that impacts us is expectation. I have certain expectations of you and I cannot understand why it is that you don’t do things the way I expect you to do them. You don’t get what my problem is and so the red mist can happen here too. The issue with expectations is that they are unexpressed. I think you will behave like I do ad you expect me to do it the way you would but we never discussed how the desired result is to be achieved.

So you say get to the point of this foggy blog. How do we dissipate the fog?

It’s really simple but it’s really hard. You are seeking a balance between the talents available at any one time. So the answer? Talk about the issue. You need another person’s viewpoint. Talk about it from a solution focused point of view. What is the desired outcome? What is the timeframe? Do we need expert help or do we have enough resource; particularly education and experience to deal with the problem? Once we make those decisions and have the conversations then our expectations are realistic, everyone knows what they need to do AND that it is within their ability to do it and the objective is in clear view

So the next time you look out the window; notice how clearly you see the view or is there a fog that needs to be penetrated?

If you need help to penetrate the fog then that’s what a mentor can do for you.

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