I used to race mountain bikes back in my 30's. I could hammer the pedals decently, but my emergency room record would suggest that I was not great at it. I had a string of crashes. Every time I would heal up from an injury and get back on the bike, I'd end up in another cast, nursing a concussion, or needing something stitched up.
After giving up on my extremely brief mountain bike racing career, I was at a retreat with a business peer group and told the story of my string of crashes. One of the guys in the group asked why I kept crashing. It got a little heated, and he's lucky he didn't end up in the ER. I thought it was a ridiculous question. He was suggesting that it was a choice!
Was it?
After reflecting on the question post-retreat, I came around to the realization that my colleague had a point. My crashes were not intentional, but maybe they were a result of behavior that I was choosing consciously or unconsciously. That lead to the following metaphor called "Focus on the Line":
We are like horses. We go where our heads are turned.
When mountain biking, there is a line that can get us through the rough terrain that is all around us and is ready to trip us up if we veer from that line. When we are on our game, we are relaxed on the bike, weight over it, one with it. We are entirely focused on the line and peripherally aware of the terrain that is waiting to chew us up. As a result of the focus, we fly through! When we ride apprehensively or fearfully, we allow ourselves to lose focus on the line and to shift our attention to the rough terrain that can trip us up, slow us down, and hurt us. As a result, we end up in it, like a horse that had its head turned.
Years later, I read an article geared towards mountain bike beginners called "Picking a Line." It said, "a beginner's mistake is looking at spots you want to avoid rather than focusing on where you want to go. Pick a path and stick to it to get over and around tricky sections of trail. To find your line: scan ahead for hazards by looking about 15 – 20 ft down the trail. Then, move your eyes back toward your front tire. Doing this up-and-back action allows your eyes to take in lots of information. Knowing hazards ahead of time can help you adjust your balance and pick a line around them."
I wish I had read the article earlier.
I was allowing my head, my vision, and focus to turn from the line. That was the difference between getting over and through the obstacle and ending up in the ER. I realized that it wasn't only on the bike. Allowing my head to turn and focus on what I was trying to avoid, rather than where I wanted to go, was the cause of metaphorical crashes in business and life. We tend to focus on the negative, and what something or someone is lacking, rather than the positive aspects of what it provides or what they can be. What we focus on gets bigger.
What does this have to do with accounting?
The COVID-19 crisis has undoubtedly turned our heads and will continue applying pressure to do so. Focus on where you want to go, pick the line, and stick to it. You need to focus on what's currently under or slightly ahead of your front tire, but continuously look up and forward to see what's coming and adjust accordingly. As things smooth out, you can look up more frequently and farther ahead.
If your team allows, bifurcate defense and offense by having one team focus on crisis management and a separate team focus on opportunity management. This division of responsibility allows for a more direct focus on what's currently underneath and what's up ahead.
Our current crisis is creating a particularly rough section for us to get through. Stay focused on the line!