There is an instrument in every airplane that shows the aircrew what the airplane attitude is, like the blue and brown display pictured here.

Attitude applies to this airplane, the C-17, to paper airplanes, and to life.

The key principle about attitude is this:
You can set an attitude that will achieve the desired performance.

You are in control of attitude. Here are 3 things you can try with your own paper airplane.

1. Decide what attitude to set.
Do you want to climb? Then point the nose up. But if you want to descend for landing, then point the nose down. Now let it fly and watch what happens.

2. Evaluate the trajectory.
Does it perform like you expected? Perhaps it did better or maybe worse? For example, if the nose is too high, the airplane will climb too steeply, run out of airspeed, and fall back toward the earth. So how well did you do? If it didn’t go like you planned, then you can make a change.

3. Adjust the attitude.
Decide what adjustment to make, and apply the steps of this checklist again.

There are some corresponding evaluations that must take place when we execute these steps. By evaluation, I mean measurement and accountability.

How do we set the attitude, if we have nothing to compare it to, no standard or system of measurement? Determining the performance outcome of a change in attitude is also impossible without a standard.

I am not saying that the “measurement” has to be quantitative–we don’t need to measure in micrometers. But we do need to determine if we hit the target or missed it.

Life is a journey. And these are observations from ours.

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You’ve just read observations, a monthly column that illustrates in my personal life and leadership the technical concepts found in ATOMs. Some people may not want the technical content that appears elsewhere on this website–if you only want to follow these more personal updates, I set up a special subscription for that option here: by Email or RSS.

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When I wrote this post last month, Emily had just turned ten, the big 1-0. Double digits is a major milestone for her and for us, her parents.

As I already stated, I don’t know how to raise a ten year old girl–because I’ve never done it. There’s a lot of uncertainty about the way ahead, the path forward. But if you have any notion of what vision is, you probably realize that some degree of uncertainty always accompanies vision.

Sometimes uncertainty looks like too many options.
There are million books about parenting, about girls, about pop psychology. There are websites, blogs, podcasts, and tweets about the subject. There are even resources that exist solely to motivate me, to get me pumped up enough to tackle the job. You could get lost, literally, in a bookstore that contained all this content.

Sometimes uncertainty is just the opposite.
The absence of any alternative defines some uncertain scenarios–like being in the middle of a forest with no path on any side. This situation might lead us to ask:  Where do we go from here?

I have a strategy for dealing with both–a parenting technique I’ve adapted from my aviation toolkit.

I have three specific questions that I ask myself, constantly, to make sure we don’t get lost in the wilderness.

I’ve discussed these questions before, but I want to highlight the characteristics of uncertainty in this particular application.

1. Where are we going?
What does the destination look like? We’ve never been there. How far away is the finish line? We’ve never made this trip before.

I’ve shared with Emily–with each member of our family–what I think winning looks like and where I think we ought to end up on this journey. I’ve painted a mental image of the vision I have for her life.

Even though we’ve never been there, we know what it looks like. The details might be blurry, but that’s expected–you can’t see the leaves on the trees on Pike’s Peak, from NC, for example.

2. Where are we now?
That’s a hard question to answer sometimes. It forces me to sharpen my powers of observation, to tune all of my senses. Am I listening? Seeing? Do I smell trouble? (You get the idea.) These are all questions that help me determine where we are. Two points make a straight line, but in this journey, I don’t think a straight line is going to get us there.  We’ll set off in that general direction, but we might encounter valleys, roadblocks, and mountains along the way. I’m not sure what we will face, but knowing where we are going and where we are will always help us answer the question “are we on course?”

3. What are the waypoints?
How we mark the waypoints varies. Sometimes its a visible landmark. Other times, it might be more like dead reckoning–maintain a particular heading 255 for an indiscriminate amount of time. If we stick to the plan, and the plan was crafted carefully, then we have to trust that it will work out–we have to keep pressing forward on that heading.

There’s a lot of unknowns in the days, months, and years ahead. That’s the point of this post–to remind you that we can still find our way when we’ve never been there, when we’re uncertain of what lies on our path, and when there’s no landmarks on parts of the journey to mark our progress.

Life is a journey. And these are observations from ours.

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You’ve just read observations, a monthly column that illustrates in my personal life and leadership the technical concepts found in ATOMs. Some people may not want the technical content that appears elsewhere on this website–if you only want to follow these more personal updates, I set up a special subscription for that option here: by Email or RSS.

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When I say “new car,” I don’t–not even for a second–mean a new car from a dealer.  I mean a used car.  But for a moment let’s ignore my Dave Ramsey fanaticism to take another look at vision by answering an important question.

Where do you see yourself this year?

I see the Jones family planning for, searching for, and saving up to buy a used car that meets our growing family’s needs this year. I can picture it in my mind’s eye.

We’ve had some amazing journeys in our current vehicle, a Toyota Sequoia, like this one where Robby enjoys the wind and the passing scenery. But it’s time to replace our aging truck.

That’s one example of a vision. It’s practical not philosophical, not academic or theoretical.

If we don’t understand the practical meaning of vision, then we certainly won’t be able to see it’s more abstract application.

A lot of people talk about vision and mission and values and goals and strategy…and a whole host of other things.  People talk about what they are going to do and when–they talk about the steps to get there. It is extremely difficult to see what’s what through the haze of opinion and ideology, so here are some observations to give clarity to what vision is and what it isn’t.

1. Vision looks both directions.

We must look forward and backward. We must turn around from time to time, to look at where we’ve come, how far we’ve come, and what we’ve overcome to get here. Sometimes vision looks into the past. It’s a critical element that is often overlooked.

But vision also focuses on the future (that’s probably the definition you are used to). If the vision you’ve been focusing on for the last year is not any clearer, then perhaps you aren’t making any progress toward it. That’s why taking stock of your situation, taking a moment to look at where you are and what you’ve done is important.

2. Vision is not something you do.

“A vision” is something you see. Doesn’t that make sense? You can see yourself doing something, but fundamentally, it’s still about seeing. If you can’t paint a mental picture, if you can’t describe your vision like a photographer would frame a photo, then it’s something else. It’s not a vision.

I see myself crossing the finish line of my first 25K race this coming year. That’s a vision. My training schedule, my weekly running goals, the GPS watch I use, the track I run on–even a motivational phrase to keep me going–all of that is something else, not vision.

3. Vision sometimes sees the unseen.

I’ve never been to the Raleigh Executive Airport in Louisburg, NC, but I am planning a cross-country flight there. I don’t know what the runway looks like. I don’t know where I will park the airplane. But I can still imagine myself in an airplane, at the end of my airborne journey, at that airport.

(That’s twice that I’ve used “destination” as an analogy for explaining vision. It’s one that I like and have used before and plan to use again.)

4. Vision is just one part of the picture.

Destination–the very mention of the word suggests a journey, and similarly, “finish line” suggests a race. The finish line is just one part of the race–the destination is just one part of the journey. But it is the part of the race that motivates much of what comes before it, both before and during the race, just as the vision motivates what it takes to achieve it.

5. Vision is the focal point.

It’s the center of the picture, the part that is sharply in focus. Around the edges, things start to get fuzzy.  That’s just life, a fundmental limitation in our sight and our cameras and our lenses.

6. Vision is not always amazing.

I started out by saying that I can see myself buying a car this year. That’s not an amazing vision. But it is a vision.  Trivial vision should not be overlooked–you won’t cast an amazing vision until you demonstrate proficiency in the mundane.

7. Uncertainty will always accompany vision.

I can say this with certainty. We will never perfectly predict the path. We should continue to expect the unexpected.

Vision is simply about seeing. It’s the foundation of the scientific method and a critical element of leadership. Don’t wander around in the dark or the haze that uncertainty brings, because ”where there is no vision, the people perish.”

Do you agree? Did I paint a picture of what vision is, or would you call it something different?

Life is a journey. And these are observations from ours.

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You’ve just read observations, a monthly column that illustrates in my personal life and leadership the technical concepts found in ATOMs. Some people may not want the technical content that appears elsewhere on this website–if you only want to follow these more personal updates, I set up a special subscription for that option here: by Email or RSS.

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I’ve suggested before, though not in this medium, that one of a leader’s superpowers is observation. To illustrate, I’d like us to consider the scenario used herein time and again: a map, a course, a journey.

This is a map of the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina. If you were driving down a road in this area and suddenly realized you were lost, what would you do?

How do we find our way when we are lost?
Most will quip that a GPS will help them find their way, but in life, there are no personal navigation systems.

I would argue, however, that life does have maps and guides, at least in the analogy.

With a map and the powers of observation, one can ascertain their present position, and from that, they can correct back to course or chart a new one to the original destination.

For example, suppose you passed Main Street and then Second Street–with a general idea of where you were, you could look on the map to find these crossing roads. With two roads identified, you have both a general position and a direction of travel.  Once located on the map, you could project your likely trajectory, and the you should hypothesize that one of the roads farther along would follow next. So you look for Tenth Street, and when you pass it, you verify your position.

The Map
In life and leadership and applications of technical tools in general, the roads are not so well marked. We have books. We have the experiences of those before us in various forms of audio and visual media. We have the digital and the virtual collections as well.  These works describe the landmarks that others have passed. They are street signs and landmarks on life’s journey.

The Guides
We have these maps because those leaders who have gone before us shared their observations and their wisdom. And now we must take up their banner and continue to focus our attention and record our observations. We have had guides. And now we must become guides for those who follow.

Navigation along a road or path is not difficult. Charting a course through the unmarked wild, on the seas, and through the air is far more difficult. And these latter modes of travel are more analogous to life.

We come, thus, to the purpose of this column, observations.  I have benefited tremendously from the observations of others before me. Even those whose path crosses my own, though it does not parallel my direction of travel, helps me ascertain my position and progress, but only if they share observations from their journey.

Life is a journey. And these are observations from ours.

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You’ve just read observations, a monthly column that illustrates in my personal life and leadership the technical concepts found in ATOMs. Some people may not want the technical content that appears elsewhere on this website–if you only want to follow these more personal updates, I set up a special subscription for that option here: by Email or RSS.