Sometimes you have to go back to go forward
I learned a ton of lessons today and will blog about some of them, but the most amazing one was that sometimes you have to go back (or backwards) in order to move forward or in order to make real progress.
My dad is an amazing engineer with an 8th grade education. He rebuilds antique cars with a passion that is energizing and awe inspiring with breathtaking results. All this with no formal training or schooling. Today's lesson came from a simple brake job on my ancient Japanese made pickup. We disassembled one side, leaving the other side intact. He has told me many times over the years that he takes “mental photographs” to remember how to reassemble whatever he is working on. I have none of this ability and that is probably why I never became a mechanic like him, even though I really enjoy tinkering with tools and engines.
We did this project together, because my dad is 75 years old and he simply can't physically do all that he was able to even in the recent past. As we attempted to reassemble the brake assembly, we repeatedly failed to attach a particular spring that was in the back. You guessed it, we eventually had to backup and disassemble the whole thing again, in order to install this particular spring and have a completed brake assembly.
This is important because I had to do the second brake! Dad was out of gas, and thankfully I had paid careful attention the first time around. Long story short, this backing up process in order to move forward, enabled me to complete the second rebuild much more quickly and correctly the first time, than we experienced on the first rebuild even though the “master” was doing the first one.
What a great teaching tool and what a great learning process! This has lots of applications to other areas of expertise. As I am sure you can make many applications yourself, I will only make a one directly related to my area of work. When something isn't working, it often pays to back up, disassemble, start over or retrace your steps, in order to find the point of failure or disconnect or dysfunction. When a client is struggling to accomplish a goal, task or level of development, sometimes we need to wind things back until we find the fly in the ointment! Then we can start to make forward progress as the disabling spring is resolved. I did this mentally this past week as I spent several days traveling by car alone. I was able to “back up” and find the missing piece, the missing step to why several projects and clients were stalled, and we were not making any forward progress. I was also able to disassemble several problematic situations and find the missing spring that was preventing me from finding a good resolution. What about you? Where might you benefit by backing up in order to move forward?
