Don't build a castle; put up a thousand tents.
Vince Stehle gave me this advice on more than one occasion while I was serving as the first Executive Director of the Nonprofit Technology Network and he was a member of our founding Board of Directors. I was privileged to have had Vince as a mentor, and this is one of the most important lessons he taught me.
The implications are clear:
- Don't over-invest your resources--time, money, attention--in a single, grandiose enterprise. Instead, experiment across a portfolio of possibilities, and double down quickly on the ones that show promise.
- Beware of commitments that will make it difficult to alter course in the face of changing conditions. Instead, be nimble and responsive to incoming data, and resist the gravitational pull of sunk costs.
- Finally, don't prepare for siege warfare when all you really need is a little shelter from the rain.
That said, the application of these guidelines requires interpretation and judgment, and this is where life experience, pattern recognition, and honing our instincts are key:
- Sometimes we do need to make a single, big investment, and embracing a portfolio of possibilities will spread us too thin.
- Sometimes we should be committed for the long haul, and if we cut and run we'll miss the success that was just around the corner.
- And sometimes--every once in a while--we really are besieged, and nylon mesh won't stop cannonballs.
But I've found that Vince was right quite often, and on many occasions it's been fruitful to check my impulse to build castles and, instead, diverting that energy into putting up lots and lots of tents.
Castle by Phillip Capper. Tents by Unofficial Glastonbury Festival.
