Tight pack, light pack

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True story, when I was ten years old I got so homesick at Boy Scout camp that I called my parents and begged them to pick me up and take me home (which they did).

Two years later, always optimists, they sent me to a wilderness camp in Northern Minnesota for two weeks of canoeing in the Boundary Waters.

Not your average summer camp one of my best friends, Charlie, and I would spend the better part of two weeks living out of canoes and backpacks under the guidance and, somewhat dubious, expertise of a pair of college Sophomores.

I’m not sure if sending me to a camp where I would be so far removed from society that they couldn’t pick me up was part of their calculus to get me to love the outdoors, but a few days in I was homesick and quietly sobbing in a corner of our tent. I vividly remember looking to Charlie for some comfort and asking, hoping for some sympathy, if he was homesick also. To which he replied,

Whether it was the blood loss from mosquito bites or the less than subtle urging from a friend to stop being a baby that did the trick, those five words cured me of my homesickness and launched a life which has often been shaped by seeking adventure in wild places both in the Marines and elsewhere.

I’ve learned many great lessons from the great outdoors along the way. Some, don’t test bear spray upwind of crowded Montana diners, less applicable to business leadership than others.

One of my favorite outdoor mantras first learned at summer camp and repeated in the Marines is that, “a tight pack is a light pack.”

The idea being the less you bring, and more organized you are, the lighter your pack will feel and the more enjoyable your experience.

This simple saying has as much to teach us about adventuring as it does leading teams in the business world.

Minimum amount of information

As a general rule, certainty is overrated. How many times have I listened to someone, or been guilty myself, confidently opine about the way things would play out only to see reality resemble nothing of the kind.

One of the most important components of the tight pack, light pack mantra is the idea that you should bring the minimum amount of gear needed to accomplish the task at hand. So too should you collect the minimum amount of information needed to make a decision before making it.

Often we’re guilty of analysis paralysis, spending so much time trying to figure out the correct course of action or find conviction that we let the world, and the relevant opportunity, waltz right by.

Much as it helps a young outdoor adventurer to pack only what is needed for the task at hand, it is good for all business leaders to get comfortable making decisions with the minimum amount of information possible.

To steal from Jeff Bezos, most decisions in life are easily reversed two-way doors. If the decision you’re making can be easily reversed or has minimal permanent consequences then you should collect the minimum amount of information needed to act. And then do so.

The world moves so quickly that it’s unlikely it, or you, will look the same in just a week’s time. This means you’ll likely need to adjust course anyway so don’t delay.

More you know, less you need

Patagonia founder and outdoor legend Yvon Chouinard has a quote I love, “the more you know, the less you need.”

So often, hesitating to make a decision or looking for more information in order to be “reassured” in the decision you make is a sign of inexperience. An experienced practitioner realizes that all decisions live on a spectrum of uncertainty, not a spectrum of certainty.

The more decisions you make the more experience you’ll gain. The more experience you gain, the better you become at making decisions.

More than anything else, experienced decision makers realize that their team’s time is better spent adjusting, recalibrating, and executing than it is on analysis. Leave the analysis and slide decks to the consultants and stock pickers. If your job is to build a product, fix a bug, or sell to customers then you need to pick up the phone, write your code, and do the work.

Analysis, while useful to a point, can also be a comfortable way to pass the day being “busy” fooling yourself into believing you’re being productive without actually getting anything done.

Don’t waste your time with indecision. This isn’t an excuse to be lazy or cavalier but it is a reminder that indecision is its own form of laziness.

Do the analysis (but no more than is needed), make a decision, trust your team, be disciplined in your execution, adjust, move forward. Anything else is just wasting time.

See y’all next week.