There was a story in the WSJ (syndicated without paywall to MSN) about six friends. All Type-A. All trying to plan a more or less straight forward birthday trip.
These women, former fashion industry colleagues from early 2000’s New York, spent months in group chat purgatory.
Cartagena vs Mexico vs Aspen vs Jackson Hole. There were endless negotiations. Side chats. Hurt feelings. Drama on drama on drama.
At time of publication, not only did they miss the 50th birthday deadline, they are now trying to organize a 51st birthday Girl’s Trip instead.
Well, now you know exactly how NOT to arrange a birthday weekend trip.
What they couldn’t get right is that leadership isn’t consensus.
Leadership is standing up and saying, “Ladies, I will be in Cartagena on these dates to celebrate our birthday… by myself if I have to. I hope you can make it.”
Then letting people make their own decisions and FOMO do the rest.
Of course, someone might not show. But that’s life. We shouldn’t put lives on hold waiting for the perfect alignment of six schedules and six sets of preferences.
There’s a word for all this- “Leadership”.
It means making a decision and getting on with it, even when ideal circumstances evade us. Not waiting around for the universe to align with our arbitrary list of demands.
Yes, like everything else worth doing, there’s always a potential downside.
Then again, if there wasn’t, we wouldn’t need leaders in the first place.
Sometimes the best gift you can give a group is a decision.
