Inattention to details can lead to unintended destinations

On a recent road trip, we were traveling to see my cousin who had moved to the Carolina’s. Since we had several stops before and after the visit, I had meticulously planned out the route and plugged it into my GPS.

When the day came for us to leave the GPS coordinates were nowhere to be found. Ugh! No problem, I quickly copied and pasted addresses of intended stops from previous texts from family and friends. The problem was solved, and we were on our way.

Everything was going to plan until day 5 when we were to arrive in my cousin’s home. My uncle who had also moved to the Carolina’s answered his front door looking confused at his uninvited guests. In my haste of copying and pasting addresses, I had copied my uncle’s address in NORTH Carolina rather than my cousin’s address in SOUTH Carolina!

Just like so many businesses leaders, it’s easy to cast visions of intended destinations without checking the progress towards the desired outcome along the way. That’s the reason as a business, we review our quarterly Rocks / Goals and why we measure gross revenue, job profitability, number of clients, and number of team members, etc. each month. These help us stay on track and recalibrate when needed.

I should have applied these same tactics to my road trip. Luckily my inattention to travel details provided us with some time with my uncle, but it did add an extra 2 hours to our intended travel destination.