Monthly Archives: January 2011

Throughout our lives, especially in early adulthood, we have periods when we don’t know where we’re going or what we should be doing with our lives. A bad breakup, job loss, death of a loved one or a change of heart can make once immutable goals seem irrelevant.

We become a bit lost but that lost feeling seems oddly right for the moment. We’re in downtime. Downtime is a period of regrouping, conserving energy and figuring things out. If downtime extends too long we get antsy and feel that we should be doing something more.

However, after having no direction for so long, it’s hard to figure out what we should be moving towards. The more we try to get ourselves moving, the less appealing our choices become. Nothing we do feels right.

Be The Right Person

In Good To Great, Jim Collins explains the idea of the Hedgehog Concept to help companies figure out what to do.

The step before the Hedgehog Concept for a company is to find the right people. Collins says that the right people as part of the company will do the right thing even if the company doesn’t have a clear direction. The right people don’t need to be managed. When the company does find it’s Hedgehog Concept, it’s the right people who will have the skills, attitude and motivation to move the company onto that new path.

Applied to an individual, “find the right people” equates to be the right person. If you’re the right person than you don’t need to manage yourself.