Don't Be a Flat Squirrel

The road of life is paved with flat squirrels who could not make a decision - MAKE A DECISION - DON'T BE A FLAT SQUIRREL.

I had a business coaching meeting this week and received an awe-inspiring presentation by Jimmy Blackmon on organizational leadership and building teams. I took copious notes on Jimmy's preso, but one of the statements that stuck with me the most didn't come directly from his presentation. It came from our meeting host prompted by this slide.

On this slide, we were talking about enabling teams to operate independently and evolve from reacting to problems to actively preventing them. This is only achieved by empowering your teams with the Vision, Mission, and Values of the org. Without hesitation, our host gets up and grabs a dead squirrel off the wall and proudly proclaims, "Don't be a flat squirrel. The road of life is paved with flat squirrels who could not make a decision."

Y'all know me; I love this stuff and have written about it in my article, An Essay on Decisiveness . But this visual really drove it home.

Yes, squirrels occasionally get run over because they end up in the wrong place at the wrong time; they fall out of a tree or scurry too slowly across the road. But it's most often a result of their super small brains. They don't have higher thought to process the situation. They enter visceral 'fight or flight' mode and the squirrel's tiny little amygdala in their brain simply can't decide a path. Like it or not, the same thing happens to humans.

In An Essay on Decisiveness, I reference the Eisenhower Decision Matrix and it's important enough to revisit.

The “Do” quadrant is for tasks that are both important and urgent. “Plan” (or schedule) is for tasks that are important but not urgent. “Delegate” (to other people) is for tasks that are urgent but not important. And “Eliminate” is for the tasks that are neither urgent nor important. Regardless of the option chosen, a decision must be made.

That said, none of this matters unless people rationalize that most things are not that serious. Unless someone is dying or in danger of death, don't freak out. It's just a job and it's just money. We can't let our bodies tell us that our fight or flight response should be used when our boss yells at us for an upcoming deadline. That response should be limited to life-or-death scenarios.

It's a pretty simple thought, when faced with a decision, don't be a flat squirrel. Make a decision.