IOWA

Hello Agile Leaders! You have heard me talk about how preparation can help lead to success. To prove that point, I will detail a recent experience of mine that illustrates how you can fool yourself into thinking you are prepared. Last year I committed to join a group of friends to try one of the most popular bike rides in the Midwest – Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI). RAGBRAI is an 8-day rolling carnival on bicycles across Iowa in late July. I couldn’t participate for the entire week but planned on coming up on Wednesday night and riding the final three days. I felt excited for the event and trusted that I was in good shape for the adventure. When I set off Thursday morning from the Cedar Falls/Waterloo metroplex, I saw every kind of riding group on the roads: there were a few elite cycle teams with full RV support, but also family riders, DJs on wheels, octogenarian couples, and many groups of youngsters just out for a good time. Even though we started the day late, we were making good time relative to the other participants and I kept thinking to myself, “How are these other people going to make it through this?” Mistake #1! I should have been focusing on my destination and developing a plan for how to get there, not looking over my shoulder at what others were doing.

As I referenced in my last post, I am sensitive to the sun and heat. So I became anxious when I saw that the temperature was due to reach the 90s with a Heat Index of over 100. That led to Mistake #2: I had not trained in conditions that matched the event. I just do not like to ride in the heat so most of my training had been in early mornings or daytime hours when it was more comfortable. I hoped that doing a higher volume of training rides would be enough and that I could power through if needed. I avoided testing myself with worst-case scenario conditions and wasn’t fully prepared when I needed to be.

Lastly Mistake #3: I probably bought in a bit too much on a concept known as RAGBRAI Magic. Since I was a rookie on the ride, I decided to go with the flow and figure a few things out along the way. One place where that mindset cost me was my nutrition. Since we really didn’t have a preconceived plan for where we were going to stop to eat and rehydrate, I pushed things longer than I should have. And once we arrived later at some of the towns, the food choices were pretty slim. I’m not sure how most of you feel, but for me a pork chop sandwich just doesn’t hit the spot during moderate to vigorous activity. Not knowing the route, I ended up making a wrong turn. When I discovered I went the wrong way I ended up calling it quits, physically unable to continue. This certainly taught me that when conditions are unfamiliar, you need to take the time to understand your environment and ask for help!

While my first RAGBRAI experience was not ideal, I did take away 3 valuable lessons from the 1-day ride that I can apply to my professional life:

1. Don’t make assumptions based on what your peers are doing. We are all on our own journey and know what works best for us.
2. Don’t kid yourself about how challenging a project will be! Even if you can’t perfectly simulate what the future holds, you can be realistic and plan for it.
3. Chances are, conditions will change. Pretending they are not changing does not make problems go away.

You may be swept up in the excitement of a new project, but don’t make your decision based on external pressures. You need to identify what is best for your organization and see it through with experts who know how to adjust to changing conditions.