There are no shortcuts

Don't take shortcuts.

So it's back in 1994. And in New Jersey, we had a major snowstorm about a foot of snow on the ground. And it was snowing that evening and I had a very important client meeting that I knew I had to get to the next day.

So my wife being a lot smarter than I am, said, why don't you go out and shovel the driveway to make it easier for you to get out in the morning?

And I said, No, no, no thinking I'm way smarter than her said. It's gonna snow more. I'll just do it in the morning.

Are you sure?

Yeah, I'll just do it in the morning.

So I get up in the morning, foot of snow on the ground. Realize I got up a little too late. It's going to take me way longer to shovel than I thought. So I do the best I can.

And I didn't shovel the whole driveway.

I shoveled just enough, I thought to get my car out. So I didn't shovel it very wide. It's just about the width of the car.

Why won't that work?

So I start pulling the car out of the driveway, and about 75% of the way through the driveway, just within eye shot of my wife looking out the front window of our house, the car gets stuck in the snow.

Now I have to get out of the car and do a little bit more shoveling.

The problem is given the way I shoveled and the narrow width I gave myself I couldn't open either door of the car because the snow was piled high on either side.

I actually had to roll the window down, climb out of the car, falling into the snow in order to continue shoveling and get the car out, all the while with my wife laughing hysterically at me looking through the front window.

Where are you not shoveling a wide enough space in your driveway?
Where are you taking a shortcut? In a high stakes area of your business?
Are you shortcutting relationships by asking before giving to build that relationship?
Are you shortcutting the hiring process and making costly hiring mistakes?
Are you shortcutting the product development process by not doing enough Voice of the Customer kind of work?

Where are you not shoveling your driveway wide enough?

In a high stakes situation? There are no shortcuts.