Jim Collins’ New Book Is Out - and There’s One Idea I Keep Coming Back To

I’m gen­uine­ly excit­ed that Jim Collins’ newest book is final­ly on the shelves. I’ve been fol­low­ing his work for over 20 years — Good to Great, Fly­wheels, Lev­el 5 Lead­er­ship — and I’ll admit, I was pret­ty thrilled to receive a signed copy a few weeks ago.

He’s been talk­ing about this book for a while, and it was worth the wait.

There are a lot of ideas in it worth explor­ing, but there’s one con­cept I keep com­ing back to. He calls it The Fog.

What Is the Fog?

The fog is what hap­pens when we go from absolute clar­i­ty - about our busi­ness, our direc­tion, our pur­pose — to a peri­od where it’s just not clear. We’re not sure which way to go. Some­times it’s strate­gic: what’s the next move for the com­pa­ny? Some­times it’s more per­son­al: who are we? What are we real­ly meant to do? What’s next?

Most lead­ers find this deeply uncom­fort­able. And under­stand­ably so. Clar­i­ty is what we’re wired for. It’s what we’re paid for. So when the fog rolls in the instinct is to do some­thing, fast, to get back to clarity.

Collins’ key insight is that this instinct can get you into trou­ble. Being com­fort­able in the fog and not feel­ing like you must jump quick­ly onto the next thing, is actu­al­ly the skill. Let­ting the path reveal itself as you keep mov­ing for­ward. That’s real­ly hard to do. But it’s the work.

The Next Right Step

Years ago, one of my clients taught me some­thing sim­i­lar. He’d learned it in AA: when you’re in a chal­leng­ing peri­od and you can’t see the whole path, just ask your­self, ​“What’s the next right step?” That’s it. One step at a time. (David Greer — here’s an inter­view with him if you want to go deep­er on this.)

Collins looks at the fog dif­fer­ent­ly, from a dif­fer­ent angle, but the under­ly­ing truth is the same: keep mov­ing ahead, one step at a time, and the path will reveal itself. Some­times that takes months. Some­times a cou­ple of years. You don’t get to rush it.

Being com­fort­able in the fog — trust­ing that it’ll work out as you keep mov­ing — is one of the hard­est things a leader can learn to do.

Where This Con­nects to My Own Work

When I heard Collins talk about the fog, a cou­ple of things imme­di­ate­ly came to mind.

The first is what I wrote about in Your Oxy­gen Mask First; specif­i­cal­ly around men­tal health and resilience. When your brain isn’t right, when you’re deplet­ed or over­whelmed, you can’t think clear­ly. You can’t see what’s actu­al­ly there. That’s the fog from the inside. It’s why the resilience rit­u­als — body, mind, spir­it — aren’t option­al. They’re what keeps you func­tion­al enough to nav­i­gate unclear ter­rain with­out mak­ing a bad deci­sion out of desperation.

The sec­ond is spa­tial dis­ori­en­ta­tion, which I explore in The 4 Forces of Growth. When there’s too much noise, too many com­pet­ing pres­sures, too much going on at once — you lose your per­spec­tive. You can’t make the right choic­es. You think you know which way is up, but you don’t. The fog and spa­tial dis­ori­en­ta­tion aren’t the same thing, but they’re relat­ed. Both require the same dis­ci­pline: trust the instru­ments, hold steady, and keep moving.

I want to be clear — Collins’ think­ing on the fog isn’t the same as mine. These are dif­fer­ent frame­works from dif­fer­ent angles. But they rhyme. And when ideas from dif­fer­ent direc­tions point to the same truth, I think that’s worth pay­ing atten­tion to.

Trust and faith that it’ll work out — and just con­tin­u­ing to march ahead. That’s the com­mon thread.

Get the Book and Come Hear Him Live

If you haven’t already, pick up What to Make of a Life. It’s a dif­fer­ent kind of Collins book; more per­son­al, more philo­soph­i­cal but the rigour is all there.

We also have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to hear from Jim direct­ly. We’ve got a live event in Den­ver in Octo­ber where he’ll be speak­ing on this and his oth­er endur­ing prin­ci­ples. Learn more or book tick­ets here.

Chal­lenge:

Are you in the fog right now? Whether it’s in your busi­ness or in your life, be hon­est with your­self about it. And if you are, resist the urge to leap. Instead, ask your­self one sim­ple ques­tion: ​“What’s the next right step?” Just that. Take it, and trust the rest will follow.

Resources:

Arti­cles

• The Growth Trap No One Talks About
• Spa­tial Dis­ori­en­ta­tion: When you Think You May be Mak­ing the Right Deci­sions but May be Hurt­ing Your Company

Inter­views

• Inter­view with David Greer — The Next Right Step
• Build­ing Sus­tain­able Resilience

Pod­casts

• Pod­cast Ep. 130: Jim Collins’ Lev­el 5 Leaders

Book: The 4 Forces of Growth 

• 4 minute Overview
• 45 Minute Webinar
• Buy on Amazon

Book: Scal­ing Up

• 45 Minute Webinar
• Arti­cle: 10 Years After Scal­ing Up: What I’ve Learned About Growth

Book: Your Oxy­gen Mast First

• Assess your­self
• Resilience Webi­nar