This weekend was incredibly refreshing as we camped on a river bed in Arkansas next to a huge cliff and plenty of fresh flowing water from the recent rains. I was reminded of our camping trip to Alaska years ago where we did a four day float trip that started at the base of a glacier and left us in the wilderness for four days without seeing another person, other than our team. What was really interesting about Alaska was the tides on the river… strange… I had never heard of this before. Each day as the sun would warm the glacier it would create a water flow that would increase through the day and especially into the night. The water was actually lowest during the day. This created an interesting challenge in setting up camp each evening as you would have to anticipate the tide of the river to increase and have to set up camp far from the river’s edge. This also created an interesting challenge for the river guide as the river would carve a fresh route each day through the river bed. This was a great reminder for me that each day is unique in how we go about executing plans and designing strategies. The river guides had it easy in the changes being visible to them, while many of us doing have such visibile sight of change… but it’s there for all of us. Perhaps we would all be better off having better sight lines of the changes environments around us to help us be better guides as we lead our respective teams. The rivers are constantly changing and it’s a joy to navigate a fresh path.
