The difference that makes the difference

As I watched their disappointment yesterday I could also imagine their earlier excitement - the sun was shining, wind was calm, they had a new jet-ski, had borrowed a trailer, left work early, and driven to the beach. Once at the beach, they carefully reversed down the ramp, and then excitedly jumped out of the van to manoeuvre the jet-ski into the water.

And then the dream disintegrated - where was the water? Low tide had only been a couple of hours earlier, and high tide a further 4 hours away. It was a low high tide so by my calculations they were at least 2.5 hours away from being able to take the jet-ski into the water. It’s funny... and then you start to realise this is a great metaphor for many areas of our lives where, when planning, we’ve not taken into account the difference that makes the difference between success and failure. I’m assuming the jet-ski guys will have learnt about tide height and tide times for this beach and ensure they check them for future excursions. During procurement training I hear many horror stories “oh yes that happened to me too” with no mechanism in place to learn from them. What post-activity reviews do you undertake and how can they stop you from being on dry land when you want to be in the water?