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I spent most of today in San Diego – one of my favorite places to visit in the United States. I can not remember a time when I visited here when the weather wasn’t spectacular, and it didn’t disappoint me today either. But my story starts before I drove down to San Diego, when I was looking for my hotel yesterday 2 miles from John Wayne airport. I got off the 405 South at MacArthur Boulevard, and I chose to turn left on MacArthur not knowing where the hotel was. I went down a few blocks and turned left on Birch, pulling into another hotel parking lot to pull out the address. In an unusual action by me (spurred on by a tight time frame to get to my business meeting), I called the number I had for the hotel to get directions. The front desk of the hotel told me, “go back the other way on MacArthur which should be East and go about 2 miles till you get to Main Street and make a right.” So I did just that…I went back the other way on MacArthur with my navigation system showing I was going East and drove till I hit Pacific Coast Highway. Now I was in the Air Force, but even I know that if I hit PCH, I was driving West and not East. So I called the hotel back and got the same guy at the front desk. I said, “I’m at PCH and MacArthur” and he said, “you went the wrong way”! I told him that was obvious and asked for directions. He told me go back the same way I came and go past the airport a couple blocks and turn right on Main Street. I went back the very same way I came and sure enough it was only about 4 blocks from where I was when I called the first time.
I was in a hurry for a meeting, so I really didn’t think about it that much. But today, when the intensity and the drama of the meetings eased, I was tooling up the 405 going North this time and my navigation system told me I was going Southeast. Now even though I was in the Air Force, I know that the 405 heading from Orange County to LAX goes either West or Northwest at that location. So I began to watch my directional indicator. As I made a couple of turns, the indicator went from Southeast to East to Northwest to South, in that order as I made a few turns. It took me about 30 minutes of staring at that indicator while making turns on the 405 to realize that I’d been duped. Sure enough, the car was telling me I was going East the whole time I was heading straight to the Pacific Ocean.
Once I realized that the indicators were wrong, I began to think about how dependent I am on technology and even other people to navigate my way through life. I hate getting directions; in fact, I completely resist getting directions which was why it was so unusual for me to call for directions in the first place. And the one time I do call for directions, he gives me good directions but the car guides me the wrong way! The funny thing is that this isn’t the first and won’t be the last time I’m just 4 blocks from my destination and yet veer off on some dramatic deviation that takes me far off my path. It happens in driving for me all the time, and it happens in business for me way too much to be comfortable. Fortunately, in business, I’m typically rescued by one of the great folks that I’m teamed with and we get back on course together. Unfortunately, in driving, I’m left wandering the local community looking for my destination and wasting precious time when I could be doing business!
I know how to fix this – get directions; call early when lost or confused; ask questions when you call to be clear on the path; follow the path to the letter; arrive at destination. That seems to apply for both driving and business. Of course, both can be de-railed and the destination not reached because of major detours!