Suffocated by choice

Zachary Aldwin Milkshake in the Boardroom
I remember the first time I walked into a mega-store. I was a kid fresh out of Africa stepping into a shop that dwarfed anything we had back in Zimbabwe by at least 10 times. There were miles of floor space and probably about 50 000 products on the shelves. It was almost too much to take in, I felt breathless, overwhelmed by sheer choice – this was worse than being a kid in a candy store.
Even today, in a dollarised economy with new players on the market, we do not have the kind of shopping experience that compares with that one.

You could become paralysed just trying to pick a brand of dishwasher from the 45 available. When we have too many options, it’s like walking into a Chinese restaurant and they ask you if you want fried rice, brown rice, white rice, fried brown rice, fried white rice, jasmine rice, steamed rice or just rice?

I don’t know! I just want rice! So it naturally follows that no one can go after every opportunity. You can’t hold 1 000 balls at once, and there are definitely more than 1 000 ideas to be involved in and that is just within a six kilometre radius.

There are a few ways to deal with the tsunami of open doors and the storm of smiles that tower over strong handshakes and “Let’s do something together statements.”

Flee
You can run away. Many people don’t create the capacity to handle tonnes of new relationships or have the discernment to know which open doors to entertain or ignore. The default becomes this: focus on what you are good at and the people you are comfortable around. I don’t recommend this option, but it does work for some people.

You become so focused that you never take your eyes off what you set out to accomplish. You never engage in new relationships, lock out for potential ideas, and pretty much stick in your comfortable little schedule.
This works if you’ve got all the funding you need. You’re already helping thousands of kids go to school, your project is well on its way to being a multimillion- dollar corporation, and your friends always invite you over for wine and dine.

Even then, I wouldn’t suggest this reaction. Try to please everyone. I have tried to do this before. Everyone you meet for the first time has a polished pitch, an idea, something that you can run with.

It is impossible to go after every new gig and every possible business opportunity without dropping balls (try juggling real balls and you will very quickly realise the frustration when you drop them repeatedly . . . you get the same frustration dealing with metaphorical ones). You’ll become the slave of your email trying to keep up and your cover will be blown by the third or fourth coffee meeting.

Filter the open doors
I’ve found that filtering the open doors helps me to give thumbs up or thumbs down on what to pursue. I have a set of criteria to base this filtering on. First on the list is Motive, the real motive. Why is the door not closed already? Who else has gone through the door and what exactly is the reason it’s still open? What exactly is the door is about? Why was it created and what is the end goal?

Context of relationship
Where did we meet? How did we get to a place where we felt comfortable enough to talk about the open door? If someone introduced you, who was that someone and is he or she a person that is normally good with connecting people?
I would be much more inclined to invest in a relationship that was founded over a common interest other then business or “networking” for more sales.

Body of work
What’s this person’s track record? And their partners? Do they have successes and failures (both is nice to see)? Are they open and honest about their past? Do they downplay the successes, while telling you what they’ve learned from their failures?

The fun factor
Do you enjoy connecting with this person? At the meal time is it easy to discuss and move forward on a project? Or is it like pulling teeth with rusty pliers and no anaesthetic?

The activity
Can I uniquely add value and move this project forward? Will this activity generate future capacity for me and my team? Does this fit in with my vision and plan? Will taking this on cause me to sacrifice my overall vision in a detrimental manner?
The caution with filtering open doors is that often times through fear you will chose not to connect with someone, or write someone off based on your own biases.

If someone is recommended to you and with good regard you get to know them and give them an open door initially, you can always choose to close it later.