Are you Edmund Hillary or Christopher Columbus?
Edmund Hillary, along with Tenzing Norgay, were the first people to have successfully reached the summit of Mt. Everest in 1953. Christopher Columbus is generally recognized as the first person to have sailed across the Atlantic from Europe to North America in 1492. (I am aware that Columbus was not actually the first person to cross the Atlantic, but for my purposes it’s not worth splitting hairs.)
Hillary had a clearly defined goal. His “definition of done” was clear: when he reached the peak of the mountain, planted a flag and high-fived his climbing buddy, then he was done. Columbus, on the other hand, set off in his boats across the Atlantic on a speculative venture; he sort of hoped if he sailed in one direction long enough that he’d bump into the thing he was looking for.
Earlier in my career, I was more of a Columbus type. I’d say, well, let’s just start writing code and see where it takes us. But, as I’ve gained experience I’ve become much more of a Hillary type. Now I say, what mountain are we trying to climb?
When you know your definition of done, then its much easier to make a plan to get there. ”Oh, I need to get to the top of that mountain…well, let’s figure out what obstacles we need to overcome to get there. We need some boots and warm clothes and rations.”
When you know your definition of done, it’s easier to make milestones. See, you don’t climb a mountain in a day; most things of value aren’t done in a day. ”Well, the weekend before I’re going to shop for supplies, and on the first night I’m going to climb to basecamp…” and so on. It turns out that when you have a definition of done, and start to break it down into milestones, that each milestone has it’s own little definition of done too.
Earlier in this post I spoke inaccurately. Hillary’s definition of done wasn’t to summit Everest. I had that all wrong. It was to summit Everest and make it home alive. See, a clear definition of done can be tricky…one must really consider everything involved. (NASA could probably shoot a man or woman to Mars if they weren’t interested in bringing them back home!)
These ideas to apply to life as well as work. Recently, I set a milestone for where I wanted to be in my life at age 50. I described want I wanted my life to be like then. Now, I’m working backwards trying to figure out the milestones for how to get there. Previously, I’d been living my life more like Columbus…doing the most interesting or enjoyable thing in front of me and typically that led to good places. As I’ve said so may times it drives my wife mad, my general life strategy was to “follow my nose”. These days, I’m living a bit more like Hillary.
My question for you is are you Hillary or Columbus?
I think more like Columbus but I get your point.
Hugo Santos
10 Jan 13 at 4:36 pm
most people seem to live like Columbus, but are actually doing things with recognizable achievement milestones. which means most people should be able to achieve their goals by copying someone else who already achieved that goal (eg. 95% of all climbers since Hillary)
Doing something no one has done before necessarily requires being a Columbus. Strangely, it often seems to require doing things in a way so as not to copy other people; because, that puts a person on the milestone paths to known and copyable achievements.
Hillary’s was an incremental achievement. Columbus’s a revolutionary one.
So…. are you trying to do something that other people have already done? why?
calvin
10 Jan 13 at 10:14 pm
Great article!
I do have one suggested correction, however. Hillary was always very quick to stress that getting to the top of Everest was *not* the goal; getting *back* from the top of Everest was the goal. Getting to the top is much, much easier than getting to the top and *back* (due to the incredibly dangerous environment and very sensitive timing required), and Hillary was well aware of this. He also knew that George Mallory may have made it to the summit before him, but Mallory never returned so cannot be considered the first person to climb Everest successfully.
kyle
11 Jan 13 at 10:15 am
@kyle…as I wrote, “Hillary’s definition of done wasn’t to summit Everest…It was to summit Everest and make it home alive.”
scottporad
12 Jan 13 at 7:59 pm
@calvin I was with you until the last sentence – are you implying that copying is wrong?
I think the mistake is thinking that something one is doing has not been done before… ever. Yes, there is the very very very very rare case where people do things truly unique, but the 99.9% scenario is where someone stands on the shoulders of giants and only then is able to reach the next level.
It’s almost always a mistake not to live like Hillary – evolutionary achievements, in aggregate, can be revolutionary. See the whole discussion about whether or not Jobs was a tinkerer as an example (http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/steve-jobs-tinker-tailor-tweaker/)
David Aronchick
14 Jan 13 at 9:47 am