This is a story which sounds too farfetched to be true: it has just enough drama, heroics and dubious logistics to make it unlikely. But there is a lot of value in the idea it conveys, so let me narrate it.
Once, an old woman needed major surgery to correct a life-threatening condition. While on the operating table, as the hospital staff prepared her for anesthesia, she started chatting away with the doctors and nurses around her. She asked each of them a question: What exactly will you be doing during the surgery? She got a variety of answers:
1. I will be cutting open your chest and enabling the surgeon to access your heart
2. I will be administering the anesthesia and making sure you feel no pain
3. I will be fixing the problem you have with your heart valves
4. I will be sewing you back up after the surgery
5. I will be monitoring your blood pressure and other vital signs
6. I am just here to watch and learn
Each of them had a precise answer to give her, perhaps simplified to ensure that she understood what was being said. But the lady was still not convinced. She had one major concern, which she blurted out, presumably in all innocence: “Which of you is in charge of keeping me alive???”
Technically, you can say that the most senior surgeon in the room was in charge of the success of the operation. Or you can say the anesthetist was in charge of making sure she was floating comfortably between consciousness and death, until he/she was ready to pull her back to fully conscious life. They all knew their roles well, and did their best to explain it to their elderly patient. But somewhere during that effort they had apparently lost track of her priority to be alive at the end of the operation. In losing track of her priority, they may have lost her confidence as well.
How often do we do this in business? Aren’t there times when we get so engrossed in the transactional activities we are in charge of that—at least momentarily—we forget the bigger picture?
