If you’re like me, when you hear, “to make a long story short,” you immediately know it’s going to be longer than it has to be.

And I’ve often quoted a piece of wisdom I got many years ago at a management conference: “Shorten the storm.”

But “short and long” in the context of this post refers to the short view and the long view: small picture/big picture.

I love big picture folks. Their bubbles tickle. They are sometimes visionaries but often just dreamers. Their enthusiasm is what sells their vision, not necessarily the content of their dream.

The small picture folks too often get caught up in the minutiae that doesn’t allow them to get past the first step. This keeps the dream tethered to the ground.

There are pluses and minuses for both views but when push comes to shove, you have to do the work that short demands to get to the big picture promised land.

The long story has to get shortened to its parts so that assignments of effort can be given to each. Shortening the storm in this case is withdrawing from the grandiose long enough so you can see the components and the effort necessary to build to the long view.

The short view has to be infused with what’s going on now so that you can address it now. You can’t address now in the future. That’s the lesson of the short view. The long view often ignores what’s happening now and has its pipe dreamer owing the piper in the end.

Too much investment in either view (long or short) will take you to the same place – well short of the mark.

Here’s the long and short of it: Whatever your dream is, you have to bring at least one foot out of the clouds to walk the path to make it happen.

Just about all big dreams take you to a point where you’re going to have to take a gamble to make it happen. The odds are long that you’ll succeed if you give short shrift to short.

All the best,

John