My 7 year old daughter asked me what I meant while I was talking on the phone and used the phrase "Don't try and boil the ocean?" I was working from home and talking to a client and used the term that we are undoubted all familiar with. When I got off the phone she asked me, "Dad, how come you can't boil the ocean?"
I simply said, "It's an expression sweetheart. You know, if you try and do something too large you can't do it. Just like you couldn't boil all the water in the ocean away. Understand?"
She scrunched her nose and I could see she was thinking. Then she replied, "You could if you used mom's pot."
I replied, "A pot would be too small wouldn't it?"
She answered, "Yeah but you would just do it over and over again. One pot at a time."
To this I smiled and chuckled as I reflected on the truth of her statement. It got me thinking about the approach that my consulting group and I take when approaching client problems. Project X leverages a Rapid Results approach, striving to chunk things down into 100 day initiatives that deliver value. In effect, our approach for producing value through short engagements that make up a larger organizational strategy is akin to boiling the ocean one pot at a time.
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