“Teach me, and I will keep quiet. Show me what I have done wrong.”

In business we are not good at letting ideas, actions, things just sit. One of the harder things to do is to shelve an idea, knowing that someone else will likely pick it up and run with it and then we will kick ourselves for not having followed through. Am I alone in this feeling? But, great companies and great leaders know how to say no and they know how to let the right things sit and how to have others get picked up and moved forward. There are a number of businesses that have failed because they wanted to be all things for all people and they moved forward when they should have let things just sit. We should each evaluate how and what needs to be put on the sideline and let sit for awhile until the time is right, if ever. We’d find that our focus, momentum and progress just might improve.

I read this in Christianity Today last month. It was written by Mark Galli and stuck with me. “At one point in the movie Patton, General Omar Bradley tells General George Patton that Patton may be given a crucial assignment: leading troops in the invasion of Europe. Though he had played a decisive role in the battle for Africa and in the invasion of Sicily, Patton at the time was cooling his heels in England, having been disciplined for slapping a soldier in a field hospital. So Patton is anxious to get back into the thick of battle, and when he hears about the possible assignment, he can hardly contain himself. Bradley tells him no decision has been made, that it’s in the hands of General George Marshall. Patton is a man of action, who took initiative while others stood around deliberating their options. But when he heard that his fate lay in the hands of Marshall, he calmed down. “He’s a good man,” he said of Marshall. “At least he’s a fair man. I’ll let it with him.” He said this based on his knowledge of who Marshall in fact was and how he comported himself in action. The god we know, the God we’ve seen in action has done this: He died for us. It is because of this that we way with confidence, “He’s a good God. He’s a fair God. All these questions that torment us – we can let those sit with this God.”

Reference: Job 6:24