The Case of the Missing Tulips
Have you ever been creeped out by discovering someone messed with your stuff while you were sitting mere feet away - and you didn’t notice?
That was the story of my morning…
James got up at 5 AM to go to swim practice. I got up around the same time to jump on the computer to get last minute work done before flying out again.
I sat in our front room happily working on my laptop. I had opened the blinds so I could watch the sun come up. (Raindrop was upstairs still asleep!)
James came home around 8 AM. I watched him pull in and walk to the door. I can see everything that happens in the front yard - or at least that’s what I thought!
I stepped on the porch to greet James. At almost the same moment we both noticed that our tulip blooms had been cut off while James was at practice - and I was sitting in the front room!
It was sort of scary!
How could I miss someone clipping our flowers right under my nose? Why did they just take the blooms and leave the entire stems? (See the photo.)
I walked back out on the porch to take a second look - and found a little squirrel scrambling across the front steps. There was also a newly removed bloom on the edge of the garden.
I had caught our villain almost in action!
An article in the American Chronicle talks about the importance of avoiding false assumptions when solving a mystery.
James and I both initially assumed our tulip bloom snatcher was human. We didn’t consider that squirrel (who we know lives in the area) - the tulips are twice as tall has he is!
Made me think of the challenge of being a leader…
It’s easy to use quick assumptions as basis for the ultimate answers - before (without) doing any significant digging to determine the rest of the story.
What do you do to make sure you don’t jump to major conclusions before checking out your assumptions?
Filed under: Savvy Leadership
