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Letting ‘noise’ – non-critical information – get in the way

Do you remember the 1993 release of the movie “The Fugitive”? This is the one where Dr. Richard Kimble, played by Harrison Ford, is a well-known surgeon who is wrongfully accused, tried and convicted for the horrific murder of his wife.

During a failed escape attempt by other prisoners during transport, Dr. Kimble himself escapes and with single-minded purpose sets out to discover who really murdered his wife and clear his name. However, on his trail is the tenacious and persistent U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard, played by Tommy Lee Jones.

OK, do you remember the scene in the culvert in which Gerard runs Kimble into a dead end and there appears to be no way for Kimble to escape? Remember Kimble’s classic words from that scene, “I didn’t kill my wife”? For me, it was Gerard’s response, “I don’t care,” that was the line of the movie and epitomizes the point of this article.

Why, you wonder? It is because Kimble’s words were just “noise” keeping Gerard from accomplishing his goal of putting Kimble behind bars. Now we all know how the story plays out. Gerard is like a hunting dog focused on retrieval and maneuvers through every obstacle to capture his man.

His demeanor is a lesson for all of us who are really after taking our individual or company performance to the next level. Set aside for a moment his obsessive-compulsive behavior that translated into heat-seeking persistence and focus. Focus on what he didn’t do for a minute. U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard didn’t let all the noise going on around him keep him from getting his job done and successfully capturing his target.

I spend most of my time helping my clients take their companies to the next level, and in the last few weeks I’ve paid special attention to all the noise that sidetracks them from moving at an accelerated pace.

Could you imagine how the movie would have went if Gerard had responded in the culvert, “Oh, OK, well, what would you recommend we do from here?” And then the good surgeon said, “Let me explain exactly what has happened here. I was on my way home when ...”

The point is, U.S. Marshal Gerard’s job, goal, true course of rectitude – call it what you want – was to bring Kimble in. He was not the judge and not responsible for anything other than getting his man. In fact, I would suspect his unwillingness to listen to any of the noise throughout his career was a key to his personal success.

Here are a few examples of the noise getting in the way of rapid advancement:

• The president of the company doesn’t like the way the head of sales is handling a particular deal. Instead of directly communicating with the head of sales on the best way to close the deal, he talks to his general manager about his displeasure with the situation and makes suggestions to the general manager on strategy and tactics.

Not only does this take too long, the head of sales gets a watered-down version.

• A CEO is unsatisfied with the progress that a critical department in the company is making. Two things go on. First, he is vague in his communication about what exactly needs to happen, and second, he gets caught up in lengthy discussions and meetings and reporting about how to fix the problem. The bottom line – he is caught in the noise.

• An “Us vs. Them” is developing in a company between sales and operations. The head of sales gets his team together to discuss it. The team has a venting session that takes too long and really is only a re-hashing of what is already known.

The head of sales doesn’t take any real tangible action but just listens and comforts his team. The head of sales is now part of the noise.

Other noise enhancers are passive aggressiveness, over-analysis, aversion to change, failure to make decisions, unclear strategies, tactics that don’t support the strategies, non-team players and people who talk about what they’re going to do.

The point is that for noise to be noise it has to be heard. The very best can quickly sift through and turn a deaf ear to the noise. Noise gets in the way of the true mission. In this regard, we could all take a lesson from U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard.

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Chuck Mache, president of Chuck Mache Communications, is a speaker, executive coach and consultant. His work is dedicated to helping companies and individuals break through to their next level and he is the bestselling author of the “The Four Kinds of Sales People: How and Why They Excel and How You Can Too.” Learn more and sign up for Chuck’s complimentary monthly newsletter at www.chuckmache.com.

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