What’s Your True North?

Have you ever continued doing something long after it became obvious it wasn’t working?

I have.

Sometimes it’s because we’ve already invested too much to stop. Sometimes it’s because we don’t know what else to try. And sometimes we simply convince ourselves that the answer is more effort.

More meetings. More processes. More urgency. More paddling.

Which is fine—unless you’ve reached the mountains.

When the map stops making sense

In 1804, Lewis and Clark set out across North America with the Corps of Discovery. For much of the journey, they travelled along the Missouri River.

They understood rivers. They had boats, supplies and people who knew how to navigate difficult water. They expected to find a connected water route that would eventually carry them through to the Pacific.

Then they reached the Continental Divide.

Instead of another river waiting on the other side, they found the Rocky Mountains.

Quite a problem when much of your plan involves canoes.

Tod Bolsinger uses this story in Canoeing the Mountains to describe what happens when leaders find themselves in territory their experience hasn’t prepared them for.

The skills that brought the expedition that far were still valuable. The canoes weren’t bad. The plan wasn’t foolish. It had worked—right up until the landscape changed.

But once they reached the mountains, paddling harder wasn’t going to help.

And that’s the bit that sticks with me.

Because organisations do this all the time.

We become so attached to what has worked before that we struggle to recognise when it no longer fits what’s in front of us.

We confuse the canoe with the mission

Every organisation has its version of the canoe.

It might be a structure that once created clarity but now slows every decision. A service model that made sense five years ago but no longer fits the people being served. A leadership approach that worked when the team was smaller. A process that was introduced to reduce risk and has gradually become the reason nothing moves.

None of these things necessarily started badly.

In fact, they may be part of the reason the organisation succeeded.

That’s what makes them difficult to question.

Over time, “This is how we achieved the mission” quietly becomes “This is the mission.”

So when someone suggests a different approach, it can feel as though they are challenging everything the organisation stands for.

They may only be suggesting that we put down the canoe.

Mission is the true north

The expedition’s purpose was not to preserve its boats. The boats were simply how they were moving through one part of the landscape.

When the landscape changed, the method had to change too.

The mission remained.

I think this is where many organisations become unstuck. We talk about mission, strategy, systems and people as though they are the same thing. They’re connected, but they play very different roles.

Mission is your true north.

Strategy is the route you currently believe will take you there.

Systems are the equipment supporting the journey.

And people are the ones who must make sense of the landscape and move through it together.

The mission should hold steady.

Almost everything else should be open to learning.

That doesn’t mean changing direction every time something becomes difficult. There will always be resistance, uncertainty and moments when progress feels painfully slow.

But it does mean being honest enough to ask whether the challenge requires more persistence—or a different approach.

Because there’s a difference between staying committed to the destination and becoming emotionally attached to one route.

Is your mission actually helping?

Most organisations have a mission statement.

Some are even framed nicely.

But the real test isn’t whether people can recite it. The real test is whether it helps them make decisions when things become messy.

Does the mission help you decide what matters most when priorities compete?

Does it give you permission to stop work that no longer contributes?

Does it help people understand why change is necessary?

Does it create enough clarity for someone to make a good decision when the leader isn’t in the room?

If it doesn’t, it may be describing the organisation without actually directing it.

A meaningful mission should do more than tell people where the organisation wants to go. It should help them recognise which choices move them closer—and which ones quietly pull them away.

Sometimes the people closest to the work can see the mountains first

One of the risks of leadership is that the further we move from the day-to-day work, the easier it becomes to believe the map still matches the territory.

From a distance, the strategy can look perfectly sensible.

Closer to the work, people may already be carrying the canoe.

They’re navigating workarounds, compensating for broken processes and having conversations that never appear in a report. They can often see that the landscape has changed well before the organisation is willing to acknowledge it.

This is why leadership can’t only be about setting direction from the top.

We need to be able to move between perspectives.

To step back and see the whole system.

Then move closer and understand how that system is actually being experienced by the people inside it.

Strategy without that understanding produces a beautiful map of a place that no longer exists.

Leadership doesn’t mean pretending to know

We often expect leaders to have answers.

That works reasonably well when the territory is familiar. Experience helps us recognise patterns and choose from approaches that have worked before.

But unfamiliar territory asks something different of us.

It asks us to admit when we don’t know.

Not in a helpless, “Someone else needs to figure this out” kind of way. But with the confidence to say:

“We know why we’re here. We know what matters. We don’t yet know exactly how we’ll get through this—but we’re going to learn.”

That is not weak leadership.

It takes far more courage than pretending the old map is still accurate.

In uncertain conditions, a leader’s job is not to manufacture certainty. It is to keep people connected to the mission while creating the conditions for them to learn their way forward.

That means listening differently. Testing assumptions. Drawing on capability that may have been overlooked. Trying small things before betting everything on a grand solution.

It also means accepting that some of our own expertise may be less useful than it once was.

I don’t particularly enjoy that part either.

What are you carrying?

So, what is your organisation carrying towards the mountains?

What worked brilliantly in the past but might now be limiting what becomes possible?

Where are people being asked to paddle harder when the real problem is that the river has ended?

And perhaps most importantly: if you had to put down the canoe, would everyone still know where you were going?

We don’t need to throw away everything that brought us here. The past has value. Experience matters. Good systems matter.

But none of them should become more important than the purpose they were designed to serve.

The route may change.

The tools will change.

The organisation—and the leader—will probably need to change too.

That’s part of the journey.

The important thing is knowing your true north.