Getting Lost Is Part of the Journey

Getting Lost: How having the right resources isn’t the same as having the right direction

Kate Kudrenko shares a humorous story from CKH Group’s recent leadership retreat in the North Georgia mountains. What began as a wrong turn quickly became a lesson in leadership, strategy, and the importance of direction. Through the experience, Kate reflects on why having talented people, great tools, and abundant resources isn’t enough if everyone isn’t aligned on where they’re going and how they’ll get there.

“Last month, our leadership team headed north for a corporate retreat in the beautiful mountains of North Georgia at Amicalola Falls State Park. Our goal was to step away from the day-to-day demands of work to spend time together, strategize, and discuss where we wanted CKH Group to go next.

It was a bright Thursday morning in Atlanta, and excitement was high. We piled into our vehicles, coffee in hand, looking forward to a few days of collaboration, strategic thinking, and team building.

As we approached our destination, Google Maps confidently announced:

“You are two minutes away from your destination.”

Perfect! (Or so we thought).

What happened next should have been theoretically impossible… We got lost.

Despite our best efforts, we somehow managed to get completely turned around. We took wrong turns. We doubled back. We drove in circles. At one point, we questioned whether the navigation system was malfunctioning or if reality itself had shifted.

What should have been a simple two-minute drive took us nearly thirty minutes.

The funny part is that we had all the resources we could possibly need. We had GPS and other technology. We had a team of intelligent people. We had multiple educated opinions. We even had access to local guidance from the visitor center.

Yet despite all of that, we still lacked direction.

As we laughed about our inability to locate a destination that was practically within sight, the experience became an unexpected metaphor for leadership, business, and even life itself.

Many organizations spend significant time acquiring tools, systems, and expertise. They invest in technology. They hire talented people. They seek outside advisors and consultants. All of those things are valuable and important.

But having resources is not the same as having direction.

The problem wasn’t a lack of information – we had information everywhere. The challenge was interpreting it, aligning around it, and deciding what to do next. The more we talked about it, the more it reflected the reality organizations face today.

We operate in a world where change happens faster than ever before. New technologies emerge. Customer expectations evolve. Markets shift. Regulations change. Information is abundant, but clarity is often scarce.

In many ways, the challenge isn’t finding a map. The challenge is navigating when the map itself keeps changing.

That realization became one of the central themes of our retreat.

Throughout our discussions, we kept returning to three simple questions:

• What do we actually have?
• Where are we trying to go?
• How do we get there?

These questions sound straightforward, but they are often the most important questions leaders can ask.

It’s easy to become focused on daily operations and immediate challenges. We get busy solving today’s problems and responding to today’s opportunities. Sometimes we become so occupied with movement that we forget to evaluate whether we’re moving in the right direction, or what the direction even is.

A leadership retreat like this creates space to pause and think more intentionally, though we weren’t expecting such a powerful metaphor before we’d even arrived.

One of the major themes that emerged from those conversations was reinvention. Not exactly a relaxing topic to discuss while surrounded by mountain views and waterfalls. But perhaps that’s precisely why it mattered.

We started with a simple observation: we operate in a “VUCA” world—one defined by Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. The challenge isn’t that change occasionally happens. The challenge is that by the time you’ve adjusted to one change, several more have already arrived.

A generation ago, many organizations could rely on the same business model, products, and processes for decades. Today, companies must continuously adapt, rethink assumptions, reinvent services, and challenge existing ways of operating simply to remain competitive.

The strongest organizations aren’t necessarily the ones with the most resources. They’re the ones that can adapt most effectively when circumstances change.

During our discussions, we identified three capabilities that matter most.

The first is anticipating change; seeing around corners and recognizing opportunities and risks before they become obvious.

The second is designing change; creating a deliberate path forward instead of simply reacting to circumstances.

The third is implementing change; because even the best strategy has little value if it never moves beyond a PowerPoint presentation.

One of the most important conclusions from those conversations was that for organizations that want to grow, reinvention is an ongoing capability, rather than a one-time project or reaction

The strongest companies don’t wait until the market forces them to change. They challenge their own assumptions and successes before someone else does it for them. Once we accepted that reality, the conversation naturally evolved from direction to adaptability.

If the world is constantly changing, how do you build an organization that can change with it?

That question became the focus of the next phase of our retreat.

Rather than concentrating solely on current challenges, we shifted our attention to what might be possible in the future. We explored where CKH Group could be three years from now, what opportunities we should pursue, what capabilities we should develop, and how we could continue creating value for our clients and communities.

By the end of the session, we had agreed on three new strategic initiatives, identified owners for each one, and developed both three-year visions and ninety-day action plans.

Will those plans look exactly the same ninety days from now? Probably not.

Priorities shift. New information emerges. Reality has a way of editing even the best PowerPoint slides. But that’s exactly the point we’ve come to understand- the goal is to know where you’re headed well enough to adjust the route when conditions change, not to create the ‘perfect’ map.

Looking back, it’s funny that our retreat began with thirty minutes of driving in circles from what should have been a ‘perfect map. Along the way, we also learned a few practical lessons from our ‘strategic navigation exercise’.

The first lesson was simple: stay calm.

Panic rarely improves navigation. Whether you’re lost on a mountain road or facing uncertainty in business, stress tends to narrow perspective rather than expand it. Clear thinking almost always produces better results than rushed reactions.

The second lesson: don’t drive down the same wrong road twice hoping for a different outcome (yes, we did that too).

Sometimes organizations do the same thing. We continue pursuing strategies, processes, or habits that aren’t producing the desired results because they feel familiar. It can be uncomfortable to stop, reassess, and choose a different path. Yet growth often requires exactly that.

The third lesson is equally important: learn to laugh about it.

Some of the strongest team moments don’t happen when everything goes perfectly. They happen when things go wrong and people work through challenges together. Shared setbacks often create stronger bonds than shared successes.

Years from now, I doubt anyone will remember the exact agenda items from that first morning. But everyone will remember getting lost and the laughter and conversations that followed.

In hindsight, our thirty-minute quest to travel two miles was all part of the experience. It reminded us that even with all the tools and expertise available, success ultimately depends on clarity, communication, adaptability and alignment.

We eventually found our way to the retreat.

But more importantly, we left with a clearer understanding of where we’re going next. And in a world defined by constant change, that’s far more valuable than never getting lost in the first place.” -Kateryna Kudrenko

The above article only intends to provide general information and reflection. It is not designed to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. It does not give personalized tax, financial, or other business and professional advice. Before taking any form of action, you should consult a financial professional who understands your particular situation. CKH Group will not be held liable for any harm/errors/claims arising from the blog. Whilst every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the contents, we will not be held accountable for any changes that are beyond our control.