When the Track Disappears: What Executive Teams Are Teaching Me About Innovation
On the track
In a sun-baked clearing in Africa, when a tracker loses the spoor—the faint signs of an animal’s path—they don’t panic. They pause. They breathe. They listen. Losing the track isn’t failure; it’s an inflection point—a signal that the real work is about to begin.
Over the past few months, as I’ve delivered the Tracking Success program to senior executive teams, I’ve been struck by how deeply leaders resonate with this idea. That moment when momentum falters—when direction blurs and certainty vanishes—feels immediately familiar to them. Rather than seeing it as a setback, they recognize it for what it is: a new kind of leadership moment. They lean in. They reflect. And, most powerfully, they begin to adopt the language of the tracker—shifting from judgment to curiosity, from performance to presence.
This is the heart of Tracking Success: drawing from the lived wisdom of African wilderness trackers, individuals who read the land not just with their eyes but with their full attention and presence. Trackers know that losing the track isn’t an accident or a failure; it’s a natural, essential part of the search. It’s the threshold where real discovery begins.
What’s fascinating is how this shift in mindset unlocks something profound in leadership teams. The conversation softens and deepens. It becomes less about salvaging performance and more about sensing new possibilities. Leaders move from a state of reactivity to a state of curiosity—and in that shift, innovation flourishes.
Because while business culture often gives lip service to "failing fast," the truth is that failure still carries a heavy emotional penalty inside most organizations. The metaphor of "losing the track" offers a different frame. It suggests neither shame nor blame—simply a shift in conditions. It invites leaders to pause, recalibrate, and look more closely.
When teams begin to adopt this way of thinking, new questions emerge:
When were you last truly on the track? What was working?
How do you find your way back when the markers disappear?
How do you know you're off-track versus simply not seeing the signs clearly yet?
These questions aren't abstract. They are invitations to build real-time intuition, resilience, and collective intelligence. They move the team out of defensive posturing and into a shared exploration of what’s possible.
And once this shift happens, the room changes. Conversations become more honest. Presence deepens. The energy shifts from performing certainty to embracing the creative tension of the unknown.
Finding your last good track
So why does "Losing the Track" resonate so powerfully now?
Maybe it's because we’re all living through relentless change, and the old maps are failing us. Maybe it's because the cost of punishing ambiguity has finally become too high. Or maybe it's because, deep down, we’ve always known that true leadership isn’t about having all the answers—it’s about staying present, attentive, and alive when certainty disappears.
In tracking—and in leadership—the moment the track disappears isn't the end. It's the beginning of a deeper, more vital search.
Where in your leadership have you lost the track?
And what might be possible if you treated that not as failure—but as an invitation?
If this resonates—if you and your leadership team are navigating ambiguity and looking for a new lens through which to lead—let's talk. I'd love to explore what Tracking Success could open up for you.
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