Light, balance, and tools
In the Spirit of Halloween, let’s discuss a leadership lesson presented by surgery on the eyeball – in an example of how life imitates art!
I had a vitrectomy a few years ago due to something called a macular hole in my right eye. It was a scary time and my vision was at risk. But as I researched how the surgery is done, what I found was an interesting formula that can be used to solve difficult problems.
A vitrectomy is the removal of the bag of jelly that is within your eye and serves to give your eyeball its shape. Without the vitreous, the eyeball would “deflate”.
I had a macular hole – a tear in the macular section of the retina that is responsible for fine, straight ahead vision (if you are looking directly at something, you are using your macula). The way a tear usually occurs is that the covering of this bag of jelly tugs on the retina and causes a tear. In a vitrectomy, that bag is gently removed so that the tugging stops, and so that the surgeon can insert the air bubble splint for the hole to repair. It is very delicate surgery and is done through a microscope.
Light, balance and tools can be used to describe how a vitrectomy is actually performed. During the surgery, the surgeon inserts 3 trochars – hollow tubes – directly into the eyeball. One of the tubes is used to bring light into the eye so that the surgeon can see what he is doing. The second tube keeps balance within the eye. It is through this tube that the vitreous is removed, the eye is kept inflated with a saline solution, and the gas bubble is introduced. The third tube is used to introduce tiny tools into the eye. The surgeon uses these tools to gently peel the vitreous bag away from the retina and perform other needed repair work within the eye.
The metaphor that this surgery presents is simple yet powerful:
- The Light Source – You need to be able to see and interpret what you are doing. You need clarity. You need to understand the problem so that you know how to approach its solution. Before surgery, the surgeon’s understanding of my macular hole came from a variety of diagnostic tests. These were all very important tools in diagnosis and in surgical planning. However, it was only after the surgeon took a direct look that he could put the whole picture together.
- Balance – The surgeon needed to keep the eyeball inflated in order to do his work. During the surgery, the surgeon removes the vitreous jelly, inflates the eyeball with a saline solution as the jelly is removed, and finally exchanges the saline solution with a gas bubble. The eyeball itself needs to be inflated to function correctly, otherwise, vision would be distorted and clear focus would not be possible. On the other hand, too much pressure inside the eye (sort of like over-inflation) is what happens in glaucoma, a condition that is the second leading cause of blindness in the world. Well-functioning systems are highly dependent on maintaining balance.
- Tools – You need the right equipment to actually do the work. For the surgeon, these were tiny instruments that were threaded through a hollow tube into the eye and maneuvered using a microscope. Tools take many shapes and sizes. They can be knowledge and experience, or actual instruments. Think of the information we gather to make decisions and execute change. Without the right tools, decision-making, planning, and expertise, success is at risk.
The next time you are facing a difficult business situation, try organizing you thoughts on these three things:
- Do you have clarity on what is happening?
- Are you able to balance all of the inter-related parts as you make adjustments?
- Do you have the right information/tools/people in place to do the job?