*This content is brought to you by Tracking Success
By Alex van den Heever & Grant Ashfield*
Using an ancient African practice as a modern-day guide to life and business.
In the last essay you learnt about the first activity of ‘following the track’ in the Tracking Success Pathway. We now look at how trackers approach the concept of a return on energy.
Activity three – Close the Gap
A tracker is seldom able to outpace or outwalk the animal they are following. To have an encounter they must be able to leapfrog ahead and to close the gap between them and the animal.
This requires the tracker to be creative. To embrace holistic thinking and to form ideas about the animals whereabouts not immediately present to the senses.
The mindset here is one of active imagination.
This allows them to seek connections, embrace holistic thinking and to connect the dots.
They do this by merging 3 things … the track detail, the physical landscape, and the animal’s inferred behaviour.
Doing so enables them to form a mental picture of the activity around them – into a highly adaptive working hypothesis.
We call it situational analysis in motion.
For example, after 5 hours of trailing a black rhino the tracker notices a slowing of the gait. They combine this with the warming sun, and they observe deep shade in the woodland ahead.
A hypothesis is formed. They anticipate the animal is resting. And they walk directly to the woodland and prepare for an encounter.
Closing the gap does involve a higher degree of risk taking. Risk for example, of losing the track or bumping unexpectedly into the animal. This is calculated though. To counter risk the tracker also brings to the task a healthy dose of critical thinking and alertness.
The trap in this phase is hubris or excessive self-confidence.
The over-estimation of one’s ability, combined with a lack of personal awareness, dulls the senses and often leads to poor decision-making.
Reading books, listening to music, storytelling, practicing meditation all stimulate the imagination. So too does traveling to new places, experiencing different cultures and encountering different people.
These essential practices grow our awareness of the world and our place in it.
This phase provides a high return on energy if executed well.
It is in essence an artistic exploit.
A heady combination of diligence and creativity, activated by imagination.
See www.trackingsuccess.tv to learn how you and your team can adopt the mindset of a tracker.
Image credits: Close the Gap – James Tyrrell*
