Consider this scenario… which I’m sure all drivers have run into from time to time.
There is construction on the road ahead, and they have shut down the left hand lane that you are driving in.
Do you:
A) merge over into the right hand lane right away (as most folks do) OR
B) drive as far as you can in the left hand lane and merge over just before the construction sign and pylons indicate the lane is ending
I’m a B person myself… I remember driving with my mom in Calgary a few years ago in rush hour traffic. There was a long line of traffic merging onto a main road, most of which was in the left hand lane while the right hand lane was wide open. So I zipped along the right hand lane until just before it ended and merged into the line of traffic on the left, effectively jumping ahead of all the people who were ‘theoretically’ ahead of me. My mom thought I was being rude and “budding ahead of all those people” – I thought I was being smart! The lane was wide open, I wasn’t breaking any rules and it got me further ahead… so why the heck not?
Quite honestly this is a pet peeve of mine – most people tend to merge out of an ending lane ‘right away’, creating a great big long line that is usually pretty slow. I’m not a traffic flow expert by any means, but wouldn’t we all move faster if we were fully utilizing both lanes to their fullest – and merging out of the ending lane right before it ends? (Yes, it is things like this that annoy me, LOL)
I remember back in my recruiting days there was a *theory* that “if you want to hire a new recruiter have them take you for a drive – you can learn alot about a person by seeing how they drive”. I think specifically in this case they were looking for how aggressive a driver the person was – not to the point of being dangerous of course, but are they will to “jump ahead” of the line and merge at the last moment? Or did they go with the status quo and merge over right away with the majority. Any good recruiter needs to be aggressive, and their driving style can be a reflection of this.
Now I don’t know specifically how this translates to our lives at large, but it does remind me of the adage “how you do anything is how you do everything”. What kind of driver are you? How is your driving style a reflection of your life and business? Or does it really matter?
And I’m betting there are some official assessments out there around this topic, if you know of any I would love to check them out just for fun. 🙂