Most problems arise between decision and execution. It’s when you start to reconsider based only on fear, redundant or irrelevant information, and shiny new opportunities.
To mitigate this, try three things.
See the opportunities to connect the dots.
A colleague might be working on a project that is related to the work a person in a different department is doing.
Your campaign’s results might be an important learning for those who come after you.
The feature that is ready to be released might be a fantastic opportunity to create new content about your key differentiator.
The outcome of a workshop organised by the management team might be relevant to share with your external partners, so they can also see what your company is about.
The point is that most of the things that are achieved in a business do not end there. They open up new opportunities, they are linked to other initiatives, they can be repurposed in various circumstances. That’s why auditing what is happening at any given time is much more important than pursuing something new.
If you’re a marketer and can only talk to marketers, you are not going to get far.
If you’re a salesman and can only talk to sales folks, you are not going to get far.
If you’re a developer and can only talk to developers, you will still have job security, but you are not going to get far.
If you’re a strategist and can only talk to business people, you are not going to get far.
Build networks instead, inside and outside of your turf. Learn to speak different languages and to talk to different people. Be a mediator and an initiator.
That’s when you are going to get far.
The difficult part is not taking a decision. The difficult part is to follow through with the decision.
That’s why we end up in meetings to discuss the same things over and over again, to reassess, to reconsider, to go around the table. That’s why we feel stuck, incapable of progress, lacking development and purpose. And that’s why we feel frustrated, we frustrate others, and we eventually drift away in the wrong direction.
Ask a historian, “What was mankind’s greatest invention?” Fire? The wheel? The sword? I would argue it’s history itself. History isn’t fact. It’s narrative, one carefully curated and shaped. Under the pen strokes of the right scribe, a villain becomes a hero. A lie becomes the truth.
Foundation, season 1 episode 9
You probably have no interest in writing or controlling history, but you should be invested in managing your own narrative. Who you are, what you stand for, what version of you is in your future, what goals will take you there, what people will you have closeby, what decisions you are making every day.
It’s easy to delegate all of this to others.
Be the right scribe to your very own history.
You've got this 