It’s easy to forget why you are somewhere when you have been there for so long. What brought you to this job in the first place? Why are you working with a particular customer? What you’re going to bring to the table? What do you hope to achieve? What you want to achieve? That’s why it’s important to take that moment, not with your team, not on the phone – probably not at your desk…
Maybe you’re the defacto expert who gets called on to fix things. You probably didn’t start out wanting to be that person – it just happened. Now you’re the “Expert”—but you don’t want to be, and you’re the expert only in what you need to know to overcome the problem you’re facing. The only way to stop being the “Expert” is to bring others into the fold, involve others, write documentation, push out information, and…
In every role, in every team, there are gaps – work that needs to be done, that we all know needs to be done, but no one has the cycles to do it. These are the gaps. Good leaders identify the gaps, Great leaders fill them – they take on the task and they get it done. That’s how you go from Good to Great.
The Big Event is what you are getting ready for. The release of your software. The presentation you’ve spent the last month working on. The proposal you’ve spent the last week on. The purchase you’ve been saving for. The Big Event is whatever it is that you’ve been wanting to accomplish, working on it bit by bit each day. The Big Event is here – hope you’re ready.
Don’t worry about the closing. Worry about the challenging. If you’re always there, you’re always working, you’re always pushing, you’re never giving, you’re keeping going (like this sentence) – then you are doing the right thing. Always be Challenging.