It's been a while... almost a year!

Not even sure why I'm back here but never the less I am.  Another year has passed and I'm looking forward to things slowing down for the holidays.

I started a new job in late 2012 so 2013 was really the first full year.  It is a totally different job as before but as it turns out uses the same skills.   There is always the technical context which is the easy part.  But the other two components of the equation are always personalities and decisions.   

Everyone is different.  We all have strengths and weaknesses.  Many people have no idea what they are strong or weak at.   Maybe that is a self protection mechanism we have, I'm not sure.  But if you can recognize what peoples strengths and weaknesses are you can utilize them to their maximum potential to get the task done.   You also have to know how to pair people up so their strengths and weakness don't clash.   For whatever reason I am good at doing this with people.  I also know what I'm strong and weak at and lean on people for my weaknesses (remember, we ALL have those!).

The other key piece is decision making.  Anything that has to get done always has many road blocks.  Tasks are complicated and not everything can be anticipated.  Most people get lost on these road blocks.   They can't put many pieces together to know what direction to take after hitting an issue.  So this is the other thing I am strong at.  I can see the next steps, I can weigh the trade offs, I can set the new direction to keep things moving.  It isn't relevant that it was the correct decision most of the time anyway.  Once you get things unstuck people kick back in to moving forward and often self correct anything that wasn't quite correct in the new direction.   But the trick is you have to do this quickly with a reasonable input of information and others have to believe it is the correct direction.


So after a year on the job now everyone calls me.   They are stuck or in a crisis.  Call the wrong person and its a major ordeal to go through the entire situation and still end up stuck.  They have found out if they call me things start moving and all are at ease as they focus on their strengths. 

While I'm no one's boss the larger team is defaulting to me.   While I'm happy to do it there is a price.  I'm getting stretched in many directions and asked to be in a lot of different places!  It will be interesting to see how things unfold in 2014.    It will be either time to retract and let those who are the ordained leaders take care of business or move back into management.  Or who knows what other opportunities are out there.