Monday, January 30, 2006

standing on the shoulders of giants...the NY Giants that got blown out in the playoffs...


It's odd to me when people say, "let's talk off line about that".

I sat down and talked with a guy last week that's kind of a big deal....written a bunch of books...that kind of thing. He said that I had the gift of "turnaround". This was based on almost no conversation or his having any real idea of what I'm about. His thinking was that I could go into a situation and help to turn things around. I hadn't said anything about anything at this point...just, "how are you doing?" something like that...and he told me he "saw the words turn around over my head" I wondered if he saw something scary behind me...
Anyhow, he felt like that was my gift.
That gift sucks.

I used to say that the hardest thing we do is start a new work. There's no objective standard, nothing to point to, no momentum. It's just incredibly difficult. I used to say that...until I had to help turn around a situation.

If you do that...the objective standards are often wrong. The momentum is going in the wrong direction....and the things you can point to are all bad. The problem is that's how people have been living...that's been the way that they were taught. They might have even seen some pretty good stuff come out of it.

The problem here is that GOOD is often the enemy of the BEST.
"but we've always done it that way" "that worked when we did it that way"
It's hard to convince people that there's a better way.
You sound arrogant, judgmental, jerky...

It's no fun.

I don't want to be the turn around guy. I want to be the "on board" guy.
That Sean, he's always on board with everything. He's the "go along" guy...

I've become a volunteer for something that I'm really excited about. I have (or had) incredible hope for this deal. And it's just not great. It's close. It has great possibilities. But it's just not there yet.
and it's not going to change.
I'm not in charge of it - and really have no hope of helping it to be a little bit better...and that kills me.

It makes me want to reinvent the wheel. I want to take the basic concepts of this thing and turn it around. I want to rename it something...so no one will have goofy ideas of what it should look like...and do it right. I want to start it over.
I really really do.

And I can't.

that just sucks. I find solace in the fact that I'd probably just screw it up anyway...

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous7:42 AM

    I think that the "turn around" gift is much better than the "on board" (yes man) gift. I find it interesting that our human nature tells us that we could do things better. I believe in improvement and the only thing that is constent in life is change, but I often wonder how many people we come in contact with us and say that .... is a great guy, but or if only. I think this is a dangerous place to be.

    The great thing about God is HE will use what we have even in spite of the "if only".

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