Insights
And what I'd tell you if you were sitting next to me.
The coffee machine conversation was the real review. The document was the polite translation. The gap between the two is where most careers quietly stall.
My youngest two have a contract. They wrote it. They negotiated the terms. They signed off. Today one of them slammed the door. This is the part of discipline as love that nobody puts on the mug.
You are not protecting the plan. You are protecting the version of yourself that still gets to be the person who could have done it. That version disappears the minute you decide.
The meeting is scheduled for thirty minutes. It will run forty-seven. This is not a productivity problem. It is a clarity problem dressed as a productivity problem.
There is a version of stuck that is real. And there is a version that is a story we keep telling ourselves because the story is easier than the move. This post is for the second one.
Being good at your job is not the same as being seen as a leader. Competence gets you in the room. This is about what actually gets you the next role.
I have watched a half-dozen leaders this year get the seat they spent years angling for and fall silent in it. The seat is just a seat.
There is a kind of leader who has been preparing to make their move for two years. They will tell you they are still optimizing.
There is a person in every meeting who thinks talking the most means they're running it. The room knows better. Volume is noise. Influence is trust.
I bought Victor a circular saw. Within twenty minutes, he had cut something. I don't know what, or for what. I didn't ask. He just picked it up.
Early in my career, a manager told me I needed to speak up more. I tried, for years. The advice was not wrong. The frame was.
If something in here named your situation, start with The Groundwork.
