Every good story has obstacles to overcome. It’s predictable. So let me think through what the obstacles are to the story that I’m working on. If I can anticipate them, I can identify what to do about them ahead of time – a little proactivity goes a long way.
Right now, I have two major obstacles staring me in the face:
1. My own health and mood
2. The thought of getting buy-in from everyone on the planet to what I am proposing
Let’s start with my health and mood. I’m having some problems with my hip – it’s driving me mad, as I can’t walk my dogs, I can’t do much gardening and I can’t take endorphin-producing exercise. That in turn is affecting my mood. An injection last week that was meant to fix it has just made it worse. I’m in pain and I’m fed up. I feel like a victim to this….and hopefully by now you will have realised that that’s just not me – I don’t normally roll over and give up, do I?
What has this got to do with work? Why I am blurting this out to you guys? It’s not for the sympathy. It is a little therapeutic, I admit, but that’s not it either. But I want to show that stuff goes on in our lives that affects our work. We’re all human. This is affecting how long I can sit at my desk; and it’s affecting my motivation levels. And I’ve got to stop being that victim and work out what to do about it so that I can get my focus back onto the story I want to tell. I’m going to take this to my coach and also my boss to help me to think it through and come up with next steps.
Ok, now onto the buy-in element. The thought of that is pretty draining in itself. In many ways, I know it’s the right business thing to do, so that this isn’t just Clare going off on a whim and working without the business’ input, but I feel like I just want to get something done, and all those reams of conversations and influencing sound so painful. There, I’ve said it. So it’s an obstacle, and it’s one that is draining me of energy just thinking about it – let alone doing it.
Hmm, what to do about that then. Do I ask for permission or do I ask for forgiveness? Does that expression translate? Maybe I just get on and do something and then ask forgiveness after the fact – hoping that no forgiveness will actually be needed as we’ll have cracked that nut and the story will be so brilliant.
There’s something for me here about being in an innovation team. I feel like I need to be a little more anarchic than usual. Buck the trend. Do something radical. Bob sent me the perfect song the other day that sums it up – Pink’s So What (not my normal style of music, but the words are great):
So, so what
I’m still a Rock Star
I got my Rock moves
And guess what
I’m having more fun
