What Keeps Me Up at Night. . .

This past week, a group of co-workers and I were asked this question:   "What keeps you up at night?"  It is a fairly standard "work" question - meant to elicit responses of worry:  what to do about sagging sales or how to cut a budget or the difficult discussion that must be had with a team member.   And while, yes, I do worry (and can worry better or more than most, I assure you) after a few moments of soul searching my honest answer of what keeps me up at night was this . . .

The possibilities.

I spend a lot of time thinking about our resources and how we can make the best use of our resources.  What if we took this part of our supply chain and diverted it to another sales channel?    What if we re-allocated this amount of floor space to another endeavor?     What if we changed our attitude regarding a type of material and found use for it?  How can we make the best use of what we have?

What about our team members?    What happens if we take the individual who is naturally excelling and promoted that individual?  What if we take that individual who is struggling and tried to find a better fit?   What happens if we put two individuals together on a team - is the sum greater than its parts?

What about our customers?     How would they respond if we changed hours?    If we changed our service model?   If we marketed this way or merchandised that way?

And then there's those assumptions about the business and the team.   We all tend to look at situations from our cultural preconceptions;  but what if those preconceptions aren't correct and there is a better focus?

What about my personal resources?   Am I using enough courage?   Should empathy take the place of judgment?  Would it be a better use of my time to spend a few minutes with a team member vs. doing another spreadsheet?

The possibilities.    These are the great range of resources we have available to us (when sometimes we think we may have none).   This is the excitement of what we can do vs. the dead end of what we can't.

This is what keeps me up at night.

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My book "Courageous Questions, Confident Leaders"  is available on Amazon Kindle.