[Note from Mitch: This post is the first of a multi-part series about personal energy. The first several posts dissect the process of creating energy and driving your organization into action. Future installments of this series will examine characteristics leaders can use to generate positive change in an organization and techniques for sustaining long-term high-energy throughout your career.]
There is a large river in the state of Iowa where I grew up. Many years ago, I was invited to go boating on that river with my university friends. The part of the river that they chose was perfect for boating; it was calm and wide, and flowed strongly downstream.
The interesting thing about boating on a river (instead of a lake, ocean or other large body of water) is that you have two real options and one non-decision option. You can choose to start the boat's motor and drive upstream against the current. Or, you can turn the boat around and drive downstream with the current. If you choose to do nothing (by turning the boat's motor off or leaving it in idle), then you are effectively choosing to go downstream, at the same speed as everything else that's floating in the river.
Professional life (and personal life, for that matter) is very similar to that large river in Iowa. As a leader, you have the same three choices as that boat my friends and I used to ride in many years ago.
- Engage "your motor" and push forward, going faster than those around you
- Engage "your motor" and push upstream, against the current of what everyone else is doing
- Conserve energy, turn off "your motor", float along with everyone else, and let life take you where it will take you.
It is likely no surprise that as a leader, I recommend you spend most of your time pushing forward, moving faster than those around you. In today's work environment, there are so many factors that enable us to disengage and let the current of the organization and the operation carry us along.
- flexible work hours
- distributed project teams
- technology that allows us to be always working and never really working at the same time
- constant inflow of trivial busywork that hide the important things we should be focusing on
Losing perspective and getting caught up in the day-to-day flow of our work routines is so easy to do.
It takes courage and sacrifice to keep pushing forward in the direction of change and improvement, especially if we think no one notices or we assume there is nothing personally to gain from such sacrifice. People that relentlessly push forward, despite challenging circumstances are what I and many others call drivers.
What does it mean to be a "driver"?
Referring to somone as a driver or stating that we need someone to drive this product or that feature is extremely common in the workplace. In my day-to-date professional life, I likely use the word drive or driver at least once per day.
Similar to many commonly used words, I have never seen a standard definition that fits the workplace usage. The closest I see is definition 3 from Oxford Dictionaries:
A factor which causes a particular phenomenon to happen or develop
A driver in the workplace is definitely a factor, and without him or her, many phenomenom wouldn't take place. However, being a driver is much more than that.
In my experience, a driver is someone who:
- motivates themselves to make things happen
- owns the outcome of a task or assignment
- cares about the task or assignment more than others
People that are naturally consistent drivers in life and the workplace are a rare occurrence. I will go out on a limb and say something that is not politically correct, but something that is instinctively understood by most: not all employees have the right talents for all circumstances. Consequently, one driver is worth at least five regular employees. Depending on the situation, that ratio could be closer to 1:10 or even more. Do you want to be perceived to be worth five or ten of your normal colleagues? I do.
“Do you always take responsibility for the quality and the outcome produced from your work?”
So, are you a driver? We all think we are, but are you really? 100% of the time?
Luckily for us, enchancing our driving ability is possible; like most things in life, it is a skill that we can teach ourselves. To honor my promise of keeping posts less than 1000 words, I will discuss several techniques we can use immediately in the next post of this energy series.
Before I talk about the techniques I use, what tips do you have for others about increasing and maintaining your ability to drive progress in your organizations? Post them to the comments section for others to benefit from.
Take care, and I'll talk to you next time.
Image credit: Domenico Mattei used under CC0 Public Domain