Your Greatness…

I was working with a strong leadership team recently. They communicate well, are super smart, and are aligned around what matters.

However, when discussing their challenges, they kept responding like this.

“We can’t do X because of Y.”

“We can’t do Y because of Z.”

They didn’t strike me as excuse-makers, but they were more trying to illuminate for me the very real obstacles they were facing.

I listened and then told them, “Your greatness cannot depend on the circumstances being perfect. They never will be, and therefore, you never will be.”

It can be tempting to chalk up misses to outside forces that are out of our control. And sometimes, we think things are out of our control when really, we just need to think about them differently and solve for them.

Recently, I attended a talk by a business leader who insists that whenever her team is experiencing a challenge, that they present the challenge to her with at least three possible solutions. Of course, not all of these will be gold or actionable, but still, she’s conditioning them to problem-solve. Always.

Things will never be perfect. Something challenging will always be happening. Solve for the things that are solvable. And work to be great regardless of what’s happening. Because if you’re waiting for everything to “settle down” so you can be great then, you’ll be waiting a while.