Work Differently 

I love David Allen’s quote, “The better you get, the better you’d better get.” 

A twist on this is…as you achieve more success, you must change the way you work. 

Success increases demands. Demands on time, energy, resources, and commitments. We can’t continue to try to do it all, managing it in the same way that got us to the first finish line. 

Instead, we must adapt. Where can we delegate? Who can we hire? How can we expand the pool of time and effort available to manage or continue to increase the success? Where do we and/or our team need more training, investment, growth, and development? Where can we automate? 

But perhaps the most important question we must ask is “What can we eliminate?” 

The lie of success is that we just keep turning the flywheel of what led to success. The truth is that we must refine that flywheel constantly. In doing so, we eliminate attractive, impactful distractions; good opportunities that we simply can’t do if we want to manage what we have well. We must invest in new systems, in new ways of working. We must redefine outcomes and parameters, adjusting growth expectations to be incremental rather than exponential. And we must stay humble, expressing sincere gratitude for what we’ve achieved and optimism for what we still can. 

Marshall Goldsmith has a whole book entitled “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There”. This is the serious work that comes with success. 

The better you get, the better you’d better get means constantly auditing the way we work and adjusting to our new reality, even when it’s difficult and uncomfortable. 

 

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