Musings at Altitude

When things slow down just a bit, I spend as much time as possible in introspection, thinking back on my actions and my attitudes.  Quite honestly, I don’t always like what I see in looking back.  Oftentimes in the heat of the business battle I get into what one good friend and colleague calls a “whiney and pissy” mood.  At those times, my good friends confront me with it in their own unique ways and hold me accountable for my not so helpful attitude.  That sometimes works, but sometimes doesn’t.  It really depends on how whiney and pissy I am and what caused both or either.  I typically though find something that revives my optimism within days of the bad attitude…sometimes within hours…every now and then though the attitude may last for a week or two…at those times, it’s typically because of a feeling of isolation and disconnection from others that should be in the business war with us and fighting the battle on a daily basis.  There’s nothing like feeling cut off on the business battlefield.

As I think back over my business life, I can clearly remember the times of isolation and distress.  There have been times where I’ve been sent in to explain to a client why something didn’t work or why we were so horribly behind schedule.  There have been other times where I’ve been sent in to replace fired managers or to recover from dramatically poor implementations.  In so many of these cases, my peers and chief executive would launch me in and hold back from any communications (knowingly or unknowingly), maybe to prevent any of the stink of the situation from getting on them or maybe out of some form of blind trust that somehow, some way that things would work out right.  Regardless of the rationale or the response, it was an incredibly lonely experience out in the heat of the battle.

As I think back over some recent times, I have been in a whiney and pissy mood, often caused by the actions or perceptions of actions or lack of actions of others, but whiney and pissy none the less.  From introspection, I can sense and see the debilitating effect that my attitude had on others around me, causing them to divert their attention from the critical mission at hand and focus for even just a moment on me.  That’s an unintended consequence of those moods – distracting others from a required focus when their attention really needs to be on the critical issues at hand. 

About a year ago in one of my whiney and pissy moods, I told a good friend that I was going to post JDYJ all over our office – JUST DO YOUR JOB – to remind people that they need to focus on what we were paying them for rather than focus on everyone else’s job.  I think in introspection that I needed a healthy dose of JDYJ myself in the recent past.  Maybe if I had focused intently on my own job and quit worrying about others and their jobs then maybe just maybe I wouldn’t have gotten into that mood that I got into and maybe just maybe I could have added enormous optimism to an otherwise incredibly challenging business environment.  JDYJ.  It applies to all of us.

Speaking of JDYJ, I got an email from a friend recently that asked me why I hadn’t communicated with another friend who I’d been in the heat of the business battle with in the past.  He had reached out to me several times over the last year as he was undergoing some job chaos and transition, and in the busy-ness of my current life, I had pushed off any response hoping to get to it later.  Since I didn’t connect back, he felt isolated and maybe a bit betrayed as he fought his own battles, as I would have too.  Not too different than what I’ve felt in the past when those I expected and needed communications from went silent on me – a uniquely lonely feeling.  My life isn’t just about business…it’s about friendship…and family.  JDYJ applies to all of these…and I need to follow my own mandate of JDYJ in business, in friendships and in family.

 I’m still learning in all phases of my life.  I have lots more graduating to do apparently.