You might not be the star. You might not be the top player. You might be the third person on the call-in rotation. You might get the emails but you don’t have to respond to them. That’s what you’re asked to do as the Alternate. Here’s what they don’t always tell you that you can do; Show up for everything. Bring the best attitude. Jump in and offer to do extra. Ask questions. Volunteer for…
It sits there on the edge of your desk. You’ve pushed it off (physically) many times before. But then you pick it up and put it right back on the edge. It’s the code that works that no one knows how but now they need to change. You don’t touch that code, that code should never be modified, it should be left alone forever. But it can’t, you have to dive in, you have to…
You might feel like you’re only operating at 50% and that is probably a tough feeling – knowing you’re not operating at 100% capacity and knocking down tasks as soon as they come in. That is most likely very tough. But in the back of your mind, it’s always important to remember – that you’re 50% is someone else’s 120% and they probably wish they could have your 50% all day, every day.
If we gave up on stuff not working the first time, no one on the planet would ever be walking. At that point in time though, it wasn’t ingrained in you to give up, you simply hefted yourself back up on the couch and tried again. Forget the noise, forget what you think your failure is, forget what went wrong. Get up and take that first step again… and again… and again…
Everyone brings the same thing to their teams. Skills, Attitude, and Effort. Skills – whatever your job is. Attitude – how you treat people and act when things go wrong. Effort – how much you put into the team. The best teams I have worked with excelled in attitude, energy, and skill. It doesn’t mean there is a great disparity between all three, what it does mean is that the group knows where their focus…