No. There’s no figuring it out. There’s only starting.
Like most of what I write, this one’s a tell on myself. Every job I’ve ever had, I walked in without having it figured out. As a video editor I didn’t know everything I needed. When I became Executive Producer of a current affairs show, I didn’t have it all figured out. Even running a team of 200 for a billion-dollar business, I was still working it out on the job.
Nobody really knows what they’re doing.
Everybody’s faking it. I remember sitting in a boardroom at the start of the pandemic, looking around the table, and realising every person in the room was making it up as they went. Of course they were. It was new to all of us. That wasn’t something you could figure out first. People were relying on us to do something, so we did something, and worked out the rest as problems presented themselves.
If we’d waited until we had it all figured out, I don’t know what would have happened. I’m fairly sure it wouldn’t have been good.
The leadership lie
Nobody tells you this. The higher you climb, the less figured out it gets. The stakes rise. The certainty doesn’t.
What you find at the top instead is people with a bias towards action. The good ones, anyway. They don’t wait. They move, then adjust.
The higher you climb, the less figured out it gets.
We treat “figuring it out” as the mature, measured, grown-up thing to do. Getting your ducks in a row before the first step. Except the ducks are never all lined up. The real world doesn’t care about your damn ducks.
Here’s something that might make you feel better about your anxiety around getting started. Korn Ferry surveyed US chief executives and 71 percent of them owned up to imposter syndrome. So the person in the corner office you assume has it all sorted? They’re winging it too.
Try this
Next time you catch yourself “just figuring it out”, stop and ask one thing: what’s the next move I can actually make? Then make it. Then ask again.
The old saying about how do you eat an elephant, one bite at a time, is the way forward. Start by accepting you’ll never feel fully ready. Then the tactical one, pick the smallest next step and take it today.
.
There’s no readiness waiting round the corner. There’s only the first move, and then the next one.
Get on with it.
Thank you :)